CHAPTER TEN

BOXES of decorations littered the big hall. Ava was using a stepladder to dress the tree and cursing the fact that her carefully laid plans were running behind schedule. It had taken most of the day to have the tree felled, brought to the castle and safely erected in the most suitable spot. A towering specimen of uniform graceful shape, the tree looked magnificent, but she had had to search the attics for two hours before she finally tracked down the lights.

Her generous mouth took on an unhappy tilt. After the tragedy of the last Christmas celebrated at the castle three years earlier, all the festive decorations had been bundled away without the usual care and attention and some items had emerged broken while others appeared to have been mislaid. It saddened her to recall that the last time she had dressed a tree Olly had been by her side and in full perfectionist mode as he argued about where every decoration went, adjusted branches and insisted on tweaking everything to obtain the best possible effect. In truth, Olly had adored the festive season as much as Vito loathed it.

To be fair, though, what happy memories could Vito possibly have of Christmas? When he was a boy, his mother had walked out on his father and him shortly before Christmas and his father had refused to celebrate the season in the years that followed. Olly’s demise at the same time of year could only have set the seal on Vito’s aversion to seasonal tinsel. Ava did not want to be insensitive towards his feelings.

The night before, Vito had fallen into bed beside her late on and in silence. She did not know where he had been or what he had been doing and even after she made it clear that she was still awake he had not offered any explanation. For the first time as well he hadn’t touched her or reached for her in any way and she had felt ridiculously rejected. Her faith in her insuperable sex appeal had dive-bombed overnight. She had started wondering if there was more depth than she knew to his comment that being with her was ‘hard work’. She flinched at that disturbing recollection. That tabloid story combined with her distress over her mother’s baffling letter and the emotional mood engendered by her reunion with her sisters could not have helped to improve that impression. Vito was not accustomed to complex relationships with women. Perhaps he was getting fed up with all the problems she had brought into his life and forced him to share. He might even have reached the conclusion that he would be quite content to wave goodbye to her after the party. Last night, she thought painfully, she had felt as though he had withdrawn from her again, his reserve kicking back in when it was least welcome.

Her mobile phone rang and she pulled it out of her pocket.

‘It’s Vito. I can’t make it back for a couple of days so I’ll stay in my apartment. I should mention though that I’ve set up a meeting for you with some people for the day after tomorrow. Will you stay home in the morning?’

‘What people? Why? What’s going on?’ Ava prompted, striving to keep the sound of disappointment out of her response. He was a workaholic—she knew he was. He might have worked shorter hours the previous week to be with her but it would be unrealistic to expect that sexual heat and impatience to continue. And to start imagining that maybe another woman had caught his eye or that he wanted a break from the woman he had, perhaps unwisely, invited to stay in his home, was equally reasonable.

‘I’m bringing a couple of people I want you to meet,’ he advanced.

Her brow furrowed, surprise and curiosity assailing her. ‘Do I need to dress up?’

‘No. What you wear won’t matter,’ he said flatly.

Who is it? she was tempted to demand, but she restrained her tongue. Vito already sounded tired and tense and she didn’t want to remind him that she could be hard work in a relationship. Relationship, get you, she mused irritably as she dug her phone back into her pocket and selected a fine glass angel to hang on the tree with careful fingers. A casual affair was a relationship of sorts but not of the lasting, deep kind that led to commitment. She was with a guy who didn’t commit and didn’t lie about it either. A whole host of far more beautiful and sophisticated ladies had passed through his life before she came along and not one of them had lasted either. He was thirty-one with neither a marriage nor even a broken engagement under his belt and she was the very first woman to live at the castle with him. At that acknowledgement, her mouth quirked. And what was that concession really worth? She had had nowhere else to stay and it was more convenient for her to organise the party while she lived on the premises.

She checked the rooms set aside for the party. The estate joiner had done a fine job with the Santa grotto for the younger children and the nativity set with life-size figures, which she had hired to place in the opposite corner, added a nice touch about the true meaning of Christmas. The room next door was decorated with a dance theme for the teenagers and rejoiced in a portable floor that lit up. On the day there would be a DJ presiding. Across the hall lay the ballroom where the adult event would take place with a manned bar and music. The caterers had already placed seats and tables down one side and the local florist would soon be arriving to install the festive flower arrangements that Ava had selected.

