by Anna Premoli
Also by Anna Premoli
Love to Hate You
You Drive Me Crazy
Until Love Do Us Part
Stuck With You
Accidentally in Love
What’s Love Got To Do With It?
MAD ABOUT YOU
Anna Premoli
AN IMPRINT OF HEAD OF ZEUS
www.ariafiction.com
First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Anna Premoli, 2019
The moral right of Anna Premoli to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781838932909
Aria
c/o Head of Zeus
First Floor East
5–8 Hardwick Street
London EC1R 4RG
www.ariafiction.com
Contents
Welcome Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Become an Aria Addict
For – in strictly alphabetical order - Alessandra, Andrea, Giada and Marcella in thanks for those wonderful years we spent together at university. Meeting you made a big difference.
Chapter 1
They ought to make me a saint.
I’m not joking, they really should. In fact, to be honest, it’s hard to believe that somebody hasn’t already had a life-size statue made of me - or come to think of it, maybe even bigger than life-size, since I’m not exactly what you’d describe as tall. It’d be great, people could bring flowers and gifts and stuff and lay them at its feet.
Because let me tell you, I deserve them.
I deserve all of them.
In the normal run of things, this nightclub is pretty much the last place in the world where I would want to be, but here I am anyway. And I actually came here by choice, because right at the bottom of my flinty heart there’s an annoying little crumb of niceness that occasionally overpowers my true nature without me being able to do anything about it. Frankly, it’s a real pain in the neck.
A sneer appears instinctively on my lips as look around me at the other people in the club – it’s one thing to get carried away by a bit of impulsive niceness, but when it comes to swanky places like this I’m still pretty much the Grinch. Not to mention that I’m not exactly gifted at putting on a fake smile. People tell me that it’s because of my character: apparently, I’m too direct. You’d almost think that was a bad thing the way everyone always gives me a hard time about it, even though on my list of priorities, not talking bullshit is in first place. That’s why I struggle to get on with a lot of the people I meet: it’s as clear as day that we have very different priorities.
The club is dark, but unfortunately not dark enough to hide the faces around me: the faces of people desperately trying to have fun. I wonder how many of them are actually succeeding and how many of them are just going to end up staggering home blind drunk because they don’t want to remember how boring their night’s been. Quite a few of them, at a guess...
The dance floor in front of me is crowded with bodies moving frenziedly to the music. I almost roll my eyes but somehow manage to control myself enough that my friends don’t notice because I’m here, surrounded by all these annoying – and sweaty - rich kids for a noble cause: I’m here for friendship. Nothing else could have convinced me to submit myself to a nightmare like this. I mean, I’ve never been much of a fan of Ozzy Osbourne, but right now Suicide Solution is playing on a loop in my head.
Lavinia is trying to convince herself that she’s here so she can hang out with Giovanni. But Lavinia - Vinny to her friends - is a gentle, innocent soul who hasn’t quite got a handle on the way the world works yet, or on how you play your hand. Me and card tricks, though? We speak the same language.
“Shall we take a selfie, girls?” I ask, trying to sound like I actually want to.
Vinny - who isn’t stupid even if she is a gentle, innocent soul – peers at me as if I’d just suggested downing a glass of rat poison. Thanks to that bloody stupid illuminated bar top, she’s noticed my questionable acting abilities: if this place had been really dark, nobody would have seen how dubious I looked when I said it.
For the record, I’m not crazy about posting photographs on social media, especially photos of people, cocktails in hand, in nightclubs. They don’t seem to realize that those photos will exist forever somewhere on the Internet and that someone is bound to pull them out at the least opportune moment in their lives. I don’t usually agree with Seb - there are limits to my madness - but when it comes to selfies, we’re on the same page: him because he wants to defend noble ideals like privacy and me because I usually look end up looking like a right monster in photos.
“Good idea!” chirps Alessandra immediately, her eyes sparking with excitement, so before Lavinia can come up with an excuse, I pull my phone out of my bag and quickly snap a cute little photo of the three of us trying, each in our own way, to look happy and carefree, and then I post it on my page, tagging the other two and adding the name of the club.
Okay, that’s the trap baited - now let’s see if the computer hacker bites...
Just to make sure he will, though, I add a few allusive phrases about possible male companionship. And after that, all I can do is wait for events to take their course.
Which they will, I’m sure of it. Fate is a noble concept if you’re one of those people who believe in fairy tales, but it ought to be pretty clear that I don’t belong in that category. My humble role this evening consists of me taking destiny’s place. Yes, I know, it sounds a bit megalomaniacal, but I’m going to push Lavinia and Sebastiano back together if it kills me – or, to put it more romantically, I’m going to be the Cupid who makes two lovers realise once and for all that they shouldn’t be apart. For their sake and for ours, because I cannot handle being around someone as tense and frustrated as Lavinia has been lately, and I’m pretty sure Seb’s relatives and friends feel the same way about him.
