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

by Dani Collins

  ‘You are showing your age, Ariana,’ Gian said.

  ‘My age?’ Ariana frowned as they stepped back into the warmth and he locked up behind them. ‘I’m twenty-five.’

  ‘I meant in brat years,’ Gian said, and left her standing there, mouth gaping in indignation as he marched on, just wanting this tour to be over. ‘You already know the ballroom...’ He waved in its general direction as she caught up, but Ariana had more than a ballroom on her mind.

  ‘Did you just call me a brat?’ She couldn’t quite believe what he had said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I did.’

  ‘You can’t talk to me like that.’

  ‘You’re almost right. Once I employ you I can’t tell you what an insufferable, spoilt little madam you are...’

  But though most people would have burst into tears at his tone, Gian knew Ariana better than that. Instead he watched her red lips part into a smile as realisation hit. ‘You’re going to take me on, then?’

  ‘I haven’t quite decided yet,’ Gian said. ‘Come on.’

  ‘But I want to see the ballroom.’

  ‘They are in the final preparations for a function tonight.’

  ‘I would so love to see how others do it,’ she said, ignoring Gian and opening one of the heavy, ornate doors and gasping when she peeked in. ‘Oh, it looks so beautiful.’

  ‘It is a fortieth wedding anniversary celebration,’ Gian told her.

  ‘Ruby,’ Ariana sighed, for the tables were dressed with deep red roses and they were in the middle of a final test of the lighting so that even the heavy chandeliers cast rubies of light around the room with stunning effect. ‘I know I get angry about my parents’ divorce,’ she admitted—although as she gazed into the ballroom it was almost as if she was speaking to herself—‘and it is not all Mia’s fault, I accept that, but I was always so proud of their marriage. Of course, it was not my achievement, but I was so proud of them for still being together when so many marriages fail...’

  She gave him pause. Gian looked at her as she spoke, and could almost see the stars in her eyes as she gazed at the gorgeous ballroom.

  ‘I should have gone to Papà’s wedding,’ Ariana said, for the first time voicing her private remorse. ‘I deeply regret that I stayed away.’

  Gian was rarely torn to break a confidence. The truth was, Rafael had been relieved that his children had not attended the nuptials. It was a marriage in name only, a brief service, followed by drinks on the terrace, then a cake and kiss for the cameras...

  As the owner of several prestigious hotels, Gian was the keeper of many secrets.

  So outrageous were the many scandals that Gian was privy to that the Romanos and their rather reprobate ways barely registered a blip. But it would be a seismic event if Ariana found out the truth about her parents.

  Their marriage had been over long before their divorce.

  Angela Romano had been with her lover for decades. Prior to the divorce, Angela and Thomas had often enjoyed extended midweek breaks at La Fiordelise.

  Rafael would not blink an eye if he knew; in fact, Gian, assumed that he did. For those long business lunches Rafael had enjoyed with Roberto—his lawyer—had, in fact, been rare public outings for a devoted couple who had been together for more than fifteen years.

  As for Mia...

  Well, Gian to this day did not understand Angela’s hatred towards her, when close friends all knew that Mia was Rafael’s beard—a prop used to prevent the world from finding out in his declining years that Rafael Romano was gay. Perhaps, if Ariana could have this necessary conversation with her father, it might lead him to reveal his truth before it was too late or, worse, before she inadvertently found out.

  ‘Why don’t you tell your father that you regret not being at his wedding?’ Gian suggested. ‘Talk to him about it...’

  ‘I try to stay upbeat when I visit him.’

  ‘Tell him how you feel,’ Gian gently pushed, and saw that she was thinking about it.

  ‘I might.’ She nodded and then turned to him with a question no one had ever dared ask. ‘Were your parents happy?’

  It was just a question, and it flowed from the context perhaps, but he had to think for a long moment, to cast his mind back, to the parties, to the laughter, to the inappropriate mess that had been them, and for once he did not choose silence. ‘Yes,’ Gian finally answered. ‘They were happy because they followed only their hearts and not their heads.’ When she frowned, clearly nonplussed, Gian explained further. ‘Their happiness was to the exclusion of all else.’

