Rebecca Winters: Falling For The Venetian Billionaire

Though he wasn’t responsible for this accident today, guilt put a stranglehold on him more intense than before.

CHAPTER ONE

Eight months later

NOW THAT IT was nearing the end of May, Ginger Lawrence’s work in Italy was drawing to an end. She had a laptop bulging with files. Some contained her work writing a series of stories about children around the world. Others contained the research on Lord Byron she’d amassed. The early nineteenth-century British romance poet and writer had been her reason for coming to Europe.

Yesterday she’d come from Genoa, Italy, where Lord Byron had lived in his last Italian home. Today she’d met some researchers in Ravenna, Italy, among them Dr. Welch and Dr. Manukyan with a group known in literature circles as the International Lord Byron Association.

They’d asked her if she’d like to join them for dinner aboard the Sirena , one of the passenger ships on the Adriatic docked outside Ravenna, Italy. She’d been pleased to be invited.

Their group had spent the better part of the day sharing new information on Lord Byron, who’d traveled and had lived in this region. It was here he’d turned to drama and wrote The Two Foscari and one of her favorite plays, Cain , his slant on the biblical Cain.

This evening they met with one of several other board members who’d be presenting material at the Byron Conclave in Armenia in July. Unfortunately, by then Ginger and her coworker friends would be back in California, preparing for fall semester.

Ginger admitted to the group seated with her that she was upset for not having allowed enough time to go to Venice and really explore it. She needed another month, but that was impossible. Her one day in Venice would have to count!

Dr. Manukyan, the Armenian professor and host, smiled at her. “Just remember that Byron’s most important time in Venice was spent at the Armenian Monastery during his San Lazzaro period in 1817.”

Ginger nodded. “I plan to spend the whole day there engrossed.”

“As you probably know, the island of San Lazzaro was named after Saint Lazarus, the patron saint of lepers,” he explained. “The four-hundred-year-old leper colony existed from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. At the end of that time, Mechitar, an Armenian monk, escaped from the Turks and arrived in Venice, where he was given the island for his Dominican congregation.

“Now there are a dozen-plus monks and Armenian students who come to study Italian and are in charge of its precious museum and library. During his travels in Europe, Byron turned to a new intellectual amusement to supplement physical pleasures and decided to learn Armenian.”

“That’s what I want to learn more about,” Ginger exclaimed. “I know he worked on an English-Armenian grammar book. I’m fascinated by the way Byron’s brain worked and what motivated him.”

Dr. Manukyan nodded. “Byron set himself a project to study the Venetian dialect, too. In truth, Lord Byron had one of his most productive periods in Venice. Besides his work at the monastery, he wrote the first half of Don Juan while there.”

Ginger couldn’t get enough of learning about Byron, while they enjoyed a delicious seafood dinner followed by dessert and coffee. Afterward, Dr. Manukyan announced some other Byron conclaves being held in the future. Too bad she would have to be back in California teaching during those dates and would have to miss them.

With her thoughts on her friends, knowing she would be with them soon, Ginger sat back in the chair pleasantly tired and drank her coffee. Since January, Ginger had been in Italy digging for any fresh information on the life of the poet. Before Christmas her department head at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, California, where she’d been teaching, had approached her.

Would she like to attend a workshop in Los Angeles on a new academic project about Lord Byron for the famous Hollywood film director Magda Collier? Her revered mogul friend would be producing it, and research was needed to supply original material for the screenwriters.

Ginger would have to leave the university for a semester and travel to Europe. After having lost her husband, Bruce, to cancer over two years before, Ginger had jumped at the opportunity to work in Italy, hoping for new experiences that would help put her pain behind her.

No man could ever replace Bruce. Her pain was doubly excruciating because he’d died before they could have children. Ginger had wanted children more than anything. Her therapist had suggested that since she’d dabbled in writing over the years, she should work on a children’s story, something her own children would have loved.

After so much sorrow and anguish over broken dreams, Ginger knew she needed to concentrate on something else and took her therapist’s advice.

At the seminar she’d met Zoe Perkins and Abby Grant, who’d also been hired. All three had obtained master’s degrees in literature from UCLA, San Jose State University and Stanford respectively, focusing on the romance poets and writers.

Abby had been sent to Switzerland and Zoe had been assigned to Greece, but all three of them had kept in touch through Skyping and phone calls. Her travels and theirs began to feed her imagination, and she got the idea to write about children around the world when she couldn’t do her research.

As Ginger had explained to the others at the table aboard ship, tomorrow she would take the train to Venice and spend time at the monastery in the afternoon. That evening she’d meet Zoe at the airport and they’d take the night train to Montreux, Switzerland, where they planned to pick up a hire car and then join up with Abby at Saint-Saphorin on Lake Geneva, where they’d begin their vacation.

Magda had rewarded them with a month’s stay on a vineyard there. They could use it for their home base while they did whatever they wanted.

Ginger turned to ask Dr. Manukyan a few more questions, but he suddenly said, “Excuse me for a minute,” and got up from the table.

Surprised, she watched him walk toward a thirtyish-looking man with raven black hair who’d just entered the dining room. Everything about him, including his elegant dark blue suit and tie, shouted sophistication and an aura of authority he probably wasn’t even aware of.

He stood tall and was the most gorgeous, virile Italian male she’d ever laid eyes on in her life. Every feature from his olive skin to his powerful jaw mesmerized her.

Her heart thumped as the two men walked over to the table. “Everyone,” Dr. Manukyan began, “I’d like to introduce you to Signor Della Scalla. He’s not only responsible for the souvenir menus you’ve all been given, he’s the one who made it possible for us to have dinner aboard ship this evening.”

“I hope you’re enjoying it.” The striking man spoke excellent English with an enticing Italian accent.

Della Scalla. The name was synonymous with one of the most renowned shipping and passenger lines in Italy, let alone Europe. But there were probably hundreds of Italians with the same last name.

Ginger listened while their host introduced the five members of their party to the stranger. When it came her turn, she found herself captivated by a pair of black-fringed cobalt-blue eyes the color of handblown Venetian glass.

Those penetrating orbs seemed to take her all in, as if he were searching for the very essence of her. For the first time since Bruce’s death, another man had managed to take her breath away. Who was he?

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he spoke to all of them, but his gaze remained focused on her.

“Won’t you sit with us for a moment?” Dr. Manukyan asked.

“Thank you, but I’m afraid I’m pressed for time. If you’re finished with your meal, does anyone need a ride back to Ravenna? It’ll be on my way. You’re welcome to come in the limo.”