And the truth was, she had felt that way while it was happening. But that was the thing about spending time with Giaco. She could feel whatever she liked, and she did, but no matter how sincere he seemed, no matter how intense it felt to her, she always knew that he was acting.
He sold it. There was no denying it.
All of the dinner pictures showed him entranced. Enchanted. He held her hand as they ate. He leaned in, as if every word that dripped from her lips was some nectar he wanted to taste.
And then, after their breathtakingly romantic dinner, were the money shots. The point of the whole thing. Giaco Tavian getting down on one knee and gazing up at Ivy, clearly proposing, a small jeweler’s box in his palm.
She had to hand it to Gabriele, Ivy thought now. She didn’t know if he’d summoned that breeze with the force of his will, but it made the flowing dress that she’d worn that night even more beautiful. The breeze caught it and played with it, and her hair blew back too, and it looked so intimate, so achingly romantic, that she felt something like teary as she stared at the photo now. At the look on Giaco’s face as he gazed up at her. At the look on her own face as she put her hands on him.
She couldn’t help thinking this was a scene that should never have been photographed.
In her house in London, with the phone still ringing and the doorbell sounding and hammering at her door, she sat back and rubbed her eyes.
“It isn’t real,” she reminded herself. Sternly. “None of that is real. No one is intruding on anything, because it didn’t really happen.”
They were engaged. That part was real enough. He had actually proposed, after a fashion, though what he’d actually said while down there one knee had not been romantic in the least.
Are you ready to take the next step?he’d asked.It’s probably going to make things difficult.
Ivy had laughed.More difficult than they already are?
I’ve been with lot of women, he’d told her, as if she might have forgotten. As if anyone could possibly have forgotten.The scrutiny on you will increase a hundredfold.
I’m aware of who you are, she’d replied, through a smile that had felt stiff on her mouth.
Then so be it, he’d said, rather darkly.
Not exactly love’s young dream, Ivy thought now, but it certainly looked that way in the pictures. She looked down at her hand and felt that same jolting sort of reaction that she’d felt that night, too.
She’d had no doubt that Giaco would produce something beautiful. Every item of clothing that she’d been given to wear as part of her official wardrobe had been exquisite. She would be hard-pressed to think of a single objection she had to any of it. She even liked most of the pictures she’d seen of herself at these events. He’d staged romantic moments, took her to marvelous restaurants, and while their relationship might have been fake, the food was always divine. She’d assumed theengagement upgrade, as noted in the itinerary, would be the same sort of thing.
In terms of the ring Giaco would choose to sell their engagement to the world, she expected something extravagant, but elegant. Instead he’d gone sentimental, and she still didn’t know how she felt about that. The ring was a collection of opals and moonstones, clustered around a diamond.
I love moonstones, she had whispered, out there in the soft breeze on a Mediterranean cliff top.My mother loved opals.
I know, Giaco had said, all dark jade and that mouth set to something near enough to stern.You forget, Ivy. I did actually know your mother. And you.
The photographer had kept snapping pictures from his perch on the roof that the public would confuse for a drone, and so she could see the exact moment she’d looked down at the ring, that intense look on her face. What it looked like to anyone who was seeing this photo now—and she assumed the world had seen it already—was that she’d been fighting back tears.
When what she’d actually been fighting back was a sense of disorientation.No, she had told him, the ring gleaning between them.You don’t know me. You certainly didn’t know me back then.
I know you like moonstones, Giaco had replied. A bit stiffly. As if she’d offended him.
She hadn’t seen any reason to push at that assertion, even if she’d wanted to. Even if it had been like a burning thing in her throat, the need to correct him. Now, hidden in London these last few days in preparation for this photo drop, now with a baying mob outside her door, she huddled in her bed and stared at that ring on her hand.
The ring he’d put there when she’d stopped arguing about whether or not Giaco Tavianknew her.
It was, bar none, not only the most beautiful ring she’d ever seen, but it was also essentially what she would have designed for herself if she could have. And that made her feel…
Well. She didn’t know what she felt. Not about the ring, anyway. Or maybe she didn’t reallywantto know how she felt, because—
Her mobile rang again and she looked over out of habit, then picked up only because it was Giaco’s number.
“I take it you’ve seen the pictures,” he said without preamble.
“I think the entirety of the British gutter press is kept out of my doorstep.” She laughed, though it came out a bit…wild. “They clued me in.”
“I thought that might happen.” He sounded odd, she thought. Or perhaps hedidn’tsound lazy and mocking and unbothered by it all. “We’ll issue a statement from here. But this is what I meant by things getting difficult. I don’t think this is the kind of furor that’s going to die down, Ivy. You’re too exposed in London.”