  ‘Including you?’

  He did not answer and Ariana knew she had crossed the line, but now they were in this odd standoff.

  They looked at each other. His thick black hair was so superbly cut that as she looked up at him she felt the oddest temptation to raise her hand and simply touch it, and to see if it fell back into perfect shape, but of course impulse had no place here, and anyway it was just a thought. But that made it a red button that said do not touch, and consequently made her itch to do so. ‘Including you?’ she persisted.

  ‘This is an interview, Ariana, the purpose of which is to find out more about you, not the other way around.’

  Under her breath she muttered, ‘Your life is an interview then.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘It just dawned on me, Gian, that you know an awful lot about me, but I know practically nothing about you.’

  ‘Good,’ he clipped.

  It wasn’t good, though. Suddenly there was a whole lot that Ariana wanted to know about him, and her heart suddenly stopped with its ungainly trot and kicked into a gallop.

  He angered her.

  Only that wasn’t quite right, because anger didn’t make her thighs suddenly clamp, or her lips ache. And anger didn’t make her knickers damp or give her an urge to kiss that haughty, arrogant face. This was something else entirely, though her voice when she spoke was indeed cross. ‘Are you going to hire me or not, Gian?’

  ‘I am hesitant to.’

  While he wanted to afford her a new start, Ariana working here spelt Trouble.

  In more ways than one.

  Yes, she was airy and spoilt and brattish, but he could almost feel the prickle of her under his skin and that was an attraction that was safer to deny. ‘If it doesn’t work out—’ he started.

  ‘It will work out,’ she broke in. ‘I shall make it so!’

  And I will push all thoughts of fancying you aside, Ariana hurriedly thought.

  ‘You would still have to do the twelve-week induction.’ He wasn’t asking, he was telling. ‘It is mandatory that all my guest services staff have personally worked in every area of the hotel.’

  ‘Yes.’ Ariana nodded. ‘I’ll do the induction.’

  ‘If you are successful in your introductory period then there might be a position as a guest services assistant...’

  ‘But—’

  ‘My managers earn their titles, Ariana.’ He watched two spots of colour start to burn on her cheeks. ‘And there will be no favours and no concessions. From this point on, the trajectory of your career is in your hands. You will report on Monday at seven to Vanda, who deals with staff training, and any issues you have, you take to her, not me.’

  ‘Of course.’

  He wasn’t sure she got it, though. ‘Ariana, this is my hotel, and I separate things, so if you work here you must understand that I don’t deal with the grumbles of minor staff. I don’t want to hear about your day; I simply do not want to know. I don’t want to hear you can’t handle vomit or difficult guests. You take it up with Vanda. Not my problem...’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And there shall be no stopping by my office for champagne. That stops today! In fact, as of now there will be no need to drop by my office at all.’

  She pouted. ‘You s
aid I could always come to you.’

  He had.

  And over the years she had.

  Not all her confessionals took place in his office, though. They went way further back than that.

  Once in Luctano, an eight-year-old Ariana, too scared to confide in her older brother Dante, had admitted to an eighteen-year-old Gian that she had stolen chocolate from the local store. She wouldn’t tell him why, just pleaded with him not to tell her father or Dante.

  ‘First, explain to me why you stole,’ Gian had persisted. ‘You have the money to pay.’

  ‘Stefano dared me to,’ Ariana had admitted. ‘I haven’t eaten it, though. The chocolate is still under my bed, but I feel ill when I try to say my prayers...’

  Gian had taken her in to the store and Ariana had duly apologised and paid for the chocolate, and, no, he had not told Dante or Rafael. Instead he’d had a quiet word with Stefano. ‘You want to steal,’ he had said to the young boy, ‘then at least have the guts to do it yourself.’

  Another time, some years later, Stefano had been caught smoking and Ariana had arrived here in Gian’s office and begged him to impersonate her father when the school inevitably rang.