Sometimes even the best relationships need a bit of a shove in the right direction. All I have to do now is wait half an hour and I am sure that things will start happening. Seb is a pretty weird guy, but even nerds are predictable when it comes to love. The hard part is going to be spending another half an hour in this godawful place. I wasn’t joking when I said about the statue - given the immense sacrifice I’m making this evening it’s the least they should do...
“Hey, there’s Giovanni!” exclaims Lavinia, who is trying hard to conceal her actual state of mind. Not that Giovanni’s not a sweet boy. He’s even good-looking, if you happen to like anodyne blond perfection. The problem is the total lack of chemistry between him and Lavinia. Zero. Nada. With a la
ck of sparks that total, they might as well be brother and sister.
Even they’ve noticed it, which is why they’ve been pretending to chase after each other for years without either of them actually trying to move things on to the next level. It’s weird, because on paper they’re an ideal couple: both blond, both always smiling, both extremely kind to everyone. I don’t know how they do it - or what drugs they’re on.
By rights, Seb should be the person least suited to a girl like her, but it only took five minutes of seeing them together and I knew there’d been a miracle: there weren’t just sparks, there was practically a firework display - actual physical phenomena that someone needed to do something about. The attraction between them was so obvious right from the off that I could hardly understand how they managed not to jump on each other as soon as they met.
But being complete opposites, Lavinia and Sebastiano needed to sniff each other out and get to know each other before they overcome their respective fears. Their numerous respective fears.
To be totally honest, so far they haven’t actually overcome anything, but I have high hopes for the evening. I need to break this vicious circle for them and finally see a happy couple. I haven’t been part of one for so long myself that I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like, so maybe Lavinia can teach the rest of us. Or at least, that’s what I’m hoping.
Giovanni is sitting off on one of the dark sofas, but he jumps to his feet as soon as he sees us approaching. His manners are so impeccable that even I – who manages to find fault with everything – can’t think of anything nasty to say about them.
“So it looks like we’ve finally managed to meet!” he says to Vinny as he leans in to kiss her cheek. He’s here with three other typical Bocconi University students: all quite handsome and all just as boring-looking. To his right sits a boy who I’ve already noticed several times at the university: dark wavy hair, large hazel eyes, a nose so perfect that it looks like something a plastic surgeon would use as a template, pronounced cheekbones and surprisingly sensual lips for someone as dull as he certainly is. I mean, a mouth like that would have made a lot more sense on an actor or an artist rather than on someone who at best probably aspires to working in daddy’s company. That is, if he actually even aspires to that and not just to working his way through the family bank account - because I know the type and that certainly wouldn’t be a first. Sometimes I wonder if there are secret university courses that teach being a profligate rich kid as a specialization, because there are plenty of people about who seem to be experts at it.
I imagine that he must be Giovanni’s best friend, but whoever he is, he definitely deserves to win the award for the tightest-fitting shirt in history: it looks as though he got his tailor to sew him into it or something. How he actually manages to breathe once it’s on, I honestly don’t know.
My eyes drop automatically to his chest, where I see the initials A.C. Of course it’s monogrammed. It must be really frustrating for someone like him to only be able to have two letters, because I’d bet all my beloved piercings (two, for the moment: one in my tongue and one in my navel, but I’m thinking of upping the number sooner or later) that he’s a proud card-carrying member of the quadruple-barrel surname club. You know who I mean, those posh idiots who insist on having all their names written on their ID card, even though it means that it takes them an hour to sign anything. Ah, the lengths some people will go to just to feel superior...
Mister Tight-Fitting-Shirt moves over just enough so that Lavinia can sit next to Giovanni and then looks up and notices my presence. His dark eyes seem to recognize me. It’s unbelievable how walking past perfect strangers every day in the corridors of a university can create a strange illusion of intimacy.
His gaze is weirdly intense, and a strange feeling of unease seizes me: why the heck is he staring at me like that?
I almost haven’t realised I’m holding my breath when he finally turns his attention to Alessandra. I’m about to sit down and relax, but a moment later he turns those hazel eyes back on me. And there they stay. Damn.
Giovanni is presenting the young men to Vinny, who stretches out her hand to shake theirs.
“Lavinia, these are my friends: Ariberto, Stefano and Luca”.
Oh my God... Ariberto?! He would be called ‘Ariberto’! I guessed he would have some ridiculous posh name, and it doesn’t get much more ridiculously posh than Ariberto.
