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

by Dani Collins

  She did not rush around making him welcome or offering a drink. Instead, she dropped her bag and headed straight to the kitchen, where she went to a drawer and took out two headache tablets and poured a glass of water.

  For herself.

  Gian watched as she downed the tablets and wondered how she still managed to look so put-together, even though he was sure her world had just been turned upside down. ‘I saw you leaving Romano Holdings...’ He tried to open the conversation, but Ariana didn’t respond.

  She was in no mood for conversation, and for once she didn’t fill the silent gaps, offer drinks, or make him welcome. In fact, it was Gian who finally broke the tense silence.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We’ve been having a family catch-up and filling each other in on a few things.’ She had been holding it in all day, sitting through revelation after revelation, and then a formal board meeting, always having to find a way to smile. ‘Dante and Mia are expecting. That’s for family’s ears only,’ Ariana needlessly warned, for she knew, because of his damned discretion, she might as well be telling it to the wall. ‘There is to be a marriage in May, so that makes two Romano weddings.’ Her voice rose and she almost let out an incredulous laugh, that both her brothers, who had always been indifferent to marriage, would soon both have all she had ever craved for herself.

  But there was far more on her mind than her brothers. ‘Gian, there’s a reason I didn’t take your calls. I have nothing to say to you. Nothing polite anyway.’ Her confusion at the unfolding events was starting to morph into anger and she turned accusing eyes on him. ‘Did you know?’ she asked, her eyes narrowing into two dangerous slits.

  ‘I told you—’

  ‘I’m not talking about Dante and Mia.’ She put down the glass with such a bang that he thought it might shatter, but Gian didn’t even blink. ‘Did you know that my father was gay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Since I took over the hotel, I guess.’

  ‘You guess?’ she sneered.

  ‘I wasn’t taking notes, Ariana.’

  ‘And what about my mother’s affair?’

  ‘I knew about that too. Look, your parents didn’t sit me down and tell me, but given the nature of my work, they rightfully expected discretion. I would never gossip or break a confidence. I didn’t even tell Dante and he is my best friend...’

  ‘We were lovers!’ Finally she shouted. Finally a sliver of her anger slipped out. ‘I had every right to know.’

  ‘Oh, so in your perfect world the fact we were sleeping together meant we should have started holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes and sharing?’ He spat the last word with disdain. ‘Tell me, Ariana, when was I supposed to tell you? The first time we made love? The second...?’

  ‘If we were ever to have a relationship—’ She stopped herself then, her nose tightening as she fought to suppress the tears building in her eyes, because a relationship, a real one, a close one, was the very thing he didn’t want. ‘You could have at least told me as a friend.’

  ‘I wanted to,’ he admitted. ‘But it was not my place. They were not my secrets to tell. I tried to get you to speak to your father, that day of the interview—’

  ‘You didn’t try hard enough then.’ Her anger, however misplaced, she aimed directly at him. ‘For two years I felt pushed away by Papà. Now I find out that he just wanted to live out his days in peace with Roberto. My God! I was led to blame Mia. I was goaded and encouraged to hate her by my mother, just because she didn’t want the truth getting out.’

  ‘Ariana...’ He tried to calm her down. ‘Your mother came from a time—’

  ‘I don’t care!’ She swore viciously in Italian and told him what rubbish he spoke. ‘I’m his daughter. I deserved to know...’ He crossed over as she swallowed down a scream that felt as if it had been building since her father died. ‘If I’d known the truth, I could have spent quality time with him. Had you told me...’

  She was almost hysterical and for once he was not trying to keep a lid on the drama or stop a commotion. It was not for that reason that he pulled her into his arms, but to comfort her. But she thumped at his chest and then scrunched his perfect shirt in her fist, knowing it wasn’t his fault, knowing that the truth could only have come from her father.

  ‘It was all just a farce...’ She was starting to cry now in a way she never had before. Angry, bitter tears, and Gian held her as she drowned in his arms. ‘I was so proud of their marriage, but it was just a sham. Even Stefano and I were conceived by IVF to keep up the charade...’ All she had just learned poured out in an unchecked torrent he allowed to flow. ‘They didn’t really want us...’ It was then Gian intervened.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes!’ she insisted. ‘It was all just a sham.’

  ‘You were wanted,’ he insisted, but Ariana would not be mollified.

  ‘You don’t know that...’

  ‘But I do.’ He was holding her arms and almost shaking her in an effort to loosen her dark thoughts before they took hold. ‘I know for a fact you were wanted and loved.’

  ‘Oh, what would you know?’ Ariana responded. ‘What would a man like you know about love?’

  ‘Nothing!’

  She stilled in his arms at the harsh anguish in his voice.

  ‘I know nothing about love!’ He hated to tell her, for Gian was loath to share, but he would expose his soul if it saved her from the dark hole she was sinking into. ‘I wasn’t wanted, Ariana. I was a regretful mistake and they never let me forget that fact. When Eduardo caved to their lifestyle, I brought myself up. I could see my mother’s loathing on the rare occasions she actually looked me in the eye. You know how your mother called me a beggar? Well, I was one. I walked the streets at night, just for conversation, for contact...’

  Her stomach clenched in fear at the thought of a child out there alone.

  ‘They didn’t even notice or care that I was gone. You want the truth, Ariana? I wanted to disappear...’

  She couldn’t breathe. So passionate was his revelation that there was not even the space to take in the air her lungs craved.

  ‘No!’ she refuted. It wasn’t that she thought he lied, more that she could not bear his truth.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘so while I have never known love, I know what it looks like, and I know how much you were wanted and loved...’

  They were the words she was desperate to hear, but she wanted to hear them from him. She was so desperate that she managed to twist her mind to pretend that Gian was saying he wanted her, that he loved her.

  ‘Gian...’ His name was a sob, a plea that she could hold onto the dream that those words were for her. Ariana honestly did not know who initiated their kiss but it was as if he read her cry in his name. For a man who knew nothing of love, he knew a lot about numbing pain. The room went dark then as their mouths melded, hot angry kisses to douse the pain. As his mouth bruised hers, as their teeth clashed, Ariana reacted with an urgency she had never known.

  She kissed him as if it were vital.

  And Gian kissed her to a place where only they remained. His hands were deft, shedding her jacket and lifting her top, pushing his hands up and caressing her breasts through her flimsy bra, his palms making her skin burn, then leaving her smouldering as he tackled her skirt.

  He scalded her with desire, his hands hitching up her skirt so impatiently that she heard the lining rip. And Ariana, who had thought desire moved more slowly, could not begin to comprehend that she might simply seize what she craved.

  He offered oblivion in the salty taste of his skin as she undid his shirt and buried her face in him. He offered escape as she unbuckled his belt and trousers.

  ‘Ariana,’ he warned, for he had not come for this. He had come to offer more, yet it was a poor attempt at a protest for he was lifting her
onto the bench and tearing at her knickers as their mouths found each other again.

  She had not known that the world could feel empty and soulless one moment and then find herself wrapped in his arms and drowning in the succour he gave.

  He spread her thighs and she let out a shout as he pushed inside her. It was not a cry of pain but of relief, for here she could simply escape and be.

  ‘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 fri
end...’

  ‘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...