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

by Dani Collins

  Ariana Romano was completely off limits.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘VIOLETTA.’ ARIANA REPEATED the name of the forgotten Duchess while gazing into his eyes. ‘That’s beautiful.’

  She practically handed him a response—and so are you—except Gian refused to rise to the bait.

  Or rather he fought not to rise.

  They stood facing each other in the doorway, their bodies almost as close as when they danced their one duty dance each year at the Romano Foundation Ball.

  And he was as turned on as he had been while holding her in that dress of silver.

  Of course it had been more than an educated guess, for she had looked utterly stunning that night.

  Gian was well aware of his past with women.

  And he was decided on his future too.

  Casual, temporary, fleeting, there were many ways to describe the nature of his relationships, except entering into any of the above with Ariana was an impossible concept. If they were seen out more than a couple of times the press would soon get hold of it and her mother would too. As much as Angela resented Gian for holding Rafael’s second wedding here, she would forgive him in an instant to have a title in the family.

  No, there could be no kisses, though certainly the moment was ripe for one...

  ‘What?’ Ariana said. She could feel a sudden charge in the air, a slight frisson that had her on her guard. She assumed he was displeased and wondered if perhaps she shouldn’t have brought up the Duchess’s name, or been so derisive of Fiordelise.

  Ariana could not read men.

  Well, not real men, which Gian undoubtedly was.

  She could read fake men, who wanted to be seen with her just for appearances’ sake. And though she tried to convince herself they cared, she could never bring herself to take it beyond anything other than a tasteless kiss.

  Despite popular gossip, Ariana was completely untouched.

  Her flirting was all for the cameras.

  No, she could not read this man, who stared into her eyes and gritted his jaw and, in the absence of experience, she assumed he was displeased. ‘I’ve offended you,’ Ariana said. Completely misreading the tension, she shrugged, not caring in the least if she had upset him by refusing to rave about the mistress, Fiordelise.

  ‘You haven’t offended me,’ Gian said, snapping back into business mode. ‘I’m just telling you the history of the place—as you asked.’

  ‘Well, I’ve enjoyed hearing it.’

  It was nice to be here with Gian.

  Nice to have a conversation that was about more than the latest fashion or who was sleeping with whom.

  It was, quite simply, nice.

  ‘Tell me more,’ Ariana said, walking back through to the master bedroom and resuming her place on the lounge. Bending over, she pulled on one of her suede stilettoes.

  ‘There’s not much more to tell.’

  ‘Liar.’ She smiled and caught his eye. ‘Go on,’ she persisted, ‘tell me something that no one else knows.’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you?’ she asked, peering up at him through her eyelashes as she wedged the other shoe on.

  Usually, Gian could not wait to get out of the Penthouse Suite, yet Ariana was so curious and the company so pleasing that he decided the world could surely wait and he told her a titbit that very few knew. ‘The Duke had a ring made for Fiordelise.’

  ‘A ring?’ That got her interest and Gian watched as her pupils dilated at the speed of a cat’s. ‘What was it like?’

  ‘It is the insignia of the hotel,’ Gian told her. ‘The Duke would only ever let her look at it, though; she never once put it on. He held onto it on the promise that one day he would marry her.’

  ‘I’m liking the Duke less and less,’ Ariana said, smiling.

  ‘Then you’ll be pleased to know that when the Duchess died and he offered Fiordelise the ring, she declined it.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. By then she had fallen in love with a servant. The old Duke was too tired to be angry, and too embarrassed by her rejection to ever admit the truth. Fiordelise saw out her days in her boudoir with her manservant tending to her needs...’

  ‘Good for her.’ Ariana smirked.

  ‘Don’t tell the guests, though.’

  She laughed, and it sounded like a chandelier had caught the wind.

  Right there, in the presidential suite of his signature hotel, something shifted for Gian.

  Ariana was more than beautiful.

  And she was more complex than he had known.

