Page 97 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

“I’m sure that will appeal to many guests,” he said genially. “My parents had many friends.”

“And you want…to have a role in that?” she asked, not bothering to hide her suspicion. “Creating an homage to the past?”

“ Want is not the word I would use, Amelia, but yes. I will have a role in this. I will be here at least until the Christmas ball, as you originally suggested.” His smile was polite.

His words a clipped kind of disinterested, but not rude.

Sort of blank, like it mattered not at all to him, no matter what they did.

But it had to matter. Somewhere deep down, she was sure it had to matter. They were talking about honoring his parents, his sister. Perhaps they had not had the best relationship, but surely memorializing them would mean something to him.

And if he was giving her the opportunity to reach that place inside him where the past mattered, she had to grab it with both hands. For his own good and healing.

“I’ve based the menu and decor on what I remember and what records I’ve been able to find, but we could go through my plans and see if they match your memories.”

“What about my mother’s records?”

“Records?”

“Oh, yes, she kept meticulous records of all the balls. Well, her assistant did. You don’t have those?”

“It was necessary to go through your father’s office and records for the business side of things, but Mrs. Moretti handles the day-to-day of the castello.

I suppose she would have your mother’s records.

” Amelia frowned a little. Mrs. Moretti had never mentioned any records about the ball while Amelia had been prepping and planning, but Amelia had never asked outright.

Diego pushed to his feet. “Then let us go fetch those.”

Amelia didn’t immediately get up. She stared at him, maybe a little open-mouthed, for a few seconds before she managed to get her wits about her. “Have you had some sort of personality switch, Diego? Shall I call a doctor?”

His mouth curved on one side ever so slightly, reminding Amelia too clearly of the kiss last night. She knew what those lips felt like against hers now, and every time she looked at them, she could all but relive the sensation.

“You can believe whatever you wish, tesoro .”

Diego’s amusement at baffling Amelia faded the moment they walked down the hall to Mrs. Moretti’s office. She had a small room off the kitchens to keep the castello in running order. She had been in that position for as long as Diego could remember.

What Diego could not remember was the last time he might have seen Mrs. Moretti. As an adult, he had not often interacted with the staff. Still, when they walked into the room, Diego recognized her immediately.

Time had stamped heavy lines across her face. She looked the same and yet not at all. An elder version of Mrs. Moretti. Except she was older. She was Mrs. Moretti because time had passed.

It was weirdly disorienting, not because she should not look old, but because it reminded him that his parents would not ever have the privilege. All those years his mother had opined about the possibility of wrinkles , and then she’d barely had the chance to develop any.

Both his parents, really, had been so concerned with their looks, their aging. And then, because of that selfishness Bartolo had tried to scold him out of, they’d never been given the opportunity.

“Diego,” Mrs. Moretti said with some surprise. Her gaze darted from Amelia and back to him. “Mr. Folliero,” she corrected, as if realizing he was no longer a boy but now the master of the house. “It is good to have you back at the castello.”

The polite thing would have been to say it was good to be back. He could not get his mouth to say the words.

“Mrs. Moretti, Diego is helping with some of the Christmas-ball plans now. He thought there might be some records of his mother’s that could help us.” Amelia’s smile was polite but remote.

Probably because Mrs. Moretti was more or less ignoring the fact she was there, keeping her gaze and attention solely on Diego.

“I do indeed have many of your mother’s records.

Straightforward things like menus and plans, like I’ve shared with Ms. Baresi.

” She did not so much as look at Amelia, which was odd.

“But there is more. The photo albums, of course.” She beamed at him.

“I had them set away for you. I always knew you’d return. ”

Diego could think of nothing to say to that. Even when his parents had been alive, there’d been no plans to return. He’d enjoyed a life far away from his family, Italy and this damn, suffocating falsehood.

“I’ll go collect them, shall I?” She gave Diego a fond pat as she passed him, scurrying out the door, clearly eager to impart these past items he wanted nothing to do with.

And once he fully absorbed that, he carefully turned to Amelia. She was expressly not looking at him. Because she would have used these albums, if she’d been able to. Because Mrs. Moretti had not once addressed Amelia in any way. She hadn’t even looked in her direction.

