Italy's Most Scandalous Virgin

by Carol Marinelli

  Or rather, thank God, then his father had come in!

  It was easier on his soul to omit that memory.

  To simply erase that first kick of lust.

  His father had asked Mia to leave the office, and in an angry confrontation Dante had found out why her less than impressive linguistic skills had been overlooked. And he had later found out how focused, determined, resilient and tough the very prim Mia Hamilton could be.

  As well as ruthless.

  No, she refused to remain his father’s mistress, and would settle for nothing less than to be Rafael Romano’s wife.

  The newspapers had been full of the drama of the irretrievable breakdown of the long marriage of the golden Romano couple and had been lavish in their vilification of Mia. She had been branded as a gold-digger seeking a sugar daddy, and it had been a sustained and savage attack.

  The Ice Queen, many had later called her—the press, his family, the board—for she never betrayed even a hint of emotion. Even when the soon-to-be ex-wife, Angela Romano, openly wept in a televised interview about the end of her marriage, Mia Hamilton merely went about her day and was photographed shopping in the tree-lined Via Cola di Rienzo.

  Yet Dante had not joined the pack in its condemnation of her, for his animosity towards Mia was deeply personal.

  His blistering, disdainful treatment of her was really about self-preservation.

  Dante had shored up the business himself—anything to get her gold-digging hands away from it. And while he told himself he wanted her on her knees, begging, the deeper truth was that he just wanted her on her knees.

  A fast-track divorce had ensued and it had all gone through uncontested, so just over six months after the day he’d first laid eyes on her Mia Hamilton had become Mia Romano.

  Naturally, Dante had not attended the wedding.

  He had responded to the invitation with a handwritten note, stating that he had always considered marriage to be a pointless institution, and never more so than now.

  Neither had his siblings, nor indeed any of Dante’s family, attended.

  His mother now lived permanently in Rome, and dear Mia, his stepmother, had her stilettoed heels firmly through the doors of the Tuscan residence.

  The family home.

  Thank God he had taken care of the business.

  The only small positive to come from his father’s illness had been that Rafael’s high-profile social life in Rome had been curtailed and as a result Mia had been rather tucked away, no doubt screaming to the hills that the glamour of being Signora Romano had been denied to her.

  Yet he could not think of Mia now.

  For his father was gone.

  ‘Thank you for all you did for him,’ Dante said to the doctor, and pressed a tense palm to his forehead when he thought of the unpalatable task ahead. ‘I shall let the family know now.’

  Rafael’s real family.

  When the call had ended, Dante stood for a silent moment, gathering his thoughts.

  The wheels would soon be set in motion. His father had planned his own funeral with the same care that had seen that first vineyard and property on a Tuscan hillside grow into the vast empire it now was.

  And, God knew, despite their differences at times, Dante would miss him very much.

  ‘Sarah...’ he pressed the intercom ‘...would you ask Stefano and Ariana to come into my office, please?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And Luigi,’ he added.

  The twins were twenty-five to Dante’s thirty-two.

  Stefano was inward with his emotions and stood silent and grey as Dante imparted the sad news. Ariana, the absolute apple of her father’s eye, had no such reserve, and sobbed noisily.

  Luigi sat with his head in his hands, stunned at the loss of his older brother.

  ‘We need to go and tell Mamma,’ Dante said to his siblings, as he offered Luigi use of his helicopter to take him home to Luctano to tell his wife.

  It was wretched, Dante thought as he headed back into the boardroom, that the board would know what had happened before Mamma, but Ariana’s cries might have reached them, and the three of them leaving together would speak on its own.

  He looked down at the solemn faces. Some were already crying because, though Rafael Romano had been an arduous boss, he had also been devoted and passionate and respected and loved.

  ‘The news is not to leave this room,’ Dante said, his voice a touch gravelly, but apart from that there was little to betray his emotions. ‘A formal announcement shall be made in due course, but there are people close to him who need to be told properly.’

  They all knew who that meant as Dante walked out.

  ‘We need to go now and tell her,’ Dante said, and put an arm around his sister. ‘Come.’

  ‘Poor Mamma,’ Ariana gulped. ‘This will finish her.’

  ‘She is strong,’ Dante said, and they took the elevator down. ‘She’s a Romano.’

  Still.

  Despite the divorce, his mother had not reverted to her own familial name, but had been given permission by the judge to keep the Romano name. In the vast scheme of things, it had been a minor point, and Dante had not given it much consideration, and neither did he now.

  In the car, Ariana sat quietly sobbing as the car threaded its way through chaotic streets; Stefano called Eloa, his fiancée, and told her the sad news.

  ‘Mamma should have been with him,’ Ariana said as they neared the luxurious Villa Borghese where Angela Romano had a penthouse apartment. ‘It is all her fault.’

  ‘No,’ Dante said, knowing his sister referred to Mia. ‘There is much we could blame her for, but not Pa’s death. When we get there we need to be...’ His voice trailed off as a couple approaching the apartment building caught his eye. They were holding hands and the woman was suddenly coquettish—his mother was suddenly coquettish—running a little forward as the man pulled her, laughing, back to his side. And the man was somewhat familiar, though Dante could not place him... ‘Drive around again,’ Dante ordered the driver, and Stefano looked over at his older brother.