She found it hard to get to sleep that night even with Harvey sleeping at the foot of the bed. Persuading the dog from his station waiting at the front door for Vito’s return had been a challenge. That she could have been tempted to join the dog in his vigil bothered her. It was never cool to be so keen on a man and it would not be long before she betrayed herself and he recognised the fact that she had fallen for him. Then he would feel uncomfortable around her and he wouldn’t be able to wait to get rid of her. She would leave after the party with dignity and no big departure scene, she told herself fiercely.

A couple of restless nights in succession ensured that Ava slept in the morning that Vito was bringing company back and she had to wash, dress and breakfast at speed. By the time she heard the helicopter flying in over the roof of the castle, she was pacing in the hall. With a woof of excitement and anticipation, Harvey stationed himself back by the entrance again and Ava suppressed a sigh at the sight.

Vito strode into the castle with three other men, a reality that took Ava aback and she hung back from greeting him. Even so her entire focus was on Vito as she drank in his darkly handsome features and the lithe power of his well-built body sheathed in a dark designer suit.

‘Miss Fitzgerald?’ A stocky man with a tired but familiar face was smiling at her and extending his hand. ‘It’s been a long time.’

Ava was stunned: he was the solicitor, Roger Barlow, who had represented her when she was on trial three years earlier.

‘Possibly longer for her,’ the older blond man behind him quipped, catching her now free hand in his. ‘David Lloyd, senior partner with Lloyd and Lloyd Law Associates in London.’

‘And this is Gregory James,’ Vito introduced the final man in the group, a thickly set balding bearded man, with grave courtesy. ‘Gregory and his firm were responsible for upgrading the security on the estate after the break-in we suffered here five years ago.’

Ava nodded, while wondering what all these men had to do with her. Was her solicitor’s presence a simple coincidence? She glanced at Vito, belatedly noticing the lines of tension grooving his mouth, the shadows below his eyes. Barely forty-eight hours had passed since she had last seen him and he looked vaguely as if he’d been to hell and back, she thought in dismay, suddenly desperate to know what was going on. Why on earth had he brought members of the legal profession home with him?

Vito suggested they all adjourn to the library where everyone but him took a seat. ‘I asked Greg to come here and meet you personally, Ava. He’ll explain what this is all about.’

‘I saw those photos of you in the newspaper on Sunday,’ Greg James volunteered, studying her with calm but curious eyes. ‘I read the story and I was very shocked by it. I was at the party here that night as well and I had no idea there had been an accident until I read about it. I left the party an hour before midnight to catch my flight to Brazil where I had my next commission.’

‘Greg had no idea you’d been tried and sent to prison for reckless driving because he was working abroad for months afterwards,’ Vito explained. ‘But after he had read that newspaper he phoned me and suggested we meet up.’

‘You weren’t the driver that night,’ Greg James informed Ava with measured force. ‘I saw what happened that evening outside the castle. I thought I was seeing a stupid argument between people I didn’t know … with the exception of Vito’s brother. I had no idea I was witnessing anything that might be relevant to a court case and I thought no more of it until I learned that you had gone to prison over what happened that night.’

Ava’s lips had fallen open and her eyes were wide. Her heart was beating so fast she almost pressed a hand against it because she was feeling slightly dizzy. ‘What are you talking about? How could I not have been the driver? And what argument did you see?’

David Lloyd leant forward in his armchair. ‘Ava … your defence at the trial was hampered by the fact that you had no memory of the accident. How could you protect yourself when you remembered nothing?’

‘As I said, I left the party early,’ Greg continued. ‘I’d arranged a taxi pickup and while I was waiting for it on the steps outside I saw an argument take place around a car. There were three people there … you, Vito’s brother, Olly, and a large woman in a pink dress.’

‘Three people,’ Ava almost whispered with a frown. ‘A large woman?’

‘The last thing you remembered before the accident was running down the steps towards Olly’s car,’ her former solicitor reminded her helpfully.

‘The large woman followed you outside and a row broke out between you all,’ Greg James supplied. ‘That’s why I noticed the incident. The lady in the pink dress had obviously had too much to drink. She was very angry and she was shouting all sorts at you and the boy.’

Vito spoke up for the first time. ‘I’m sorry but I think the lady in the pink dress was your mother. I also saw her leave the castle in a rush. I assumed she’d had another argument with your father. To my everlasting regret I didn’t go outside to check on you and Olly.’

‘My … mother?’ Ava was repeating while studying Vito with incredulity. ‘Are you trying to suggest that she was driving?’

