Harlequin Presents--April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Dani Collins

  Gian.

  Not a name she wanted to roll on her tongue.

  Not a mouth she now wanted to taste.

  He was just Gian, she reminded herself.

  The person she ran to when trouble loomed large.

  * * *

  She put her glass down on the small coaster as she attempted to push her inappropriate thoughts aside and rescue the interview. ‘Mamma didn’t mean it, Gian. You know what she can be like...’

  ‘Yes.’ Gian held in a pained sigh. ‘I do.’

  Too well he recalled joining the Romanos at their dinner table as a small boy. ‘Straccione,’ Angela would say, ruffling his hair as he took a seat at the table. It had sounded like an affectionate tease; after all, how could the son of a duke and duchess be a ragamuffin and a beggar?

  Except Angela had found the cruellest knife to dig into his heart, and she knew how to twist it, for Gian had always felt like a beggar for company.

  Gian wasn’t quite sure why Angela rattled him so much.

  Ariana did too, albeit it in an increasingly different way.

  He did not want Ariana working here. And not just because of her precious ways but because of this...this pull, this awareness, this attraction that did not sit well with him. ‘Let’s just leave things there, shall we?’ he suggested. ‘While we’re still able to be civil. I could put you in touch with the director at Hotel Rav—’ He went to name his closest rival but Ariana cut in even before he had finished.

  ‘I was already offered a job there, and in several other hotels as well, but each time it was in return for some media coverage. I really don’t want cameras following me on my first day.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ While he understood that, the rest he didn’t get. ‘What are you hoping to achieve by this, Ariana?’

  ‘More than I am right now,’ she said, and gave a hollow laugh.

  He looked at her then.

  Properly looked.

  Ariana was, of course, exquisitely beautiful, with a delicate bone structure, but he suddenly noticed that rather than the trademark black eyes of her father and brothers, or the icy blue ones of her mother, Ariana’s eyes were a deep navy-violet, almost as if they’d tried to get from blue to black, but had surrendered just shy of arrival.

  Gian rather wished he hadn’t noticed the beguiling colour of them and rapidly diverted his gaze back to her résumé.

  ‘Why don’t you formally interview me?’ Ariana suggested. ‘As if we don’t know each other. Surely you can do that?’

  ‘Of course, but if you want an honest interview, what happens if you are not successful?’ She wouldn’t be, he knew, but as he looked up she held his gaze as she answered.

  ‘Then I shall walk away, knowing I tried.’

  Walk away, Gian wanted to warn her, for there was a sudden energy between them that could never end well.

  He scanned through her supposed work experience and attempted to wipe out a lifetime of history so they could face each other as two strangers. In the end, he reverted to his usual interview technique. ‘Tell me about a recent time when you had to deal with a difficult client or contact...’

  She wouldn’t be able to, Gian was certain.

  ‘Well...’ Ariana thought for a moment. ‘I wanted an interview with the owner of a very prestigious hotel, but I did not want to utilise my family contacts as I felt that would do me no favours.’

  Gian felt his lips tighten when it became clear that she was speaking about trying to get in contact with him. ‘Ariana,’ he cut in, ‘may I suggest that you don’t make the person interviewing you the difficult contact.’

  ‘But he was difficult. My goal was to get a full audience,’ Ariana continued, ‘and so I sent in my résumé, but when I heard nothing back...’

  ‘You sent in an application?’ Gian started scrolling through his computer, almost apologetic now, because an application from Ariana Romano should have been flagged—at the very least so he could personally reject her. ‘Vanda has been on leave over the festive period...’ He paused, for he could find nothing. ‘When did you send it?’

  ‘This morning,’ Ariana replied, and then took a sip of her champagne.

  ‘This morning.’ Gian sighed, and leaned back in his chair. He looked upon the epitome of instant gratification. When Ariana wanted something she wanted it now!

  ‘So, when I heard nothing back, I printed off my résumé and took it to him personally.’

  ‘And what was the result?’

