LITMIR.BIZ

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conducted their marriage for the last year.

      ‘I was delayed in Abu Dhabi. Unavoidably,’ he added tautly.

      Unavoidably. How many times had she heard that before? ‘Of course. Was that all?’

      An exhalation of ire came down the line. ‘No, that is not all. Explain yourself,’ came the unyielding command.

      ‘I take it you mean: why have I commandeered your plane?’

      ‘Sì. This was not the plan.’

      ‘I know, but my plans have changed too. Unavoidably,’ she replied with a lightness she didn’t feel.

      ‘In what way have your plans changed?’ he bit out.

      ‘If you’d bothered to pick up the phone in the last two weeks, I would’ve told you.’

      ‘We have spoken in the last two weeks—’

      ‘No, Cesare, you called twice, both times to tell me you were postponing your return...’ Her voice threatened to break as memories flooded her mind—her endless phone calls to Cesare’s assistant to make sure his calendar was kept clear, shopping for the most enticing outfits and making sure the chef at the luxury rented villa in Bali prepared his favourite foods. She’d planned everything to the last detail...all in an effort to save her marriage. Only to have it backfire spectacularly. ‘Anyway, I’m saving you the trouble of making the long trip, or of coming up with another excuse. Goodbye, Cesare.’

      ‘Ava—’

      She pressed the end button, cutting off the growled warning. She’d barely exhaled when the phone rang again. Carefully, she set it down on the table, unanswered.

      The stunned look on the stewardess’s face made Ava smile, despite the rush of her thundering pulse. ‘Don’t worry, his bark is worse than his bite.’

      The woman coughed out an incoherent sound before hastily retreating to her station at the front of the plane.

      With not quite steady hands, Ava poured a glass of water from the crystal-cut jug and took a tiny sip. Yes, Cesare ruled his world with unquestionable domination. But she’d never been one to ask how high? when told to jump, a fact which had, in the past, both intrigued and infuriated Cesare.

      The past...before everything had settled into a passive indifference, before Cesare had slowly withdrawn from her, and chosen to stay in Rome more and more instead of at their home in Lake Como. Before the devastation of the South Pacific earthquake had shattered the last of her dreams of salvaging her family.

      The decision she’d made so bravely in Bali yesterday now caused a thread of anxiety to weave inside her. Despite her bravado, her legs shook as she pushed aside her throw and padded down the long cream-carpeted aisle of the plane towards the smaller of the two bedrooms.

      She turned the door handle.

      Annabelle lay fast asleep. Soft light from elegant lamps illuminated her daughter’s raven hair and long limbs splayed on the bed.

      Unable to resist, Ava raised the camera slung around her neck and took a few quick shots, grateful for the near-silent clicks of the digital device.

      Retreating just as silently, Ava returned to her seat, desperately trying to calm the hordes of steel butterflies trying to beat their way out of her. The last thing she wanted was to return home an emotional wreck. Her grip tightened on the camera.

      The past month had been tormenting enough but she needed to be stronger still. She would need to be to stop hiding and face the truth.

      Marry in haste...

      Her insides twisted in pain and anxiety. Their coming together had been fast and furious. Right from the beginning, things had careened out of control. She’d been swept away by a passion she’d been unable to stem or understand.

      But even in that maelstrom of whirlwind dates and mind-bending sex, Cesare had felt like the home she craved, the very essence of the family she’d never really had.

      For a time...

      This insanity needs to end! Cesare’s heated confession when he’d taken her without mercy one day in a closet during a benefit dinner slammed through her mind.

      Ironically, she’d found out she was pregnant with Annabelle the very next day.

      And Cesare had begun to withdraw from her.

      Shaking her head, she slid up the window screen, let a sliver of morning light warm her cheek, wishing it would also thaw her through. But it was no use. Inside, she felt cold, hard pain.

      No. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let him do this to her. If for no other reason, Annabelle deserved a parent who wasn’t bogged down with acrimony. She deserved a mother who was content, at the very least. The family she’d craved and thought she’d found with Cesare had been a mirage. The sexy, powerfully dynamic man she’d married had changed into a man as coldly indifferent to her as her father had been.

      And in her desperate desire to hold onto the illusion of what she’d probably never had, she’d nearly lost her daughter.

      Annabelle had been through enough and Ava had no intention of letting her daughter suffer any more rejection.

      * * *

      ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’

      Cesare di Goia’s deep, dark-as-sin voice had the power to arrest her in her tracks; as did his impressive, hard-packed six feet two frame. Dressed in a pristine white open-necked polo shirt and black designer jeans that hugged lean hips and disgustingly powerful thighs, he stood tall and proud like any of the hundreds of statues that graced his homeland’s capital city.

      His black hair, damp from a recent shower, sprang from his forehead, looking even thicker and longer than when she’d last seen him. And he still said exactly what he thought when he felt like it and to hell with whoever heard him.

      Damn him.

      ‘Frighten the living daylights out of my child, why don’t you?’ Ava invited with soft sarcasm, while trying to calm Annabelle’s sleepy squirming.

      Eyes the colour of burnished gold shifted to Annabelle and a small grimace crossed his face. ‘She’s asleep,’ he stated.

      ‘Not for long if you keep growling like that. She’s been through enough, Cesare. I won’t have her upset.’

      Tension radiated off his darkly tanned skin, so palpable she fought not to withdraw from it. ‘Don’t speak as if she’s a stranger to me, Ava. I know exactly what she’s been through.’ His tone was framed almost conversationally but, although his voice had lowered, the fury in his deep tawny eyes had escalated in direct proportion.

      ‘Forgive me for having to remind you, only you seem to have forgotten. Just as you seem to have forgotten us. Annabelle’s emotions are still fragile, so dial back the hulk-smash attitude if you please. As to what I’m playing at, I thought I’d made myself perfectly clear.’

      ‘Do you mean that highly informative one-line text that read: We will arrive at 2pm you sent seconds before my plane took off from Bali or the equally cryptic my plans have changed too?’ he accused, making no move to shift his imposing frame from the doorway.

      ‘Both.’

      ‘Ava...’ His voice was pure warning.

      ‘Seriously, are you going to move or do you intend to carry on this conversation on the doorstep? What are you doing here, anyway? You hardly come to the villa any more.’ Another sign of Cesare’s withdrawal she’d ignored for far too long. She stared into his eyes, ignoring the warning that glinted in his narrowed gaze.

      ‘What I’m doing here doesn’t matter. You were supposed to wait in Bali until Annabelle was given the all-clear. Then I would’ve come for you.’

      ‘The doctor gave Annabelle the all-clear three days ago.’

      Surprise

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