‘Oh, she was definitely driving that night,’ Greg James declared with complete confidence. ‘I saw her in the driver’s seat and I saw her drive off like a bat out of hell as well.’

Nausea stirred in Ava’s tense stomach and she dimly registered that it was the result of more shock than she could handle. She skimmed her strained gaze round the room as if in search of someone who could explain things because her brain refused to understand what she was being told.

‘With sufficient new evidence we can appeal your conviction,’ David Lloyd informed her seriously. ‘My firm specialises in such cases and Vito consulted me for advice yesterday. He didn’t want to raise false hopes.’

‘Mum couldn’t have been there … it’s not possible,’ Ava whispered shakily. ‘It couldn’t have been her. I mean, she was banned from driving and she’d stopped drinking.’

‘She fell off the wagon again at the party,’ Vito countered heavily. ‘I can confirm that. I called on Thomas Fitzgerald yesterday and your mother’s husband confirmed that he caught your mother drinking that night and that they had a colossal row from which she stormed off saying that she was going home. He assumed she was getting a cab and he was simply relieved she’d left without causing a public scene.’

Ava blinked rapidly and studied her linked hands. Her mother had worn a pink dress that night but that surely wasn’t acceptable evidence. ‘If she was in the car what happened to her after the crash?’

‘Obviously she wasn’t hurt. We can only assume that she panicked and pulled you into the driver’s seat before fleeing home. She would have known that Olly was dead.’

‘A woman in a pink dress was seen walking down the road towards the village about the time of the crash.’ Roger Barlow spoke up, somewhat shyly, for the first time since his arrival. ‘The police did appeal for her to come forward but I’m afraid nobody did.’

‘Olly wouldn’t have let her drive his car. She wasn’t allowed to drive, she wasn’t insured,’ Ava mumbled in a daze. She was horrified by the suggestion that her mother had not only abandoned her at the crash site while she was unconscious but had also moved her daughter’s body to make it look as though she had been the drunk driver who had run the car off the road into a tree.

‘You did try to reason with the woman and so did the boy but she wouldn’t listen. She kept on saying that she was sick and tired of people trying to tell her what to do and she repeatedly insisted that she was sober. She was determined to drive and she didn’t give Vito’s brother a choice about it. She pushed him out of her way and just jumped in the driver’s seat and slammed the door. He yanked open the rear passenger door and flung himself in the back seat at the last possible moment and the car went off down the drive like a rocket,’ Greg James completed with a shake of his head while he studied Ava’s pale shocked face. ‘You were the front seat passenger. You weren’t driving, you definitely weren’t driving that car that night …’

‘Roger drew my attention to the fact that there were other inconsistencies in your case,’ David Lloyd informed her helpfully. ‘The police found a woman’s footprints in the mud by the driver’s door although you were still out cold when the ambulance arrived. One of your legs was also still resting in the foot well of the front passenger seat and the injury to your head was on the left side, suggesting that you had been bashed up against the passenger window.’

‘When your mother’s husband came home later that night, your mother had locked herself in the spare room and was refusing to answer either the phone or the doorbell,’ Vito informed her levelly. ‘When did your mother finally come to see you in hospital?’

Ava parted bloodless lips. ‘She didn’t come to the hospital. She came down with the flu and I was home within a few days and receiving outpatient treatment.’

‘And how did she behave when she saw you again?’

‘She acted like the accident hadn’t happened. She got very upset when … er … Thomas lectured me about how I’d killed Olly and ruined my life.’

‘She wasn’t upset enough to come forward and admit that she was the driver,’ Vito breathed, his tone one of harsh condemnation.

‘I think we have a very good chance of, at the very least, having Ava’s conviction set aside as unsafe,’ David Lloyd forecast with assurance. ‘I’m happy to take on the case.’

‘And obviously I’ll take care of the costs involved,’ Vito completed on an audible footnote of satisfaction.

The other men were all heading straight back to London again in the helicopter. As the trio stood chatting together Vito approached Ava, who was still frozen in her armchair showing all the animation of a wax dummy. ‘I really do have to get back to the office, bella mia,’ he imparted, searching her blank eyes with a hint of thwarted masculine frustration. ‘I pushed a great deal of work aside to deal with this over the last couple of days. I didn’t want to bring it to you without checking out the evidence first.’

‘I know … you didn’t want to raise false hopes,’ she said flatly.

‘Naturally all this has come as a shock but say the word and I’ll stay if that would make you feel better …’

‘Why would it make me feel better?’ Ava parted stiff lips to enquire. ‘You’ve already done more than enough for me. I’ll be fine.’

