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Her insides twisted hard, but she pushed the anguish away. ‘I don’t think of myself as a victim. But neither am I a villain. Our past is—’
‘In the past,’ he interrupted. ‘Tonight is about what comes next for you and me.’
Before she could respond, Ares was pulling up in front of one of the many centuries-old buildings the city was known for. It looked nondescript from the outside, but even its act of attempting to look plain hinted at hidden delights.
She wasn’t mistaken.
The moment Ares alighted, a smartly dressed young man approached, took his car keys, and waved them through the ordinary-looking doors.
After a dozen steps on a black carpet they came to dramatic red double doors and a stone-paved corridor lit with large medieval fire lamps thrust into the walls high above their heads. It was so evocative of a bygone era that she stared around her, her mouth agape.
‘Where are we?’
‘Teatro Romana di Caracalla. A private exclusive theatre owned by a friend. It was a rundown apartment building when I sold it to him two years ago. He’s turned it around admirably. At any other time I would’ve preferred for us to have the place to ourselves, but tonight calls for a curated audience.’
Her breath snagged in her chest. ‘What’s special about tonight?’
One eyebrow arched in a satirical mockery. ‘You do want the message reinforced, don’t you? Or would you rather leave Bartorelli with the impression that he still has a chance?’
A cold shudder went through her. ‘No, I wouldn’t.’
‘Good.’
He tugged her hand onto his sleeve and escorted her to the end of the corridor, which opened up into a wide balcony. Below the balcony a semi-circular theatre was set out not with rows of seats but with twelve semi-circular dining tables with chairs facing the stage. The whole theatre rose three storeys high, with more fire torches fixed along the walls up to the ceiling.
It was spectacular, and she would’ve loved to explore, had Ares’s intentions not been uppermost in her thoughts.
He led her to a table clearly set out centre stage, briefly acknowledging the occupants of the other tables. Odessa was keenly aware that they were the cynosure of every pair of eyes, and murmurs of interest were flaring.
Vintage champagne set in a silver bucket was poured into crystal flutes as the lights went down. Then the first haunting strings of a familiar opera drew fresh tingles down her spine.
Her gaze darted to Ares. ‘Tristan and Isolde?’
A ghost of a smile drifted over his lips as he clinked his glass against hers. ‘Your favourite story, ne?’
Her breath caught. ‘You remember?’
‘The curse of having a steel trap memory,’ he said with a throwaway shrug, his face shuttered in a way that made her heart drop.
The first act of the twisted, heart-tugging love story was accompanied by a superb lobster salad and then sublime gnocchi, salmon and truffle cheese served by unobtrusive attendants trained in the art of melting into the background.
By the time the lights came up on first intermission, Odessa’s emotions were threatening to strangle her. The reasons behind Ares choosing an opera that celebrated a fierce forbidden love that ended in tragedy had triggered higher emotions and put her on fierce alert.
Was it a metaphor for them? A warning against reading anything into his actions?
Her gaze dropped to the table, to the expensive-looking square velvet box he was sliding across the table, and a loud gasp erupted through her jagged emotions. ‘This is... You can’t—’
‘Open it,’ he commanded, and there was a hoarse roughness to his voice despite his carefully neutral expression.
Her brain shrieked at her not to, but that foolish sliver of a doe-eyed girl lurking deep within her compelled her to reach out a trembling hand.
The blush-pink diamond was surrounded with two rows of tiny, flawless cushion-cut white diamonds mounted on a platinum base and narrow band, each one glinting and sparkling beneath the candlelight.
A gasp echoed somewhere to her right, and within a minute wild applause broke out, their audience cunningly pulled into this seemingly euphoric moment.
On cue, Ares rose, closed the gap between them, lifted the ring from its plush velvet cushion and slipped it onto her finger. All the while Odessa’s mouth gaped in what might be construed as romantic shock but was in reality astonishment at how expertly she’d been played.
Under the pretext of brushing her lips with his—an act which left her mouth tingling and heat arrowing sharply between her legs—Ares took her chin in his hand, his eyes gleaming as he murmured, ‘I would get down on one knee, but since we’ve been forced to put the cart before the horse I feel that moment has passed, no?’
