‘Ariana, you came!’ Mia’s greeting was a cry, and she leapt up from where she’d been sitting, gazing out over the parterre, and ran towards her.
Her hug was tight—and clinging. But when she released her Ariana saw, with a shock of dismay, that she’d been crying.
And they were not tears of joy, as a newly engaged woman’s should be, but tears of misery.
Luca depressed the accelerator. Shot off along the autostrada heading back to Milan. He was keen to get things moving. He wanted no delays. The wedding would take place as soon as it could be organised.
Personally, he would have been content with a swift civil service, but that was not what his bride would want. Nor Tomaso. So it would be a lavish church wedding, the whole event to be handed over to professionals along with a sky-high budget.
As discussed with Tomaso before he’d left thepalazzo,it would take place in the beautiful medieval church in the nearby historic town. A picture-book setting that would show off his bride’s shy beauty to perfection.
He gave a flickering smile of pleasure and his expression softened. How amazing it was for him to have found her as he had! Her angelic looks were matched by the sweetness of her disposition! Her shy smile...the cerulean blue eyes that looked so tremulously at him...her low, diffident voice. No wonder he’d been instantly smitten. She was everything he’d ever dreamed of—the perfect wife for him!
And, of course, Tomaso Castellani had welcomed his suit. Luca had made it abundantly clear to him that his precious granddaughter would be safe in his oh-so-devoted hands. That she would be as precious to him as to Tomaso, as protected and sheltered as she had been all her life.
‘I’ll take absolute care of her!’he’d promised, and he would keep that promise.‘Because she deserves it! She is as lovely in her nature as she is in her beauty!’
There would never be any dissent between them—never any cause for concern, never any disagreement.
She will be my peace...
He could not wait to make her his bride. His wife.
Frustration bit at Ariana as she seized Mia’s hands, sitting beside her on the stone bench of the gazebo.
‘Justtellhim! Tellhim you don’t want to marry him after all!’
Her cousin’s face buckled. ‘I can’t! Ican’t!’
‘But why not?’ Ariana demanded. ‘He’s not a monster, is he?’
‘No! Of course not! But... But he’s...he’s so...sokeen...on me. I can’t refuse him! Not after I’ve already said yes to him!’
Frustration mounted in Ariana, and she had to bite back her instinct to say,Well, you should never have said yes in the first place then!Instead she tried another tactic.
‘Tell him you were overwhelmed! That it was so sudden, so unexpected, you didn’t sufficiently take on board what was happening. Say that he rushed you!’
Her lips pressed tightly. ‘Rushed’ was an understatement—Mia had known the man less than two months and had spent very little time with him, nearly always in her grandfather’s company. OK, so the man had been instantly smitten—given her cousin’s exquisite beauty, Ariana could understand that! But surely he would see that Mia needed time—courtship, even—and that marriage was far too important to be rushed?
Didn’t her own mother’s sorry experience bear witness to that? Running off with her wastrel father and then promptly bolting with a replacement. And then a replacement for the replacement...
She realised her cousin was shaking her head, felt her grip on her hands tightening.
‘Ican’t! Oh, Ariana, I’m not outspoken like you are! I can’t tell him anything like that! He wants the wedding to be as soon as possible—he doesn’t want a long engagement!’
‘And what about whatyouwant?’ Ariana countered, her face working. ‘Mia, you don’t have to do what others want all the time!’ She took a heavy breath. ‘Talk to our grandfather! Tell him you don’t want to marry! That you feel hustled into it!’
Mia’s eyes filled with horror. ‘No! That would be even worse! I can’t! He’s thrilled for me! Overjoyed! I can’t do it to him—I can’t!’
Ariana squeezed her cousin’s limp hands. ‘Mia, this is yourlife! Youcannotmarry a man you don’t want to marry just because you don’t want to reject him, and least of all because you don’t want to upset our grandfather! Youhaveto stand up for yourself!’
Even as she said that she knew how hopeless it was. Mia had never stood up for herself in her life. Up till now she’d never wanted to—had been content enough, so it seemed, to be their grandfather’s favoured grandchild, fussed over and pampered and made much of. All that favouritism had never spoilt Mia, though—she remained as sweet-natured as she always had been.
Too sweet-natured...
She got all the honey and I got all the vinegar, Ariana thought ruefully.
She let Mia’s crushed hands go. The thing was, she was just as protective over Mia as their grandfather was. She hated to see her as tearful as she was now.