Vito remembered tears running down her face that day in Harrods and silently cursed. Amazon woman didn’t need anyone, certainly not him for support. He stepped back, anger glimmering in his stunning dark golden eyes, his strong bone structure taut with self-discipline. ‘If you need me, if you have any questions, phone me,’ he urged, knowing he wouldn’t be holding his breath for that call to come.

‘Of course.’ Ava looked up at him as if she were trying to memorise his features. In truth she was in so much shock and pain, she felt utterly divorced from him and the struggle to maintain her composure was using up what energy she had left.

As soon as she heard the helicopter overhead again, Ava went and got her coat, collected Harvey from the hall and went outside, her feet crunching over the crisp snow that had frozen overnight.

To Ava, it seemed at that moment as though Vito had unleashed another nightmare into her world. In the same week that Ava had lost the man she had believed was her father, she had been confronted with the horrible threatening image of a mother who might have sacrificed her youngest daughter to save her own skin. Was it true? Ava asked herself wretchedly. Was it true that Gemma Fitzgerald could have done such a thing? Was that what her mother’s distraught letter was all about? Gemma’s own guilt, guilt so great she couldn’t even face the prospect of seeing Ava again?

Ava’s head was starting to ache with the force of her emotions. She tried to imagine how she would feel without the ever-present burden of feeling responsible for her best friend Olly’s death. She couldn’t imagine it, her own guilt had long since become a part of her. But the pain of thinking that her mother might have stood by doing nothing while her daughter was reviled, tried and sentenced to a long prison term in her place was greater than Ava thought she could stand.

Yet Gregory James had been so sure of facts, so certain of what he had witnessed that night. He said that Gemma Fitzgerald had been driving. And his description of the scene he had witnessed before the car set off rang more than one familiar bell for Ava. Her mother had been a forceful personality and, under the influence of alcohol, her temper and her determination to have her own way would have been well-nigh unstoppable. Growing up in such a troubled home, Ava had seen many scenes between her parents that bore out that fact. Few people had been strong enough to stand up to her mother, certainly not kind, always reasonable Olly. Olly wouldn’t have known how to handle her mother pushing him away and climbing into his car drunk. He wouldn’t have wanted to create a scene. He wouldn’t have wanted to hurt or embarrass Ava by calling for help to deal with her obstreperous mother. But he wouldn’t have wanted to leave Ava alone in that car either at the mercy of a drunk and angry driver … and that would have been why he threw himself into the back seat before her mother drove off and, unhappily, also why he had died.

Ava let the tears overflow and sucked in a shuddering breath in an effort to regain control of her turbulent emotions. Harvey licked at her hand and looked up at her worriedly and she crouched down and hugged him for comfort. She felt so weak and helpless.

What had Vito’s motivation been in pushing forward the prospect of trying to clear Ava’s name with such zeal? Was it for her sake or … his own? Was he more interested in cleaning up her image to ensure that his own remained undamaged? Had he resented the charge that he was sleeping with his brother’s killer enough to move heaven and earth to prove that that had not, after all, been the case? She reminded herself that had Gregory James not first contacted Vito, the possibility that she had been unjustly imprisoned would never have occurred to Vito. Just like everyone else he had believed Ava guilty and he had never forgiven her for it …

Her phone rang and she answered it. It was her sister, Bella.

‘Are you all right?’ Bella asked worriedly.

‘Not really,’ Ava admitted, swallowing one hiccup only to be betrayed by a second audible one.

‘I’ll come and pick you up,’ Bella told her bossily. ‘You shouldn’t be dealing with this on your own. Where’s Vito?’

‘He had to go back to London,’ Ava explained, feeling a twinge of guilt at that statement when she recalled his offer to stay. But what would he have stayed for? So that she could weep all over him instead? Prove how much very hard work she could be even in what was supposed to be a fun lightweight affair?

Her sister’s home was a former farmhouse on the far side of the village, a cosy home filled with scattered toys, a chubby toddler called Stuart with an enchanting smile and a wall covered with photos of children in school uniform and crayon drawings.

‘Excuse the mess,’ Bella urged. ‘Dad came over last night to talk about this. He’s appalled by what Vito had to tell him. To be honest we were all just grateful that Mum disappeared that night without making a big scene. You know what she was like … we assumed she’d caught a cab home. All of us were drinking, none of us were driving. We’d arranged a mini cab for midnight to take us back.’

