White Rose of Promise

A prophetic dream she can't remember. A shameful past she can't forget. An impossible future she dare not cherish.

Ria Fontana comes home from twenty years in exile. She is looking for reconciliation but her family refuse to acknowledge the secret that keeps them apart. They cannot accept that the lost years have changed her forever. Her hope for a new beginning fades. She turns to God in prayer, pleading for patience while she waits for the fulfilment of the promises that brought her home. In response, He sends her a vision of a white rose.

Ria is haunted by an inability to remember either the giver or the reason for the gift. As she prepares for another difficult day she stumbles from difficulty to another. Her sister's growing impatience only accentuates her clumsy anxiety. Neither of these qualities prepares Ria for another long day working in the family restaurant. Her father's talk about an important guest awakens a sense of foreboding.

Sebastian Romano has no time for women and abhors weakness. There is nothing in his character that would make him an ally for an anxious woman looking for a new future. Especially one with the religious piety that reminds him of the sinfulness of his past. He is self-sufficient and determined to maintain control of his own destiny. He has high standards for himself and those few that he allows in his life.

The wealthy businessman is uncertain why he offers Ria a way out of her dilemma, but determined to test her limitations. He predicts her response and expects to be rid of her before he has reason to regret his offer. His pride convinces him it is too late to change his mind. Only afterwards does he had understood the risk to everything he has worked so hard to establish

Ria's innocence turns his orderly world upside down. Her faith challenges his values and leads him into new territory. The risk that he will lose control of his emotions takes him to the brink of disaster. He thought he was done with his violent past, but as her destiny unfolds everything he knew about himself is tested to breaking point.

Then his enemies discover her presence and decide that she is the only weakness in his impenetrable defences. If he acknowledges how vulnerable she makes him, then everything will be lost. He must harden his heart and pretend that her troubles mean nothing to him as he watches the prophecy unfold.

This story is not the kind of romance, where the heroine finds her hero and lives happily ever after. Instead, it is a journey of discovery as two wounded souls endeavour to make peace with their past. She dreams prophetic dreams and speaks words of mystery, while he clings to the pragmatism that has always kept him safe. As the story unfolds, they both discover they have so much more to learn.