The Italian's Forbidden Virgin (Mills & Boon Modern) (Those Notorious Romanos, Book 2)

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘Please,’ she sobbed, because she never wanted it to end, yet they were both building rapidly to a frantic peak.

  The glass she had slammed down spilled and her bottom was cold and wet, but it barely registered. There was only him, crashing against her senses again and again, a mass exodus of hurt as he touched her deep inside and somehow soothed the pain.

  ‘Gian!’ It was Ariana who offered a warning now, for she was trembling on the inside, her thighs so tight it felt like cramp. A sudden rush of electricity shot down her spine and she clenched around him, dizzied by her own pulses, and she was rewarded with his breathless shout.

  They were both silent and stunned as their breathing gradually calmed. Ariana was grateful for the empty space between her thoughts. It was the first time she had felt even a semblance of quiet since her phone had shot her awake that morning. Gian too was silent, somewhat reeling at his own lack of control, for he had come here to speak, to talk, to offer Ariana comfort...

  Now, though, he lowered her down from the bench and tidied himself. Ariana twisted the waistband on her skirt so the damp patch was at the side, and she even smoothed her hand over her hair, as if order could somehow be resorted.

  Except it was chaos, Ariana knew, for she had made love to him again.

  She had convinced herself, once again, that Gian might one day change and want her the way she wanted him.

  ‘Ariana.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I didn’t come here—’

  ‘What did you come here for then?’ she interrupted. ‘A chat?’

  ‘Yes,’ Gian said, as the blood crept back to his head. ‘A proposal.’

  She looked at him with wide, nervous eyes, for this was new territory to Ariana. How one moment they could be locked in an intimate embrace, and the next attempting to speak as if his seed wasn’t trickling down between her thighs. ‘A proposal?’

  He nodded. ‘I thought a lot about what you said yesterday, and you’re right, Ariana, I do avoid emotion...’ He smiled a pale smile. ‘Which is impossible around you.’

  She swallowed, unsure where this was leading, but hoping...

  Hoping!

  ‘What you said about moving...’ Gian ventured.

  ‘I meant,’ Ariana said, ‘I’m not going to live in an apartment my mother feels entitled to use as a second lounge.’ Her decision was crystal clear now. ‘I want to take the Romano name off for a while. I want to work on myself.’ She gave a hollow laugh. ‘I want to actually work...’

  ‘I get that,’ Gian agreed. ‘And, as I said, I have a proposal for you. Fiordelise Florence hotel opens at the end of May. What if you do your training here, and then work as Guest Services Manager there?’

  ‘Sorry?’ Ariana frowned, though clearly not for the reason he was thinking.

  ‘I know I said you would start as an assistant, but I agree, you have an exceptional skill set and would be an asset.’

  ‘Your proposal is a job.’

  ‘More than a job,’ Gian said.

  ‘A career then?’

  ‘No!’ She was missing the point, Gian thought. Though he could understand why, given his usually direct style of communication. He was not good at this relationship game. ‘We could see each other...more of each other,’ he said. ‘Away from your family.’

  ‘Without them knowing?’ Ariana frowned.

  ‘Of course,’ he agreed. ‘We both know that would cause more problems than it would solve so we would have to be discreet. I’ll have an executive manager there, so I would not be so hands-on in running the place. There would be no impropriety at the hotel and far less chance of being seen out. I would, of course, get to Florence as often as I was able.’

  Oh, she understood then. ‘I’d be your mistress, you mean?’

  ‘I never said that.’

  ‘Perhaps not in so many words, but...’ Her lips were white but still turned up into the kind of practised smile she flashed for the cameras all the time, all the brighter to disguise how she was breaking down on the inside. ‘Tucked away, my family in the dark, no one finding out...that sounds an awful lot like a mistress to me. Well, I won’t be your Fiordelise.’

  ‘You’re complicating matters.’

  ‘Then I’ll make it simple. Where would this lead, Gian?’

  ‘Lead?’ Gian frowned. ‘Why does it have to lead anywhere?’

