‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘You have it wrong.’
‘And Stefano would complain that he didn’t like tutti-frutti either, and so you would end up having to eat all three.’
‘You’re getting mixed up,’ Ariana said haughtily, and she dipped her spoon into the quenelle. He watched as she took a taste and closed her eyes in bliss, then opened them to him and looked right at him. ‘He loved that ice cream.’
Rafael probably had, Gian conceded. Not so much the sickly-sweet candied ice cream, more the little games Ariana constantly played.
‘Well, it’s not going on the menu,’ Gian said. ‘It’s...’ He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. ‘A simple affogato is a better way to round off the meal.’ He watched her pout. ‘Ariana, you are one of the few people in the world who like tutti-frutti ice cream. Trust me on that.’
‘I suppose you know best,’ she said in her best pained voice.
‘There is no suppose about it.’
‘It would mean so much to me, though...’
Wearily he took another taste and, as he did so, Ariana did her sneaky best and pulled on all her inner resources so that crocodile tears pooled in her violet eyes.
It did nothing to move that black heart, though.
‘No,’ Gian said, and put down his spoon and, as if to prove how awful her dessert of choice was, took a drink of water before speaking again. ‘Would you like some amaro or a cognac?’ Gian suggested, but Ariana shook her head.
‘No, thank you.’
‘Are you sulking?’ he asked.
‘A little bit,’ she admitted, and then smiled despite herself. ‘Of course not. I just ought to get home...’ She looked away then, because the reason she could not stay was surely there in her eyes.
She wanted her cognac.
But not here.
Ariana wanted to curl up with him elsewhere, to talk, to kiss, but most dangerous of all she actually ached to know him better.
And if she stayed she would cross a line. The business meeting had surely concluded and to keep it at that, she needed to leave. ‘Thank you for a lovely dinner.’
‘I’ll arrange a car—’
‘Gian,’ she cut in, ‘the concierge can do that.’
‘Then I’ll walk you out.’
They stood at the entrance and tried to pretend that they had never tumbled naked into bed, had never been more than old friends.
‘Your ideas are excellent,’ Gian said as the doorman blew his whistle to summon a vehicle.
‘Except for dessert.’
‘Except for dessert,’ he agreed.
‘And you think it’s okay not to have a theme?’
‘I think it’s better.’ Gian nodded. ‘It’s going to be a tricky night...’
‘Yes,’ Ariana agreed.
They had been over this already. The car pulled up and it was time to stay or leave.
‘Gian—’ she started, for she wanted so badly to ask why there was no possible hope for them.
‘I’ll say goodnight,’ Gian cut in, because if he didn’t he would break his own rules about separate lives and kiss her beneath the lights and take her to his private apartment where no lover had ever gone. And they would take things further than he’d ever dared, for no one was permitted a place in his closed-off heart.
And so he kissed her on both cheeks, and as he did so a little pink petal that had been hanging temptingly from a strand of her jet-black hair, just waiting for him to pick it off, glided down to his lapel. Her eyes drifted down. ‘You’re wearing my blossom.’
He glanced down. ‘Yes.’
She would not be Svetlana, Ariana decided, and pick it off. Or one of the doubtless many others that had come before her and dared to demand more. She bunched her fist so hard that her nails dug into her palm, and smiled. ‘You’d better tidy yourself up then.’
To her everlasting credit, Ariana got into the car and went home alone.
CHAPTER NINE
BY AND BY, the Romano Ball drew closer.
Gian had quickly forged a strictly business code.
There were emails and phone calls and even a couple of face-to-face meetings, but there was no low-level flirting or alluding to them.
For there was no them.
If anything, it was all so professional that Ariana actually wondered if she’d completely misread the mood that night after dinner, if it really had all been just business to him.
Sometimes she wondered what might have happened if she hadn’t asked him to leave her apartment that morning, because she’d been unable to grasp at the time that it really was to be the end of them.
Sometimes she just stared into space for a whole afternoon, blinking as she realised it was getting dark, just wondering about him.
A man who did not want love.
Everyone breathed a private sigh of relief when Angela Romano, unable to bear Rome at the time of the Romano Ball, headed off on a cruise.
Phew!
Ariana lay in bed, so relieved not to have to do lunch and placate her mother as well as focus her attention on both Stefano and Eloa’s wedding, which she was now helping with a little, and organise the ball.
Even when the final menu cards came, Ariana merely fired back a confirmation, saying that they looked wonderful and she was certain her father would approve.
There was not as much as a breath of tutti-frutti between them.
Or references to pink blossom.
Or hints about a moonlit night and a deep kiss by the eternal flame.
It was just:
Gian, regarding the orchids, Roberto will bring them on the day...
Blah, blah, blah...
And in turn Gian, kept to his side of the deal. Or he tried to.
Ariana, regarding the seating plan...
But two days from the big day, he was finally so irritated that he picked up the phone and called her. ‘I don’t understand the problem with Nicki,’ Gian said. ‘We managed to find her a seat...’ He chose not to add that Nicki was being accommodated at the exclusion