Ava sipped gratefully at the hot cup of tea Bella had made her. ‘Do you think it’s true?’

‘Well, I always had a problem getting my head round the idea that you could be that stupid and I never could work out why Olly was in the back seat without a seat belt when you were supposedly driving. But in the end we all just assumed you’d gone a bit mad for a few minutes and that few minutes was all it took to wreck your life,’ Bella remarked in a pained tone. ‘I’m so sorry, Ava.’

‘You don’t need to be. It’s done now. I mean, the police thought I was guilty too.’

‘I do remember Mum being really weird about it all,’ her sister confided with a grimace of discomfiture. ‘Now I can understand why. No wonder she felt guilty. It was an incredibly cruel thing for her to do to you … you not being able to remember the crash delivered you straight into her hands.’

Ava hugged the friendly toddler for security, still freaking out at the belief that her own mother could have taken advantage of her like that.

‘I know I shouldn’t interfere,’ the small blonde woman remarked gingerly, ‘but I don’t think Vito liked being referred to as your lover in that offhand voice you used.’

‘Oh.’ Ava went pink. ‘I didn’t know what else to call him.’

‘He’s very volatile, isn’t he?’ Bella murmured reflectively. ‘I never saw that in him before. In fact I used to think he was a bit frozen and removed from all us lesser mortals, but yesterday it was obvious that he was absolutely raging about what Mum had done to you. I expect he feels horribly guilty—we all do now.’

‘I don’t want his guilt,’ Ava proclaimed and blew her nose. ‘After the party I’ll be going back to London.’

‘Oh, Ava, must you?’ Bella pressed. ‘Gina and I were looking forward to getting to know you.’

‘I would have enjoyed that.’ A tremulous smile formed on Ava’s lips as her sister gave her a hug on the doorstep. ‘But I can’t hang on Vito’s sleeve much longer—it’s getting embarrassing.’

Ava returned to the castle. The caterers phoned with a query and the owner of the firm asked to call out that afternoon to run through the final arrangements for the party one last time. Grateful to be occupied, Ava used her visit as a distraction from her harried thoughts. The bottom line in her relationship with Vito, she had almost told her sister, was that he didn’t love her. They didn’t have a future together. Vito had not once mentioned anything beyond the Christmas party and she wasn’t planning to hang around being pathetic in the hope that he suggested she extend her stay. She would get over him, it wouldn’t be easy but she would manage it. But the very prospect of a life shorn of Vito tore at her like a vision of death by a thousand cuts.

Vito phoned at supper time and asked in a worried tone how she was. His tone set her teeth on edge and she assured him that she was perfectly all right. He said he’d probably spend the night at his apartment and she didn’t blame him. He was fed up with all the hassle and drama she created around her, she decided painfully. She went to bed early, longing for the bliss of sleep, which would settle her tired, troubled mind.

At what point she started dreaming, she later had no clear idea. In her dream she was running down the steps of the castle the night of the crash and she was doing it over and over again. Olly was behind her, telling her he would run her home, and then without the slightest warning the picture in her head changed and her mother erupted into Olly’s lecture about Ava’s provocative behaviour with Vito.

‘I’ll drive!’ Gemma proclaimed, ignoring Olly before telling him that she was perfectly capable of driving them all home and refused to be driven by a teenager.

As the argument got more heated voices were raised. Ava shouted across the bonnet of the car that Gemma wasn’t allowed to drive when she had been drinking and her mother took that as a challenge, thrusting Olly furiously out of her path and jumping into the car to rev the engine like a boy racer. Ava leant across Gemma to try and steal the car keys and the car skidded with squealing tyres on the drive while Olly tried to reason with the older woman and persuade her to stop. The car careened through the gates at the foot of the drive onto the road with Ava screaming at her mother to stop while Olly urged everyone to be calm and think about what they were doing. And a split second later, it seemed, Ava saw the tree trunk looming up through the windscreen, heard Olly cry out her name … and then everything just blanked out.

Ava woke up with a frantic start, her heart hammering, anguish enclosing her like a suffocating cocoon as she realised that she had relived the accident. She was disconcerted to discover that the light was on and Vito, naked but for a pair of jeans, was on his knees beside her. ‘You were dreaming and you let out a shriek that would have wakened the dead!’ he exclaimed.

But it would never wake Olly, Ava thought foolishly, a sob catching in her throat as she hugged her knees and rocked back and forth. ‘I relived the crash … I remember what happened but why now? Why couldn’t I remember before?’