  ‘I made him smile,’ Ariana said.

  ‘No,’ Gian corrected, ‘you didn’t.’

  ‘Almost.’

  ‘Not even close.’ He let out a breath as he tried to hold onto patience. ‘Ariana, you asked for a proper interview, so treat it as if we’ve never met. Now, tell me about a time you were able to deal successfully with another person even when you may not have liked them.’

  ‘Okay...’ She chewed her bottom lip and thought for less than a moment. ‘My father was recently given a terminal diagnosis. He still has months to live,’ she added rather urgently, ‘but...’ She swallowed, for Ariana could not bear to think of a time months from now and dragged her mind back to the present. ‘I am not a fan of his new wife.’

  ‘Ariana, I am asking about professional—’

  ‘However,’ she cut in, ‘I spoke calmly to her and said that I would like to be part of all interviews with the doctors and that for his sake, we should at least be polite.’

  Curiosity got the better of him. ‘How is that working out?’

  She gave a snooty sniff and re-crossed her legs. ‘We’ve both kept our sides of the agreement.’

  Gian rather doubted it. Ariana and Mia were a toxic mix indeed! ‘I was actually hoping you could give me examples that involve work, Ariana.’

  ‘Oh, believe me,’ she countered. ‘Mia is work.’

  Gian just wanted this charade over and done with. Both their glasses were nearly empty so he would ask one more question and then send her on her precocious way. ‘Tell me about a time where you did something for someone else, not to earn favour, and without letting them know.’

  ‘That would defeat the purpose,’ Ariana deftly answered, ‘if I later use it in an interview to show how benevolent I am.’

  He liked her answer. In fact, were it a real interview, it might score her points, except he wasn’t sure that Ariana wasn’t simply being evasive. ‘It’s an important question, Ariana,’ he told her. ‘The role of Guest Services is to make a stay at La Fiordelise appear seamlessly unique. The aim is that our guests never know the work that goes on behind the scenes. So,’ he added, ‘I would like an honest answer.’

  ‘Very well.’ She was hesitant, though, for to tell him revealed more than she cared to. ‘My brother...’ She tried to remember that this was an interview and she should treat Gian as if he were a stranger. ‘My twin brother, Stefano, is to marry soon—at the end of May.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I have been somewhat excluded from the wedding plans.’

  ‘Despite your extensive planning experience,’ he added rather drily.

  ‘Despite that!’ Ariana answered crisply. ‘They have decided that they don’t need my help.’

  He saw the jut of her chin and that her hands were rigid in her lap, and suddenly Gian did not like the question he had asked, for he could see it was hurting her to answer.

  ‘Eloa,’ Ariana continued, ‘Stefano’s fiancée, had her heart set on the wedding being held at Palazzo Pamphili...’

  ‘Where the Brazilian Embassy is housed.’ Gian nodded. He knew it well, for the superb building was across the square from the hotel, and even with his connections he knew how hard it would be to arrange a wedding there.

  ‘I sorted it,’ Ariana said.

  ‘How?’ Gian frowned, quietly impressed.

  ‘That
is for me to know,’ Ariana responded. ‘However, to this day, Eloa and Stefano think that they arranged the reception venue by themselves.’

  ‘You haven’t told them that you were behind it?’

  ‘No. They have made it clear they don’t want my help and it might sour things for them to know I had a hand in it.’

  * * *

  She watched as he put down her résumé and she continued to watch his long fingers join and arch into a steeple. He slowly drew a breath and Ariana felt certain that he had not been persuaded, and that she was about to be told that his answer was still no. ‘I really do want to work, Gian.’ There was a slightly frantic note to her voice, which she fought to quash, but there was also desperation in her eyes that she could not hide. ‘I love the hotel industry and, you’re right, I should have done my placement here...’ It wasn’t just that, though. ‘I want some real independence. I’m tired of—’ She stopped herself, sure that Gian did not need to hear it.

  Yet he found that he wanted to. ‘Go on,’ Gian invited, casting his more regular interview technique aside.

