The Boss's Christmas Seduction. Lynne Graham

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      ‘It is you, isn’t it?’ a sharp female voice exclaimed abruptly.

      Ava spun round and recognised the blonde she had seen at the house across the road. She was very attractive, beautifully dressed in the sort of garments that shrieked their designer labels, and Ava felt very much at a disadvantage with her wan face and shabby clothing. A faint spark of familiarity tugged at the back of Ava’s brain though and she surmised that she had seen the woman before. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know you.’

      ‘Why would you know me? I’m Katrina Orpington but we’ve never moved in the same social circles,’ the blonde informed her scornfully. ‘But I still know you—you’re that Fitzgerald girl, the one who killed Vito’s little brother! What on earth are you doing here at Oliver’s grave?’

      Chalk white though she was, Ava stood her ground. Her picture had been in the local paper a lot at the time of the court case and evidently she had been recognised. ‘I just wanted to see where he was buried … It may be my fault that he died but he was my best friend,’ she pointed out unhappily.

      The blonde’s lip curled with contempt. ‘Well, I think your presence here is in very bad taste. Crocodile tears won’t wipe out what you did. I’ll never forget Vito’s face that night—he was devastated!’

      ‘Yes … I’m sure he was.’ Ava’s voice had shrunk to a mere whisper. ‘But I can’t change that and I didn’t mean to offend anyone by coming here.’

      ‘You have a thick skin and a lot of nerve, I’ll give you that!’ the blonde pronounced, turning away to stalk back out of the cemetery.

      Moisture stinging on her cheeks in the steadily cooling afternoon air, Ava went into the church and sat down on a rear pew, using the silence and sense of peace that churches always gave her to get a grip on her seesawing emotions. There was no escaping what she had done but she had to live with it, trust that she’d learned from it, hope that people would eventually stop seeing her as a killer and give her the opportunity to prove that she could be more than the sum total of her past sins. She thought of the previous night and cringed, deciding that she had sunk to slut level with Vito Barbieri, an unwelcome reading of the situation at a time when her spirits were already low. Feeling deeply vulnerable and alone, she said a prayer and then walked quickly back to the castle.

      The afternoon flew by as Ava checked the rooms that would be used for the party and talked to the housekeeper about which pieces of furniture would need to be moved. Having made endless detailed lists and another couple of appointments, she was satisfied with her day’s work. Apprehensive about being around when Vito came home, she took Harvey out for a long walk on the estate. A muddy Land Rover stopped beside her on one of the lanes and a tall blond man in his early thirties climbed out to introduce himself as the estate manager, Damien Skeel. It was wonderful to give her name to someone and see no awareness of her past in their response. Damien kept right on smiling at her, told her that his staff were delighted that the Christmas party was going ahead and urged her to contact him if she needed assistance with anything.

      By then it was getting dark and Ava hastened home. She used the castle’s rear entrance and straight away took care of feeding Harvey. She was about to head upstairs to freshen up when Eleanor Dobbs rushed through the green beige door that separated the main house from the kitchen wing, her face flushed and tense.

      ‘Mr Barbieri is very angry that his brother’s room was empty. It’s my fault that it was done … I mean, I asked you to help. I told him that but I don’t think he was listening,’ she explained unhappily.

      Ava stiffened. ‘Oh, dear,’ she muttered regretfully, suddenly wishing that she had never got involved.

      ‘What the hell were you thinking of?’ Vito roared at her as she crossed the hall a minute later and looked up to see him framed in the doorway of the library.

       CHAPTER SIX

      VITO was an intimidating sight. Still clad in a dark business suit teamed with a gold silk tie, he strode forward, his big broad shoulders blocking out the wall lights behind him. Ava had never quite appreciated how much taller he was than her until he stood in front of her, towering over her by a good nine inches, his face racked with condemnation.

      Her breath rattled in her dry throat, a flush highlighting her pale complexion because it was the first time she had seen him since they had parted in his bedroom the previous evening and at that moment she was more conscious of that earlier intimacy than of her apparent offence. As she clashed with his hard gaze an utterly inappropriate tingle of erotic awareness spread through her body like poison. Vito grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the library, where he shut the door behind them.

      ‘Per meraviglia! What were you thinking of?’ he demanded a second time, his Italian accent giving every word with a growling edge. ‘I came home, noticed the door was open … saw the room stripped. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Who, I wondered, could possibly have the colossal nerve and insensitivity to go against my wishes in my own home?’

      While he spoke, his breath fracturing audibly with the force of his wrath, his eyes hot and bright with outrage, Ava hastily thought of, and discarded, several possible responses in favour of simple honesty. ‘I thought it was for the best—’

      ‘You thought?’ Vito erupted with incredulous bite. ‘What the hell has it got to do with you?’

      ‘Obviously I should have asked you about what you wanted done first,’ Ava declared shakily, for she had never dreamt that her intervention might rouse such a reaction.

      ‘It was none of your business!’ Vito glowered at her in a tempestuous fury she had not known he was capable of experiencing. He was in such a rage that he could hardly get the words out and she knew that he was finding it a struggle to voice his feelings in English rather than Italian.

      ‘I thought I understood how you felt. Obviously I was mistaken but I honestly believed that clearing the room would make you feel better,’ Ava protested tautly.

      ‘How the hell could a bare room make me feel better? It’s simply another reminder that Olly’s gone!’ Vito ground out bitterly while treating her to a burning look of fierce rage.

      Was that rage directed at her as the driver of the car that awful night? As she couldn’t blame him if that was the underlying source powering him, her shoulders slumped. ‘I didn’t get rid of the personal stuff. His collections and photos and books and letters were all boxed up and kept,’ Ava told him eagerly.

      Vito snatched in a ragged breath, his mouth settled into a tough, contemptuous line. ‘I want it all put back … exactly as it was!’

      Ava straightened her slim shoulders, her bright blue eyes deeply troubled by that instruction. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea—’

      ‘You don’t think?’ Vito’s deep drawl scissored over the words like a slashing knife. ‘What has it got to do with you? Did seeing that room empty of Olly make you feel guilty? Is that what your invasion of my privacy is really all about?’

      ‘Yes, seeing his room again made me feel guilty and very sad. But then even being in this house makes me feel guilty. But I’m used to feeling like that and it didn’t influence my decision.’

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