  ‘Because that’s what my heart does.’ Ariana could say it no more honestly than that. ‘My heart wants to know where this might go one day.’

  ‘I’m offering you the best parts of me, Ariana.’

  ‘No, you’re offering to keep me tucked away, to flit in and out of my life whenever it’s convenient. Gian, I want my lover by my side. I want to share my life with him, not live a secret. God knows, my parents did enough of that and look how it turned out.’

  ‘That is so you,’ Gian said. ‘You have to get your own way. Everything has to be now—’

  ‘I’m not asking for now, Gian,’ Ariana interrupted. ‘I’m asking if there’s a possibility that this might lead to more. You want directness,’ she said. ‘You tell your lovers up front that it will go no further. Well, I’m being direct too and I’m telling you that I want at the very least the possibility of more.’

  ‘I have no more to give.’

  She had known that getting involved with Gian would ultimately hurt her, so why did she feel so unprepared to deal with the pain he so impassively inflicted?

  ‘No, thank you.’ Her voice was strangely high.

  ‘Think about it...’

  ‘I already have.’ She was staring down at the barrel of a future spent mainly alone. Christmases, weddings, the birth of Dante and Mia’s baby, christenings and even funerals...all the things she would have to deal with alone.

  Her love unacknowledged and unnamed.

  ‘I won’t be your mistress, Gian.’ Her response was clearer now, her decision absolutely made. She started to show him the door, but then changed her mind. ‘Actually, before you leave, I have something I need to put to you.’

  Gian frowned. He was not used to being told no in this way, particularly when he had offered Ariana more than he’d ever offered anyone. ‘What?’

  ‘I can’t pretend,’ Ariana said. ‘And I don’t want to keep making the same mistake again.’

  ‘You think that was a mistake?’ He pointed to the bench where they had both found a slice of heaven just moments ago.

  ‘Not at that time I didn’t,’ Ariana said. ‘Even now, no, I don’t think it was, but if we make love again then, yes, that would be a mistake.’

  ‘You make no sense.’

  ‘I want you to stay away,’ Ariana said. ‘Not for ever, but at least until...’ She swallowed down the words, loath to admit how he turned her on merely by his presence, how with one look, one crook of his manicured finger, she would run to him. ‘Until I can act as if nothing ever happened between us.’

  As if I don’t love your soulless heart.

  ‘I can’t face you in front of my family until I can look at you as if nothing ever happened between us. I have to get to that place where we can do the kiss-kiss thing and...’

  She took a breath to steady herself. Right now it seemed like an impossible dream, that one day she might merely shrug when she heard that Gian had arrived.

  ‘I’d like you to stay away from my brothers’ weddings...’

  ‘I’m already not going to Stefano’s, but Dante...’ He shook his head. ‘Dante is my closest friend...’

  ‘Oh, please.’ Ariana found a new strength in her voice then, a derisive one, a scorn-filled one. ‘What would do you care about that? You’ve told me relationships are the very thing you don’t want.’

  He couldn’t deny that.

  ‘So, please, Gian.’ She said it without derision now. ‘If you care about me at all, then do the decent thing and
stay away.’

  Gian did as she asked.

  He stayed away from Dante’s wedding, citing an urgent issue at La Fiordelise Azerbaijan, which he had to deal with personally.

  That meant Ariana could smile her red smile at the wedding and have fun with her regular posse of friends.

  Yet, despite him acquiescing to her request, she missed him so much: the little flurry in her stomach that existed whenever there was the prospect of seeing him; the small shared smiles; the occasional dance; and, most of all, the prospect of a late night alone with him...

  Instead, she stood in the grounds of what had once been the family home and tried to push Gian out of her heart and focus on the nuptials. Mia looked utterly gorgeous and Dante looked so proud and happy as his bride walked towards him.

  ‘That didn’t take long, did it?’ Nicki nudged.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s showing!’ Paulo said.

  Ariana pressed her lips together. Only family had been let in on the secret that Mia was pregnant. Dante had assured them all that nothing had taken place before Papà died, although for four months Mia did appear rather, well, large.