  ‘I’m tired of living in an apartment my family owns, tired of being on call when my mother decides I can drop everything for her. After all,’ she mimicked a derisive tone, ‘I couldn’t possibly be busy.’ She screwed her eyes closed in frustration, unable to properly explain the claustrophobic feeling of her privileged world.

  Oh, many might say that life had been handed to Ariana Romano on a plate.

  The trouble was, it wasn’t necessarily a feast of her choosing.

  While she had a family who seemingly adored her, even as a child Ariana had always been told to take her toys and play somewhere else.

  To this day it persisted.

  While she had access to wealth most people could only dream of, there was a perpetual feeling of emptiness. For Ariana, the golden cup she drank from was so shot through with holes that no gifts—no trust-funded central Rome apartment, no wild party, no designer outfit or A-list appearance—filled her soul.

  ‘I want a career,’ Ariana insisted.

  ‘Why now?’ Gian pushed.

  ‘It’s a new year, a time when everyone takes stock...’ She suddenly looked beyond Gian to the window behind him and saw white flakes dance in the darkness. ‘It is starting to snow.’

  ‘Don’t change the subject,’ Gian said, without so much as turning his head to take in the weather. It was Ariana he was more interested in. ‘Why now, Ariana?’

  Because I’m lonely, she wanted to say.

  Because before Mia came along, I thought I had something of a career at Romano Holdings.

  Because my days are increasingly empty and there surely has to be more to life than this?

  Of course, she could not answer with that, and so she took a breath and attempted a more dignified response. ‘I want to make something of myself, by myself. I want, for a few hours a day, to take off the Romano name. Look, I know what I’m asking is a favour, but—’

  ‘Let me stop you right there,’ he cut in. ‘I don’t do favours.’

  There was from Ariana a slight, almost inaudible laugh, yet Gian understood its wry gist and conceded. ‘Perhaps I make concessions for your father, but he was very good to me when...’

  Gian didn’t finish but Ariana knew he was referring to when his brother and parents had died and, to her nosy shame, Ariana hoped to hear more. ‘When what?’ she asked, as if she didn’t know.

  Nobody did silence better than Gian.

  Surely, not a soul on this earth was as comfortable with silence as he, for he just stared right back at her and refused to elaborate.

  It was Ariana who filled the long gap. ‘I didn’t get my father to lean on you, Gian,’ she pointed out. ‘I’m trying my best to do this by myself.’

  ‘I know that,’ Gian admitted, for if she had asked her father to call in a favour, then Rafael would have had a quiet word with him when he’d visited yesterday.

  ‘I won’t let you down, Gian.’

  But even with Ariana’s assurances, Gian was hesitant. He did not want Ariana to be his problem. He did not need the complication of hiring and, no doubt, having to fire her. And yet, and yet, he grudgingly admired her attempt to make something of herself, aside from the family name she’d been born into.

  She broke into his thoughts then. ‘Perhaps you could show me around?’

  ‘I do not give guided tours to potential staff, that is Vanda’s domain...’

  ‘Ah, so I’m “potential staff” now?’

  ‘I did not say that.’

  ‘Then, as a family friend, you can show me around.’

  Gian took a breath, and looked into navy violet eyes and better understood the predicament her parents must find themselves in at times. How the hell did you say no to that?

  CHAPTER THREE

  TO THE SURPRISE of both of them, Gian agreed to the tour of La Fiordelise.

  Ariana’s clear interest in the hotel pleased him, and if it had been a real interview, her request would have impressed him indeed.

  ‘Just a short tour...’ he nodded ‘...given you are my final appointment for the day.’

  Perhaps it was the single glass of champagne on a nervously empty stomach, but Ariana was giddy with excitement as she stood up. There was even a heady thought that perhaps they might conclude the tour in the restaurant, and then dinner, of course.

  And there Gian would offer her the role of VIP Guest Services Manager!

  Oh, she could just picture herself in the bespoke blush tartan suits and pearls that the guest services managers wore!

