A Dangerous Solace

by Lucy Ellis

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said yet again.

  ‘For what, innamorata?’ He seemed bewildered.

  ‘What do you think? Everything—everything you went through.’

  ‘It’s life. These things make us stronger, make us appreciate what we have in the now, don’t you think?’

  He wasn’t only talking about his father. He was talking about them.

  Not love, sex. Sex was what they had. Love might have had a chance once—but she had thrown it away without knowing what she’d almost had.

  All her life she’d picked her battles and won them. But this battle she hadn’t chosen. It had come along and taken her on and she didn’t know how to fight it. Then or now. So she’d lost without even knowing she’d once had a chance with her magnificent, proud lion in their own personal Colosseum.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE BALLROOM WAS ALIGHT with thousands of tiny candles and four hundred people who had all paid a premium price to be here.

  Ava’s heart was like a trapped bird inside her, fluttering desperately to get out. She had needed help tonight to get into the dress. A hairdresser had been flown in from Paris to style her hair, and a make-up artist from Milan. The fragrance mingling with her skin had been mixed for her by a perfumer here in Rome, based on details Gianluca had provided. Nothing about tonight was natural.

  ‘Relax, Ava,’ Gianluca said softly, whirling her in his arms. ‘You are the most beautiful woman they have ever seen. It is taking people time to become accustomed.’

  But there was nothing reassuring in his voice. It was edged with that same tension she was feeling. Had been feeling since that explosion among the ruins and the fallout.

  Yet with her hair swept up in an elaborate configuration, drop sapphire earrings hanging low, and a large sapphire framed in tiny white diamonds nestling just above her cleavage, it was true she looked a million dollars.

  And no doubt was wearing that sum.

  She had felt a little awkward wearing jewellery that had belonged to his grandmother, but Gianluca had assured her the pieces were so rarely worn it was almost a service to give them a showing.

  As she spotted Maria Benedetti through the crowd it suddenly felt more like theft.

  It was on loan. Everything was on loan.

  Even her time with this man.

  The only thing she could call her own was the dress.

  Because, dammit, she had money. She’d earned it by being smart and canny and—yes—ruthless.

  Why was it she couldn’t be as ruthless about this man as he was clearly being with her?

  ‘You didn’t tell me your family were going to be here.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  One glance and Ava could see the muscle ticking in his jaw. She realised Gianluca wasn’t any more relaxed about this discovery than she was.

  She guessed introducing her to his friends was one thing—to his family was another.

  It hadn’t occurred to her until she’d looked up into his beautiful face, recognised his set expression, that there had been a method in the madness of their dash from Positano to Naples, their flight from Naples to Rome.

  It wasn’t romantic. It was pragmatic. It was what a man did when he could feel the walls closing in around him. If the man was Gianluca Benedetti and had a jet and a palazzo at his command.

  He’d dazzled her, wooed her, done things to her body she couldn’t imagine doing with anyone else, and when this was over—whatever this was—he would walk away. He wouldn’t be so crass as to do it by phone call, but the time would come. It wouldn’t be in the near future. His desire for her was too present in their lives at this point.

  This was where it was at for him. This was what worked for them, apparently. This being sex. Long-distance wasn’t really going to work, then, was it?

  Oh, she suspected once she was back in Sydney they would drift on a little longer together—he would fly in, she would fly out—but other women would cross his path and, really, without anything stronger to bind them how long would he lie in sheets grown cool? One day it just wouldn’t work any more.

  She’d accepted all this last night—told herself to toughen up, to take it like a man. Men didn’t confuse the issue. There was sex, and there was emotional attachment, and apparently they could exist separately. He might have given her the whole package once, but those waters had flowed by.

  But it was hard to be a tough operator in a glamorous ballgown that made her feel so intensely feminine it was all she could do not to spin around like a little girl and send her skirts flying just for the joy of it.

  It was hard not to yearn when you found yourself swaying to the romantic strains of Strauss as interpreted by a symphony orchestra, dancing in the arms of the man you had longed for all your life.