  ‘It must have been going on for quite some time,’ Nicki whispered. ‘Your pa only died in January...’

  ‘Thanks for pointing that out,’ Ariana sniped, but Nicki didn’t notice for she had moved on. ‘Where’s Gian? I thought he’d be here.’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Ariana said, practising her shrug, as if Gian De Luca was the very last person on her mind.

  As the vows were made, and Nicki jostled to take photos on her phone, Ariana asked herself why she hadn’t told Nicki about what had happened with Gian. Neither had she told her the truth about her parents...

  Paulo she wasn’t so close to, but she and Nicki were supposed to be best friends.

  It was a question of trust, Ariana realised.

  Deep in her soul, Ariana realised that she did not trust the woman who sat by her side and it had nothing to do with Gian’s opinion of Nicki...

  The answer had arrived in its own time and the conclusion Ariana came to was all hers.

  Ariana said nothing, of course. She just smiled through the proceedings and raised a glass when Dante announced in his speech that he and Mia were expecting twins—likely the reason for her showing so much. Not that Nicki corrected her earlier assumption. ‘You’re going to be an aunty...twice!’ Nicki screeched, and called to the waiter for another bottle of champagne.

  ‘Make that two bottles,’ Paulo said, and Ariana’s eyes actually scanned the room for Gian, as if hope and need might make him somehow appear.

  He did not.

  Apart from his absence, it was a wonderful wedding, their love so palpable it made Ariana both happy and pensive.

  ‘It will be your turn soon.’ Nicki smiled as they took a break from the dancing. ‘And I shall be your bridesmaid...’

  ‘You’ll be the oldest bridesmaid in Rome if you wait for me,’ Ariana said. ‘I want a career.’

  ‘Why?’ Nicki frowned. ‘It’s not as if you need to work. You have Daddy’s trust fund. Didn’t he leave you an apartment in Paris? We should go there and check it out...’

  ‘It’s not enough—’

  ‘Please,’ Nicki scoffed. ‘Poor little rich girl.’ Her narrowed eyes snapped back to wide and friendly and she pushed out a smile. ‘Let’s join Paulo.’

  ‘You go,’ Ariana encouraged. ‘I’ll just sit here awhile.’

  Her rare absence on the dance floor did not go unnoticed. ‘Get off your phone, Ariana,’ Dante called. ‘Come and dance...’

  Except it wasn’t her own phone that Ariana was going through, it was her friend’s. Some might call it dishonest, or an invasion of privacy, a breach of trust...

  Except, from where Ariana now sat, those titles belonged to Nicki.

  There was a sneaky little shot of Mia in profile as she made her vows, a definite confirmation of the pregnancy that had been announced only to family and friends. That could be excused, though, as lots of people had been taking photos.

  What could not be excused was an earlier image of Mia and Dante, locked in a passionate embrace. It was the photo that had been taken at the ball, the one that had caused so much pain.

  To a heart that Ariana had thought could not be broken further, the knowledge that her friend had betrayed her added another river of pain.

  The ridiculous part was that the one person in whom she would have confided, Ariana had asked not to attend.

  She missed him.

  Even with his selfish guidelines as to what a relationship with him might entail, she needed him tonight.

  ‘Ariana!’

  Her name was being shouted by lots of people now.

  Maybe she had grown up some, because instead of confronting Nicki and causing a scene at her brother’s wedding, she did the right thing.

  Ariana put down the phone, topped up her lipstick...

  ...and danced.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ARIANA WASN’T AVOIDING sorting out her life.

  If that had been the case, then she would have said yes to Gian’s offer to be his mistress. She would have left her chaotic family and Janus friend and headed for Florence to be wined and dined and made love to over and over.

  Instead, she faced the mountain that at first had looked far too high to climb. Yet, bit by bit, she found the tools to tackle it, some of which had been given to her by Gian.

  The doorman received a stern warning that from now on Ariana’s whereabouts were to remain private and heaven help him if an unannounced guest arrived at her door. She declined nights out with Paulo, to be seen, for she had felt Gian’s exasperation and knew he was right.