  It felt very different walking through the foyer with Gian at her side. Ariana was more than used to turning heads, but there was a certain deference that Gian commanded. Staff straightened at his approach, and guests nudged each other when he passed. There was a certain something about Gian that was impossible to define. Something more than elegance, more than command.

  Ariana would like to name it.

  To bottle it.

  To dab her wrists with the essence he emanated.

  Soon they had passed Reception and the Pianoforte Bar where, unbeknownst to Ariana, Svetlana sat drumming her fingers on the table, her silver platter of nuts empty, as was her glass. Vincenzo was taking care of that, though, and shaking another cocktail for her, yet Gian barely gave her a glance. He was working after all.

  ‘You know the Pianoforte Bar...’ Gian said rather drily, thinking of the array of colour Ariana and her friends made as they breezed in on a Friday night for cocktails to get the weekend underway. ‘No doubt your friend Nicki shall be here soon.’

  ‘She shan’t be,’ Ariana said. ‘Nicki is away, skiing with friends.’

  ‘Don’t you usually go?’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t want to be stuck on a mountain with Papà so unwell so I told them to go ahead without me.’

  ‘They’re staying at the Romano chalet?’

  ‘Of course.’ Ariana gave a tight shrug. ‘Just because I can’t go it doesn’t mean I should let everyone down. It’s our annual trip.’

  That took place on her dime, Gian thought.

  He loathed her hangers-on, and all too often had to hold his tongue when her entitled, self-important friends arrived at La Fiordelise courtesy of her name.

  He could not hold his tongue now. ‘Your partner was asked to leave here the other week.’

  ‘My partner?’ Ariana frowned, wondering who he meant. ‘Oh, you mean Paulo...’

  ‘I don’t know his name,’ Gian lied.

  Absolutely he knew his name, and those of her so-called friends who added their drinks to the Romano tab, even when Ariana was not here. Gian had even spoken to Rafael about it and had been disappointed with his response: ‘Any friend of Ariana’s...’

  Could Rafael not see his daughter was being used? No, because
in his declining years it was easier for Rafael not to see!

  ‘Paulo was never my partner,’ Ariana cut in. ‘He and I, well...’ She shrugged, uncertain how to describe them. ‘It’s just business, I guess.’

  ‘Business?’ Gian checked.

  ‘The business of being seen.’

  Oh, Ariana...

  Still, she was not here for life advice, so Gian brushed his fleeting sympathy aside and got on with the tour.

  ‘This is the Terazza Suite. It caters for up to thirty and is used for smaller, very exclusive functions...’

  ‘Is this where my father married her?’ Ariana asked, refusing to use Mia’s name. She had been invited to the wedding, but of course neither she nor her brothers had chosen to attend.

  ‘Yes,’ Gian said, without elaborating about the wedding. ‘It opens out to a terrace adjacent to the square, though it is too cold to go out there now.’

  ‘I would like to see it.’

  The Terazza Suite was empty, but it took little imagination to see that the gold stencilled walls and high ceilings would make a romantic venue indeed.

  One wall was lined with French windows and when she pushed down on a handle Ariana found that of course it was locked. ‘Per favore?’ she asked. She sensed his reluctance, but Gian first pressed a discreet alarm on the wall then took out his master key and unlocked a door.

  As she stepped out it was not the frigid air that caught her breath, more the beauty of the surroundings. There was the chatter and laughter from the square, which was visible through an ornate fence.

  ‘In spring and summer there is a curtain of wisteria that blocks the noise,’ Gian explained, looking up at the naked vines, ‘but it can be dressed for privacy in winter.’ He told her about a recent Christmas wedding with boxed firs for privacy, only Ariana wasn’t really listening.

  Instead, her silence was borne of regret for not being here to support her father...

  ‘Certainly,’ Gian continued, ‘it is perfect for more intimate gatherings...’

  ‘You mean weddings that no one wants to attend,’ Ariana said, shame and regret making her suddenly defensive.