her own descent into despair by the time it ended. And no man was allowed to have that much power over Ava because in her experience, with the single exception of Olly, the people she loved had always hurt her badly. No, just as Vito didn’t do marriage, Ava didn’t do love.
Admittedly she was attached to him in some ways, she acknowledged grudgingly. He kept on trying to take her out to dinner and places which she hadn’t expected, having assumed he would be as keen as her to keep their involvement with each other under wraps. Certainly the staff must have guessed but by the time such rumours spread further afield Ava would be long gone. She had told Vito she had nothing to wear that wouldn’t embarrass them both in public but it was just an excuse to hide the fact that she didn’t want people to know they were involved. Much wiser to stay under the radar, she reflected ruefully, having no desire to attract controversy or see Vito outraged or upset by people who would be appalled that he could have fallen into bed with the woman responsible for his brother’s death. That was life and Ava had learned not to fight it.
Vito and her? It was just sex, she told herself every time he was with her. He couldn’t keep his hands off her but, to be honest, she couldn’t keep her hands off him either and the awareness that they had such a short time together had simply pushed the intensity to a whole new level. He was with her every minute he was at home and, although he was characteristically working on a Saturday, he had gradually started finishing earlier and earlier. They argued at least once a day, being both very strong-willed people. But they never let the sun go down on a row either and he stayed with her every night, dragging her up to breakfast with him at an unforgivably early hour while striding through the castle shouting for her if she wasn’t immediately available when he arrived home. She knew he liked her and that he cared about what happened to her. She respected his fair-mindedness, was even fond of him. But aside of the wild bouts of sex that took place every time they got within touching distance, that was the height of it, she told herself staunchly. With six days of the affair to go, she believed she was handling the upcoming prospect of their separation with logic and restraint rather than with the obsessive depth and despondency that would once have threatened her composure. After all, hadn’t that obsessional passion of hers for Vito once sent her running out of control into that car with tragic consequences? She knew better now.
The neat detached home that Ava’s parents had brought her up in sat behind tall clipped hedges on the outskirts of the village. Even though it was two miles from the castle, Ava walked there. Damien Skeel had been instructed to put a car and driver at her disposal to facilitate the party arrangements but Ava didn’t want an audience to witness her being turned away from her father’s front door. As smartly dressed as she could contrive, she braced herself and rang the doorbell.
She was bewildered when a stranger answered the door and wondered in dismay if her father had moved house after her mother’s death. ‘I’m looking for Thomas Fitzgerald,’ she said to the middle-aged blonde woman. ‘Has he moved?’
‘I’m his wife. Who should I tell him is here?’ the woman responded.
Ava’s eyes widened as she tried to hide her shock that her father had remarried. ‘I’m his youngest daughter, Ava.’
‘Oh.’ The polite smile dropped away and the older woman turned her head hurriedly and called out, ‘It’s … Ava!’
Her father appeared from the direction of the kitchen, a tall thin man with grey hair and rather cold blue eyes. ‘I’ll deal with this, Janet. Ava … you’d better come in,’ he said without any sign of warmth.
But an invite to enter her former home was still more than Ava had expected after having her existence ignored for three long years, and her tension eased a tiny bit. True, it was a shock that her father had already taken a second wife but she had no resentment of the fact because her parents had never been happy together. The older man showed her into the dining room and positioned himself at the far side of the table, distancing tactics she was accustomed to and which felt dauntingly familiar.
‘I suppose you want to know what I’m doing here.’ Ava spoke first, used to the older man’s power play of always putting her in that position.
‘If you’re hoping for a handout you’ve come to the wrong place,’ Thomas Fitzgerald informed her coldly.
‘That’s not why I came, Dad. I’ve served my sentence—that’s all behind me now and, although I know I caused a lot of trouble for the family, I …’ Ava paled and struggled to find the words to express her feelings in the face of the look of icy distaste that her father wore.
‘I suppose you were sure to turn up like the proverbial bad penny sooner or later,’ he pronounced drily. ‘I’ll keep this short for both our sakes. I’m not your father and I have no obligation towards you.’
Ava felt as if the floor had dropped away below her feet. ‘Not … my father?’ she repeated thickly, incredulous at the statement. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘While your mother was alive it was a secret but thankfully there’s no need for that nonsense now,’ he told her with satisfaction. ‘My wife and your half-sisters are aware of the fact that you’re not a real member of this family. Your mother, Gemma, picked up a man one night and fell pregnant by him. And no, I know nothing about who he was or is and neither did your mother, who was … as usual … drunk.’
‘Picked up a man?’ Ava echoed, her pallor pronounced and a sick feeling curdling in her stomach.
‘Yes, it’s sordid but that’s nothing to do with me. I’m telling you the truth as your mother finally told it to me,’ Thomas Fitzgerald continued with open distaste. ‘You were DNA tested when you were seven years old and my suspicions were proven correct. You are not my child.’
‘But nobody ever said anything, even suggested that …’ Ava began jerkily, trying and failing to get her freefalling thoughts into some kind of order and comprehend the nightmare that seemed to be engulfing her. ‘Why didn’t you divorce my mother?’
‘What would have been the point of a divorce?’ the older man asked with unhidden bitterness. ‘She was an alcoholic and I had two daughters, whom I couldn’t have trusted her to raise alone, and I had my career. I didn’t want people sniggering about me behind my back either. I tried to make a go of the marriage in spite of you. I was a decent man. I fed and clothed you, educated you, did everything a father is expected to do …’
Momentarily, it was as though a veil had fallen from Ava’s perceptive powers as she looked back at her childhood and adolescence. ‘No, you didn’t. You never liked me.’
‘How was I supposed to like you?’ he shouted at her in a sudden eruption of rage. ‘Some stranger’s bastard masquerading as my own daughter? It was intolerable that I should be forced to pretend but I was responsible for your mother because I married her. There was no one else to take care of her and I had to think of Gina and Bella’s needs. I did my duty by you all but it was a lot more than your wretched mother deserved!’
The door behind Ava opened. ‘Thomas, I think you’ve said enough,’ the female voice said quietly. ‘It’s not the girl’s fault that you had to put up with so much.’
It was his wife, Janet, her stepmother … no, not her stepmother. These two people were actually no relation to her at all. The shock of that realisation punched through Ava and left a big hole where she felt her brain should be. She turned in a clumsy circle. ‘I should leave.’
‘I think that would be best, dear. You remind Thomas of a very unhappy time in his life,’ Janet informed Ava in a reproachful tone.
Ava walked straight back out onto the road, feeling as if she had concussion because she couldn’t think straight. The secret was out: she finally knew why her father had never liked her and her mother had always preferred her sisters. Evidently she was ‘some stranger’s bastard’, not a legitimate child of Thomas Fitzgerald’s first marriage, not to mention being a constant galling reminder of his wife’s infidelity. No longer did she need to wonder why the man had persisted in calling her