Castellano's Mistress of Revenge (6 page)

‘Violence is not and will not be a part of this relationship,' he said with gravitas.

Ava raised her chin, not even bothering to blink back her tears. ‘You started it.' She flung at him accusingly. ‘You were too rough.'

His eyes went to her mouth. She saw the shock register in his gaze, the sudden flare of his eyes as they saw the tiny split she could feel on her lower lip. ‘Forgive me. I was too rough with you. It will not happen again.'

Ava wanted it to happen again. She wanted him to lose control so she would not be the only one suffering this empty, unfulfilled ache deep inside. She also wanted him in this mood, this tender, concerned Marc she had once or twice caught a glimpse of in the past. Fresh tears came to her eyes, cascading down her cheeks unheeded as she stood before him, her heart contracting painfully for how she had loved and lost him.

Marc's brows drew together. ‘Does it hurt
that
much,
cara
?' he asked gently.

Ava wrenched out of his hold with unnecessary force considering he was barely touching her, let alone restraining her in any way. ‘It's not about my lip, damn you,' she threw at him, angry at herself for losing control in front of him.

He silently handed her a clean, neatly folded and pressed white handkerchief, his eyes intensely dark and watchful as they held hers.

Ava took the square of fabric with a hand that was a little unsteady, and gently dabbed at her mouth, conscious of him studying her every movement. She scrunched up the handkerchief after she had finished, but when he reached for it she held it behind her back. ‘No,' she said. ‘It'll need soaking. I'll see to it.'

‘You don't need to do that,' he said with a wry look. ‘You can throw it away or give it to the household staff to clean. I am not expecting you to do my laundry, Ava.'

Ava kept the handkerchief tightly clutched in her hand. She had smelled his clean male scent on it as she'd held it to her mouth. She wasn't going to give it back, she decided. If it was the only thing she had left of him when this was over then so be it.

‘I would like to go to bed,' she said in a subdued tone as she felt the fight go out of her. ‘I'm very tired.'

Marc stepped back and held the door open for her. ‘I will bring you a nightcap once you are in bed. What about a little brandy in milk?'

She shook her head, the movement making her fragrant hair swing around her shoulders, making him ache to thread his fingers through the soft, silky strands. ‘No, thank you,' she said a little stiffly as she moved past him.

‘Ava?'

She froze mid-step; her slim back rigid, reminding him of a small ironing board standing upright. ‘Please, Marc…not now. I just couldn't bear it.'

Marc drew in a breath that snagged at his throat as she continued on her way down the wide hall, disappearing into a suite several doors down.

Tears or a tactic? he asked himself again. But he was no closer to the truth. If anything, he thought he was even further away.

 

The following morning when Ava finally made it downstairs, Celeste handed her the phone. ‘It is your sister, Serena,' she said, covering the mouthpiece with her hand.

Ava took the phone and wandered out to the terrace rather than have the housekeeper or indeed Marc overhear her conversation. ‘Serena?' she said once she was out of earshot. ‘How are you, sweetie?'

‘Is it true?' Serena asked without preamble, her voice breathless with shock. ‘Are you really living with Marc Castellano as his mistress?'

Ava took a deep but uneven breath. ‘Serena…I was going to call you to explain, but it got late last night and I—'

‘What's going on?' Serena asked. ‘For all this time you've never mentioned his name. I thought you hated him. You told me it was over between you, that you would never go back to him.'

Ava knew she had to tread carefully with how much she told her sister. In accepting Douglas Cole's marriage proposal, she had pretended her feelings for Marc had been obliterated by his refusal to commit. She hadn't wanted Serena to feel any more guilt than she had at the time. To reveal Marc's motives for their reconciliation would cause unnecessary hurt to Serena when she already had enough pain to deal with over the loss of her baby. ‘Serena, it's sort of complicated…' she began.

‘Have you slept with him?'

Ava rolled her lips together, wincing as she felt the slight swelling of her lower lip. ‘No,' she said on an expelled breath. ‘Not yet.'