  It was hard not to cry when the man you loved had had no intention of introducing you to a single member of his family until tonight, when he was being forced into it. He had gone out of his way four weeks ago to make sure that couldn’t possibly happen.

  Oh, yes, now she knew why she’d always been so wary of dresses. They had a way of transforming you into someone you didn’t recognise.

  ‘My mother always gets an invitation,’ Gianluca informed her tightly, ‘but this is the first time she’s come.’

  With the air of a man condemned Gianluca steered her across the room. Ava became aware they were the sinecure of every eye.

  And with that the last of her confidence fell away.

  She felt like a circus freak in her glamorous gown. Every inappropriate outfit her mother had paraded in down their suburban street, every time some teenager had hung out of a bus or car window and shouted, ‘Freak!,’ at her mother—everything bad about being Tiffany Lord’s daughter came rushing back.

  Knowing she had to keep it together, Ava stopped listening to Gianluca’s quiet instructions. As if he thought she needed guidance on how to be with his mother. She wasn’t an idiot. She knew how to behave.

  Maria Benedetti looked faintly surprised as Gianluca leaned down and kissed his mother’s hand. Ava noticed there was an odd stiffness between mother and son, but then the Principessa was regarding her curiously.

  Gianluca introduced them and Ava heard herself offering a polite, ‘How do you do?’

  ‘Ava, how much like your brother you look. So, you are the young lady who has bedazzled my son?’

  It wasn’t what she had expected the Principessa to say and Ava immediately floundered.

  ‘Are those the Principessa Alessandra sapphires, Gianluca?’

  ‘Ava carries them off well,’ he said tightly.

  The older woman gave a insouciant shrug, eerily reminiscent of her son. ‘It’s nice to see them out of the vault.’

  Some other conversation was going on, and Ava didn’t even try to follow it. The smile pasted to her face felt paper-thin.

  ‘You look as if you’re having a wonderful time, Ava.’

  ‘I am,’ Ava lied.

  ‘We will have lunch tomorrow, yes? I would like to know how you are enjoying Rome.’

  She looked properly at Maria Benedetti and realised the woman who had so disapproved of Josh was offering her an olive branch.

  ‘Yes, I would like that,’ she fumbled, thinking of Friday. Thinking of her ticket. Thinking of the man beside her who still hadn’t asked her to stay. She knew now that he wouldn’t.

  But she had relaxed, and she realised it probably had less to do with the Principessa and more to do with the chip on her shoulder which had been whittled down in the weeks she’d spent with Gianluca.

  She wasn’t standing out in this crowd. She belonged here every bit as much as Maria Benedetti.

  And it wasn’t just the dress. Although it helped.

  Smiling a little for the first time all evening, she looked around the room, taking in the crowd—and then she saw him.

  ‘Ava?’ He lifted his hand in a half wave.

  Josh appeared like a mirage in front of her, tall and thin in
his tux, tugging on his bow tie.

  ‘I can never manage these things. Alessia fiddled with it in the car and now look at it.’ He wasn’t quite meeting her eyes and she could see the nerves in him.

  Her first instinct was to straighten it for him, but then she remembered he wasn’t her little brother any more. He was a grown man. She should treat him that way.

  Not even questioning why, she threw her arms around him.

  He hugged her back awkwardly.

  ‘It’s okay, sis,’ he muttered in her ear. ‘I’ll get you out of this.’

  She looked at him in surprise, about to tell him there was nothing to get her out of, but instead she hugged him again. It was so good to see him. It was so good to have the courage to show him that.

  The curse had been broken, she thought a little fancifully. She hadn’t realised until this moment how she had carried his sentiments around with her for seven years. Rich, disappointed and alone. I’m not going to spend my life alone and unloved, she thought, because no matter where life takes me my brother will always love me.

  She had a big smile on her face when a small hand touched her elbow and she recognised Alessia, five feet of crackling energy. She had hardly changed.