‘Why would you have wanted to remember it when you thought you were guilty? Was your mother driving?’

Ava nodded jerkily and told him what she had recalled, trembling as she spoke, the images so fresh and frightening she almost felt as though she were trapped back in that car again. In silence, Vito held her close. ‘I didn’t want you to relive that,’ he confessed. ‘I didn’t really think all this through when I listened to what Greg James had to tell me. I saw what I thought was the chance to fix it all for you and I went and saw David Lloyd and your solicitor and your father to check out all the facts.’ His strong profile was tense. ‘I was very pleased with myself.’

‘Yes,’ Ava whispered shakily, glad the tears had stopped, relaxing back into the warmth and security of his arms.

‘And then I saw your face this morning and I … I hadn’t a clue how to make it better for you,’ Vito admitted grudgingly, his frustration over that fact palpable. ‘It was only then I saw that you were devastated that your mother could have stood by and hurt you like that.’

‘She watched me take her punishment and she never breathed a word,’ Ava conceded strickenly. ‘Even if she gave way to an impulse to let me take the blame for the crash, she could have thought better of it. She could have made a statement to the police once she realised how ill she was … but even then she didn’t think better of what she had done.’

‘Let it go. That crash has already ruled your life for far too long,’ Vito murmured tautly as he released her and sprang off the bed.

‘You weren’t sleeping in here with me,’ Ava registered with a frown. ‘In fact I thought you weren’t coming back tonight.’

‘I thought better of that but I returned very late and I didn’t want to disturb you, cara mia.’

‘So where are you going now?’

‘I left some stuff in my room. I assumed you’d still be up when I got back,’ Vito admitted, compressing his lips.

A little less tense, Ava rested back against the pillows. She pushed the jagged images of the crash back out of her mind, still shaken that those mislaid memories had finally broken through to the surface. Her mother had been driving, not her. A sense of relief finally flowed through her but she felt guilty about it, as if somewhere in her mind she still couldn’t quite believe that she was entitled to feel that way.

Vito strode back from the door, still bare-chested, his remarkable abs flexing as he settled the items he carried down on the bed in front of her, for all the world like a caveman dragging a dead deer into the cave for his woman.

‘Er … you went shopping?’ Ava prompted in astonishment, lifting the wilting red roses. ‘You should’ve put these in water to keep them fresh.’

‘I haven’t physically bought flowers before,’ Vito gritted. ‘I usually order them on the phone to be delivered.’

‘That does cut out the practical aspect,’ Ava conceded in an understanding tone, pleased he had chosen her flowers personally. ‘Nobody’s ever given me flowers before. They’re lovely.’

‘If they weren’t half dead already,’ Vito quipped, settling the box of chocolates on her lap.

Ava wasted no time in opening the chocolates while covertly eying the third and final package.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t appreciate how you would feel about what your mother did to you,’ Vito volunteered. ‘I couldn’t see the wood for the trees.’

‘You always think you can fix things.’ Ava comfort ate a couple of chocolates and offered them to him before reaching for the final box. It was very light and she peeled off the wrapping and extracted a bubble-wrapped bauble. ‘My goodness, it’s a tree ornament,’ she said, astonished at him having purchased such a festive item.

The hand-decorated bauble twinkled in the light. It was marked with the year. ‘Is the date significant?’ she asked.

‘Dio mio, of course it is. It’s the year you brought Christmas back to life at Bolderwood. The castle looks fantastic,’ Vito informed her, sliding lithely into bed beside her. ‘Do you like it?’

‘I love it,’ she confessed, ensnared by smouldering dark golden eyes and registering that comfort sex was as much on offer as comfort eating.

He removed the tree ornament from her hand and set the chocolates down. But Ava evaded him by scrambling out of bed with the roses. ‘I’m just going to soak these in the basin!’ she told him, hurrying into the bathroom.

‘They’re half dead!’ Vito growled. ‘I’ll buy you more tomorrow.’

Ava ran water into the washbasin and caressed a silky petal with an appreciative finger. They were still the very first flowers he’d ever given her and in her opinion, worthy of conservation.

‘Thanks for the pressies,’ she told him, climbing back into bed. ‘I wish I’d got something for you.’

‘You’re my present,’ Vito proclaimed, circling her soft mouth and then ravishing her generous lips with his own with a hunger that made her every sense sizzle with reaction and joy. ‘But there’s one more I’d like to give you first. It’s downstairs below the tree.’