  ‘Why would they ring here?’ Gian had frowned.

  ‘Because I told Stefano to say that Papà is here at La Fiordelise on business.’

  Ariana was a minx and far too skilled at lying. Gian had of course declined to cover for Stefano, and had spoken to Rafael himself.

  There was always drama surrounding Ariana, though it was not always of her own making—just two years ago, in the midst of her parents’ scandalous divorce, she had found out that her father was ill and Ariana had sat in Gian’s office, being fed tissues but not false promises.

  Yes, he had kept his door open to her, but—

  ‘If I hire you,’ Gian said, very carefully, ‘all that stops.’

  And suddenly, if the safety net of Gian was going to be removed, Ariana didn’t know if she wanted her career any more—not that he seemed to notice her dilemma.

  ‘Who the hell orders champagne at a job interview?’ Gian mused.

  ‘It was my first ever interview,’ Ariana admitted. ‘I sensed your irritation and was trying to drag things out.’

  ‘Well done, you, then,’ Gian said, and then sighed because he did not need Ariana under his precious roof, and the drama that would undoubtedly entail. ‘Why here, Ariana? Why La Fiordelise, Rome?’

  ‘Because I love it,’ she admitted. She looked up at the high ceilings and the gilded mirrors and the beauty that never failed to capture her heart. There was a sense of peace and calm that Gian had created, a haven that somehow made her feel safe. ‘I am sure your other hotels are stunning—in fact, I have stayed in the London one several times—it is just...’ She tried her best to explain it. ‘There is so much history here, so much...’ She faltered and then pushed on. ‘It was your great-great-grandfather’s?’ she checked.

  ‘You will learn the history in your induction.’

  ‘Can you at least give me the condensed version?’ Ariana asked, running a hand along a marble column and frowning at an indentation, a mar in perfection.

  ‘That is a bullet hole,’ Gian told her, ‘from when the hotel became a fortress in the Second World War.’

  She breathed in, shivering at the history and aching, actually aching, to know more. But Gian was glancing beyond her shoulder now, and Ariana sensed she was running out of her allotted time. ‘Can I see the penthouse suite? The original one?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please.’

  God, Gian thought, she was incessant. ‘There might be guests.’

  ‘I’m sure you would know.’

  He sighed. ‘You are most persistent.’ He took out his phone and though he knew there were no guests due in the most expensive suite until tomorrow, he double-checked just to be sure, and almost sighed when he saw that indeed it was vacant. ‘Very well, but only briefly.’

  As they took the elevator up, Ariana had a question. ‘Is your apartment on the penthouse floor?’

  ‘No, though it is where I grew up,’ Gian told her, ‘but when I took over La Fiordelise, I decided I could not afford the luxury of misappropriating the hotel’s most valuable asset.’

  As well as that, the penthouse floor had been the loneliest place in the world for Gian. He would sometimes glimpse his parents drifting off to some event, or hear first the laughter and merriment of parties, and then lie drenched in dread as the gathering flared and got out of hand.

  But as dark as his memories were, the penthouse floor was an asset indeed. This was confirmed by her gasp as she stepped into the main suite.

  Rome was spread out before them and from this vantage she looked down at the square and across to Palazzo Pamphili, where her brother’s wedding would be held, but that was not all that held her gaze. She wandered the vast space, taking in the ornaments and oil paintings that surely belonged behind a rope in a gallery and yet they were there for the luckiest guests to take in at their leisure.

  ‘This corridor can be closed off,’ Gian explained as she peered into the spare bedrooms, each as exquisite as the next; there was even a gorgeous library that had a huge fire, just waiting to be lit.

  And then he showed her the master suite and it felt as if she wasn’t just in Rome but was at the very centre of it. The bed was draped in gold, the intricately painted ceilings a masterpiece of their own, and it was as if the walls had their own pulse. Ariana was rich, but there was, of course, a pecking order, and the Penthouse Suite was not Ariana’s domain. ‘Is this where my parents would stay for the Romano Ball?’