  ‘Your gown is so beautiful. You look like a princess. Gianluca, she looks like a princess! Why have you been keeping her locked up? I thought we’d have to come up to Rome and break you out, Ava.’

  ‘Gianluca has been very kind,’ Ava heard herself say sincerely, and caught the look of surprise on his face.

  ‘He stole you,’ Alessia accused.

  Well, what did she say to that?

  Gianluca put a glass of champagne into her hand.

  Other people joined them. Gianluca’s cousin Marco and his wife, Valentina—the couple she had already met. She liked Tina. There was something down-to-earth about her that made her wish all of this were real. She would have made a good friend.

  A very pregnant good friend.

  ‘I miss champagne,’ she said, indicating Ava’s glass.

  ‘It’s not very good,’ Ava lied.

  Tina smiled and, nudging her elbow, steered her away from the group.

  ‘I saw you being introduced to Aunt Dragon. How did it go?’

  ‘The Principessa was most kind.’

  ‘Really? How odd. She’s usually brutal to other women. I guess it’s come as a shock to her to be introduced to one of Gianluca’s girlfriends.’

  Ava was about to blurt out, I’m not his girlfriend, when Tina said cheerfully, ‘In fact you’re the first. You’re not Sicilian, are you?’

  Baffled, Ava shook her head.

  Tina moved a little closer. ‘A virgin?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘No, you’ve got that look. That well-loved look.’ The other woman gave her a little smile. ‘Don’t turn around, Ava, but Gianluca hasn’t taken his eyes off you. I think he’s worried about what I’m telling you. So I’ll make it quick. He’s a nightmare for women. Looks gorgeous, and he’s got the title, all that money. Willing women for Gianluca are like—I don’t know...ice in Siberia. Too much of a good thing, yes?’

  Yes, she knew. But she felt it like another punch to her chest wall.

  ‘I’ve never seen him so happy.’

  ‘Happy?’

  Gianluca stepped up to her and for a moment Ava wondered if he’d heard. He took her hand and wordlessly drew her away from the group.

  ‘You need air,’ he said, almost offhand.

  Ava gave Tina a little shrug, but the other woman gave her a wink.

  On the terrace he removed his jacket to cloak her shoulders. Ava shook her head, backing up.

  ‘We need to talk.’

  * * *

  She was incredibly beautiful tonight.

  But it wasn’t like the beauty he had seen in her unguarded moments—waking up first thing in the morning, her eyes sleepy-soft, murmuring silly things to him that made him want to move mountains for her...or just kiss her.

  Tonight it was a beauty that came at a cost—the kind he had grown up around. He wanted to mess up her hair, smudge her lipstick, take those heavy jewels and throw them into the Tiber.

  He didn’t want the Benedettis taking her over. He didn’t want her to become one of those weights he carried around his neck.

  ‘We need to talk,’ she said softly.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Si, this is why I have brought you out here.’

  ‘I want to tell you something first.’

  She clasped her hands together as if going to her execution.

  For some reason it irritated him. But he’d been frustrated all night. He didn’t want to be in a crowd with Ava. He wanted to be somewhere they could be alone, just the two of them, and then perhaps this twisting in his gut would stop.

  ‘Have you ever seen Three Coins in a Fountain?’ she asked unexpectedly.

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. I know the song.’

  She gave him a tentative little smile. ‘I used to watch that film as a girl and I wanted that life. Some other life, so different from my own it was unrecognisable.’

  With a sigh she walked away to the stone railing. Somewhere down there in the darkness the Tiber lurked.

  Gianluca found himself thinking about all the carved-up bodies of the people who had got in his ancestors’ way, floating up on its banks. Where Ava saw romance he saw reality.

  ‘You’ve given me that fantasy, but I think it’s time to go,’ she said.

  Go? She couldn’t go.

  ‘Before the spell wears off. Before you wake up one morning and I’m just Ava again.’