‘Oh … downstairs,’ Ava responded without enthusiasm, her attention locked to his wide sensual mouth and only slowly skimming up to meet his smouldering dark golden gaze.

‘I want you to open it.’

‘Now?’ Ava pressed in disbelief. ‘It’s two o’clock in the morning and it’s the party tomorrow!’

Vito vaulted off the bed and extended the silk wrap he had bought for her. ‘It’s important, bella mia,’ he urged.

With a sigh, Ava got up and slid her arms into the sleeves. ‘You can be very demanding.’

‘It’s not a deal-breaker, is it?’ Vito studied her with his shrewd gaze, his innate cunning never more obvious to her and she flushed, wondering how much he had guessed about how she felt about him.

‘You let Harvey into your bedroom,’ she registered, hearing the dog whining behind the door at the sound of their voices and letting him out.

Vito seized the opportunity to grab a shirt and put it on. ‘He cried at the door.’

They descended the stairs, where the dying fire in the grate was flickering enormous eerie shadows over the walls and the decorations. Ava bent down and switched on the sparkling tree lights before spying the large gift-wrapped box below the huge tree. ‘What on earth is it?’

‘Your Christmas present.’

‘But I wasn’t going to be here at Christmas!’ Ava protested.

‘I wouldn’t have let you go,’ Vito countered stubbornly.

‘I was planning to leave the morning after the party,’ she reminded him.

His handsome mouth quirked. ‘The best-laid plans …’ he said.

Ava hauled out the box and began to rip the shimmering golden wrapping paper off it, only to expose another differently wrapped box inside. ‘What is this? Pass the parcel?’ she teased in surprise.

The pile of discarded wrapping grew larger as the boxes got smaller until finally Ava emerged with one tiny box and paled. ‘What is it?’

Vito dropped down on one knee in front of her and asked levelly, ‘Will you marry me?’

Ava sucked in air like a drowning swimmer and stared at him with bright blue eyes filled with astonishment. Shock was snaking through her in dizzy waves. ‘Where did this idea come from? Are you insane?’

‘That’s not how you’re supposed to respond to a proposal!’ Vito pronounced, springing back upright again to gaze down at her with a frown.

Ava opened the box and stared at the gorgeous diamond ring inside, the jewels of which shone with blinding brilliance when the flickering tree lights caught them. She blinked, her throat closing over all tight. ‘You don’t mean this … you’re not thinking about what you’re doing. You know you don’t want a wife. You know you think that if you get married your wife will divorce you and take your castle and your kids and at least half your money—’

‘It’s a risk I’m prepared to take to have you in my life,’ Vito admitted tautly.

Ava looked up at him with drowning eyes. ‘You know, I think that’s probably the nicest thing you ever said to me but I can’t marry you. You’re only asking me because you know that I wasn’t driving that night, after all,’ she condemned painfully. ‘And that wouldn’t feel right.’

‘I bought the ring the day before Greg James phoned me,’ Vito traded. ‘And I can prove it.’

‘Before?’ Ava pressed, startled by the claim. ‘But I thought you couldn’t forgive me?’

‘And I thought it too until I tried to imagine my life without you,’ Vito admitted, crouching down so that they were on the same level, his eyes filled with grave honesty as they met hers. ‘The forgiveness was there all along. I just didn’t realise that I’d already achieved it. We both loved Olly. He loved you and I love you as well. It’s a link we will never lose.’

‘You love me?’ Ava gasped, suddenly out of breath as her heart began to hammer inside her chest.

‘Why else do you think I’m asking you to marry me?’ Vito demanded with some impatience. ‘I didn’t think I would ever fall for anyone but I started falling for you the moment you came back into my life.’

‘Oh …’ Ava said again, sharply disconcerted. ‘I love you too but I thought this was just a casual affair?’

‘That was my fault. I’m so used to laying down limits and then you came along and washed them all away. Very quickly, I just wanted you, amata mia.’ Vito reached for her hand, tugged the ring from the box and threaded it onto her engagement finger. ‘And tomorrow, when you’re acting as hostess at the party, I want that ring on your finger so that everyone appreciates that you’re the woman I intend to marry.’

Ava looked down at the ring sparkling on her finger in wonderment and then back at him to take in the tenderness in his gaze with a leaping joyful sense of recognition. ‘You really do love me … even though I’m hard work?’

