His presence was a comforting warmth in the chilly night air and his voice felt like a welcome caress, as he enquired how things were with her brothers.
‘Dante is...’ Ariana let out a long sigh. ‘I don’t know. He’s just been so focused on the funeral. I think it will all hit him afterwards. He and my father were close.’
‘Yes,’ Gian agreed.
‘Well, they were until Mia came along.’
‘They grew close again, once your father became ill,’ Gian pointed out. ‘And Stefano?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Ariana said tightly. ‘You would have to ask Eloa.’ She heard the bitterness in her own voice and screwed her eyes closed, because she had told no one, not even Nicki, how left out she felt. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that.’
‘Yes, you did,’ Gian said gently. ‘I know the two of you are close.’
‘Were close,’ she corrected. ‘I know it sounds childish, but we used to speak every day. Now he calls Eloa, and that’s correct, of course, and how it should be; they’re getting married in May. However...’ She didn’t know how best to describe the loneliness that had descended almost the moment Eloa had been introduced to her and Ariana had felt shut out.
‘You miss him?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘And especially now.’
‘Since your father died?’
‘Before that,’ Ariana admitted. She looked at the moon lighting up the square. If ever there was a time for honesty it was tonight. ‘When our parents broke up it was Stefano I turned to. Papà had eyes only for Mia; he didn’t want me around so much...’
Gian stayed silent, for he knew that wasn’t quite the case. Rafael had found out he was dying and wanted his final years to be spent in peace with Roberto; Mia had been a front of respectability. Of course he could not reveal that and just listened as she continued. ‘But Stefano met Eloa around then,’ Ariana said. ‘I just felt as if everyone I was close to disappeared. I know I have Dante, but he is so much older...’
‘Ancient,’ Gian agreed drily, for he and Dante were the same age.
‘I have Mamma, of course, but...’ She wished he would interrupt, or finish her sentence for her, because it was perhaps not something she should say out loud, yet his continued silence compelled her to speak. ‘I have Mamma, though only on her terms, and it can be a little stifling at times.’
Still he remained silent as they walked.
‘And a little solitary at others,’ Ariana admitted. ‘I thought things were different with Stefano. He’s my twin; I’m used to him being there and I thought, no matter what, we’d still be in each other’s lives. I’m happy for him, I honestly am. I’m just not so happy for me. I’m being selfish, I know. Childish...’
‘Ariana.’ Gian thought for a moment and then decided he could be honest about this much at least. ‘For what it’s worth, I think Stefano is wrong to shut you out.’
Her head turned towards him, her eyes wide with surprise. She’d expected to be scolded or told she was being petty or jealous. Instead he seemed like he was on her side. ‘Really?’
‘From everything I can observe, since Eloa came along he’s dropped everyone and everything. I didn’t realise until today that that also extended to you. Don’t you and Eloa get on?’
‘That’s the ridiculous part,’ Ariana said, relieved to speak about something other than death, and also relieved to share what had been eating at her for months. ‘I like Eloa, I really do. They just don’t seem to want to spend any real time with me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She gave a tight shrug, at first closing the conversation but then opening it up in a way he had not anticipated. ‘Were you close to your brother...’ She had to think for a second to recall his name. ‘Eduardo?’
‘No,’ Gian said. At first his answer was final, but she had shared so much with him that he felt it right to share a little more. ‘We were for a while.’
‘Oh.’
‘For a long while I looked up to him. Admired him...’
‘And then?’
‘And then I didn’t.’
He gave her no more.
‘Wait there,’ Gian said. She assumed he had to make a call, perhaps to Svetlana... Maybe he was bored already with the company he had chosen tonight.
Alone for the first time that day, Ariana quietly admitted her deep feelings for him.
Ariana wanted more of Gian.
She wanted to know his kiss. She wanted...more.
More than his kiss...
To know his touch...
To sit holding hands at his table...
The more she admitted to herself, the more honest her admissions became...
She wanted Gian to hold her and she wanted to know how it felt to be made love to by him.
For Gian De Luca to be her first...
It was a reckless thought, though, for by his own admission Gian came with a warning.
But since when had Ariana heeded warnings?
She stared up at Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi—the Fountain of Four Rivers, said to be the most complex of the many fountains in Rome. She looked at the four river gods and then up, ever up, to the tall obelisk that topped it. Her feelings were spinning in her mind as the crush she had on Gian transformed into need.
She loathed being twenty-five with barely a kiss to her name.
Yet while kisses did not excite her, the mere thought of Gian’s kiss did.
‘Here.’ His voice startled her and she looked at the paper cone filled with hot chestnuts that he held out. ‘You looked cold.’
‘You got these for me?’ Gian watched as her pale face broke into a smile, and her eyes shone as if he were handing her a purse of gold. ‘Thank you.’
Hot chestnuts on a cold night had never tasted so good as they sat at the base of the fountain, biting into the salty treats. ‘These are the best I have tasted,’ Ariana said, every single time she ate one.
‘They’re just chestnuts.’ Gian did not really get her enthusiasm for such
