Christmas Wishes Part 1. Elizabeth Rolls

      ‘Ava?’ Ava wheeled round and found Karen Harper studying her. ‘You didn’t mention that you knew Mr Barbieri …’

      ‘My father works for him and we lived near his home,’ Ava admitted awkwardly.

      The brunette pursed her lips. ‘Well, don’t expect that to cut you any slack,’ she warned. ‘Mr Barbieri’s waiting for you. Clear the coffee cups while you’re in there.’

      ‘Yes. I didn’t know he … er … worked here.’

      ‘Mr Barbieri took over AeroCarlton last week. He’s your employer.’

      ‘Right …’ With a polite smile that was wasted on the disgruntled woman frowning at her, Ava beat a swift retreat, nausea bubbling in the pit of her stomach. Serious bad luck seemed to follow her round like a nasty shadow! Here she was trying to adjust to being back in the world again and the one man who probably wished that the authorities had kept her locked up turned out to be her new boss.

      Vito was resting back against the edge of the table and talking on the phone in fast fluid Italian when she reappeared. Nervous as a cat facing a lion, Ava used the time to quietly load the china back onto the trolley but the image of him remained welded onto her eyelids: the tailored black business suit cut to precision on his very tall, broad shouldered and lean-hipped frame, the white shirt so crisp against his bronzed skin, the gold silk tie that echoed his eyes in sunlight. He was breathtakingly good-looking and exotic from the bold thrust of his high cheekbones and strong nose to his slashing dark brows and beautifully moulded sensual mouth. He hadn’t changed. He still exuded an aura of authority and crackling energy that whipped up a tension all of its own. Olly’s big brother, she thought painfully, and if only she had listened to Olly her best friend might still have been alive.

      ‘Stop trying to flirt with Vito, stop throwing yourself at him!’ Olly had warned her in exasperation the night of that fatal party. ‘You’re not his type and you’re too young for him and even if you weren’t, Vito would eat you for breakfast. He’s a predator with women.’

      Back then Vito’s type had been sleek, blonde, elegant and sophisticated, everything Ava was not, and the comparison had torn her up. He had been out of reach; so far above her it had broken her heart. She had become obsessed by Vito Barbieri, wildly infatuated as only a stubborn lovelorn teenager could be, cherishing every little scrap of information she could find out about him. He took sugar in his coffee and he liked chocolate. He supported several children’s charities that dispensed medical aid in developing countries. He had suffered a challenging childhood when his parents broke up and his father took to alcohol and other women to assuage his grief. He loved to drive fast and collected cars. Although he had perfect teeth he hated going to the dentist. The recollection of all those once very much prized little facts sank Ava dangerously deep into the clinging tentacles of the past she had buried.

      ‘We’ll talk in my office next door,’ Vito decreed, having come off the phone. He moved away from the table and opened a door on the other side of the room. ‘Leave the damn trolley!’

      That impatient exclamation made her hand shoot back from the handle she had automatically been reaching for. Colour ran like a rising flag up her slender throat into her heart-shaped face, flushing her cheeks with discomfiture.

      Stunning eyes narrowed, Vito studied her, his attention descending from the multicoloured topknot that was so unfamiliar to him, down over her pale perfect face with those big blue eyes, that dainty little nose and lush, incredibly tempting mouth and straight away he felt like loosening his collar because he felt too warm. Memory was pelting him with images he had put away a long time ago. Ava in a little silver shimmery slip of a dress, lithe curves only hinted at, legs that went on for ever. He breathed in slow and deep. The taste of Ava’s mouth, her hands running up beneath his jacket over his shirt in an incredibly arousing way. Sex personified and prohibited, absolutely not to be touched under any circumstances. And he had broken the rules, he who never broke such rules, who prided himself on his self-control and decency. True, it had only been a kiss but it had been a kiss that should never have happened and the fallout from it had destroyed his family.

      Emerging from that disturbing flash of recollection, Vito was tense as a steel rod. He would sack her, of course he would. Having her in the same office when he would not be moving on until the reorganisation was complete was inappropriate. Utterly inappropriate, just like his thoughts. He would not keep the young woman who was responsible for his brother’s death in one of his businesses. Nobody would expect him to, nobody would condemn his reasoning. But quick as a flash he knew someone who would have done … Olly, caring, compassionate Olly, who had once acted as the voice of Vito’s unacknowledged conscience.

      Ava moved unsteadily past him, bright head high, refusing to show weakness or concern. Vito was tough, hard, ruthless and brutally successful in a business environment, willing to take a risk and fly in the face of adversity, everything Olly had never been. And yet that had not been the whole story either, Ava conceded painfully, for, macho as Vito undoubtedly was he had been so supportive of the news that Olly was gay, admitting that he had already guessed. Vito had suspected why, like Ava, Olly was the odd one out at school.

      And she still remembered Olly laughing and joking in enormous relief at his brother’s wholehearted acceptance.

      A prickling wash of tears burned below Ava’s lowered lids and a flood of anguished grief gripped her for the voice she would never hear again, for the supportive friend she had grown to love.