  ‘Why?’ Stefano asked.

  ‘I need a moment to gather myself before we tell her.’

  Stefano frowned as he ended his call to Eloa and Dante saw the question in his eyes, for usually Dante baulked at nothing. ‘She needs to be told,’ Stefano said. ‘It will soon get out.’

  ‘Of course she needs to be told,’ Dante agreed, and took out his own phone. ‘But we should alert her first, not just turn up unannounced. That would be too much of a shock...’

  He was grasping excuses from thin air as he called his mother and it went straight to messages. He called her again and thankfully this time she picked up.

  ‘Dante?’ she said. ‘Pronto?’

  ‘Stefano, Ariana and I are on our way to see you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Mamma,’ Dante said, ‘we shall be there in a moment.’ He took a breath. ‘We have difficult news to share with you.’

  As he ended the call Ariana looked at him accusingly. ‘You are too blunt, Dante. Why would you tell her over the phone?’

  ‘Because they were married for more than thirty years,’ Dante snapped, his mind whirring from all he had just seen. ‘She might need a private moment to gather herself.’

  And to get rid of her lover!

  Who was he? Dante could not place the face, but really that was the least of his concerns—he was simply stunned to see his mother with another man. And while, of course, his mother was right to move on with her life and deserved happiness...

  He just didn’t want to have found out on this day of all days.

  Dante wondered if his mother would have the same consideration as they took the ancient elevator up to the penthouse floor.

  Thankfully she had, for there was no sign of her love
r when she wrenched the door open.

  ‘Dante, what on earth are you—’ Then she saw the tear-streaked face of her daughter standing behind him, and the pale features of Stefano.

  Angela Romano stood frozen and stunned as realisation hit.

  ‘Come on,’ Dante said, and led her through the entrance and to the lounge where she took a seat.

  ‘No, no, no,’ she said.

  ‘Mamma, it was quick and it was peaceful. He had his dignity right to the end. He was having a meeting with Roberto. I saw him just last night and we were talking and even laughed...’

  ‘I should have been there to say goodbye to him,’ Angela said, and started to cry.

  Yes, Dante thought as he sat with his mother while she wept, she should have been.

  ‘What happens for the funeral?’ Angela gulped. ‘I haven’t been back to Luctano since...’

  Since the affair had been uncovered.

  The scandal had been enormous, and his mother, who felt the family home had been tainted, had moved into their most lavish apartment in Rome.

  ‘Luigi and Rosa have said you are welcome to stay with them,’ Dante said. ‘Or there is the hotel.’

  God.

  It had come to this.

  His mother, who had lived in that town all her life, reduced to being a guest in a hotel—even if the Romanos owned it.

  Dante was black with anger as he poured his mother a brandy and one for himself, though he did his best not to reveal it. But as the conversation turned to funeral arrangements, Dante felt a deep and urgent need to see his father for himself. ‘I’m going to call Sarah and tell her that, after the pilot has dropped Luigi home, I want him to collect me and take me to Florence so I can see him,’ Dante said. ‘Do any of you want to come?’ Stefano shook his head and Ariana started to cry again and said no.

  ‘I’ll be back tonight,’ Dante said. ‘And then we shall all return to Luctano together on the eve of the funeral.’

  ‘It’s my fault,’ Angela sobbed, ‘I should have been a better wife. I should have held on...’

  Dante frowned, because she had said the same thing when they had found out his father was dying. ‘Held on?’

  But she was crying too hard to answer him and so Dante held his mother’s heaving shoulders. ‘None of this is your fault.’

  He knew exactly where the blame lay.

  Dante called the hospital and said he was on his way, and to please not move his father yet, and then he called Sarah to arrange the pilot and also—

  ‘It’s fine,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ll feed Alfonzo.’

  Damned dog.

  He was the bane of Dante’s life, and the reason he preferred to take women to hotels rather than home, to avoid having seven pounds of blind, ancient Bichon baring his teeth.

  ‘Thank you.’

  The helicopter took him to the Florence hospital and Dante made his lonely way through long corridors and to the private room where his father lay.

  Mia had gone by the time he arrived, though he hadn’t exactly expected her to be sitting at the bedside, quietly weeping. He was just grateful that there was no awkward meeting or standing back to let her pass.

  Rafael Dante Romano looked peaceful, as though he was asleep, and there was the sweet vanilla scent of orchids from an array of blooms in a vase by his bed.

  ‘You knew, didn’t you?’ Dante said as he sat beside him. ‘That was what you meant last night when you told me you wanted to return to Luctano...’

  And then he took his father’s cold hand and his strong voice finally cracked as Dante asked a question he hadn’t dared to when his father had been alive. ‘What did you have to go and marry her for, Pa?’

  Dante wasn’t referring to the pain his father’s second marriage had caused.

  It was the agony of wanting his father’s wife.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MIA WATCHED FROM the comfort of the sumptuous Suite al Limone as Dante’s helicopter approached in the rainy, grey, cloud-laden sky on the eve of Rafael Romano’s funeral.

