Stay longer, she wanted to say, yet she dared not.
‘And,’ he added, ‘I wanted to properly apologise for how I spoke to you on the day you called. I was completely out of line.’
‘Not completely,’ Ariana said, and he watched her strained lips part into a brief glimpse of her impish smile. ‘Not to come in because of a board meeting was inexcusable on my first day...’
‘Oh!’ Her burst of honesty and the explanation surprised him. ‘I thought you must have had word that your father was ill.’
‘No, no,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t till later.’
‘Well, even so, I’m very sorry for the way I spoke to you.’
‘It’s fine,’ Ariana said. ‘I would have been annoyed with me too.’
He watched the dart of anxiety in her eyes as he looked around the room, filled with low murmurs of conversation and her veiled mamma, sitting weeping on a chair against the wall surrounded by aunts. ‘Mamma and Mia have never been under the same roof...’
‘Everyone is behaving,’ Gian pointed out.
‘For now they are,’ Ariana said, and let out a nervous breath, unsure how long the civility might last. ‘There is the reading of the will soon.’
‘It will be fine,’ Gian assured her, though he quietly thought Ariana’s concerns might be merited and she didn’t even know the half of it! Roberto, the family lawyer, had also been Rafael’s long-term lover and he was reading the will. With the current wife and widow in the room, one could be forgiven for expecting fireworks.
‘Do you want me to stay until afterwards?’ he offered.
‘I would like that,’ Ariana admitted. She looked up at the man she always ran to, always turned to, yet the moment was broken by the sound of her mother’s voice.
‘Gian, I was hoping that you’d come back to the house...’ She placed an overly familiar hand on his arm, and Gian would have liked to shrug it off. He loathed the sudden fake friendliness from Angela, although of course it was for a reason. ‘Could I ask you to take me back to Rome with you? I simply cannot stand to be here.’
‘It would be my pleasure,’ Gian politely agreed, for even if he did not particularly want Angela’s company, he would do the right thing.
‘I have to stay for the reading of the will,’ Angela explained, ‘but if we could leave after that? Ariana will be coming with us also...’
‘But, Mamma, Stefano and Eloa are heading back to Zio Luigi’s...’ Ariana started, but clearly her desires had no importance here and Gian watched her shoulders slump as she acquiesced. ‘If that is what you want.’
Naturally, Gian did not enter the study for the reading of the will. Instead, he poured himself a brandy from Rafael’s decanter, as his friend had often done for him, and silently toasted his portrait.
What a mess.
He looked at the portrait and wondered if Rafael’s truth would be revealed in the will.
Of course Angela had long since known the truth about her husband, and had fought like a cat to prevent it getting out, more than happy to let the blame for the end of their marriage land on Mia.
He looked at the pictures above the fireplace—family shots. There was a surge that felt almost like a sob building when he saw his own image there, for he had never considered he might appear on anyone’s mantelpiece. Certainly there had been no images of him at his childhood home.
Yet here he was, fourteen or fifteen years old, on horseback, with Dante.
Good times.
Not great times, of course, because the end of the holidays had always meant it would be time to head back to Rome and his chaotic existence there.
The door of the study opened and the subdued gathering trooped out; Gian quickly realised that Rafael’s truth had not been revealed.
‘How was it?’ he asked Dante, who was the first to approach him.
‘Fine. No real surprises.’
And then came Ariana. She looked pale and drained, as if all the exuberance and arrogance that he was coming to adore had simply been leached from her.
‘How did it go?’ Gian asked.
‘I don’t even know how to answer,’ she admitted. ‘I am taken care of. I have an apartment in Paris and I will never have to work.’ She gave a tired shrug. ‘Does that mean it went well?’
‘Ariana,’ he cut in, and his hand reached for her arm but she pulled it back.
Not because she didn’t want physical contact, more because of how much she did. ‘I should go and say my farewells.’
‘Are you sure you want to come back to Rome tonight?’
‘Not really.’
‘Your family are all here,’ Gian pointed out. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to spend time with them?’
‘Yes, but I think Mamma needs me. She feels so out of place here.’
It was a subdued little group that flew back to Rome. Gian’s car was waiting at the airport and he gave Angela’s address to the driver.
‘Ariana, darling,’ her mother said, ‘I have the most terrible headache. I think I might just head home to bed. After I’ve been dropped off, Gian’s driver will take you home.’
‘But, Mamma, I thought I was to stay with you tonight.’
Gian heard the strain in Ariana’s voice. She was clearly asking to be with her mother, rather than offering to take care of her, although Angela, just as clearly, chose not to hear it as that. ‘Ariana, I know you’re worried about me but right now all I really need is some peace.’
Gian gritted his jaw because he could see the manipulative behaviour, pulling Ariana away from the rest of the family just because she could when she’d always intended to spend the evening with Thomas, her lover.
He knew now that he loathed Angela because she was as selfish as his own mother had been.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ Angela said to her daughter as she got out of the car. ‘Thank you, Gian, for seeing us home.’
Eternally polite, usually he would have wished her well and forced himself
