* * *
Cesare picked up his wine glass and tried to marshal his thoughts. But even thinking had become a gut-wrenchingly difficult task. Unbidden, the scent of Ava’s orgasm rose to torture him. Dio, he’d been close—so close—to experiencing that sweet heaven again. But he knew, as much as it killed him, he had to walk way. And continue walking away. Every single time.
For Roberto’s sake, as some small, pitiful measure of penance for what he’d done to his brother, he couldn’t give in to the craving.
Besides, the last thing he needed on top of the trauma and devastation life had thrown his way was the complication sex brought. Especially the uncontrollable kind that always felt a heartbeat away whenever he touched Ava.
This afternoon he’d boldly laid down his plan for ensuring he and Ava wouldn’t run into each other more than necessary for the next few weeks. But already he saw the plan unravelling. The incident in the hallway and the few hours he’d spent with her by the pool had refuelled the sizzling attraction he’d tried and failed to bury. An attraction he had no right to rekindle. Or crave.
That only left him with one option.
Light female footsteps approached. Cradling his wine glass in one hand, he watched Ava emerge onto the terrace, child monitor in hand and a look of fierce determination in her eyes.
Although his heart sank a little, a part of him welcomed the situation.
Because, if nothing else, being caught in the middle of an earthquake had hammered home just how unpredictable life could be. He’d ruined his brother’s life. He refused to remain in a situation where he could ruin another.
He’d tried to reason with Ava. Now it was time to be cruel to be kind.
She stopped in front of him and set down the monitor. ‘I’m hoping being home will make them stop, but if she has another nightmare we’ll hear her.’
He merely nodded. A flash caught and drew his attention to his wedding ring. He’d slipped it on when he’d lunched with his mother during his quick stopover in Rome. His parents had suffered enough in the last month; the last thing he’d wanted was to distress them further by exposing the state of his marriage.
Before him, Ava shifted from one foot to the other. Then she exhaled. ‘What you said this afternoon...about things not meant to be. What did you mean?’ she demanded, her arms once again crossed in battle stance.
He took his time to twirl his wine glass, allowed his gaze to rise slowly from her bare, stunning legs, linger at her rounded hips, past her deliciously full breasts, to capture hers.
His grim smile felt as strained as the tightening in his groin. ‘When we met, I was blown away by your beauty. You were sexy, vivacious, with a reckless streak that drew me like a moth to a flame. And the sex...’ His breath stalled, his pulse kicking up another dangerous notch. ‘The sex was unbelievable, better or quite possibly the best I’d ever had.’ Her shocked gasp bounced over him and disappeared in the night breeze. ‘Unfortunately, I let it blind me into making an unforgivable error.’
Her eyes darkened. ‘What was that error?’ she whispered.
He threw back his drink in one greedy, hopefully fortifying gulp and set the glass down. ‘I think you’ll agree that catastrophe has a way of bringing into sharp focus what’s important.’
‘Yes.’
‘Two things became clear to me in the aftermath of the earthquake, cara mia. The first was that my daughter means more to me than my life itself and I would rip my heart out before I let anything remotely close to that devastation happen to her again.’
The fire in her eyes told him she felt the same. For a moment, he didn’t want to utter the next words, but he knew he needed to. ‘The second was that I...as deliciously tempting as you were...as mind-altering as the sex was, bellissima, I know now that I should never have married you.’
I SHOULD NEVER have married you.
Ava stabbed the trowel deeper into the soil, oblivious to the heat and sweat cascading down her face. A grim smile stretched her lips as she recalled the horror on Lucia’s face when she’d asked for the gardening supplies.
But it had been that or go mad from replaying that statement in her head over and over. Agata Marinello’s endless text messages every two seconds hadn’t helped to improve her disposition either.
Hard physical labour was what she needed. Bone tiredness meant she would collapse exhausted into bed at night and fall asleep without torturing herself with thoughts she had no business thinking.
For the past week, Cesare had stuck religiously to the schedule they’d set out on her return. He spent time with Annabelle in the morning while she met with the Marinellos; she took over in the afternoons and they had supper with their daughter before they took turns giving her a bath and putting her to bed.
Living under the same roof as Cesare was going smoothly. The truce was working. She should’ve been happy.
She wasn’t. A very unladylike snort escaped her throat. How could she be when she was constantly in knots over Cesare’s behaviour? The man had proved himself a champion at avoiding her, yet she could feel his presence as closely as the air on her skin. Could sense his gaze on her from his window when she played at the pool with Annabelle or when they went down the jetty to watch the luxury boats sail by. What was frustrating her most was the longing she could sense in his gaze.
Cesare yearned to spend more time with his daughter, but he was keeping away because of her. Had she really got it so wrong? Had her need for a family blinded her to the fact that she was setting up that family with a man who didn’t want the full package?
Pain ripped through her and her fingers stilled as she tried to recall for what seemed like the millionth time, when things had started to change.
Cesare had been shocked by her pregnancy, even though he bounced back almost immediately. Hell, she was sure he’d been ecstatic.
He’d been a godsend during her pregnancy. Unbelievably, the sex had been her favourite part of being pregnant—the seemingly innocent back rubs that had often reached very pleasurable conclusions.
A flush suffused her face in recollection of the times he’d only had to whisper back rub in her ear to make her pulse race.
Then Annabelle had been born. Cesare had taken one of his rare trips to visit Roberto. And then, seemingly overnight, everything had changed.
She slammed the trowel into the soil.
‘Careful there, cara, or you’ll petrify the seeds before they get a chance to grow.’
‘Careful there, Cesare, or you’ll lose a foot if you annoy me.’ She silently cursed him for his ability to move so quietly despite his impressive size. If it’d been one of her brothers, she’d have had no compunction in biting his head off. In fact, she’d done so many times with Nathan, the youngest of her three brothers.
But her emotions were too raw, too close to the surface to risk losing control in front of Cesare. She took a deep breath.
‘Bene poi, since I value my foot way too much, I’ll stay out of harm’s way.’ Droll amusement tinged his voice and she gritted her teeth not to react to it.
‘What do you want?’ Her surly voice matched her mood.
‘You mean aside from checking that my land isn’t being desecrated by your vicious digging?’ he asked.
She sat back on her heels and glared at him. ‘You own more than your fair share of land in Italy and the western world. I’m sure you won’t miss a six by ten foot square piece.’
He shrugged, disgustingly unperturbed