There had been three coffins in this church when his family had died. Pink peonies on his mother’s, white lilies on his father’s and a huge spray of red poppies on his brother’s.
‘I don’t like this, Papà,’ she had whispered, for she’d been ten years old and the chants and scent of incense had made her feel a little ill.
‘I know, bella, but we are here today for Gian,’ her papà had said.
‘Shouldn’t we sit with him, then?’ Ariana had asked, for even beside his aunts and such he had looked so completely alone.
‘We are not family,’ her papà had said. ‘Hold my hand.’
His warm hand had closed around hers and imbued her with strength, but she had looked over at Gian and seen that there was no one holding his.
And there was no one holding Ariana’s today.
It was an emotional service, but Gian refused to let it move him and stood dry-eyed even as the coffin was carried out to the haunting strains of his favourite aria—Puccini’s ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’. Oh, my dear Papà...
Ariana looked close to fainting, but her damned mother was too busy beating at her chest to see.
‘Hey,’ Gian said. To the frowns of the congregation, he broke protocol and joined the family on the way out. ‘You are doing so well,’ he murmured quietly.
‘I am not.’
‘You are, you are.’ He could feel her tremble. As the family lined up outside the church, instead of guiding her to join them, he took Ariana aside and held her.
She leaned on him for a moment, a blissful moment that smelt of Gian, and she learned something more about him. There were no tears in his eyes, he looked a little pale but unmoved, yet his heart beat rapidly in his chest and she could feel his grief as he held her in his arms.
As they held each other.
‘You’ll miss him too,’ she whispered.
‘Ever so.’
It was the closest she had ever been to him, this blissful place on a terrible day, and she wanted to cling on, to rest in his arms a while longer, but he was pulling her back and returning to his usual distant form.
‘Gian.’ It was so cold to stand without him, especially when she wanted the shield of his arms. ‘I don’t think I can face the burial.’
‘Yes, Ariana, you can.’
But hysteria was mounting. ‘No. I really don’t think so...’
‘Would it help if I came with you?’
It would, but... ‘You can’t.’ She gave a black laugh. ‘Stefano practically had to put in a written request to Dante to have Eloa attend, and she’s his fiancée. Mamma has been denied. God, Gian, I don’t...’
‘Take this.’
From deep in his coat pocket he handed her a cornicello...a small gold amulet. ‘Your father gave me this to hold when I buried my family. You can do this, Ariana; you will regret it if you don’t.’
It was the most private of burials.
Mia, who could barely stand, held a single lily.
And Dante, who loathed Mia possibly the most of all Rafael’s children, was the one who had to take her to the graveside so she could throw the flower in.
Stefano wept and was comforted by Eloa, and that left Ariana standing alone, holding onto the little sliver of gold.
Ariana had never felt so cold as when she returned to the house and stood by a huge fire, grateful for the large cognac someone placed in her hands. Looking up, she saw it was Gian. ‘Thank you.’
‘How was it?’ Gian gently enquired.
‘It is done,’ Ariana responded, without really answering and then held out the amulet. ‘Here, I should give this back to you. Thank you.’
‘Keep it.’
‘He gave it to you,’ Ariana said, suddenly angry at his lack of sentiment. This man who would sell a priceless ring, this man who would let go of a gift from her father. ‘Why would you give it away?’
‘Did it help?’ he asked, and she nodded. ‘Then you yourself might pass it on someday when someone else needs your father’s strength.’
Never, she thought.
Never, ever.
For it was her first gift from Gian and it almost scared her how much that meant.
‘It seems strange to be here without him,’ Gian admitted, trying to gauge how she felt, but for once the effusive Ariana was a closed book. She gave a tired shrug and her black lashes closed on violet eyes highlighting the dark shadows beneath them.
‘It has felt strange to be here for quite some time.’ Her eyes opened then and came to rest on Rafael’s widow, and Gian followed her gaze as she spoke. ‘My father and I used to be so close.’
‘You were always close,’ Gian refuted.
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘It fell away at the end.’
He would like to take her arm and walk her away from the funeral crowd, to walk in the grounds and gently tell her the difficult truth—the real reason her father had pulled away from his family and from the daughter he had loved so very much.
It was not his place to do so, though.
Oh, today he loathed being the keeper of secrets, for the truth would surely help her to heal.
‘How long are you here for?’ Ariana asked, determinedly changing the subject, then wishing she hadn’t for the answer was not one she liked.
‘I’ll be leaving shortly. I just wanted to see the house one last time and...’ He hesitated but then admitted the deeper truth. ‘To see how you were after the burial.’
Stay longer, she wanted to say, yet she dared not.
‘And,’ he added, ‘I wanted to properly apologise for how I spoke to you on the day you called. I was completely out of line.’
‘Not completely,’ Ariana said, and he watched her strained lips part into a brief glimpse of her impish smile. ‘Not to come in because of a board meeting was inexcusable on my first day...’
‘Oh!’ Her burst of honesty and the explanation surprised him. ‘I thought you must have had word that your father was ill.’
‘No, no,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t till later.’
‘Well, even so, I’m very sorry for the way I spoke to you.’