  It wasn’t just Gian’s suggestions she followed, though. She also took Dante’s perpetual advice and finally turned off her phone.

  Apart from Eloa’s hen night, where red lips were certainly required, most were spent sitting on her apartment floor, eating ice cream and finally sorting out her photos into albums.

  Ariana chose to withdraw from the endless vacuous socialising and learned to rely on her own company, arranging her past into a more honest shape as she prepared for a new future. Finally, she was ready for a couple of nights in Luctano, where she spoke at length with Roberto and got to know her father, a little too late, but a whole lot more.

  ‘He loved you,’ Roberto said.

  ‘I know.’

  She did.

  On the Thursday before she headed for home, ready now to visit his grave, Ariana spread an armful of gorgeous hand-picked daffodils, which meant truth, rebirth and new beginnings, and a little sprig of violets, for peace in the afterlife, and told him about Stefano and Eloa’s wedding, which was just two days away.

  ‘I am his wedding padrihnos, or wedding bridesmaid,’ Ariana told her father. ‘It basically means I am Stefano’s best man.’ She knew that would make him smile, wherever he was now. ‘And Nicki is coming over tomorrow and I shall be telling her she is not welcome at the wedding and I don’t want to see her any more.’ Ariana swallowed. ‘I still haven’t told Dante about the photo.’

  It wasn’t her brother’s wrath that worried her, more that he would, of course, tell Gian. She couldn’t bear the thought of him rolling his eyes, for he had warned her about Nicki more than once.

  There was something else too, something she hadn’t told anyone yet, not even herself, but she admitted it out loud now. ‘I am in love with Gian, Papà.’

  She wouldn’t be the first in her family to act in her own interests and keep it secret, were she to become his mistress, but despite how she felt about Gian, she could not reconcile herself to it. Not now she was finally becoming someone she could be proud of.

  ‘You’re not ready!’ Nicki frowned, when she saw Ariana dressed in a pale grey dress and flat sandals and wi
th her hair wild and her eyes all puffy and swollen.

  ‘Actually, I am ready,’ Ariana corrected. She had been up all night, completing the finishing touches to gifts for her loved ones, and she had worked through the day, only stopping to refuel with coffee, thinking about what must be done. ‘Come in, Nicki.’

  It was up there with the hardest things she had ever done, because Ariana had truly thought of Nicki as a forever friend. Confronted with the evidence of what she had done, Nicki attacked her friend, and Ariana didn’t have the energy to muster a defence against the tirade of abuse she was subjected to. Instead she listened and then said, ‘I think you should leave now.’

  ‘But we have the wedding tomorrow,’ Nicki flailed. ‘It’ll look odd if I’m not there and we have our trip to Paris—’

  ‘I have a wedding tomorrow,’ Ariana interrupted. ‘You’re no longer welcome at Romano family events.’

  It hurt and it hurt and it hurt, and once Nicki had gone, she cried for a while. But Ariana wanted this chapter of her life firmly closed, which meant that she had to tell Dante and Mia that it had been her friend who had invaded their privacy and outed them to the press.

  And in turn they would tell Gian.

  Only that wasn’t right, Ariana knew. It wasn’t up to Dante to tidy up after her. It was her friend who had caused this, and it was Ariana’s mess to clean up. With that thought in mind, she grabbed a wrapped parcel from her bed. She had intended to mail it, but that was a cop-out and so she walked, or rather marched, her way down cobbled lanes and packed streets then pushed through the gorgeous brass door of La Fiordelise and towards his office, where she was met by his gatekeeper, Luna.

  ‘Gian is in a meeting at the moment,’ Luna said.

  ‘It’s my fault for arriving unannounced...’ Ariana shook her dizzy head ‘...but if he can spare me a moment when he’s done it would be very much appreciated.’

  ‘Of course.’ Luna nodded. ‘Would you like some refreshments while you wait?’

  Ariana guessed she was being sent to the Pianoforte Bar, or, as his lovers should name it, the Relegation Bar, and her braveness evaporated. ‘It’s fine.’ Ariana had changed her mind. ‘I’ll catch up with him another time.’