He rarely opened the safe. In it were documents and rolls of plans, and there were also the coroner’s and police reports from the deaths of his parents and brother, but there was also one thing of beauty nestled atop them.
‘Come here,’ Gian told her.
Those words sent an unfamiliar shiver through her, so unfamiliar that Ariana did not ask why, or what for. Instead, she followed his command and walked over.
He removed a faded velvet box from the safe. It might once have been gold, but it had faded now to a silver beige, yet it was beautiful still. The box was studded with gold tacks and the clasp was so intricate that she wondered how he flicked it open so easily.
‘Look,’ Gian said.
Fiordelise’s ring was the rarest of treasures. It was a swirl of stunning Italian rose gold, and in the centre was a ruby so deep and so vibrant it made her breath hitch.
‘I’ve never seen a ruby of that colour,’ Ariana breathed. ‘It’s the colour of a pomegranate kernel, although it’s bigger...’
‘It’s called pigeon-blood red,’ Gian corrected. ‘The colour of the first drops after a kill.’
‘Don’t.’ Ariana shuddered. ‘I like pomegranate better.’
‘Then pomegranate red it is.’ Gian smiled and then closed up the box. ‘I found this five years after I inherited the place.’
‘Where did you find it?’
‘Under the very spot you were seated a short while ago,’ Gian told her. ‘When the suite was being renovated they pulled up the floor. There was a hidden basement and in it was a box. There was a shawl and some sketches of Fiordelise, and also this...’
‘What happened to the sketches?’ Ariana asked.
‘I had them restored and framed.’
‘And the shawl?’
‘I gave that to an aunt. But this...’ He replaced the box in the safe. ‘God alone knows it would have been easier to have found this some five years earlier.’
‘You’d have sold it?’ Ariana frowned. She knew that he had inherited his estate from his family in the direst of conditions, and that La Fiordelise had been on the brink of collapse, yet she could not believe he would have sold something as precious and sentimental as this ring.
But Gian was adamant. ‘Absolutely I would have.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Then you don’t know me,’ Gian said, closing up the safe. He turned to her. ‘I shall have Luna bring your coat.’
‘Thank you,’ Ariana said, trying to quash the thud of disappointment that he hadn’t suggested, given the hour, that they have dinner together. Well, she would soon see about that. ‘Gosh, it’s almost seven!’ Ariana exclaimed. ‘No wonder I’m so hungry.’
‘Indeed,’ Gian said. ‘I should let you get on.’
She tried to stall him again. ‘What about my uniform? Don’t I need to be measured?’
‘You’ll be working as a chambermaid for the first few weeks of your rotation. That uniform comes in small, medium or large, I believe.’
There was the tiniest wrinkle of her pretty nose and then she shrugged. ‘I lied,’ Ariana admitted. ‘I do want the tartan and pearls.’
‘I know you do.’
‘And I shall get them one day. I shall be the best guest services manager you’ve ever had.’ She pictured her pretty pink business cards with her name embossed in rose gold: Ariana Romano, VIP Guest Services Manager.
Perhaps she shouldn’t be so vocal with her dreams, but when she looked up she was startled by the glimmer of a smile softening his mouth.
It was a smile she had never seen on him before.
Ariana had known him for a long time. If there was trouble in her life—and all too often there was—it was Gian she ran to. And when, inevitably, she thanked him for sorting whatever problem she had placed in his lap, he would nod and give her his grim, somewhat weary smile. There was another smile she knew: each year they sat side by side at the Romano Ball, and each year he performed a duty dance, and so of course she was privy to his duty smile.
Yes, his duty smile, she called it, for that was exactly what it was.
She saw it used on guests, on dignitaries and on herself as recently as this evening when she had first walked in. This smile, though, was different. This off-duty smile felt as if it was just for her, though it was fading now and his grey eyes returned to guarded.
‘I really do need to get on,’ Gian said as Luna appeared with her coat.
As she and Gian walked out, Ariana saw the stunning woman from the Pianoforte Bar smile over at him. ‘I’ll be with you in just a moment.’ Gian nodded to her and from the lack of affection in his tone she assumed he had another client.
‘I thought I was your last appointment,’ Ariana said.
‘You were.’
He stalked off then to the waiting woman, who lifted her face to him, clearly expecting a most thorough kiss, but instead Ariana heard his slight rebuke. ‘I said I would meet you at the theatre, Svetlana.’
‘I thought we might have dinner in the restaurant,’ Svetlana purred and needlessly fiddled with the lapel of his jacket. ‘You still haven’t taken me there.’
Oh!
Ariana’s face was on fire, yet she could not look away. It was unsettling to see him with a woman when of course it should not be, given his reputation. It just felt different seeing it first-hand and flicked a little knife toward her heart.
‘Maybe after...?’ Svetlana persisted.
Gian was not enamoured of women who purred, or those who felt the need to pick an imaginary piece of lint from his lapel, and Svetlana had been doing a lot of both of those of late.
He had already decided they were over, and was about to tell Svetlana, but with Ariana so close, for reasons he did not care—or dare—to examine, he chose not to. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘we’ll be late.’
He didn’t even glance in Ariana’s direction as he headed off. After all, if he stopped to say