  Her question went unanswered, for Gian never commented on the sleeping arrangements of his guests and anyway, her eyes would fall out if he told her the truth.

  ‘And now Dante?’ she persisted.

  Still he said nothing, and it was Ariana who filled the gap. ‘I could live here for ever,’ she sighed, sinking onto a plump lounge and kicking off her stilettoes.

  ‘Believe me...’ Gian started, but did not finish.

  Certainly, he would not be sharing with Ariana that he loathed coming up here. There were just too many memories that resided here. Instead, he pointed out another of its disadvantages. ‘It takes for ever to clean, which you might soon find out,’ Gian said with a wry edge, and he watched as she tucked her slender legs under her. ‘A full two days to service properly.’

  ‘Let me dream for a moment,’ she sighed. ‘So this was built for the Duke’s mistress?’

  ‘Incorrect.’

  ‘Correct me then,’ Ariana said, her voice dropping to huskiness as, for the first time in her life, she officially flirted. Not that Gian even noticed, for he proceeded to give her a history lesson.

  ‘It was officially built for the Duke and the Duchess,’ Gian told her. ‘It was actually first called La Duchessa,’ Gian said, ‘well, officially, but the locals all called it La Fiordelise...’

  She watched as he pulled back some ornate panelling to reveal a heavy door and in it a silver key. ‘Fiordelise lived through here.’

  He turned the key and pushed open the door to reveal another completely separate penthouse suite, in feminine reds and with a view of the square and a personality of its own. Yet he was somewhat surprised when the rather nosy Ariana did not untangle her long legs and pad over to look at the sumptuous boudoir. Instead she screwed up her nose. ‘The poor Duchess.’ Her sloe eyes narrowed. ‘How awful to live with just a wall between you and your husband’s mistress.’

  ‘You don’t find the story of La Fiordelise romantic?’

  ‘History makes it appear romantic.’ Ariana shrugged. ‘I find it offensive.’

  Of course, given her father’s supposed affair with Mia, he guessed that infidelity would be one of her hot buttons, but he sensed that her thoughts had been formed long ago. The
re was a side to Ariana he had never seen: a free thinker was in there, though somewhat suppressed.

  ‘Why do you find it so offensive?’ Gian asked. ‘Things were very different back then.’

  ‘I doubt feelings were different,’ Ariana said. ‘And I hate it that the Duchess had to vie for his attention. You would hope, once married, all that would stop.’

  ‘All what?’

  ‘Being shut out. It should have been the Duchess on his mind, not Fiordelise.’

  Gian looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You have a very idealistic view of marriage.’

  ‘Absolutely I do,’ Ariana agreed. She stood and padded over to where Fiordelise had once resided and, standing in the doorway with him, peered into the opulent, sensual, feminine suite. Yet she did not set as much as a foot inside, just faced him in the doorway. ‘And that is why I am still single.’

  His eyes never left her face as she continued to speak. ‘My mother has spent the last quarter of a century planning my wedding—any old billionaire will do—but I shall only marry for love.’ She smiled at him then and teased him a little. ‘Do you even know what that word means, Gian?’

  ‘No,’ he replied, ‘and I don’t care to find out.’

  ‘As is your prerogative, but it is mine to feel sad for the Duchess. What was her name?’

  ‘Violetta,’ Gian answered, ‘like...’ He hesitated, for he had been about to compare the name to Ariana’s eyes. For several reasons, that would not be a sensible thing to do. Neither was the way he was looking into them right now.

  Yes, he had noticed the huskiness of her voice and the earlier batting of her eyelashes. There was a friction in the Ariana-scented air, and his hand wanted to know for itself the softness of her cheek—so much so that Gian had to focus on not lifting his hand and cupping her face.

  Gian, despite his formidable reputation, had scruples, and to kiss her, as he now desired to, while still involved with Svetlana was not something he would do.

  And, aside from that, this was Ariana Romano.

  The daughter of a man he respected and the little sister of his lifelong friend. And soon to be an employee. A casual affair she could never be, and that was all Gian wanted or knew.