  More, he admired her for the mutinous act of trying to shed her pampered existence—with conditions of course. ‘Come on,’ he said, trying to keep the reluctance from his tone as they left the vast and luxurious cocoon of the suite.

  ‘What’s down there?’ Ariana asked as they came out into the corridor and she saw that there was a door on the other side. ‘Is there another penthouse suite?’

  ‘No, there’s a butler’s room and kitchen and some storage space...’ His expression was grim as she wandered off to explore. What was now the butler’s room had been home for his many nannies. ‘What’s this one for?’ she asked, and peered into a dour windowless room, unaware it was where Gian had slept as a child. There were shelves holding spare laptops, computer screens, chargers, adaptors, magnifying mirrors, straightening irons, and anything else a guest might have forgotten or need. ‘Miscellaneous items.’ Ariana concluded.

  ‘Precisely.’

  Oh, that frisson was back, only it felt different this time, and Ariana was quite sure that this time he really was displeased so she closed the door on the windowless room.

  They were soon in the elevator. That clinging scent she wore was reaching him again, and he turned rather harshly towards her. ‘If you do commence work at La Fiordelise you should know that perfume is banned for staff. It is not pleasant for the guests as some have allergies.’

  ‘You wear cologne,’ Ariana rather belligerently pointed out, for those citrus and bergamot notes had long been the signature of his greeting and the scent she breathed once a year when they danced.

  ‘Yes, but I am not servicing the rooms. Please remember not to wear perfume for work.’

  ‘I don’t wear perfume.’

  ‘Oh, please.’

  ‘But I don’t.’ Ariana frowned. ‘My skin is too sensitive.’

  He wanted to debate it, to point out that the small elevator smelt of sunshine and rain and an undernote that he could not define, but the doors opened and he stepped out to the relative neutrality of Reception. He would have a word with Vanda, Gian decided. She could talk to her about perfume and such, because policing Ariana would no doubt be a full-time job! ‘Are you sure you aren’t just coveting the suit and pearls that my guest services managers wear?’ Gian checked, as Bianca, one of his senior staff, smiled a greeting as she passed.

  ‘Of course, not.’ Ariana shook her head and flushed at her own lie, because the gorgeous blush tartan outfits were divine. ‘I’m not that shallow. I really want this, Gian.’

  ‘Well, I mean it, Ariana. If you blow this, I shall not be giving you another chance. You are to be here at seven on Monday morning,’ Gian said. ‘If you’re late, if you’re ill, if your arm is hanging off, I still don’t want to hear it. Any problems, any issues, any excuses are no longer my concern. Vanda shall deal with you.’

  And no doubt Vanda would soon fire her. ‘I will say goodbye to you here,’ he said.

  ‘I need to collect my bag from your office.’

  Of course she did!

  He tried not to notice the feeling of the sun stepping into his office again as they walked in. ‘Thank you for the tour.’ Ariana smiled, ‘I absolutely loved hearing about the Duke and Duchess, and Fiordelise, even if I do not approve. I’m g
lad she never got to wear the ring.’

  He should conclude the meeting. They were already running over her unallotted time and Svetlana was waiting impatiently in the Pianoforte Bar, yet such was her enthusiasm, so unexpected the brightness of her company that instead of dismissing her Gian headed to the safe hidden in his wall.

  He rarely opened the safe. In it were documents and rolls of plans, and there were also the coroner’s and police reports from the deaths of his parents and brother, but there was also one thing of beauty nestled atop them.

  ‘Come here,’ Gian told her.

  Those words sent an unfamiliar shiver through her, so unfamiliar that Ariana did not ask why, or what for. Instead, she followed his command and walked over.

  He removed a faded velvet box from the safe. It might once have been gold, but it had faded now to a silver beige, yet it was beautiful still. The box was studded with gold tacks and the clasp was so intricate that she wondered how he flicked it open so easily.

  ‘Look,’ Gian said.