‘You made me think, you made me try to be something more than I was. No woman ever affected me that way before,’ Vito confided. ‘You’re not hard work … you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. Only one thing about you bothers me …’

Concern assailed Ava. ‘What?’

‘You don’t confide in me. You spent three years in prison and you never ever talk about it.’

‘It’s not something you want to accidentally refer to in the wrong company. It was a different world with its own set of rules,’ Ava told him uncomfortably. ‘I had some very low moments in prison. I was scared a lot of the time. I got bullied for having a posh accent. I was strip-searched once because my cellmate was caught with drugs. At the beginning I was on suicide watch under constant surveillance for weeks—’

Troubled, Vito gripped her hand. ‘You were suicidal?’

‘No, I never was. Unfortunately the psychologist thought I was more at risk. But I was down because I got a six-year sentence for drunk driving. I had no visitors, nothing to do, it took me a long time to adapt and learn how to keep myself occupied.’

‘How did you adapt?’

She told him about the reading and writing programme she had eventually participated in and how feeling useful had lifted her mood. The move to an open prison where she had fewer restrictions had also provided a tremendous boost.

‘When my parole was granted, when I knew I was getting out, I decided to put the whole experience behind me,’ she admitted. ‘I didn’t want it colouring my life for ever. I just wanted to forget it … can you understand that? Remembering those years just made me feel bad about myself.’

‘I do understand,’ Vito murmured tautly, closing his hand over hers in reassurance.

Ava shivered. ‘It’s cold. Let’s go back to bed.’

Vito bent down and scooped her up in his arms.

‘You can’t carry me up the stairs!’ Ava told him.

But he did, although he was noticeably relieved to settle her down on the bed again.

Ava dealt him a teasing smile. ‘You’re wrecked. You’ll not be fit for anything now.’

Vito laughed appreciatively as he unzipped his jeans. ‘Dio mio, I love you! Do you realise I’ve never said those words to anyone before?’

‘Not even when you were a teenager?’

‘I was a very cynical teenager. Watching my father screw up after my mother left him made a big impression on me. My father thought he was in love with every new woman who came into his life and then, five minutes later, it would all be over again,’ he explained with a curled lip. ‘I didn’t think I had what it took to fall in love and then you came along and lit up everything for me like the sun on a dull day.’

‘You do realise that marrying me will commit you to celebrating Christmas every year?’ Ava warned him.

‘I’ll share it with you. I’ll always remember that Christmas first brought us together. We’ll make new memories. I feel I can be myself with you.’

‘Domineering, arrogant, impatient, stubborn,’ Ava slotted in, spreading her fingers across his hair-roughened chest and gazing into black-fringed dark golden eyes that made her heart quicken its pace. ‘But I do love you very very much. You are also generous and kind and surprisingly thoughtful.’

Vito lifted his tousled dark head in apparent wonderment. ‘Is that a compliment from you?’

‘I’ll give you the occasional one,’ Ava promised, running possessive fingers through his black silky hair and studying him. ‘You always felt like mine and now you are finally …’

He kissed her and her head swam. She muttered something about needing all her sleep with the party ahead: he ignored it. In the end she kissed him back and the excitement sizzling between them took over to send them soaring with the passion their deep emotions had generated. Afterwards, Ava could never recall feeling happier or more secure and she could feel the past sliding back into its proper place. She had learned lessons from that past but she wanted her future fresh and free of regrets.

The next day the party was an amazing success. Ava wore the green velvet dress under protest, thinking it was far too fancy. Many of the guests arrived on coaches laid on by their employer. She presided as hostess over a select lunch and her ring was very much admired. Vito talked of a winter wedding, Ava gave him a look and talked of a summer one and asked her sisters to be bridesmaids.

‘You might be pregnant,’ Vito breathed when he got her alone again.

‘Of course I’m not. Is that why you asked me to marry you?’ Ava asked worriedly.

‘Of course not. I’m marrying you because I can’t live without you, you little minx,’ Vito groaned. ‘I suppose I could wait until Easter?’

‘No, I’ll be a summer bride. We’ve got to be engaged at least six months to prove that we can live together,’ she told him seriously.

‘Of course we can. The summer’s too far away.’

They got married at Easter and she wasn’t pregnant. Vito admitted to being disappointed by that discovery and the idea of a baby took root. The idea of making a family gave Ava a warm, secure feeling inside.

‘I don’t think it’s possible to love anyone more than I love you,’ Vito told her on their wedding night in Hawaii.

And Ava knew she felt the same way and rejoiced in the fact that they could agree on some things.