About the Author
DAY LECLAIRE USA TODAY bestselling author Day Leclaire is described by Harlequin Books as “one of our most popular writers ever!” Day’s tremendous worldwide popularity has made her a member of Harlequin’s “Five Star Club,” with sales of well over five million books. She is a three-time winner of both a Colorado Award of Excellence and a Golden Quill Award. She’s won RT Book Reviews Career Achievement and Love and Laughter Awards, a Holt Medallion and a Booksellers’ Best Award. She has also received an impressive ten nominations for the prestigious Romance Writers of America’s RITA® Award.
Day’s romances touch the heart and make you care about her characters as much as she does. In Day’s own words, “I adore writing romances, and can’t think of a better way to spend each day.” For more information, visit Day on her website, www.dayleclaire.com.
Dear Reader,
It has been such a pleasure to write about the Dante family romances, to see each member succumb to The Inferno, that all-consuming blaze of heat and electricity that a Dante experiences when he or she first touches their soul mate. Now it’s Gianna’s turn, and she has an even more difficult path to happily-ever-after than any of her brothers or cousins.
You may remember meeting the hero, Constantine Romano, in Dante’s Contract Marriage, where Lazz Dante and Ariana Romano met for the first time while exchanging their wedding vows. Constantine is Ariana’s brother, and apparently that infamous wedding day saw more than one Romano Infernoed!
But Constantine Romano isn’t a man easily manipulated, not even by The Inferno. He is a man who makes his own decisions in life and controls his own destiny. And he isn’t happy to discover that control taken away from him by either The Inferno or the woman on the other side of that first, electric touch—Gianna Dante.
I hope you enjoy discovering how Gianna’s love story plays out. But stay tuned. Although this is the final book in the current quartet, it may not be the final tale in THE DANTE LEGACY. Read on to discover why!
Warmly,
Day Leclaire
To Mary-Theresa Hussey.
An absolutely brilliant editor.
A kind and generous person.
As always, it’s been such a delight working with you.
Thank you for making my books more.
Prologue
“Don’t go.”
Constantine Romano closed his eyes and fought for control. “I have no choice.” His integrity, his honor as a Romano, everything that made him a man demanded he leave.
“Then let me go with you.” Gianna Dante lifted her gaze to his, her striking jade-green eyes bright with tears, her hair a glorious tumble of autumn-gold and brown. “I can help you.”
Her plea pushed him to the limit of his self-control, where he teetered between honor and caving to the intensity of his need to make her his. He fought to resist and couldn’t, not entirely. He cupped her face and snatched a kiss. Took another, then sank in. God, she was amazing. Stunning. Intelligent. Graceful. Possessing a femininity that left him desperate with longing.
They’d met when his sister, Ariana, had married Gianna’s cousin, Lazz. The moment he’d taken her hand in his, he’d been hit by an overwhelming flame of desire. A physical flash and burn that had shocked him to the core with its all-encompassing depth and strength and power. In that instant, every other thought and emotion had ceased to exist except for a cascade of urgent directives….
Take her.
Make her his.
Put his stamp on her in every and any way possible.
“I want you to come with me, even though I don’t understand any of this,” he admitted. Didn’t understand how he could want so fast and so deeply. How a single weekend with her could make him so certain that she was the only one for him. “How is it possible that in just a few short days I know that you’re the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with?”
Her gaze dropped and for a split second she looked almost guilty. Though what she had to feel guilty about, he couldn’t imagine. It wasn’t her fault that he’d been overwhelmed with this desperate need to possess her. More than anything he wanted to take her to his bed, but he knew, even without her telling him, that she’d never been with a man before. And if he couldn’t put his ring on her finger, he refused to dishonor either of them—or their families—by making love to her. Not until he could afford to offer marriage.