  What in the hell...? She was Ava. Ava who had made him laugh, had made him furious, had made him...love her.

  He shoved that brutally aside. Loving her wasn’t going to work. Benedetti men didn’t love their women. They bred from them and then walked away—or as in the case of his father, were driven away.

  He’d long ago decided not to continue that nasty little tradition, but if he was going to make the mistake of his life he might as well make it with Ava.

  If she thought she was going to walk out on him he’d like to see her try with a ring on her finger, with those heavy jewels around her neck. He’d weigh her down with so much of his history she wouldn’t be able to move.

  ‘This life you speak of.’ His voice was deep, rough-cut, fraught with a freight load of emotion that seemed to be coming at him too fast. ‘Why can’t you have it?’

  She looked over her shoulder at him carefully, anxiety written in every line of her features.

  As well it might be.

  The ring was weighting his jacket pocket and right now it felt like a dagger. He reached in and closed his hand over it, made a fist of it.

  ‘Have it, then,’ he said, almost aggressively. ‘Have this life.’

  He reached for her and jerked her around roughly.

  Ava cowered back, trying to retrieve her hand. He wasn’t letting go.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re not making sense. Why are you angry with me?’

  He took out the ring, held it up to the light.

  ‘Does this make sense to you?’

  For a moment she looked utterly confused, and then fell utterly still.

  ‘This is the ring my grandfather gave to my grandmother. She only took it off on the day she died, to pass it to my eldest sister.’ He took her hand; it was cold and tense in his. She tried to snatch it back but he was so much stronger. ‘She chose not to use it and it’s been in a vault with the rest of the family jewellery since then. I would be honoured if you—’ he forced the ring over her finger, only to realise his hand was shaking, and not in a good way ‘—would be my wife.’

  ‘It’s too small,’ she said, in an even smaller voice.

  ‘It can be altered.’ He was furious with her. Why was she cowering like that? Why was she acting as if he’d done something unforgivable when she was the one talking about fantasies and here he was fulfilling
them?

  She began tugging at it. ‘I don’t want this. Take it back.’

  ‘Gianluca, what are you doing out here? There are people who’ve come halfway around the world to see you tonight. We all have to do our bit— Oh, I see I’ve interrupted something.’

  Gianluca turned to snarl at their hostess, only to hear Ava make a choked sound of distress. With a flurry of those extravagant skirts she shoved past him and made her way back into the ballroom.

  * * *

  ‘I need help,’ Ava babbled to Alessia. ‘This dress won’t fit in the back of a taxi and I can’t go back with him. I need somewhere to stay...’

  ‘Calm down.’ Alessia stroked her arm. ‘You’ll come and stay with us, of course. We’re in a hotel only two blocks away.’

  Ava wondered why she didn’t feel any better.

  ‘What’s going on, Av?’ Josh was looking at her with something approaching concern.

  In the past she had always fobbed him off. She was the protector, the one who kept the wolf from his door, but right now all she could think about was how isolated she was. She’d landed right back where she’d begun—alone in the world.

  ‘You were right, Joshy,’ she said, using her old name for him. ‘I am destined to be alone.’

  She couldn’t stay there a moment longer. Picking up her skirts, she made her way to a set of doors. As she ran down the steps outside the palazzo it did cross her distressed mind that all she needed at this moment was to lose a shoe, but her Jimmy Choos were holding on as she skirted past security guards who watched as a woman in a fairy-tale dress ran out of the bright lights and into the shadowy road beyond.

  Two blocks, Alessia had said.

  She could run that far.

  * * *

  Gianluca couldn’t find her.

  He had made mistakes in his life. This wasn’t one of them.

  This was a catastrophe.

  Had he really pushed a ring onto her finger?

  Bullied her like that?

  Whatever her reasons for being here with him, it didn’t change the single, life-changing fact that he was in love with her, and he’d allowed his anger and resentment with his past to interfere in the way he had treated her.

  The one person who made him want a future.