‘You do and, believe me, your mother had nothing to worry about then... It was here that things started to change for me...’
Her breath stopped, as there she was, in a silver dress, standing next to Gian, in an informal shot of a night that had been more difficult than the picture revealed.
It was the first Romano Ball without her papà. He had been a last-minute withdrawal due to a deterioration in his health. On the one hand, she had been relieved that she wouldn’t have to see him with Mia.
On the other hand, it had meant her papà was getting worse.
Gian had steered her through it, though. He always did.
He had held her in those wooden arms and told her that she was doing well, and it had meant the world.
‘I think,’ Gian said, ‘well, I know, that for me things changed that night...’ She swallowed as he went on. ‘You were right. I easily remembered what you were wearing, for my eyes barely left you that night, and I think things changed for you too, Ariana. You didn’t come by my office so much after that...’
‘No...’ She flushed as she admitted to herself something that for so long she had denied. ‘I have liked you for a lot longer than you realise, than even I dared admit.’
‘Come,’ he said, ‘I have something for you.’
Of course that something was in the direction of the bedroom, and as they walked there, she said, ‘I’ll make a terrible mistress, Gian. I talk too much, I’m not very discreet...’ But then her voice trailed off for there on the bed lay everything she had once thought she wanted: a blush tartan suit, a silk cowl-necked cami, a string of pearls and even a little wallet for her business cards.
‘Gian...’ She wanted to weep, for he made her so weak.
This time when he unzipped the back of her dress, his fingers lingered and she closed her eyes as he peeled it off and slowly kissed her shoulder.
‘Turn around,’ he said in that voice that made her shiver. She was a little bewildered and a lot in lust as she complied.
He undressed and then dressed her.
She lifted her arms as he slid on the silk cami, and she lifted her feet as he negotiated the little kilt. The only resistance was in her jaw as he put on the jacket, for it was everything she had wanted, and yet Ariana knew she deserved more.
He dressed her neck in a string of pearls and she closed her eyes as he secured the clasp, then turned her around and knelt as he dressed her feet in the gorgeous neutral stilettoes that his guest managers wore. ‘We can’t work together, Gian.’
‘We can.’
‘No, because I’m not going to spend my career worrying about when my time will be up...’
‘It will never be up.’
But Ariana had too much to say to stop and listen. ‘I don’t want to be hidden away, and I don’t want hide my love.’
‘You won’t be hidden away,’ Gian said. ‘And you don’t have to hide a single thing.’
‘It would be unprofessional,’ Ariana insisted, ‘to be sleeping with a member of your staff.’
‘I think it would be perfectly reasonable for the owner to love his wife, who just happens to be a guest services manager.’
She swallowed and then corrected him. ‘VIP Guest Services Manager.’
‘Absolutely.’ He smiled. ‘Ariana, Duchess of Luctano, VIP Guest Services Manager...’
‘Stop.’
‘Well, we might leave off the title on your business card...’ He looked at her frowning face. ‘I’m asking you to marry me.’
‘Please, stop,’ Ariana said, for she did not want him playing games with her heart.
‘No,’ Gian said, and from the bedside drawer he took out a box she recognised. ‘I don’t want to stop, and I don’t want my lineage to end. I want ours to be a different legacy...’
She looked at the most beautiful ring, in shades of pomegranate, and it was so unexpected, but not as unexpected as what he said next. ‘When you walked into my office yesterday, I thought it was to tell me you were pregnant...’
‘Gosh, no.’
‘I think I wanted you to be.’
Her world went still as that black heart cracked open and revealed all the shining hope for their future inside.
‘I don’t want to be like that old fool who left it too late,’ Gian said. ‘I want the woman I love by my side. I love you,’ Gian clarified, and she felt the blood pump in every chamber of her heart as it filled with his words. ‘You are the most important person in my day.’
It was the one thing Ariana had wanted her whole life—to be the centre of someone’s world, to be wanted, to be cherished, for exactly who she was.
‘Ariana,’ Gian said, ‘you are the love of my life. Will you be my wife?’
Her answer was a sequence of squeaks, a ‘Yes,’ followed by ‘Please,’ as an ancient ring slid onto a slender finger, and because it was Ariana, she took a generous moment to properly admire it. ‘I love it,’ she said, and he watched massive pupils crowd the violet in her eyes. He adored her absolute passion for his ring. ‘You would never have sold it...’ She scolded the very thought.
‘No,’ he said, ‘it belongs with me, as do you.’ He was silenced by her kiss, a kiss that held nothing back but showered him in frantic love. Another ‘I do, I do,’ she said, and then followed that with another needy, necessary question. ‘When?’ she asked. ‘When can we marry?’
‘Soon,’ Gian said, and got back to kissing her, but Ariana had something else on her mind.
‘And can we have...?’
‘You can have the Basilica, if you want it,’ Gian said.
‘No,’ Ariana said, ‘can we have tutti-frutti and salted chestnut ice cream for dessert...?’
He laughed. ‘Trust you to have chosen the dessert by the end of the proposal.’ And then he kissed her to oblivion, and behind closed doors he took his newly appointed guest services