‘It’s fine,’ Ariana said. ‘I would have been annoyed with me too.’
He watched the dart of anxiety in her eyes as he looked around the room, filled with low murmurs of conversation and her veiled mamma, sitting weeping on a chair against the wall surrounded by aunts. ‘Mamma and Mia have never been under the same roof...’
‘Everyone is behaving,’ Gian pointed out.
‘For now they are,’ Ariana said, and let out a nervous breath, unsure how long the civility might last. ‘There is the reading of the will soon.’
‘It will be fine,’ Gian assured her, though he quietly thought Ariana’s concerns might be merited and she didn’t even know the half of it! Roberto, the family lawyer, had also been Rafael’s long-term lover and he was reading the will. With the current wife and widow in the room, one could be forgiven for expecting fireworks.
‘Do you want me to stay until afterwards?’ he offered.
‘I would like that,’ Ariana admitted. She looked up at the man she always ran to, always turned to, yet the moment was broken by the sound of her mother’s voice.
‘Gian, I was hoping that you’d come back to the house...’ She placed an overly familiar hand on his arm, and Gian would have liked to shrug it off. He loathed the sudden fake friendliness from Angela, although of course it was for a reason. ‘Could I ask you to take me back to Rome with you? I simply cannot stand to be here.’
‘It would be my pleasure,’ Gian politely agreed, for even if he did not particularly want Angela’s company, he would do the right thing.
‘I have to stay for the reading of the will,’ Angela explained, ‘but if we could leave after that? Ariana will be coming with us also...’
‘
But, Mamma, Stefano and Eloa are heading back to Zio Luigi’s...’ Ariana started, but clearly her desires had no importance here and Gian watched her shoulders slump as she acquiesced. ‘If that is what you want.’
Naturally, Gian did not enter the study for the reading of the will. Instead, he poured himself a brandy from Rafael’s decanter, as his friend had often done for him, and silently toasted his portrait.
What a mess.
He looked at the portrait and wondered if Rafael’s truth would be revealed in the will.
Of course Angela had long since known the truth about her husband, and had fought like a cat to prevent it getting out, more than happy to let the blame for the end of their marriage land on Mia.
He looked at the pictures above the fireplace—family shots. There was a surge that felt almost like a sob building when he saw his own image there, for he had never considered he might appear on anyone’s mantelpiece. Certainly there had been no images of him at his childhood home.
Yet here he was, fourteen or fifteen years old, on horseback, with Dante.
Good times.
Not great times, of course, because the end of the holidays had always meant it would be time to head back to Rome and his chaotic existence there.
The door of the study opened and the subdued gathering trooped out; Gian quickly realised that Rafael’s truth had not been revealed.
‘How was it?’ he asked Dante, who was the first to approach him.
‘Fine. No real surprises.’
And then came Ariana. She looked pale and drained, as if all the exuberance and arrogance that he was coming to adore had simply been leached from her.
‘How did it go?’ Gian asked.
‘I don’t even know how to answer,’ she admitted. ‘I am taken care of. I have an apartment in Paris and I will never have to work.’ She gave a tired shrug. ‘Does that mean it went well?’
‘Ariana,’ he cut in, and his hand reached for her arm but she pulled it back.
Not because she didn’t want physical contact, more because of how much she did. ‘I should go and say my farewells.’
‘Are you sure you want to come back to Rome tonight?’
‘Not really.’
‘Your family are all here,’ Gian pointed out. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to spend time with them?’
‘Yes, but I think Mamma needs me. She feels so out of place here.’
It was a subdued little group that flew back to Rome. Gian’s car was waiting at the airport and he gave Angela’s address to the driver.
‘Ariana, darling,’ her mother said, ‘I have the most terrible headache. I think I might just head home to bed. After I’ve been dropped off, Gian’s driver will take you home.’
‘But, Mamma, I thought I was to stay with you tonight.’
Gian heard the strain in Ariana’s voice. She was clearly asking to be with her mother, rather than offering to take care of her, although Angela, just as clearly, chose not to hear it as that. ‘Ariana, I know you’re worried about me but right now all I really need is some peace.’
Gian gritted his jaw because he could see the manipulative behaviour, pulling Ariana away from the rest of the family just because she could when she’d always intended to spend the evening with Thomas, her lover.
He knew now that he loathed Angela because she was as selfish as his own mother had been.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ Angela said to her daughter as she got out of the car. ‘Thank you, Gian, for seeing us home.’
Eternally polite, usually he would have wished her well and forced himself to kiss her cheeks, but the best he could manage was a curt nod.
As the driver closed the door, he looked over at Ariana. She was staring straight ahead and there was the sparkle of unshed tears in her eyes that he knew were waiting to fall the very second she was alone. ‘Let’s get you home,’ Gian said as the car pulled away.
‘I don’t want to go home.’ Ariana shook her head and blinked back the tears. ‘I might call Nicki.’
Ariana’s friend Nicki ran rather wild and she would undoubtedly prescribe a night of drinking and clubbing as a cure for Ariana’s troubled heart. ‘How come Nicki wasn’t at the funeral?’ he asked.
