Chapter Five #4
He refused to accept that he was falling for the Princess of Upper Mandovia because he’d never been in love in his life.
He’d been in lust and he’d been infatuated and both conditions had worn off fast. He wasn’t sure he even believed in love between a man and a woman, at least, lasting love.
He had watched his parents’ once-happy marriage disintegrate on the rocks of his father’s cheating and his mother’s endless volatile scenes.
It was hard for him to believe in the longevity of a committed relationship and yet, Fiero had been with Allie for years and they were one of the happiest couples he knew.
And not the only ones, he conceded grudgingly.
Immaculate once again, Zia returned to socialising in the grand ballroom, where she encountered Orazio’s searing appraisal from across the room.
When he unleashed his dazzling smile on her, she smiled back.
And that quickly she was making up her mind to do exactly what she wanted to do…
deciding that, just for once, she would embrace that luxury.
Choices had never been hers to make before.
Other people had always got to make those choices for her.
She hadn’t even chosen to return to Mandovia for her own benefit.
Once again a choice had been made for her and she had agreed because it had been the least worst option.
Only now she was an adult and she needed for the sake of her own pride to behave like one.
From here on out, she would make her own decisions, regardless of whether or not they posed a risk.
She was fed up with always being sensible, mature and cynical, of denying herself outlets that other, more adventurous women took for granted.
Almost certainly, a couple of foolish choices could not subject her to more hurt than she had already endured in her life.
Having reached that decision, she felt positively light and airy, only abstractedly recalling all the moral lectures Alina had carefully aimed at her even while Sandrine had been partying with one man after another below the same roof.
But then, to be fair, Alina was a maiden lady, who had been raised in a different era for women, an age when women were only truly valued for their virtue.
Zia had disagreed with that outlook even as a teenager and had defined her own morals as she’d grown up into a much simpler and more liveable version.
Only the possibility of having a regular man in her life hadn’t developed, mainly because she lacked a social life and friends to go out with.
Most evenings she had been studying, attending a class, working for Sandrine or looking after Alina.
In fact, her one and only experience with a member of the opposite sex had proved disappointing and distinctly frightening, she conceded with a chilled shiver of remembrance, and that had put her off pursuing more extensive experimentation.
But Orazio was a very safe option for her, she acknowledged thoughtfully.
He didn’t want any public connection to be made between them.
He was only after a discreet fling. Why did that make her feel hurt?
Wasn’t that the same as she wanted too? It didn’t mean that either of them was thinking less of the other or being disrespectful, she told herself.
It would simply be a physical thing, a private thing between them alone and absolutely nobody would ever know about their more intimate moments but the two of them.
Giancarlo was glued to her side as the event ran to a close and it was becoming tedious.
His persistence was becoming irritating.
He talked up a storm about seeing her again, taking her out places, introducing her to his posh mates, and she listened and smiled, gently mentioning her packed itinerary over the coming weeks.
But that still wasn’t enough to dent Giancarlo’s enthusiasm as he pointed out that she would be able to see him at quite a few of the same events. She tried not to wince at the reminder.
She went up to bed, tired but buoyed up by her plans to be with Orazio at least once.
She was embarrassed that she had not reciprocated in any way in that storage cupboard.
That didn’t sit well with her. Indeed it only reminded her of her comparative lack of sexual experience and made her aware that she would have to think out of the box and push herself forward, rather than wait for him to make another move.
Why on earth had she told him that she would only agree to a relationship when she didn’t want one either?
The complexities of her own brain bewildered her.
She had been trying to hold him at bay, protecting herself in a knee-jerk reaction by rejecting him even though there was really no need for her to do that with Orazio.
While Zia agonised about what she had said and what she had not done, Orazio fell into bed, reliving the encounter in the storage cupboard, recalling her fire and her glorious responsiveness with a pained groan of fierce hunger.
He would have to be subtle, he decided, and she didn’t have a subtle bone in her body…
His immediate future, nonetheless, shone like the bright heat of the sun on his horizon.