The Italians: Alessandro, Luca & Dizo: Alessandro's Prize / In a Storm of Scandal / Italian Groom, Princess Bride
Pride. Scandal. Passion!Lily Parisi is determined to get on with her life – minus a man! A break in Milan sounds ideal – until she bumps into Alessandro del Marco, a face from her past. He finds it impossible to keep away from Lily – and she finds it hopeless to resist…Poppy lost her heart – and her reputation – to the dangerously suave Luca Ranieri. Only to be crushed when aristocratic Luca chose duty over desire. Now Poppy finds herself stranded by a violent storm – with the deliciously dishevelled Luca!Princess Regina Vittorio has devoted her life to royal duty, but as her arranged wedding day approaches she wants just one moment with the man she loves…Royal gardener Dizo Fornese knows Gina is untouchable, but he has one chance to claim his princess bride!
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THE
ItaliansAlessandro, Luca & Dizo
Alessandro’s Prize
Helen Bianchin
In a Storm of Scandal
Kim Lawrence
Italian Groom, Princess Bride
Rebecca Winters
Table of Contents
HELEN BIANCHIN was born in New Zealand and travelled to Australia before marrying her Italianborn husband. After three years they moved, returned to New Zealand with their daughter, had two sons, then resettled in Australia. Encouraged by friends to recount anecdotes of her years as a tobacco sharefarmer’s wife living in an Italian community, Helen began setting words on paper and her first novel was published in 1975. An animal lover, she says her terrier and Persian cat regard her study as much theirs as hers.
ALESSANDRO DEL MARCO eased the sleek black sports car to a halt in the parking bay reserved for guests adjacent to the magnificent villa built at the edge of Lake Como.
Owned by the late Giuseppe dalla Silvestri, the villa was now occupied by his widow, the elegant Sophia, whose efforts in the aid of children’s charities was legend.
It had been Giuseppe, Alessandro reflected, who had taken Alessandro in as a wild young teenager abandoned to the streets of Milan by unfit parents. A boy who, by a combination of street smarts and cunning had managed to evade the government system, and who had quickly learnt to fend for himself among others of his kind.
Giuseppe had earned the teenager’s reluctant trust, fashioned his edgy talent with electronics from illegal to legal dealings, ensured completion of his education, and then employed him and taught and honed his business skills. Then, when he had been ready, he had backed him financially into his own electronics firm.
A consortium now known as Del Marco Industries. A successful empire, which afforded Alessandro a luxurious villa in the hills overlooking Lake Como, an apartment in Milan, real estate in several major capitals around the world, a private jet, and a small fleet of expensive cars.
Then there were the women …plural. Beautiful, captivating women who sought his company, his bed … in return for the social status associated with the man he had become.
None of whom succeeded in extending anything other than a temporary relationship lasting mere weeks, a few months at most, despite their various ploys to hold his attention.
Had he become jaded? Perhaps. Never bored, but a little tired of the feminine gender who tried so hard to please, acting out a part they imagined he sought. Beautiful, engaging arm candy, socially acceptable, intelligent, visually perfect … and merely players on the stage of life.
His youth had hardened him, created a wariness in order to deal with the ugliness of surviving on the streets. To be constantly on watch for an ill-intentioned demand and recognize if the hand in a pocket held a knife, a knuckle-duster about to maim, or merely coins.
To fight, and win by any means.
It had been Giuseppe who had patiently gifted his business acumen and time, but Sophia who had taught Alessandro social skills, guided and chided him with genuine affection.
During the initial few years, when in his late teens, any lingering doubts regarding his worthiness in an elevated society were very thoroughly dispensed with by the two people who had chosen to take him beneath their wing.
You are a young man among men, equal in every aspect that matters,Giuseppe had counselled.Never forget where you came from … then measure the success you have achieved by your efforts.
He owed them, despite their denial. Giuseppe had become the father he never knew. And Sophia—well, for her he would do anything she asked of him.
Such as this evening’s dinner invitation to join a few guests to welcome Sophia’s niece and god-daughter, Lily Parisi, from Sydney, Australia. A young woman he’d met many years ago as a teenager when she’d visited Sophia and Giuseppe with her parents.
A solemn girl with beautiful dark chocolate brown eyes and dark hair confined in a single plait. Who even at such a young age appeared delightfully unaware of the captivating quality of her smile or her zest for life.
She had changed, of course. He’d seen photographic evidence of those changes, had the essence of some of her correspondence relayed to him over the ensuing years. He had learnt of her parents’ accidental death, Lily’s success in taking over the Parisi family restaurant, her engagement. only to be privy to Sophia’s distress when she received news that the impending marriage had been abandoned mere weeks before the wedding was due to take place.