“Why does she ignore you?”

Amelia shot him a kind of baffled look that softened into sympathy, which he didn’t know what to do with. “Some were offended by the choices you made.”

“Choices?”

“You gave a young woman with no experience the power to make almost all decisions in your stead. No matter how well Mrs. Moretti liked me or my father, she resented that I was allowed to have the final say, even when it was sweeping approval of everything she wanted.”

“Why should that be something to be mad at you about? I did it, gave you that power. Unless you wielded the power irresponsibly.” He could not believe she would.

Not just because he’d hired her, but because he’d seen her now these past few days.

How she held herself. She had certainly internalized her father’s lessons on how to behave.

Bartolo had always been concerned with goodness and the right thing .

That you took care of those who needed taking care of.

That other’s needs were bigger than your own.

He had done his level best to impart some of that on Diego, but Diego had more often rejected than accepted it.

When Bartolo had been alive, he was like the good angel on his shoulder, whispering what Diego should do.

On occasion, Diego had listened, but more often than not, he was too aware there were no consequences for him, and the devil on his shoulder was far easier and less complicated than doing the right thing.

And then there’d finally been consequences for his actions, and they hadn’t hurt him. They’d killed his family.

“I gave her as much power as I should, but it wasn’t about the power —not really,” Amelia continued.

She didn’t sound frustrated by this, more…

weary. As though she’d given up any hope of changing things.

“It was about the insult. It’s far easier for her to take that out on me than it is for her to take that out on you.

You’re the poor boy who lost his parents. ”

He could only stare at her. He had never considered himself a man over worried about fairness, but… “You lost yours.”

Amelia shrugged. “I cannot pretend to know Mrs. Moretti’s inner thoughts, but the impression I always got is that I had experience losing a parent, that I should have known how to deal and grieve my father’s death. That I had a job to do, regardless of grief. You…did not.”

“But…” Diego could only stare at Amelia, and the casual way she’d delivered this patently unfair information.

She too had been left an orphan, experience or not, and she was younger.

She might have secured a well-paying position, but she wasn’t wealthy like he was.

Perhaps he’d lost more people in one fell swoop, but that did not make her pain somehow less worthy of support than his own.

This was a very strange realization, and one he could not settle into because Mrs. Moretti had reappeared, hefting a large box.

“The signora always had little photo albums made to send out to guests, but these were for her and her alone.” She set the box on the desk.

“Not just of the balls but of every holiday season she spent in the castello. There are some notes here and there as well. Anything you could want to recreate the ball just as she did it.” She smiled at Diego.

Diego could not force himself to smile back. Both because of the heft of what was in the box and the fact Mrs. Moretti had purposefully kept this from Amelia. And had no compunction about making that known now.

Still, he found himself frozen and speechless, not wanting what was in that box, not wanting to wade into what issues he might have left for Amelia without ever thinking it through.

She’d never complained. Not once.

“We’ll take these back to Diego’s rooms so he can go through them at his own pace,” Amelia said, stepping forward. She grabbed the box.

This earned her a disapproving scowl, but Mrs. Moretti did not say anything or try to stop her, so Diego did not. Not yet. There was too much to sort through.

“Thank you, Mrs. Moretti. You’ve been beyond helpful, as usual.” Amelia said this with a warmth that was hard to disbelieve. Yet surely… Surely she felt bitter?

She didn’t act it though. She exited the office, Diego trailing after her—before it dawned on him that the box was heavy, and she was struggling a bit to carry it.

He scooped it out of her grasp. She made a little sound of protest but didn’t actually protest.

“We needn’t go to my rooms,” he announced, marching in front of her. “Let us look through this nonsense in your office. That way you can use whatever you wish.”

“We can do that if you want,” she said in that diplomatic way that hid whatever she really felt. “But you can also take some time. Go through this with some privacy. I can give you some space, Diego.”

He should want that. To be alone and isolated while he tortured himself with a glimpse into the past, into his mother. He should accept that as yet another punishment.

He stalked into her office, let the box fall onto her desk. “No,” he said firmly. “You will stay. We will do this together.”