Once in Luctano, an eight-year-old Ariana, too scared to confide in her older brother Dante, had admitted to an eighteen-year-old Gian that she had stolen chocolate from the local store. She wouldn’t tell him why, just pleaded with him not to tell her father or Dante.
‘First, explain to me why you stole,’ Gian had persisted. ‘You have the money to pay.’
‘Stefano dared me to,’ Ariana had admitted. ‘I haven’t eaten it, though. The chocolate is still under my bed, but I feel ill when I try to say my prayers...’
Gian had taken her in to the store and Ariana had duly apologised and paid for the chocolate, and, no, he had not told Dante or Rafael. Instead he’d had a quiet word with Stefano. ‘You want to steal,’ he had said to the young boy, ‘then at least have the guts to do it yourself.’
Another time, some years later, Stefano had been caught smoking and Ariana had arrived here in Gian’s office and begged him to impersonate her father when the school inevitably rang.
‘Why would they ring here?’ Gian had frowned.
‘Because I told Stefano to say that Papà is here at La Fiordelise on business.’
Ariana was a minx and far too skilled at lying. Gian had of course declined to cover for Stefano, and had spoken to Rafael himself.
There was always drama surrounding Ariana, though it was not always of her own making—just two years ago, in the midst of her parents’ scandalous divorce, she had found out that her father was ill and Ariana had sat in Gian’s office, being fed tissues but not false promises.
Yes, he had kept his door open to her, but—
‘If I hire you,’ Gian said, very carefully, ‘all that stops.’
And suddenly, if the safety net of Gian was going to be removed, Ariana didn’t know if she wanted her career any more—not that he seemed to notice her dilemma.
‘Who the hell orders champagne at a job interview?’ Gian mused.
‘It was my first ever interview,’ Ariana admitted. ‘I sensed your irritation and was trying to drag things out.’
‘Well done, you, then,’ Gian said, and then sighed because he did not need Ariana under his precious roof, and the drama that would undoubtedly entail. ‘Why here, Ariana? Why La Fiordelise, Rome?’
‘Because I love it,’ she admitted. She looked up at the high ceilings and the gilded mirrors and the beauty that never failed to capture her heart. There was a sense of peace and calm that Gian had created, a haven that somehow made her feel safe. ‘I am sure your other hotels are stunning—in fact, I have stayed in the London one several times—it is just...’ She tried her best to explain it. ‘There is so much history here, so much...’ She faltered and then pushed on. ‘It was your great-great-grandfather’s?’ she checked.
‘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...’
