A Scandal Made At Midnight

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LIANESTAREDDOWNat the note, written in Ella’s loopy scrawl, with complete incredulity. Her head ached from too much champagne and too many tears. Last night, after the most magical evening she’d ever experienced, she’d come home to the unhappily-ever-after she knew would be waiting for her. Never mind the glass slipper, she’d turned into a pumpkin, or the carriage had, however the old story went. She was back to being hide-in-the-shadows Liane, and she wished she wasn’t.

She wished she’d had the courage to say yes to Alessandro, to take what he had to give. Who even knew if it might lead to something else, something so wonderfully more? And, even if it didn’t, it would have been more than she’d ever been offered before. Why not risk it?

And yet she hadn’t, because she was cautious and careful and scared. She didn’t leap into life, she didn’t have adventures, and she certainly didn’t tumble into bed—or into love. She’d managed to escape with her heart intact, but in the cold, dull light of morning she bleakly wondered if it was worth it. She wished she had the courage to act differently...

She gazed down at Ella’s note again and slowly shook her head. How could she have done this? A quick, impatient tap on the door had her slipping the note into her pocket. Alessandro. She wasn’t ready to see him again, not after she’d fled so melodramatically from the ballroom, and after he’d admitted to so much. Why couldn’t she have said yes? Why couldn’t she have taken what he was willing to offer? Could she still? Another tap on the door.

With a quivering sigh, Liane went to answer it.

‘You look tired,’ Alessandro remarked critically as he stepped into the suite.

Liane let out a shaky laugh. ‘I am tired,’ she told him, trying for tart and feeling she missed it by a mile. ‘Thank you, though, for pointing it out.’

Alessandro gazed at her coolly, completely unapologetic for his criticism. He didn’t look tired, she thought bitterly. Freshly shaven, dressed in a three-piece charcoal-grey suit, smelling of citrus, he was as devastatingly attractive as always, powerful and remote, needing nothing and no one. Utterly unaffected. This was not the same man who had held her in his arms and pleaded with her to spend the night with him. Liane was already half wondering if that had actually happened, doubting her own recollection in light of this new, hard reality. Perhaps it had been too much champagne and wishful thinking...

‘Where’s Ella?’ Alessandro glanced around the empty suite, Liane’s suitcase by the door.

‘She’s gone,’ she replied wearily. ‘She left with the YouTubers early this morning, before I woke up.’

‘What?’ His dark brows snapped together as he stared at her. ‘What do you mean, she left?’

Liane shrugged, spreading her hands helplessly. ‘They’re doing some video thing in the south of France. She didn’t give me the details, just said she was sorry that she had to go and she thought she’d done enough already, in terms of the hotel’s social media.’

You can take care of the rest yourself, she’d written, but Liane wasn’t about to say that to Alessandro. She couldn’t take Ella’s place. She hadn’t managed it for a single evening. ‘I’m sorry,’ she told Alessandro.

‘You don’t need to apologise,’ he replied. ‘You are not your sister’s keeper.’

Liane remained silent, knowing there was nothing more she could say. Ella should have explained to Alessandro herself, but she’d left that unfortunate task to Liane. Briefly she thought of the playful postscript to Ella’s note—And have fun!!!

As if.

Right now Alessandro was looking more than a little annoyed, and colder than she’d ever seen him. Last night seemed like nothing more than a dream, a figment of her desperate imagination. And to think she’d been wondering if she should reconsider...!

‘What shall we do?’ she asked uncertainly while Alessandro gazed dispassionately around the empty room. The last of the Rossi Hotel balls was tonight, in Rome. But without Ella...

‘We’ll go without her,’ he stated flatly, as if the matter was both settled and of little interest. ‘After last night’s performance, she’s not even needed.’

Liane’s cheeks heated as she held his cool unaffected gaze. ‘What do you mean, last night’s performance?’

In response Alessandro pulled a tightly rolled magazine out of his pocket and dropped it, without ceremony, on the coffee table where Liane had found Ella’s note. She blinked in disbelief as the magazine unrolled and the cover page was revealed—the photo was unmistakably of her. Her fleeing the ball last night, the blue folds of her gown streaming out behind her, the crowds parting as she ran towards the double doors like a deer being hunted. Colour touched her cheeks. She looked ridiculous—foolish and frightened, as if she’d had the very devil at her heels.

‘But...’ Her lips formed the word numbly. ‘How did they...’

‘We had invited the press there, of course,’ he remarked dispassionately. ‘And it seemed this was the perfect photo op.’

‘Photo op...!’ Her head jerked up from the sight of the photo as she stared at him in shocked dismay. ‘You can’t think...’

‘I can’t think?’ He arched one eyebrow coolly.

‘You can’t think I left the ballroom for some sort of publicity shot,’ she forced herself to say. It seemed laughable as well as horrible—she, mousy little Liane, looking for publicity the way Ella did? And yet Alessandro was looking at her so coolly. ‘Do you?’ she burst out.

‘No,’ he answered after a moment, his voice toneless. ‘And in any case, this is the kind of publicity we want, isn’t it?’ He didn’t sound particularly enthused. ‘Everyone buzzing about who the mystery woman who ran out of the ballroom is. Apparently Rossi Hotels is trending on Twitter.’ He sounded bored rather than pleased by this fact.

‘Oh...’ Liane’s mind whirled unhappily. She didn’t want to be on the cover of a magazine, or trending on Twitter. There was a reason, she realised, why she’d avoided the limelight. She didn’t like it. And right now she wished, quite desperately, that none of this had happened.

‘As it is,’ Alessandro continued, ‘now that you’ve made the covers of these tabloids, you can finish the job and accompany me to Rome. You were going to anyway, so the matter, really, is negligible.’

He started to turn away and she burst out, ‘Is that really what you want?’

‘It’s just one more day,’ he replied with a shrug. ‘The day after tomorrow you can fly back to New York and translate your Rimbaud.’ He didn’t look at her as he strode to the door. ‘I’ll meet you in the lobby in fifteen minutes.’

As the door clicked shut behind him, Liane sank onto the sofa, her knees watery, her mind spinning. She’d lain awake half the night, her body aching, her lips stinging from when he’d kissed her, wondering if she could possibly be bold enough to tell Alessandro this morning that she’d changed her mind. That she’d take however little he had to give, and be glad. Be ridiculously happy, as a matter of fact.

Thank goodness she hadn’t blurted that out the moment he’d come in! He clearly had moved on from last night’s tender moment. But why was he acting so cold? The idea that she’d run from the ballroom in order to catch something on camera...why, it was completely absurd. And even if she’d done it, wasn’t that what he wanted? It was what he’d hired Ella for, after all. If for Ella, then why not her? Why act as if she’d...she’d betrayed him?

And then the penny dropped, a flicker of realisation unfurling inside her, along with a cautious wonder, a tentative hope. Was his irritation over the photo, his remoteness with her, a cover for his hurt? Because she’d run away? He’d asked her to stay the night. He’d kissed her with unashamed passion and framed her face with his hands and he’d practically pleaded. That had not been her wishful thinking.

Liane knew he was a proud man, one who did not allow himself to be guided or controlled by his emotions. Who hated the thought of being vulnerable. Was that what was behind his icy demeanour this morning? Or was she ridiculous to hope she’d affected him that much? To hope that he actually cared, if just a little.

With a start Liane realised she’d wasted ten minutes in pointless reflection. She was due in the hotel lobby in just five minutes, and she didn’t want to add to Alessandro’s ire. Quickly she jumped up and packed the last of her things, throwing tissues, a lip balm and her phone into her bag before she hurried to the door.