Gatti Trilogy #1: Gravity Of Lilies

Lumia "Luan" Antea Esposito has spent all eighteen years of her life within the crumbling, comforting walls of the Bahay ni Santa Maria orphanage.

A gentle soul with a resilient spirit, she finally leaves her provincial life behind when she earns a prestigious teaching scholarship in the sprawling metropolis of Manila. Armed with nothing but a canvas bag and a hand-carved wooden bird, Luan is determined to break the cycle of her past and become a light for children who, like her, have been forgotten by the world.

Luan's transition to the city is a brutal awakening. While working a part-time job as a floral assistant to cover her living expenses, she is sent to deliver an arrangement to the penthouse office of Cosimo Luca Gatti, the billionaire CEO of Gatti Industries. Cosimo is a man built of glass and steel, brilliant, cold, and notorious for a volatile temper that has cleared boardrooms and ended careers.

Their first meeting is a disaster, Luan witnesses one of Cosimo's infamous outbursts, but instead of fleeing in terror like his employees, she offers him a moment of quiet, genuine empathy that leaves the iron-willed CEO stunned and inexplicably frustrated.

Intrigued and annoyed by his inability to intimidate her, Cosimo finds excuses to keep Luan in his orbit. As Luan enters his high-stakes corporate world, she discovers the cracks in his 'Gatti' armor, a man haunted by the pressure of a family dynasty and a deep-seated loneliness he masks with rage. Meanwhile, Luan struggles to keep her scholarship while navigating the predatory nature of the city, as it continues to mock her existence.