Ariana stopped asking, which he was grateful for, because revelations like these were hard.
He had stopped...not loving, not caring, just stopped all feelings.
Stopped hoping for change.
Stopped trying to control their chaos.
‘I like order,’ he admitted, and looked over at her. ‘Why do you smile?’
‘Because it’s hardly a revelation. I know you like order, Gian.’
‘You know too much,’ he said, and dropped a kiss on the top of her head as they walked.
It was a tiny kiss, but when it came from Gian, it felt as if he had just picked her up and carried her.
It felt so perfect that she actually let out a little laugh and touched her head to feel where his lips had just pressed, for her scalp tingled. ‘You’re crazy, Ariana,’ he told her.
‘A bit.’
It was unexpected bliss on the saddest of nights, to be walking on a cold Rome night, hand in hand, along Piazza d’Arecoli, their breaths blowing white in the night air. Ariana had run out of words, and she was terrified that he might drop her hand.
His hand was warm and it was so unexpected and so nice and just everything she needed tonight.
Gian too was pondering the light weight of her fingers that wrapped around his and how, on the near-empty street, when they could easily walk apart, they were strolling like this.
It was Ariana Romano.
She’s a friend, he told himself.
He was simply doing what any friend would.
Except he did not have friendships of this type.
And he never confided in anyone, yet he just had.
Still holding hands, they took the stairs and there before them, ever beautiful, was the Altar of the Fatherland. Soldiers stood guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier and Ariana knew she should guard her own heart with the same attention and care.
‘Oh,’ she gasped as they took in the altar of the goddess of Rome.
His stomach growled and he turned her to face him. There were tired streaks of mascara, like delicate lace, smudged on her cheeks. Her mouth, rarely devoid of lipstick, was swollen from days of tears. She smiled briefly and it lit up her face for a moment. He wanted to capture it, to frame it and hold onto it—and he did so with his hands.
She felt the brush of his fingers on her cheeks and then the soft pressure as he held her face. Surely the eternal flame flared, because something lit the sky and seared her as his lips made first contact.
Just the gentlest brush at first then soft and slow and exploring.
His kiss made her slightly giddy in a way no other had. His touch was both tender and firm and she felt she could fall right now and be caught, even though his hands barely held her.
Only once did she peek. Ariana opened her eyes, while praying that she wouldn’t be caught, for she did not want to break this spell. Gian’s eyes were closed, though, as if savouring the most exquisite wine. He continued to hold her cheeks, so firmly now that her head could not move. He kissed her thoroughly and his lips were like velvet, his tongue so shockingly intimate it felt charged as each stroke shot volts of ecstasy to her own. His hand moved into her hair, holding the back of her head and knotting into her scalp as his tongue danced with hers.
A craving for more built in her but he pulled back. Gian looked at her wet lips and dilated pupils and the frantic, somewhat startled look and he tried to rein in his usual common sense. ‘I should get you home...’
‘Please,’ Ariana said, but her voice was low and husky and told them both what she wanted.
Ariana’s decision was made.
Gian De Luca would be her first.
Perhaps that was the reason she had held on for so long, because there was no one else who held a candle to him. No one who made her shiver, even without touching her, no one who made her mouth want to know his kiss...
‘Ariana.’ His voice was gruff. ‘When I said home, I meant to your door.’ Gian was serious. A kiss was one thing, but bedding her was out of the question. ‘If we were so much as seen out together...’
‘That would get them talking.’ Ariana smiled as Gian clearly hated the thought. ‘Mamma would have us married in a moment if she knew her virgin daughter was out with the Duke...’ Her voice trailed off, unsure how Gian would receive the news of her inexperience, but he gave a low laugh.
Ariana was not, he knew, dropping in his title; instead she was capturing her mother’s thought process and agreeing with exactly how it would be if they were seen. ‘Exactly. Though,’ he added, ‘I’m sure all mothers think their daughters are virgins.’
‘But I am one.’
He almost laughed again, and then realised she wasn’t laughing. He almost hauled her off him, but decided that reaction might be a bit extreme and so instead he offered her his smile.
His duty smile, which she determinedly ignored.
‘Let’s get you home...’ Gian said.
‘Yes,’ Ariana agreed. ‘Take me to bed.’
‘Absolutely not.’
And he meant it, for he was headed down the steps. Ariana did not quite know what she’d done wrong, just that everything had changed.
‘Gian.’ Now she really did have to practically run to keep up with him. ‘Why are you being like this? Didn’t you like our kiss?’
‘It was a kiss,’ Gian snapped, ‘not an open invitation.’
But Ariana would not relent. She had made up her mind and was all too used to getting her own way. ‘I want my first to be you.’
‘Well, it won’t be. If we are even as much as seen, people will talk and it will be...’ He had to be cruel to be kind. ‘They will turn it into something bigger than it is.’
‘I know that.’
‘Do you?’ Gian checked. ‘Do you understand that I don’t do relationships? That the very last thing I
