All Roads Lead to You

By Harper Fox

Successful British model Sam was making a big name for himself on the catwalks of Rome when he met and fell head over heels in love with Lauro, a waiter in a pizza restaurant. Lauro, charming and naïve, returned all Sam's affection, and they enjoyed one passionate summer in the vibrant city and the wild campagna countryside beyond. But Sam had big dreams. He accepted a modelling assignment in New York and left his pizza boy behind.

Now Sam is back, older and wiser. But Lauro is older and wiser too. Can the city of eternal romance work its magic on these two star-crossed lovers?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harper Fox
• Release date: Jun 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9780957327016

Harper Fox

Harper Fox is the author of many critically acclaimed M/M Romance novels, including Stonewall Book Award-nominated Scrap Metal and Brothers Of The Wild North Sea, Publishers Weekly Best Book 2013. Her novels and novellas are powerfully sensual, with a dynamic of strongly developed characters finding love and a forever future – after an appropriate degree of turmoil. She loves to show the romance implicit in everyday life, and she writes a sharp action scene too.

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All Roads Lead To You

Harper Fox

Copyright Harper Fox 2012

Published by FoxTales at Smashwords

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people for their amazing contributions –

Jane, for her loving inspiration and the golden peppers

Josh Lanyon, for making editing almost a pleasure

Stella, for her inspiration in coming up with the wonderful title idea

KB Smith, for the handsome cover art

Antonella, whose input as an Italian language expert has been absolutely invaluable

Julia, for her hawk-eyed proofing skills and ongoing patience in the thankless task of maintaining my website

and last but not least Janet, for guiding a newcomer to self-publishing in the strange new world of ebook formatting

All Roads Lead To You

Revised edition, June 2012

Copyright (c) 2012 by Harper Fox

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,

electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from FoxTales.

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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

ALL ROADS LEAD TO YOU

Harper Fox

Chapter One

The city was a distant heap of jewels, her lights warped by the updraughts. Sam leaned on the parapet and watched her glittering dance. Beside him, honeysuckle half-obscured the sign which warned, in a stark Italian even he could understand, that it was dangerous to climb among the watchtower ruins. Pericolo di morte.

As if in direct contradiction, the honeysuckle stirred in the breeze, caressing Sam's bare arm. Lauro, he whispered, night-cooled scents of wild campagna grasslands blending with the blossoms' sweet musk. But the air remained empty beside him. The moonlit ribbon of the Appian Way unspooled towards the city, ancient flagstones empty too. What had he expected?

He had come out here three years ago, single and heartwhole, only wanting to escape the summer heat and catch his breath between assignments. He'd done well enough as a model in London, but one chance photo shoot in Rome had launched his career on a skyrocket. The Italians had loved his fair hair, his easy way of taking haute couture down a catwalk. He'd been the man of the hour, dark-eyed city matrons turning to stare after him and match his face to the billboards. Hot, tired and dazzled by his own lights, he'd made his way one Sunday to the green park that lined the Via Appia. He'd gone unnoticed there, until...

Sam climbed down through the tumble of moss-covered rocks until he found the place, the exact spot, where he'd taken shelter on that blazing afternoon. Nothing here had changed. The ferns and the lilacs still shaded the stone bench, casting their shadows out of moonlight now. Here he'd sat, idly watching the arrival of a huge Italian family in the meadow below. Patriarch, matriarch, the juniors running to set out the elders' deckchairs as if they had been thrones. Aunts, uncles, in-laws, a small horde of sable-haired children. And, in the rearguard, keeping an eye on the kids with smiling distraction, the most beautiful young man Sam had ever seen.

The moment had been strange. It had felt like an eclipse, when birds stop singing and a breathless quiet comes down over the world. The kids and the murmuring olive leaves had faded out. The young man, dark as his nieces and nephews but with startling deep-blue eyes, had looked up.

Sam had smiled at him. He'd been told it was an irresistible smile, and he'd started to manipulate its power. It hadn't failed: his young man, after settling grandma down with her sunglasses and parasol, had disappeared from the family group. And five minutes later, the ferns had rustled, and a fresh-scented presence like bread and sunlight had warmed the air beside him on the bench.

Lauro – Mi chiamo Lauro, he had said, before working out from Sam's stumbling reply that Italian was not one of his gifts and swapping to a hesitant, charmingly accented English – Lauro was here with his family. He could only take a minute. He worked as a waiter in his father's pizza restaurant, and he had never – ever – talked to a strange boy in the park. Sam, who by then had talked to plenty, had been at a complete