Modern Romance March 2021 Book 5-8 by Carol Marinelli (desktop ebook reader txt) 📗

a leather-bound book... There were several pictures of him fishing or riding with Dante and later with the twins. There was one of a teenage Gian rolling his eyes while Dante kicked a stone to Stefano as a very spoiled Ariana sat on a fat little pony, the absolute apple of her parents’ eyes.

But then Ariana faded from the images as life took its twists and turns and he had headed to university. There were a couple of years without any images while the disasters that had unfolded back then had played out.

He had never really likedAngela Romano, but there was a picture of him smiling at her the night La Fiordelise had been saved. Angela was dripping jewels and being her usual affected self, as she stood with her husband and Gian.

This really was a gift without an agenda, Gian knew, for there was even a picture of Gian standing with the Romano family on the night Ariana had attended her first ball. He knew Ariana had made this album purely for his benefit because she would prefer that this picture of herself be relegated to burn in a fire for she looked scowling and awkward.

It was a slice of time he had forgotten.

Even now, as he looked at the photo, there was no flash of memory.

He would have been in his mid-twenties then, and Ariana at that awkward age of fifteen, her hair done in a way that now looked very much of its time, and she had been wearing too much make-up.

They had all been there for him throughout his life, and he couldn’t help but wonder what each of the Romanos was doing now.

How Ariana was coping with the nuptials.

He turned back the pages and looked again at a podgy little Ariana sitting on a podgy little pony, only he saw it differently this time... Not the pony, or the pampered heiress, just the absolute adoration on her face as she smiled at her parents and pleaded with them, with her eyes, to be loved, loved, loved...

It could have been a cone full of chestnuts they had given her; it wasn’t the pony she had craved, it had been attention and love.

Gian went out onto the balcony and gazed on the Ponte Vecchio, the gorgeous old bridge that was the soul of Florence, and sung about in ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’.

Yet it was not the music that filled his soul tonight, for he would never look at this bridge and not think of her.

Ariana.

Yes, he was proud of his new hotel, but tonight his heart was in Rome.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

‘COLOUR,’ ELOA HAD SAID.

A Brazilian wedding was a colourful affair, and that was evident even before the nuptials had started. Even though Gian was not in Rome this weekend, he had ensured La Fiordelise was at their disposal. The reception area was a blaze of colour and forbidden perfume, Ariana noticed as she walked through Reception and headed up to her suite to get changed.

Ariana would have preferred to wear black, as she had to the Romano Ball, to denote that she was in mourning. For her father, of course, but the end of a relationship also felt a whole lot like grief. She awoke with a weight of sadness in her chest that never quite left, and she felt Gian’s presence beside each and every thought. Yet she must push it all aside today, so she chose a dress as red as her signature lipstick. She wore her jet-black hair up, teased, with a few stray curls snaking down, meaning that she looked far more vibrant than she felt.

As Stefano fiddled with his tie, Ariana stepped out for a moment onto the balcony and looked down at the square beneath and remembered the night of her father’s funeral, that desperately lonely night made so much better by Gian.

Why had she insisted that he stay away, when the truth was that she missed him already?

Half the congregation were clipping their way across the square to the venue and Ariana watched the colourful display from the balcony of Stefano’s suite. The sun seemed at odds with the greyness of her world, and the flowers looked like placards from angry protesters to her tired eyes, yet they waved their petals and demanded she sparkle.

And so Ariana put on her best smile and stepped back inside. ‘We should head over soon,’ she told him.

‘Before we do, there’s something I want to say,’ Stefano said. ‘Ariana, I’m sorry for shutting you out.’

‘Stefano, we don’t need to do this now. It’s your wedding day...’

‘And I want it to be perfect,’ he said. ‘I want the air to be cleared between us. Gian suggested—’

‘Gian?’ Ariana frowned.

‘He called me this morning to wish me well and apologise for not being here. We got to talking...’ He took a breath.

Even though he wasn’t physically here, Gian was still looking out for her, Ariana realised. He was still fixing the pieces of her life that he could, and she was so grateful to him as Stefano spoke on and finally gave her his reasons for keeping his distance. ‘You see, I knew Mamma was having an affair, and I was having suspicions about Pa and Roberto. I was worried I might let things slip when I spoke to you and so I stayed away as much as I could. I was wrong...’

‘No,’ Ariana corrected. ‘You did what you thought best at the time, and the air is clear now.’ Clear, if a little thick with unshed tears when she thought of Gian and this moment he had created to bring her and her twin back together.

‘We have some catching up to do,’ Stefano prompted.

‘We do...’ Ariana smiled ‘...though it can wait till after your honeymoon.’ But certain things would wait for ever. They were close again, but it would never be like it was before. Gian had changed her, she realised. She was far more independent now and did not need to run and tell Stefano