‘So what's going on?' Serena asked again, her voice going an octave higher. ‘It's in every paper over here. They all say the same thing—that you've reconciled with Marc. It even says here…' there was a rustling of pages being turned ‘…that he now owns Douglas's villa and his company. Everything! He owns the lot.'

‘Yes, that's true,' Ava said, swallowing tightly.

‘How long have you known about this?'

‘Er—not long.'

‘Ava?' Serena's voice cracked. ‘This is all my fault, isn't it? If I hadn't been so stupid to make those mistakes in the books none of this would have happened. I feel so guilty. Don't think I don't realise you gave up five years of your life for me. I know you've always said you enjoyed being married to Douglas because of the money and the lifestyle but I never really believed it. You're not that type of person in spite of what the Press likes to think. Oh, God, I can't bear to think of Marc trying to get back at you for—'

‘No,' Ava said firmly. ‘None of this has anything to do with you and the past.' She mentally crossed her fingers at her little white lie and added, ‘Marc still has—er—feelings for me. He's waited this long for the chance to come back into my life. We are both keen to have another go at our relationship. We were young and headstrong before. We've both moved on.'

‘So…what about your feelings about him?' Serena
asked after a short silence. ‘Are you saying you were in love with him all this time?'

Ava pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘It's hard to know what I feel right now,' she said, carefully sidestepping her sister's question. ‘I just want to enjoy getting to know him again. We're taking things slowly this time.'

‘Has he changed his mind about marriage and kids?' Serena asked.

Ava felt a pain deep inside her heart, like a toothpick being twisted. ‘It's a bit of a touchy subject.'

‘Ava, don't waste any more years of your life, please, I beg you,' Serena said, starting to cry. ‘You deserve a happy life. You've already sacrificed so much…'

There was the sound of someone in the background and then suddenly a male voice came on the line. ‘Ava? Is that you?' Richard Holt said in his crisp Cambridge-educated voice.

‘Yes,' Ava answered. ‘Richard, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to upset Serena but—'

‘It's all right,' Richard sighed long-sufferingly. ‘She's been through a bad patch just lately, poor little pet. The doctors say it's the hormones, you know…after…well…' he cleared his throat ‘…you know.'

Ava felt her own throat thicken with emotion for what they were both going through. ‘I understand, Richard,' she said softly. ‘I am
so
sorry for not breaking the news of my reunion with Marc to you both personally. It's just everything's been happening so quickly and I…well…I'm sorry. You and Serena should have been the first to know, not read about it in the Press as you did.'

‘We are thrilled for you, really we are,' Richard said with genuine warmth. ‘Don't pay any attention to Serena just now. She's not herself. Once she realises you are happy she'll be absolutely tickled pink for you.'

There was a tiny pause before he added, ‘Erm…you are happy, aren't you, my dear?'

Ava forced her voice to sound light and carefree. ‘I am happy, Richard. Marc and I are like different people now. It's a fresh start.'

‘That's wonderful,' he said. ‘Absolutely brilliant news. Bring him over to see us as soon as you can so we can toast your future.'

Ava grimaced. ‘I'll do that.'

 

Ava hung up the phone a short time later just as Marc stepped out onto the terrace. She tucked a strand of her hair behind one ear with her free hand, feeling colour creep like a slow-moving tide along her cheeks.

‘Your sister?' he asked, glancing at the phone in her other hand.

She nodded and, looking at the phone, put it down on the outdoor table, carefully avoiding his gaze. ‘And my brother-in-law.' She gave a little sigh. ‘They read about—er—us…in the papers.'

His steps sounded on the tiles of the terrace as he came to stand in a short distance in front of her. ‘I should have suggested you call them last night.'

Ava glanced up at him. ‘I should have thought of it myself.'

He came a step closer and gently lifted her chin with two of his fingers as his dark, fathomless gaze studied her mouth for an endless moment. ‘Your lip is swollen,'
he said with a gruffness she had not heard him use before. ‘I should have brought you some ice to put on it last night.'