  Very deliberately she did not look over to the lake.

  This morning, when she had been riding Massimo, Mia had come across the freshly dug grave and it had spooked her so much that she had swiftly turned the old horse around and kicked him into a gallop.

  The Romano family residence was nestled in a valley on the outskirts of the Province of Luctano, in the fertile Tuscan hills. The endless vines that neatly laced the hillsides were, apart from a select few, now owned by the company. Who owned those vines, along with the residence, would be revealed tomorrow after the funeral. One thing was certain, it wouldn’t be Mia. Both she and Rafael had long ago agreed that she would stake no claim to it.

  And, though she didn’t want it, Mia would miss it very much.

  She would miss the horses in the stables and the beautiful rides that she took most days. Miss, too, standing here at her window, watching the dogs head out in search of truffles, and times spent sitting by the vast, still lake, or walking around it in an attempt to make sense of her jumbled thoughts. And she would miss the quiet comfort of this suite that had been both her refuge and her retreat.

  The Suite al Limone was just that—a gorgeous suite with silk lemon walls and exquisite furnishings. The lounge room was both elegant and cosy and she loved nothing more than to curl up and read by the fire on winter nights. The bedroom with its high four-poster bed was both pretty and feminine and, Mia found, soothing to the soul.

  Suite al Limone had been her private space for the last two years and had allowed for gentle healing, and although she truly didn’t want the property, Mia wasn’t quite sure that she was ready to leave it behind.

  But there was no choice, and it had little to do with the contents of Rafael Romano’s last will and testament. He was to be buried on the grounds tomorrow and so Mia would be leaving that very night.

  Although she was dreading the Romanos’ arrival, Mia was relieved to see Dante’s chopper, for the blend of low clouds, rain and high winds were not the best conditions in which to fly. Her stomach lurched at the mere sight of the difficult landing, and she held her breath as the helicopter tilted a little to the side and then righted itself before finally touching down. As well as the helicopter’s arrival she could see the headlights on the cars snaking their way around the hill towards the residence.

  Mia had not seen any of the Romano family since Rafael’s death, but on the eve of the funeral there were certain traditions to be upheld. Certain wishes, Rafael had specified, that needed to be carried out.

  The family would eat together in his home tonight.

  Angela would not be joining them as, despite keeping the Romano name, she was no longer his family, but Rafael’s children, brother and his wife, and some cousins, too, would together toast Rafael on the night before he was laid to rest.

  Mia watched as the youngest, Ariana Romano, got out.

  She was gorgeous, long limbed and with a mane of raven hair, and she was as spoilt as she was beautiful. Next out was her twin brother Stefano, and Mia saw that he had brought Eloa, his stunning Brazilian fiancée, with him. Stefano was just as good looking as Ariana and just as arrogant.

  All the Romanos were arrogant, but it was the eldest brother who excelled at it—and here Dante was, emerging from the helicopter. Mia braced herself for the appearance of whomever he was currently dating, while telling herself it mattered not. Instead of a leggy supermodel, though, her breath sucked in when Angela Romano emerged. She was dressed from head to toe in black and relying on her son’s arm to get down the stairs.

  Ah, so that was how it was going to be played, with Angela taking the part of the real grieving widow.

  If only they knew!

  Mia’s lips pressed together and she watched as Angela was gently bundled into a silver car and driven out of the vast estate.


  Stefano, Eloa and Ariana stood under black umbrellas and watched the car leave. They would then get into another that would drive them to the main residence. Dante, though, had chosen to walk. For a brief moment he glanced up towards the residence, and Mia stepped back quickly from the window, even though he was surely too far away to see her.

  Of all the Romanos it was Dante who made her the most nervous, for his loathing of her was palpable. He insisted that they all speak English when Mia was around. But it was not to be polite; instead it was a snub at her Italian and also, she was certain, to ensure that she got the full gist of every one of the constant low barbs that were aimed at her.

  Mia was dreading facing him.

  Whenever they met, his black eyes seemed to look straight to the centre of her and silently tell her that he knew she did not love his father. That he knew she had only married Rafael for his money and that the marriage was a complete and utter sham.

  The worst part for Mia?

  He was absolutely right.

  Dante just didn’t know the full truth.

  And neither could he ever! Mia had been well paid to ensure that.

  Yet it wasn’t just the sham of her marriage that caused Mia to be nervous when Dante was around. He evoked in her unfamiliar feelings that the very inexperienced Mia did not dare explore and did all she could to avoid.

  But in a few short moments there would be no avoiding him.

  There was a knock at the door and it was the housekeeper, Sylvia, to tell her the family would arrive in five minutes or so. ‘The children are making their way towards the house,’ she said, and Mia found her lips pressed into a wry smile.

  They were hardly children.

  ‘And the guest cars are approaching the grounds,’ Sylvia said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Mia said, but as the housekeeper turned to go Mia called her back. ‘How are you doing, Sylvia?’

  ‘I’m all right.’ She gave a tired shrug. ‘Just so sad.’