‘Get some sleep.’ Gian said.
‘Oh, please,’ Ariana scoffed as she huffed off. ‘As if that’s going to happen.’
He watched her leave, and by honouring Rafael he felt like he’d failed her. ‘Ariana...’ Gian called out, and it troubled him how quickly she turned and was back at his side.
He would not sleep with her, no matter how much they both wanted it.
He would do the right thing by Rafael and Ariana.
‘I’ll come in, but I’m taking the sofa.’ She nodded, both regret and relief flooding through her as he spoke on. ‘You don’t have to be alone tonight.’
CHAPTER SIX
THEY PASSED THE dozing doorman and took the elevator, although Gian stood like a security guard to the side of her, rather than like a man who had almost kissed her to orgasm.
She was all dishevelled in her head as they stepped into her apartment. ‘Thankfully,’ Ariana said as she closed the drapes, ‘it was serviced while I was away, or we would be knee-deep in...’ Her voice trailed off.
Knee-deep in what? Gian wanted to ask, for there was no real evidence of her here. He could be walking into any well-heeled woman’s apartment in Rome—and Gian had walked into many—and the décor would be much the same. It was all very tasteful with plump sofas and modern prints, yet it was rather like a show home and there was barely a hint of Ariana. Even her bookshelves offered no real clues, for there were a few classics on the shelves as well as elegant coffee table books. There were at least some photos up, but even they seemed carefully chosen to show, so to speak, only her best side.
‘Do you want a drink?’ Ariana offered.
‘No, thank you.’
Now that she had him here, Ariana didn’t quite know what to do with him. It was, she thought, a bit like stealing a bear from the zoo, making it your mission to get him home and then...
‘I’ll show you around,’ she offered, ‘where you’re sleeping. Given that you’d rather it wasn’t with me.’
‘I don’t need a tour,’ Gian responded. ‘I will stay here.’ He pointed to the sofa.
‘I do have a guest room.’
‘I’m not here to relax.’
‘You are such a cold comfort.’
‘Better than no comfort at all. I do have some scruples, Ariana. I am not going to make love to you on the night of your father’s funeral when you are upset and not thinking straight.’
‘Oh, believe me, I am thinking straight. Life is short, Gian, life is for living, for loving.’
‘Then you’ve come to the wrong man because, as I’ve repeatedly said, I don’t do love.’
She wanted to stamp her feet. She knew she was being a bit of a diva but she was beyond caring.
When Ariana wanted something, she wanted it now, and when she’d made up her mind...well, it was made up.
‘Can you unzip my dress, please?’ Ariana lifted her hair and stood with her back to him, waiting for the teeniest indicator—a run of his finger, a lingering palm, him holding his breath—as he found the little clasp at the top of the velvet dress and undid it. Yet Gian was a master of self-control and without lingering he tugged the zip down so that her back and the lacy straps of her black bra were exposed.
‘There,’ he said, with all the excitement of an accountant relocating a decimal point.
She turned around and her dress slipped down, exposing her shoulders and décolletage, but he looked straight into her glittering eyes and smothered a yawn. ‘It’s been a long day,’ Gian said. ‘Perhaps you should go to bed.’
‘So much for the playboy of Rome,’ she sneered as she headed for her room, embarrassed that he clearly did not want her.
No wonder, Ariana thought as she stood in the bathroom and looked at her blotchy tear-streaked face.
She cleansed her skin and then ran a brush listlessly through her hair. She pulled on some shorts and a T-shirt and then climbed into bed. Sulking, she pulled the covers up to her chin.
‘Do you want milk or something?’ Gian called.
‘I’m not ten!’ she shouted through the darkness. It was worse having him here like this than being alone. Except, as she lay in the dark, Ariana knew that wasn’t strictly true. She loathed the dark and the night, especially since her father died, and now it did not seem quite as dark and the place not quite so lonely.
In fact, there was comfort just knowing that Gian was near.
Finally, whatever it was that had possessed her, that had had her angrily demanding sex, left her.
Oh, Papà!
Gian listened to her cry, and knew that for once it was not for attention. Though it killed him not to go to her, Gian knew they were necessary tears.
He opened the drapes and looked for something to read. Some might call it snooping, but really he was looking for somewhere to charge his phone when a cupboard fell open and he could see that this was where Ariana had been hiding. It was rather chaotic and piled high with photos, wads and wads of them, and dated boxes too. Ah, so she must have been knee-deep in photos, Gian realised, trying to choose some favourites for the funeral montage. As well as that, there were fashion magazines and blockbusters and recipe books...
An awful lot of them!
Gian selected one and tried to block out her tears by reading. He just stared at the method for tempering white chocolate until finally she fell into silence.
He was reading how to make cannelloni when he heard her again.
It was almost hourly, like some tragic cuckoo clock, but Gian kept the door between them closed for he would not sleep with her on the night of her father’s funeral. Surely only foolish decisions were made then...
Gian was completely matter-of-fact about sex. To him it was as necessary as breathing. Perhaps it was an exaggeration, but he felt he would not have lived to the age of twenty-five without