‘She only got back from skiing this afternoon.’ Ariana scrabbled in her purse for her phone. ‘She’d have come if she could.’
Gian doubted it.
Nicki liked the galas and balls, and the spoils of being Ariana’s friend, but where was she now when her friend needed her most?
Gian did not quite know what to do.
If it were Stefano, or Dante, or even Angela—who he didn’t even like—Gian would suggest a drink at the hotel, or a walk perhaps. Conversation or silence, whatever they chose.
But this was Ariana.
He wished he hadn’t noticed her beauty, or the colour of her eyes.
Gian wished he could snap his fingers and return them to a time when she had been just the annoying little sister of a friend, the daughter of his beloved mentor... That thought had him stepping up to do the right thing, for he did not want Ariana in questionable company tonight. ‘Would you like to come back to La Fiordelise for a drink, or something to eat perhaps?’
‘I...’ His offer was so unexpected. Gian usually made her feel like an annoying presence, always trying to cut short their time together, and now it was he who was offering to extend it. ‘I don’t want to impose.’
‘It doesn’t normally stop you...’ Gian teased, but then, seeing her frown, realised that even the lightest joke wasn’t registering. ‘It would be my pleasure,’ he said. ‘I just need to make a quick call.’
Ariana pretended not to listen as he cancelled his date for the night. And his date for the night did not take it well.
‘Svetlana,’ he said, and Ariana blinked at the slight warning edge to his tone as she looked out at the dark streets. ‘Not now.’
And that slight warning edge had her stomach clenching and a small flush rising to her cheeks. She looked at Gian, who appeared incredibly bored at the unfolding drama.
Yes, drama, for she could hear the rise in Svetlana’s voice, and foolish, foolish Svetlana, Ariana thought, for she literally watched his impassiveness transform to disdain.
‘Svetlana, I am unable to see you tonight,’ Gian said, and then, when it was clear she had asked why, rather drily he answered, ‘Because I am unable to see you tonight.’
His lack of explanation must have infuriated Svetlana for even with the phone to his ear, Ariana heard her angry retort. ‘When then?’
‘Do I have to spell it out, Svetlana?’
It would appear that he did, and Ariana listened as very coldly and firmly he ended their relationship.
‘Gian,’ she said as they pulled up at La Fiordelise, ‘please, call her back. I can go home. I really didn’t want to make trouble for you...’
‘Forget it.’ He gave a dismissive shrug. ‘We were always going to end.’
In fact, he hadn’t seen Svetlana all week.
Somehow they had bumped through the concert at Teatro dell’Opera but instead of returning to the sumptuous suite behind his office, Gian had taken her home.
‘Why did you break up with her?’ Ariana asked as they stood outside the car beneath the bright entrance lights.
‘Because she wanted more.’
‘More?’
‘She had started to drop into the hotel unannounced,’ he said. Ariana just frowned. ‘And she wanted to come up to my residence...’
Her frown deepened.
‘As well as that, she wanted to come with me to your father’s funeral.’
‘Oh?’ Ariana said, but it was more a question, because she didn’t really understand.
‘As if we were a couple.’ Gian attempted to explain his closed-off life, but clearly still bewildered, Ari
ana gave the tiniest shake of her head and so he elaborated. ‘She wanted things to progress and that was not what we had agreed.’
‘What did you agree to?’
‘Only the best parts.’ Gian did not soften his words. ‘Dinner in a nice restaurant, a trip to the theatre...’
‘I assume sex?’
‘Correct.’
‘So if not in your residence...’
‘Ariana, I am not discussing this with you. Suffice it to say I never want a relationship.’ He ended the matter. ‘You’re cold, let’s go in.’
‘To the restaurant?’ Ariana asked.
‘I thought the Pianoforte Bar...’
Her eyes narrowed, recalling Svetlana being denied a seat at his restaurant. Despite his kind invitation to keep her company, she knew she was also being kept at arm’s length.
‘No, thank you.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t need the noise of a bar tonight, even one as elegant as yours...’ Ariana fished and she fished, but Gian did not take the bait, nor upgrade her to restaurant status, even as she stood there and sulked. ‘I think I might go for a walk.’
‘In heels?’ Gian frowned.
‘I have my flats in my bag. I’ll be fine on my own,’ she said, waving him away as she took off her heels and went to put her flats on, but where was a marble pillar when you needed one?
Gian would not be waved off, though, and neither was he Prince Charming, for he did not go down on his knees to help, instead offering his arm. ‘Lean on me.’ He took one black stiletto that she handed to him and passed her a flat, and then it was all repeated with the other foot.
‘Let’s walk,’ Gian said.
For Ariana, it felt like the right choice. Piazza Navona, the grand, elegant square overlooked by La Fiordelise, was beautifully lit. Its fountains were hypnotic and a little of the tension of the day left as they strolled.
It felt different at night.
Or rather it felt different being here with Gian.
His presence was a comforting warmth in the chilly night air and his voice felt like a welcome caress, as he enquired how things were with her brothers.
The Italian's Forbidden Virgin (Mills & Boon Modern) (Those Notorious Romanos, Book 2) Page 6
