Rome for Always (The BAD BOY BILLIONAIRES Collection) Read Online Free Page A

face. “A real good mood. Why?”
    Rome shook his head then shrugged. “What? A man can’t
smile in the morning?”
    She gave a snort. “A man can smile, just not this man. This
early in the morning you’re always as sore as a bear.”
    “Who, me? Where did you get that impression?” Rome gave
her an innocent smile.
    “Let’s not go there,” she said coolly. “Just tell me
what’s changed, to put you into such a mellow mood.”
    Rome just shrugged.
    “So you’re Mr. Pleasant today,” Iyana said, folding her
arms across her chest. “I don’t like it.”
    That made Rome laugh. “All right, Miss Grumpy. I’ll try
to keep it down.” Still laughing, he walked away from Iyana’s door, leaving her
to stew in the mystery of his change of mood.
    It was a fact. He was in an unusually cheerful mood
today and he knew why. To his relief, Arie was not backing out of the wedding. Within
months she would be his wife and at the ceremony they would have the most
beautiful flower girl of all, even though someone would have to carry the tiny
tyke down the aisle.
    When he got to his office Rome deposited his computer
bag on top of the desk and picked up the yellow pad on which Iyana had
scribbled some messages. There was a message from the Asia division, a reminder
about their annual sales meeting. There was one from the PR agency that had
handled the Australia launch and one from his father. The last one took
priority over all others.
    Dropping into his chair, he reached for the phone and
dialed. It took a few rings but his father eventually answered, his big voice
booming into the phone. “ Mio figlio , why don’t you answer your
cell phone? I called three times this morning.” 
    “Sorry, Papa. I put it on silent and forgot. I’ll fix
that right now before I miss any more calls.” As he spoke, he reached into his
breast pocket and pulled out the phone.
    “Too late,” his father said. “Maria dropped by for a
visit and she wanted to say hi to you. Of course, we couldn’t find you.” The
last sentence was said with a hint of reprimand.
    “Maria?” Rome was racking his brain, trying to figure
out who the visitor was. His father was speaking as if he should know. “Somebody
from Cerveteri?”
    “Shame on you, Rome. Don’t you remember your cousin, Maria?
She’s the one who used to tease you when you couldn’t read as well as she could.
Remember?”
    “Oh, that Maria. Yeah, I remember her.” Not that he
wanted to. He’d been six and she’d been eight and she’d been a royal pain in
the posterior, a snooty little know-it-all who went out of her way to show how
smart she was. She made it a point to traumatize him with her intelligence. No
wonder he’d blocked her from his memory. “I haven’t spoken to her in years. What
did she want?”
    “I told you, she wanted to say hi.”
    “Why?”
    “Now, Rome, let’s be gentlemanly. Maria is your cousin. She’s
family.” Again, there was that reprimand in his voice, but then he chuckled. “All
right, I admit it. There was another reason she came by.”
    “She won the Nobel Prize for literature?” Rome asked
drily.
    “Not quite, but something like that. She wanted to be
the one to give us the news. She won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and is
moving to the States to focus on her writing career. Says if you’re serious
about your writing, New York is the place to be.”
    Rome gave a grunt. He knew it. She’d only dropped by to
gloat. But then he shrugged. If that was what made her happy…
    Then a thought came to him. “Hey, isn’t the Pulitzer
Prize restricted to Americans?”
    “Maria is American.”
    “No, she’s not. She grew up in Viterbo.  In fact, Tio
Giovanni still lives there.”
    “Yes, but she was born in Hartford, where her parents
were living while her mother studied at Yale. I thought you knew that.”
    “I had no idea,” Rome said. “Born on the Yale campus,
was she? Now I know why she’s such a brain. It must be something in