  Fiordelise’s ring was the rarest of treasures. It was a swirl of stunning Italian rose gold, and in the centre was a ruby so deep and so vibrant it made her breath hitch.

  ‘I’ve never seen a ruby of that colour,’ Ariana breathed. ‘It’s the colour of a pomegranate kernel, although it’s bigger...’

  ‘It’s called pigeon-blood red,’ Gian corrected. ‘The colour of the first drops after a kill.’

  ‘Don’t.’ Ariana shuddered. ‘I like pomegranate better.’

  ‘Then pomegranate red it is.’ Gian smiled and then closed up the box. ‘I found this five years after I inherited the place.’

  ‘Where did you find it?’

  ‘Under the very spot you were seated a short while ago,’ Gian told her. ‘When the suite was being renovated they pulled up the floor. There was a hidden basement and in it was a box. There was a shawl and some sketches of Fiordelise, and also this...’

  ‘What happened to the sketches?’ Ariana asked.

  ‘I had them restored and framed.’

  ‘And the shawl?’

  ‘I gave that to an aunt. But this...’ He replaced the box in the safe. ‘God alone knows it would have been easier to have found this some five years earlier.’

  ‘You’d have sold it?’ Ariana frowned. She knew that he had inherited his estate from his family in the direst of conditions, and that La Fiordelise had been on the brink of collapse, yet she could not believe he would have sold something as precious and sentimental as this ring.

  But Gian was adamant. ‘Absolutely I would have.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Then you don’t know me,’ Gian said, closing up the safe. He turned to her. ‘I shall have Luna bring your coat.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Ariana said, trying to quash the thud of disappointment that he hadn’t suggested, given the hour, that they have dinner together. Well, she would soon see about that. ‘Gosh, it’s almost seven!’ Ariana exclaimed. ‘No wonder I’m so hungry.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Gian said. ‘I should let you get on.’

  She tried to stall him again. ‘What about my uniform? Don’t I need to be measured?’

  ‘You’ll be working as a chambermaid for the first few weeks of your rotation. That uniform comes in small, medium or large, I believe.’

  There was the tiniest wrinkle of her pretty nose and then she shrugged. ‘I lied,’ Ariana admitted. ‘I do want the tartan and pearls.’

  ‘I know you do.’

  ‘And I shall get them one day. I shall be the best guest services manager you’ve ever had.’ She pictured her pretty pink business cards with her name embossed in rose gold: Ariana Romano, VIP Guest Services Manager.

  Perhaps she shouldn’t be so vocal with her dreams, but when she looked up she was startled by the glimmer of a smile softening his mouth.

  It was a smile she had never seen on him before.

  Ariana had known him for a long time. If there was trouble in her life—and all too often there was—it was Gian she ran to. And when, inevitably, she thanked him for sorting whatever problem she had placed in his lap, he would nod and give her his grim, somewhat weary smile. There was another smile she knew: each year they sat side by side at the Romano Ball, and each year he performed a duty dance, and so of course she was privy to his duty smile.

  Yes, his duty smile, she called it, for that was exactly what it was.

  She saw it used on guests, on dignitaries and on herself as recently as this evening when she had first walked in. This smile, though, was different. This off-duty smile felt as if it was just for her, though it was fading now and his grey eyes returned to guarded.

  ‘I really do need to get on,’ Gian said as Luna appeared with her coat.

  As she and Gian walked out, Ariana saw the stunning woman from the Pianoforte Bar smile over at him. ‘I’ll be with you in just a moment.’ Gian nodded to her and from the lack of affection in his tone she assumed he had another client.

  ‘I thought I was your last appointment,’ Ariana said.

  ‘You were.’

  He stalked off then to the waiting woman, who lifted her face to him, clearly expecting a most thorough kiss, but instead Ariana heard his slight rebuke. ‘I said I would meet you at the theatre, Svetlana.’

  ‘I thought we might have dinner in the restaurant,’ Svetlana purred and needlessly fiddled with the lapel of his jacket. ‘You still haven’t taken me there.’

