Modern Romance March 2021 Book 5-8 Carol Marinelli (ebook reader computer txt) 📖

‘Stop.’

‘Well, we might leave off the title on your business card...’ He looked at her frowning face. ‘I’m asking you to marry me.’

‘Please, stop,’ Ariana said, for she did not want him playing games with her heart.

‘No,’ Gian said, and from the bedside drawer he took out a box she recognised. ‘I don’t want to stop, and I don’t want my lineage to end. I want ours to be a different legacy...’

She looked at the most beautiful ring, in shades of pomegranate, and it was so unexpected, but not as unexpected as what he said next. ‘When you walked into my office yesterday, I thought it was to tell me you were pregnant...’

‘Gosh, no.’

‘I think I wanted you to be.’

Her world went still as that black heart cracked open and revealed all the shining hope for their future inside.

‘I don’t want to be like that old fool who left it too late,’ Gian said. ‘I want the woman I love by my side. I love you,’ Gian clarified, and she felt the blood pump in every chamber of her heart as it filled with his words. ‘You are the most important person in my day.’

It was the one thing Ariana had wanted her whole life—to be the centre of someone’s world, to be wanted, to be cherished, for exactly who she was.

‘Ariana,’ Gian said, ‘you are the love of my life. Will you be my wife?’

Her answer was a sequence of squeaks, a ‘Yes,’ followed by ‘Please,’ as an ancient ring slid onto a slender finger, and because it was Ariana, she took a generous moment to properly admire it. ‘I love it,’ she said, and he watched massive pupils crowd the violet in her eyes. He adored her absolute passion for his ring. ‘You would never have sold it...’ She scolded the very thought.

‘No,’ he said, ‘it belongs with me, as do you.’ He was silenced by her kiss, a kiss that held nothing back but showered him in frantic love. Another ‘I do, I do,’ she said, and then followed that with another needy, necessary question. ‘When?’ she asked. ‘When can we marry?’

‘Soon,’ Gian said, and got back to kissing her, but Ariana had something else on her mind.

‘And can we have...?’

‘You can have the Basilica, if you want it,’ Gian said.

‘No,’ Ariana said, ‘can we have tutti-frutti and salted chestnut ice cream for dessert...?’

He laughed. ‘Trust you to have chosen the dessert by the end of the proposal.’ And then he kissed her to oblivion, and behind closed doors he took his newly appointed guest services manager and made love to her as the Very Important Person she was.

To him.

For life.

EPILOGUE

‘YOU HAVE ANOTHER phone call.’ Gian gently shook a sleeping Ariana’s shoulder. ‘Stefano,’ Gian added, watching her eyes force themselves open, knowing she could never not take a call from her twin.

And certainly not on an important day such as this.

‘Stai bene?’ Stefano urgently asked if she was okay.

‘Of course.’ Ariana smiled sleepily as she sat herself up in bed. ‘We are doing wonderfully.’

‘Have you decided on a name for her?’ Stefano asked.

‘We are waiting until you arrive to announce the name,’ Ariana said. ‘I want us all to be together when we do.’

Eloa and Stefano and little George were in Brazil and soon to board a flight to Florence. Dante, Mia and the twins would fly in with their mother and Thomas tomorrow, and all would meet the newest member of the family. But, tired from an exhausting day, Ariana was grateful that for now it was just the three of them.

‘How is Stefano?’ Gian asked when she ended the call.

‘Excited to meet her,’ Ariana said, gazing over to the little crib that held their sleeping daughter.

She was so beautiful, with dark hair and a little red face, and tiny hands with long delicate fingers.

They were both aching for her to wake up just to look into those gorgeous blue eyes again and hear her tiny cry.

‘I wish Papà had got to see her,’ Ariana said. Her father was the only part of her heart that was missing. ‘I wish he had known about us.’ She would get used to it, of course, but she couldn’t help but think how happy he would be today. ‘I am glad we had her in Florence,’ Ariana said. ‘I feel closer to him here.’

‘I know you do.’

La Fiordelise Rome was no longer where Gian resided. For the first time he had a home—a real one—a luxurious villa just a little way out of Florence, with a gorgeous view of the river.

This morning, as labour had started, Ariana had stood on the terrace, taking in the morning, the pink sky, and the lights starting to go off in the city they both loved and thinking what a beautiful day this was for their baby to be born.

And now she was here and it was right to have a little cry and to miss her papà.

‘I have something for you,’ Gian said, and he went into his pocket and pulled out a long, slim box. But instead of handing it to her, he opened it and took the slender chain out and held up the pendant for her to see.

She smiled as he brought it closer, but she didn’t immediately recognise what it was.

‘Gian?’ she questioned as she examined the swirl of rose gold and saw that instead of an F for Fiordelise, there was an A, sparkling in diamonds. ‘It’s beautiful, but...’

‘Take a look,’ Gian said, and he pulled back the heavy drapes that blocked out the world and the city skyline. Her eyes were instantly drawn to the sight of La Fiordelise Florence, for it was lit up in the softest pink.

And there was something else different.

The elegant signage had been changed. Oh, there was still the familiar rose gold swirl, but like her pendant the letter in the centre was now an A.

‘The hotel has had a name change,’ Gian said. ‘It is now