‘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. There 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