  Oh!

  Ariana’s face was on fire, yet she could not look away. It was unsettling to see him with a woman when of course it should not be, given his reputation. It just felt different seeing it first-hand and flicked a little knife toward her heart.

  ‘Maybe after...?’ Svetlana persisted.

  Gian was not enamoured of women who purred, or those who felt the need to pick an imaginary piece of lint from his lapel, and Svetlana had been doing a lot of both of those of late.

  He had already decided they were over, and was about to tell Svetlana, but with Ariana so close, for reasons he did not care—or dare—to examine, he chose not to. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘we’ll be late.’

  He didn’t even glance in Ariana’s direction as he headed off. After all, if he stopped to say goodbye to each member of staff, he would never get out of the door.

  Ariana Romano as staff?

  Ariana in his hotel each and every day...

  Instantly, he regretted his decision to take her on.

  * * *

  But then, on Monday morning, an hour after Ariana should have commenced her first shift, he received a text.

  Gian, I am sorry! There has been an Extraordinary Board Meeting called!!!! Can I start in the afternoon instead?

  Very deliberately, Gian didn’t respond.

  He didn’t even scold her for her excessive use of exclamation marks; after all, Ariana personified them. This could never, ever work, and when she came in, hours late, on her very first day, Gian would tell her exactly why.

  At lunchtime, rather than text she called him, no doubt with yet more excuses.

  ‘Gian—’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it,’ Gian cut in abruptly. ‘Ariana, I simply do not want to know. Even after I gave explicit instructions not to do so, you still think you can call and text me with excuses for why you’re late or not coming in. I don’t deal with junior—’

  ‘Gian, please, just listen to me...’

  She was starting to cry, but Gian was way too used to her crocodile tears. ‘I knew on Friday you were unsuitable for the role and your behaviour today merely confirms it. This could never have worked.’

  ‘Gian...’ she sobbed, but though he refused to be moved his mask slipped and he forgot to be polite. ‘You sat in this office and pleaded for a start, and I gave you one. The contracts were drawn up and waiting to be signe
d, but clearly something more enticing has come along. I don’t want to hear about extraordinary board meetings. The only extraordinary thing was that I actually thought you had changed your precocious, self-serving ways, but clearly you have not.’

  Problem solved, Gian thought as he terminated the call. He was a little breathless, and barely holding onto his temper but he also felt a strange disappointment that, yet again, Ariana had let herself down. She was incapable of seeing things through. She was absolutely devoid of any sense of responsibility. She was always onto the next best thing the second it showed up.

  Yet there was a mounting sense of disquiet to have heard her tears, for there had been an unfamiliar rasp to them that had, on reflection, sounded real.

  She’d probably been putting it on, Gian told himself. If Ariana really wanted a career then perhaps she should have considered acting.

  The ridiculous thing was, as he sat there, he was envisioning her in the blush pink tartan suit and the string of pearls that she had admitted she secretly desired.

  Ariana, whether he wanted her to or not, made him smile, and for Gian that was rare indeed.

  His private phone was buzzing and he saw that it was Dante who was calling, no doubt hoping to sway Gian from his decision.

  ‘Pronto,’ Gian said.

  There was silence for a moment.

  ‘Dante?’ Gian checked. ‘Look, if you’re calling to excuse Ariana and ask—’

  ‘Gian,’ Dante interrupted. ‘I don’t know what you’re referring to. I just wanted to call you before word got out. I’m sorry to have to tell you, but a short while ago my father...’ Dante cleared his throat. ‘Rafael has passed away.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  GIAN DE LUCA MIGHT be the last Duke of Luctano, but to him Rafael Romano had always been King.

  In modern times, Rafael Romano had put Luctano on the map far more than the De Lucas, who had long ago sold off their land and moved to Rome.

  This cold grey morning he flew in to bid farewell to a man Gian considered not just a brilliant business mind but a man he had been proud to call a friend.