Ava stepped out of his hold, frightened she would betray herself by leaning into his solid warmth. ‘I'm perfectly fine,' she said, injecting a tart quality into her voice. ‘I need coffee, not first aid.'

‘I have already instructed Celeste to bring it out to us here,' he said. ‘You look like you could do with some sunshine. You look rather pale this morning.'

‘I didn't sleep well,' Ava confessed, glancing up at him again as he pulled a chair out for her at the outdoor table setting.

‘Not used to sleeping alone?' he asked with a wry lift of one dark brow.

She gave him a look that would have sliced through frozen butter. ‘You just can't help yourself, can you, Marc?'

He pulled out a chair for himself and sat down, waiting until Celeste had brought out a tray with coffee and fresh croissants and preserve, and left them alone again, before he spoke. ‘Why didn't you tell me you never shared a bed with Cole the whole time you were married?'

Ava stared at him for a moment, dumbstruck at the out-of-the-blue question. ‘How…?' She swallowed and began again, ‘How do you know?'

He nodded in the direction Celeste had gone. ‘The housekeeper let it slip.'

Ava shifted in her chair. ‘I'm surprised you believed her,' she said, throwing him a stinging look. ‘If I had told you, I am sure you would have laughed in my face.'

A camera shutter-quick movement came and went in his gaze as it held hers. ‘I guess I should take some comfort in the knowledge you married him solely for the money,' he said. ‘After all, you never complained about our sex life while we were together.'

Ava felt her body quiver in remembrance and quickly shifted her gaze from the probe of his. Her shoulders went back until they met the sun-warmed wrought-iron lace of her chair, twin pools of heat burning in her cheeks.

She watched as he poured them both a coffee, his movements so steady and sure, while her body was trembling both inside and out. She swallowed a tight knot of tension in her throat, wondering how to fill the chasm of silence that had opened up between them.

Marc handed her a cup of steaming coffee, his eyes meeting hers across the small distance of the round table. ‘I could have given you as much, if not more than Cole, so why did you do it?'

She took the cup from him, the slight rattle of it in its saucer betraying her outwardly cool composure. ‘You refused to give me what I wanted,' she said. ‘If I had stayed with you I would never have been a bride. Douglas at least allowed me to experience that.'

Marc felt the familiar punch of jealousy hit him in the midsection when he thought of her as a bride. Even knowing the marriage had not been consummated barely lessened its impact. For all he knew she could have taken any number of lovers during her marriage, after all, Cole had been very ill before he died. Perhaps his health had been impaired much longer than the public had been aware of. But when all was said and
done, Ava had still ditched Marc to enter into a paper marriage to his enemy to bring about his ruin. What other reason could she have had?

He rested his right ankle over his left thigh, leaning back in his chair as he idly stirred his coffee with a silver-crested spoon that had been in his family for hundreds of years. It occurred to him then that once he died there would be no Castellano heir to inherit that and every other heirloom his father's family had collected over the years. Marc had fought so hard to keep every last object in his possession when his business had almost gone under. If he didn't have an heir when he died everything would have to go to another branch of the family, distant cousins Marc barely knew. He had never really thought about it until now. How it would feel to have no one to pass on the family name. The proud heritage he had built up almost from scratch when his father had toppled emotionally would be lost forever.

He pinned her gaze with his. ‘Why is marriage such a big thing for you? It's little more than a piece of paper, or at least apparently it was in your case with Cole.'

‘There were good reasons why that was the case,' she said, lowering her eyes. ‘Douglas was unable to…to—'

‘To get it up?' he offered.

Her eyes flicked back to his, irritation flashing in their grey-blue depths. ‘Sex is not the only basis for a happy marriage,' she said. ‘Illness or an accident can strike anyone at any time. That's the whole point of
promising to love for better or worse, sickness and health and so on.'

‘Were your parents happily married before your mother died?' he asked.

She averted her gaze once more. ‘No, but that doesn't mean good marriages don't exist. Even people who are completely different can make a wonderful go of it. My sister and her husband are a perfect example. Serena is incredibly shy and Richard is at ease with people and very outgoing. They make a lovely couple in every way.'