She got to her feet, looking down at her cousin, her lovely eyes red with crying. There must be a way to extricate her from her predicament. It shouldn’t be impossible—after all, Mia was only engaged, and engagements could be broken.
‘OK,’ Ariana said, sounding brisk and sensible, ‘let’s think. There must be a way of releasing you without causing anyone any upset.’ She looked at Mia a moment, frowning slightly. ‘Just to be sure—youreallydon’t want to marry this man? I mean, this isn’t just nerves, is it? Are you not even a tiny bit in love with him? I mean, if it’s got to the point of him proposing...?’
Mia shook her head. ‘I’m not in love with him at all!’ she exclaimed.
Her gaze slipped past Ariana and she looked out over the gardens through the open shutters of the gazebo. There had been an odd note in Mia’s voice. Adamant and evasive.
‘Mia? Is there something you’re not telling me?’ she asked slowly.
She put a hand on her cousin’s shoulder, turning her around to face her again. Mia’s eyes were filling with tears again.
Realisation dawned in Ariana. ‘Oh, Lord,’ she said in a hollow voice. ‘There’s someone else, isn’t there?’
The tears spilled down Mia’s pale cheeks. ‘Nonno will never let me marry him! Never! He’s English—a musician. He plays the guitar and he’s been busking here in the town, for tourists—that’s how I met him. I stopped to listen on my way to the hairdresser and we got talking, and... Well, we’ve somehow managed to spend some time together, and... Oh, Ariana, I’ve fallen in love—I truly have. And so has he, with me. But Nonno doesn’t know anything about it. And he’d never approve—never! Matt hasn’t any money...’
Ariana felt her heart sink. No, a penniless English musician busking for a living would not be their grandfather’s idea of a suitable husband for Mia—not by a million miles.
Mia’s voice rang out in anguish. ‘And Nonno is so pleased that I am going to marry Luca! He’s handsome and eligible and fabulously rich.’
Ice reached Ariana’s lungs, freezing her breath. Yet through her frozen airway she managed, somehow, to speak.
‘Luca...?’
There are many other Lucas—thousands of them! Hundreds of good-looking, incredibly rich ones too... There must be!
But even as she prayed so desperately she heard Mia’s answer. The one she knew she would give.
‘Yes,’ Mia said, getting the words out through her tears. ‘Luca Farnese...he’s some kind of financier in Milan.’
‘Luca Farnese?’ Ariana echoed, in a voice like death, and felt every last cell in her body freeze.
CHAPTER FIVE
LUCAWASINhis office in Milan. He was leaving for Geneva that afternoon, but first he had something quite different from his business affairs to attend to. He pulled the freshly delivered folder on his desk towards him. Its pink and gold delicacy was quite at odds with the dark-grained wood surface. He flicked it open, glancing through the contents so carefully prepared for him by the extremely expensive wedding planner.
Whilst he didn’t care about trivia such as floral arrangements and table settings, they would naturally be of interest to his fiancée. A copy had been despatched to her already—he would phone her from Geneva tonight and discuss it with her. Not that Mia would dispute anything—she always went along with everything he wanted without demur. The sweetness of her nature ensured that.
On impulse he picked up his phone, spoke to his PA in the outer office. He would order flowers to be delivered to thepalazzo. More flowers. And at lunchtime he’d cancel his business appointment and take a look at some of the jewellers in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, the famous Milan shopping arcade full of prestigious boutiques. His fiancée already had a massive diamond and sapphire engagement ring, but he would find some pretty trifle for her and have it despatched today.
In his mind he saw her lovely face light up as she opened it. Delight in her celestial blue eyes...
‘He keeps sending me things! Flowers every day now—and jewellery! I can’t bear it!’
Mia’s voice down the telephone was a plaintive wail.
Ariana tensed. Tension was her daily state now—tension and horror. And increasing desperation.
Dear God, Miacouldn’tmarry Luca Farnese! She just couldn’t! It was impossible—unthinkable!
I have to stop it somehow...anyhow!
But how? She couldn’t get Mia to break it off herself, no matter how hard she tried to persuade her. Nor would Mia go to their grandfather. And she’d almost had hysterics when Ariana had saidshewould tell him.
‘No, you can’t—you can’t! He’ll be so angry!’ Mia had cried.
The word had tolled like a bell in Ariana’s brain. ‘Angry’ would not be the word if she went to their grandfather and told him the real reason Mia could never marry Luca Farnese...
She shuddered. It was one thing to be defiant against his domestic tyranny—another to see in his face the disgust and the condemnation that would be there if she did tell him. And this time he would have every right to despise her.