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explain to you how things are?’

      ‘I would rather live on the streets than work in any capacity for you,’ she said. ‘I know what you’re trying to do, Marc, but it won’t work. I know you think I deliberately betrayed you, but that’s not the way it was. I knew nothing of Douglas’s business interests. He didn’t tell me he was bidding for the same contract as you.’

      His mouth was a thin, flat line of tension. ‘You double-crossing liar,’ he ground out venomously. ‘You did everything in your power to ruin me and you damned near got away with it. I lost nearly everything. Everything, do you hear me?’

      Ava closed her eyes in distress. The vibration of his anger in the air was like pummelling blows to her flesh. She could not defend herself against her guilt at what she had inadvertently done to him by marrying Douglas Cole. But given her time again she would still have done it, for Serena’s sake.

      ‘Open your eyes,’ Marc growled at her.

      Her eyes sprang open, the nettle-like sting of tears blurring her vision. ‘Don’t do this, Marc,’ she said, close to pleading. ‘The past can’t be changed by manipulating things now.’

      His eyes blazed like twin black bowls of flame as he grasped her chin between two of his fingers, his touch like a blistering brand on her skin. His eyes drilled into hers, holding hers in a duel she could never hope to win. She lowered her lashes, but he countered it by pushing her chin even higher. ‘I swore I would one day make you pay for what you did to me, Ava, and that day has come,’ he said. ‘This villa is mine and everything in it, including you.’

      She swallowed convulsively as she tried to pull out of his hold. ‘No…no!’

      His fingers bit into her flesh. ‘Yes and yes, ma belle,’ he said. ‘Do you not want to hear my terms?’

      Ava fought for control of her emotions. She bit the inside of her lip, tasting blood and the bitterness of regret. ‘Go on, then,’ she said, dropping her shoulders slightly.

      His fingers relaxed their hold, his thumb moving in a slow caress over the pillow of her bottom lip until every nerve-end was tingling. Ava was mesmerised by his touch. It was so achingly gentle after his flaying words. She felt herself melting, the stiffness going out of her limbs, her body remembering how it felt to press up against his hard, protective warmth.

      After a moment he seemed to check himself. His hand dropped from her mouth and his eyes hardened to black coal again. ‘You will be my mistress,’ he said. ‘I will pay you an allowance for as long as we are together. But I would like to make one thing very clear from the outset. Unlike the way you manipulated Cole into marrying you, I will not be offering the same deal. There will be no marriage between us. Ever.’

      Ava felt her heart contract in pain at the bitterness in his tone. He had spoken the words like a business plan. But then, what had changed? Hadn’t he said much the same five years ago? No marriage, no kids, no commitment. And she had been foolish enough to accept it…for a time.

      Ava drew in a breath that scalded her throat. ‘You seem very convinced I will accept your offer.’

      ‘That is because I know you, Ava,’ he said with a sardonic light in his gaze. ‘You need money and a lot of it.’

      ‘I can find work.’ Pride pulled her shoulders back even farther. ‘I’ve been thinking of returning to modelling.’

      A determined look hardened his eyes to black ice. ‘One word from me and there’s not an agency the length and breadth of Europe who would take you on.’

      Ava wished she had the courage to call his bluff. But after a five-year hiatus in her modelling career at Douglas’s insistence she didn’t like her chances of being picked up by her old agency, let alone anyone else.

      ‘I can find other work,’ she said with a defiant look.

      ‘Not the sort of work that will pay you enough to regularly top up your sister’s bank account.’

      Ava felt her eyes widen. ‘You know about that?’

      He gave her an enigmatic look. ‘You know the saying—keep your friends close but your enemies closer. I am making it my business to find out everything there is to find out about you, Ava.’

      Ava felt as if he had pierced her heart with a long metal skewer. She felt the barb of it right to her backbone; it reverberated throughout her body, making her want to hug her arms around herself, to stop the pulse of pain. But somehow she stood firm, her eyes holding the black fire of his.

      ‘Please keep Serena out of this,’ she said hollowly.

      ‘There will be no need for her to know anything other than we are together again,’ he said.

      Ava wondered how the news would affect her sister. Serena had out of fierce loyalty never mentioned Marc’s name in her presence over the last five years. She had also kept the secret of Ava’s real relationship with Douglas Cole quiet, so quiet her husband, Richard, was to this day unaware of it. Serena had been too terrified Richard’s conservative family would be totally scandalised by her near-brush with a prison term that only Ava’s actions had rescued her from experiencing.

      But returning to Marc on the terms he had outlined was unthinkable to Ava. How would she bear his daily quest for revenge? How could she face that hatred day after day?

      She looked up at him again, shocked at how cold and ruthlessly calculating he had become. He had certainly been no angel in the past—yes, he had been strongwilled and proud and had arrogantly insisted on his own way, but he had never been cruel. But what hurt most was that it was her choice to marry Douglas that had brought about the change in him. Of course Marc would think it had been deliberate, but then, unbeknown to her, Douglas had planned it that way.

      She twisted her hands, unconsciously fingering the amethyst ring on her finger, a peace offering Douglas had given her during the last months of his illness. ‘I need some time to think about this…’

      Marc’s eyes flashed like fast-drawn daggers. ‘You’ve had six weeks.’

      Ava blinked at the savage bite of his words. ‘You surely don’t expect me to accept this outrageous offer without some careful consideration, do you?’

      His mouth was curled upwards in a sneer. ‘It didn’t take you too long to consider moving on with another man after you walked out on me. Within a month you were living with Cole as his wife.’

      ‘I am sure you moved on with your life just as quickly,’ she said with a fiery flash of her eyes. ‘In fact you are rarely out of the Press with a starlet on your arm.’

      ‘I admit I do not live the life of a monk,’ he said, ‘which brings me to another condition of mine on the arrangement.’

      ‘I haven’t agreed to it yet.’

      ‘You will.’

      Ava ground her teeth at his imperious manner. ‘Let me guess,’ she said, glaring at him resentfully. ‘You want me to be faithful to you while you get to do whatever you like with whomever you like.’

      His dark eyes gleamed. ‘You are well trained, I see. Perhaps your time with Cole has finally taught you how to behave.’

      She tightened her lips until they went numb, anger bubbling inside her at his assumption of her as a gold-digger. It was so unfair. Why couldn’t he leave the past alone? To come to her now, after all this time, was going to achieve nothing but more heartache for her. It had broken her heart to walk away from him the first time. It had taken every bit of willpower and self-respect to do so. Living as his mistress had been so bittersweet and in the end she had chosen the bitter over the sweet. He had flatly refused to promise her anything but a short-term affair. The concept of marriage was anathema to him; now it seemed more so than ever.

      Marc took an envelope out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her. ‘I have drawn up a legal document for you to sign,’ he said. ‘It states how much

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