‘You would sneak out?’ she nudged.
‘No sneaking required.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that...’ Gian said, and he looked at Ariana, quietly watching the world go by. He knew why he had not left her alone tonight. He knew better than anyone how it felt to be alone in Rome after dark, that frantic search for company, any company, that compelled you to speak to a stranger or hang out with a wayward friend, anything other than return to your room and lie there alone. ‘So...’ he changed the subject and looked over at the stunning Palazzo Pamphili, where the wedding was to be held ‘...you arranged the wedding reception.’
‘I managed to secure the venue,’ Ariana corrected.
‘Good for you.’ He smiled.
His smile was like being handed the earth.
‘Come on,’ he suggested, when they had finished eating, ‘let’s walk.’
They passed the impressive building where a few months from now the wedding would take place. It seemed so wrong that such a celebration would take place and their father would not be there.
‘Are you going?’ she asked, because the idea of him being there really helped. She was so out of the wedding loop she had no real idea if he’d been invited, let alone responded.
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘It’s the weekend of the opening of my Florence hotel so I shall be sending my apologies. I am sure I shan’t be missed.’
You shall be missed, she wanted to say, but did not know how. ‘I’m kind of dreading it,’ she said, hinting a little that his presence might help.
‘You’ll be just fine,’ Gian said assuredly, and gave her hand a squeeze, yet her fingers were cold beneath his so he held onto them as they walked.
Gian did not do hand-holding.
Ever.
Yet tonight he did.
For a second, Ariana felt as if she were walking in the Tuscan fields in the middle of summer, not sad and frozen in Rome. But then she remembered the reason for his kindness this night, and wondered how it had been for him. ‘You must miss your parents...’ she ventured, though immediately knew she had said the wrong thing for he dropped her hand like a hot coal.
‘I didn’t know them enough to miss them,’ he said, but Ariana refused to be fobbed off.
‘What about your brother?’ she probed, but he was equally unforthcoming.
‘Leave it, Ariana.’
She refused. ‘How did you find out about the...?’ She hesitated, unsure what to call a raging fire on a yacht in the middle of the ocean. ‘The accident?’ she settled for.
‘Hardly an accident,’ Gian retorted, and she heard a trace of bitterness to his tone. ‘With the amount of alcohol and class-A drugs my family consumed, I think it could be called inevitable.’
Ariana was stunned.
She had heard whispers, of course, like little jigsaw pieces of scandal that had been gathered together over dinners and parties, but all too soon scooped up and put away. But now it was Gian himself putting the pieces together and giving her a glimpse.
‘They were renewing their wedding vows?’ Ariana checked.
God, she was persistent. Perhaps it was the emotion of the day, but he found that tonight he didn’t mind. ‘Yes. It sounds romantic, doesn’t it, like the Duke and Fiordelise, but the truth is it was an excuse for a party. They renewed their vows every couple of years,’ Gian said drily. ‘They would fight, they would make up, they would say never again... I got off the hamster wheel and left before then. I was at university, studying architecture. I was asleep in the residences...’
‘You didn’t live at La Fiordelise then?’
‘God, no.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘I was more than happy to leave it all behind. Luna came with the police and woke me...’
‘Luna worked for your parents?’
‘She was actually working her notice,’ Gian said. ‘They had been late again paying her and she had resigned, but after they died Luna said she would stay until things were more stable.’ Gian gave her a tight smile. ‘Fifteen years later, she still reminds me on occasion that she is working her notice.’ He shook his head and closed the subject.
Except Ariana wanted to prise it back open. ‘Tell me...’
‘Tell you what?’
‘How you felt when they died?’
‘As I told you, I barely knew them.’
‘They were your parents, your brother...’
‘Just leave it,’ he warned. ‘Ariana, I respect your boundaries. Why can’t you respect mine?’
‘Because I want to know you some more...’
He kept right on walking, though a little faster than before. ‘Wait...’ Ariana said, and grabbed his coat to slow him down, except her hand found its way back into his. ‘I’m sorry for pushing. I just wonder...’ she didn’t know how best to say it ‘...when the grief goes?’
‘I can’t answer that,’ Gian admitted. ‘I grieved for them long before they died.’ He should close it there, but her hand was warm and he sensed she would walk for ever just to hear some more. ‘Eduardo and I were both repulsed by their ways. He was older, the one who would look out for me when I was small, make sure my nanny was paid, that sort of thing...’
She stayed silent in the hope he would continue and her reward was great, for he revealed more.
‘Then he took up their ways and I ended up looking out for him.’
Still she stayed silent but she felt the grip of his hand tighten and it seemed like the darkness of his truth guided her through her own pain.
‘I found Eduardo one morning; I thought he was dead. I couldn’t rouse my parents. The hotel doctor came and for all the hell of that morning, by that evening the incident was forgotten.’
Now she spoke. ‘Not by you.’
‘Never by me,’ Gian said. ‘It happened several times again. I said to Eduardo one day, “I won’t always be there to save you.” And it was then that I stopped...’
‘Stopped what?’ Ariana asked.
‘I can’t answer that,’ Gian admitted.