With difficulty I stifle a laugh but even a stoic like me finds it hard to keep a straight face when presented with a name like Ariberto. Are these posh people all off their faces on Champagne when they decide what they’re going to call their children?
I should talk, though: my full name is Giada Elettra Ludovica Borghi. My parents are total psychos, as everyone who knows me already realized. I suppose I should just be grateful that my father decided to put “Giada” as my first name, so that I managed to avoid a lifetime of humiliation. I’ll be taking the secret of my other names to the grave with me.
Not many things really tickle my sense of humour, but finding out that Mr Shoulders here has that ridiculous name would give me the biggest laugh I’ve had for a long time, if only I were actually allowed to burst out laughing at him... God, what a pain in the neck these social niceties are!
I’m almost certain that I’ve gotten myself under control when out of nowhere, a second wave of amusement unexpectedly overwhelms me and a pretty derisive-sounding cackle emerges from my mouth. I tried not to, honestly I did!
“Is something wrong?” he asks. Does he really need to ask that? That beautiful face of his is completely wasted if his head is empty of neurones.
“Oh I’m fine... Ariberto,” I answer, unable to resist teasing him. If you’re not going to do things properly, you might as well not bother at all.
His eyes narrow to slits and a touch of anger appears in his expression. Ah, finally - a bit of personality! I was starting to wonder if all he had were those perfect cheekbones. He always seems to be in such an annoyingly good mood...
There are people who act like they never have any problems in life – people like Vinny, for example - and then there are people who actually are always in a good mood. I honestly don’t know which category frightens me the most, but it’s probably the second.
“And you are?” he asks, sounding only slightly annoyed.
“Oh, no one of any importance,” I answer with a totally innocent expression on my face as though I hadn’t just been laughing like a drain about how ridiculous his name is.
“Be that as it may, I’m curious. Immensely curious...” he says. “By the way, I’m Ariberto Castelli – nice to meet you.”
What’s nice about it? I look at him suspiciously, not understanding the reason for his insistence. I just burst out laughing in your face, don’t you want to ignore me and vow never to speak to me again?
“She’s Giada,” intervenes Lavinia, who doesn’t like people arguing. I’ve been telling her for years that she needs to work a little on her easygoing nature: everybody knows that diplomats often come to sticky ends under friendly fire. But Vinny’s the classic sunshine-heart-I-wuv-you type of person. The total opposite of me...
“And this is Alessandra,” my friend continues. Her technique is very smooth: shift the attention from a nuisance like me to someone much more normal and reassuring like our friend. Among other things, Alessandra doesn’t wear wristbands covered with big, sharp spikes. They come in handy when I need to leave indelible marks on people who like touching without being invited to. And they never are, of course.
At this point I’m absolutely certain that Ariberto-Perfect-Shirt will remove his big Manga eyes from my disquieting little person and turn them onto someone better suited to him. Except that not only doesn’t my prediction prove false, the total opposite occurs: he stares at me as if I were a mystery that must be solved at all costs. Now that I think about it, he doesn’t even look angry anymore. He looks fascinated. A weird sensation of alarm starts bubbling up at t
he bottom of my stomach. What the hell does he want?
“So can I get you a drink?” asks Giovanni, ever the perfect host, interrupting the exchange of glances.
“Why not? A Long Island Tea for me,” replies Lavinia with a broad smile. God it’s so obvious she’s forcing it...
“I’ll have a Bloody Mary,” I say, trying to maintain an expression of total indifference.
“Ah - thirsty for blood,” comments Ariberto.
I blink in disbelief. Doesn’t he realise that he’s playing with fire?
“Why, are you offering me yours, Mr Tight-Shirt?”
“What if I am?” he replies, managing to perfectly balance a hint of provocation with a kind of throwaway ease of delivery. Objectively speaking, it is a bit of a masterstroke, and for a moment I’m almost speechless. Guys like him are usually so predictable – they all get offended in half a second.
“I’m a vampire with difficult tastes, my dear. I suspect that I might find your blood a bit... how can I put it?... saccharine.”
“You never know, you might be surprised,” he says with a strange emphasis that sounds almost... sensual. I take a deep breath to cover up my surprise and stop myself from skewering him on the spot with my spikes.
Even though he definitely deserves it.
Okay, this has already gone on way too long. Suffering for Vinny’s sake is one thing, but this is getting out of hand. Does this guy really think he’s going to have the last word?
“Not many things surprise me, and I’m pretty certain you won’t be one of them,” I say with a totally straight face.
“You’re absolutely sure of that, are you?”
The more irritated I get, the more he seems to be enjoying himself. It’d obvious that we are at the two opposite ends of some kind of spectrum – me tending towards the negative and him tending towards the positive. Geometry really isn’t on our side.
