Tonight it was a beauty that came at a cost—the kind he had grown up around. He wanted to mess up her hair, smudge her lipstick, take those heavy jewels and throw them into the Tiber.
He didn’t want the Benedettis taking her over. He didn’t want her to become one of those weights he carried around his neck.
‘We need to talk,’ she said softly.
He cleared his throat. ‘Si, this is why I have brought you out here.’
‘I want to tell you something first.’
She clasped her hands together as if going to her execution.
For some reason it irritated him. But he’d been frustrated all night. He didn’t want to be in a crowd with Ava. He wanted to be somewhere they could be alone, just the two of them, and then perhaps this twisting in his gut would stop.
‘Have you ever seen Three Coins in a Fountain?’ she asked unexpectedly.
He shrugged. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. I know the song.’
She gave him a tentative little smile. ‘I used to watch that film as a girl and I wanted that life. Some other life, so different from my own it was unrecognisable.’
With a sigh she walked away to the stone railing. Somewhere down there in the darkness the Tiber lurked.
Gianluca found himself thinking about all the carved-up bodies of the people who had got in his ancestors’ way, floating up on its banks. Where Ava saw romance he saw reality.
‘You’ve given me that fantasy, but I think it’s time to go,’ she said.
Go? She couldn’t go.
‘Before the spell wears off. Before you wake up one morning and I’m just Ava again.’
What in the hell...? She was Ava. Ava who had made him laugh, had made him furious, had made him...love her.
He shoved that brutally aside. Loving her wasn’t going to work. Benedetti men didn’t love their women. They bred from them and then walked away—or as in the case of his father, were driven away.
He’d long ago decided not to continue that nasty little tradition, but if he was going to make the mistake of his life he might as well make it with Ava.
If she thought she was going to walk out on him he’d like to see her try with a ring on her finger, with those heavy jewels around her neck. He’d weigh her down with so much of his history she wouldn’t be able to move.
‘This life you speak of.’ His voice was deep, rough-cut, fraught with a freight load of emotion that seemed to be coming at him too fast. ‘Why can’t you have it?’
She looked over her shoulder at him carefully, anxiety written in every line of her features.
As well it might be.
The ring was weighting his jacket pocket and right now it felt like a dagger. He reached in and closed his hand over it, made a fist of it.
‘Have it, then,’ he said, almost aggressively. ‘Have this life.’
He reached for her and jerked her around roughly.
Ava cowered back, trying to retrieve her hand. He wasn’t letting go.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re not making sense. Why are you angry with me?’
He took out the ring, held it up to the light.
‘Does this make sense to you?’
For a moment she looked utterly confused, and then fell utterly still.
‘This is the ring my grandfather gave to my grandmother. She only took it off on the day she died, to pass it to my eldest sister.’ He took her hand; it was cold and tense in his. She tried to snatch it back but he was so much stronger. ‘She chose not to use it and it’s been in a vault with the rest of the family jewellery since then. I would be honoured if you—’ he forced the ring over her finger, only to realise his hand was shaking, and not in a good way ‘—would be my wife.’
‘It’s too small,’ she said, in an even smaller voice.
‘It can be altered.’ He was furious with her. Why was she cowering like that? Why was she acting as if he’d done something unforgivable when she was the one talking about fantasies and here he was fulfilling them?
She began tugging at it. ‘I don’t want this. Take it back.’
‘Gianluca, what are you doing out here? There are people who’ve come halfway around the world to see you tonight. We all have to do our bit— Oh, I see I’ve interrupted something.’
Gianluca turned to snarl at their hostess, only to hear Ava make a choked sound of distress. With a flurry of those extravagant skirts she shoved past him and made her way back into the ballroom.
* * *
‘I need help,’ Ava babbled to Alessia. ‘This dress won’t fit in the back of a taxi and I can’t go back with him. I need somewhere to stay...’
‘Calm down.’ Alessia stroked her arm. ‘You’ll come and stay with us, of course. We’re in a hotel only two blocks away.’