Free Dante's Dilemma (a Dante Legacy Novella) by Day Leclaire Page B

sufficient nourishment. Roses don’t do well stuck in a box.”
    She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “And Santa Lucia is our box?”
    “Exactly. Being root-bound halts growth and slowly strangles you to death.” He ruthlessly clipped the roots in a downward motion, pulling away any that were blackened and dead. Then he massaged the ball, loosening it, before dumping the plant in a bucket of water. “Now it has a chance. Come. Bring your basket.”
    He grabbed the bucket and a small burlap bag of compost, and headed away from the cottage, toward the field where they’d first met. He paused along the edge of a slope that tumbled gradually toward the meadow, still dotted with a profusion of lilac hyacinths, bright red poppies, and innocent white daisies.
    He smiled at her. “What do you think?”
    Her gaze lingered on the spot of their kiss. “I think our rose will be happy here,” she decided. “I particularly like that it’ll mark our first memory of each other.”
    Rom jiggled the bucket. “What do you say, little rose? Do you approve?”
    Julietta laughed. “Did it answer?”
    “It did. It says the only thing that might make it happier is if it were within sight of the sea. At least, it would make me happier if I were a rose.” His laughter joined hers, the combination creating a sweet harmony. “Okay, to work. What do you say we give this rose a new home?”
    Rom dug a hole, while Julietta lined the loosened soil with compost before, together, they planted the rose. After pouring the remaining water from the bucket around the new bed, he turned to Julietta. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, the memory of their first embrace sweetening the moment. To his relief, she melted against him, still as open and generous as she’d been whenever they’d come together.
    “I’m still not sure I’m a rose,” she confessed. “But with you, it’s what I want to be.”
    Regret consumed him. “I’ve asked so much from you in such a short amount of time. And I’ve done it badly.” Gently, he reached beneath the neckline of her dress and eased the silver chain from her neck. He removed the ring and deposited it in his shirt pocket, then returned the necklace to its proper place. Taking her hands in his, he dropped to one knee. “I refuse to propose marriage while you wear another man’s ring, even if it’s on a chain around your neck.”
    “Well, technically, it’s your ring, too.”
    He conceded the point. “I suppose it is. Even so, since I’m not the man who put it there, I’d rather you not wear it. At least, not right now.”
    “I understand.”
    “Julietta Bianchi, my one and only love, will you marry me?”
    Her answer blossomed across her face, as radiant as the sun and as beautiful as the tumble of wildflowers dancing beneath the sun. “Yes, Romero Dante. I’ll marry you. I’ll even try to become a rose for you.”
    “I don’t want you to be anything other than yourself, which is the perfect woman.”
    He stood and swept her into his arms, sealing their promise with a kiss. It seemed right to propose here, where it had all started. Just as it seemed right to have freed the root-bound rose bush and planted it as a symbol of what they hoped for the future.
    Now all they had to do was figure out how to overcome the small obstacle of a soon-to-be pissed off fiancé and two infuriated families.
    What could be easier?

    Only a handful of days remained before the wedding—a wedding Julietta knew in her heart would never take place. Not after what happened at the engagement party. And definitely not after Rom’s proposal the day before. As determined as she was to marry him, the idea of breaking off her engagement to Tito worried her. But convincing her family she belonged with Rom loomed like an insurmountable obstacle.
    “Thank God this marriage is almost behind us,” Maria muttered.
    Julietta set aside the vegetable brush she’d been wielding, relieved to have the subject raised.