and clashed involuntarily with scorching dark golden eyes of such stormy beauty she could hardly breathe. A tingling sensation ran through her, tightening her nipples like a sudden blast of cold air, although there was nothing chilly about the well of heat building low in her pelvis.
‘You want me to go shopping?’ she queried disbelievingly. ‘But I’m not a girly girl.’
‘Nevertheless if you want to retain employment here you will do as you are told,’ Vito countered drily.
Ava flushed and nibbled at the soft underside of her lower lip, the tip of her tongue slicking out to ease the dryness there, while she swallowed back the spark of temper he had ignited. His innate dominance and self-assurance had always set her teeth on edge. His way or the highway, she got that message loud and clear and it was nothing new to her. She was used to rules now, accustomed to respecting the pecking order to stay safe. That she should have to do the same thing to stay employed should not be a surprise.
‘Don’t do that with your mouth … and don’t look at me like that,’ Vito chastised.
Look at him in what way? If the look had been inappropriate, she had been unaware of the fact and her chin came up at a mutinous angle. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
He dealt her an unimpressed scrutiny, dark eyes brilliant and shielded by his lush lashes. ‘Don’t play the temptress with me. Been there, done that.’
In the state of tension she was in that insolent warning was the tipping point. Lashed by memories of the humiliation he had once inflicted on her, Ava flushed as incandescent rage lit her up like an internal fireworks display. ‘Let’s get this straight now, Vito,’ she bit out furiously. ‘I’m no longer that silly infatuated girl you once called a tease! I’m a whole lot wiser than I used to be. You’re like a lot of other men—you don’t take responsibility for your own behaviour.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ Vito shot back at her rawly, unprepared for that sudden attack.
‘I’m not some fatally seductive Eve, whom no poor male can resist. What happened that night wasn’t entirely my fault. You came on to me, you kissed me because you wanted to, not because I somehow made you do it!’ Ava shot back with angry emphasis, blue eyes star-bright with condemnation. ‘Deal with your own share of the blame and don’t try to foist it on me!’
Wrath blasted through Vito like a cleansing flame, wiping away every other complex reaction that she stirred. That fast he wanted to kill her and it was not the first time she had done that to him. He had dealt with the blame a long time ago but that did not alter the fact that she had used her body around him like a lethal weapon, deliberately stoking the kind of desire that no principled adult wanted to experience in a teenager’s radius. It had been a recipe for disaster and had it not been for the car crash that had followed he would have remained satisfied by the outcome of their confrontation. But while he had tried to nip the situation in the bud Ava’s fiery temperament had ensured that it had blown up in his face instead.
‘I have no intention of discussing the past with you,’ Vito delivered crushingly. ‘Go buy the shoes and start on the Christmas list, Ava.’
It was a direct order and she was tempted to ignore it when every fibre in her body was still primed for battle. She wanted to defend herself, she had never got the chance to defend herself against his cutting allegations because Olly had interrupted them. But as she had reminded him she was no longer the teenager who had once found it almost impossible to control her emotions. She breathed in slow and deep and, giving him a look that would have daunted a lesser man, she turned round and headed for the door.
‘Yes, you have grown up,’ Vito remarked silkily, having the last word.
Her teeth clenched, her slender hands curling into tight fists but her spine stayed straight and her mouth firmly closed. Deep down inside she might want to scream at him, shake him … kiss him? The shock of that stray thought cooled her temper as nothing else could have done. Although she had got over her crush on him a long time ago, she had also spent the last three years in an all-female environment, forced to repress every sexual instinct, she reasoned impatiently. It was hardly surprising that exposure to a male of Vito’s stunning good looks and high-powered sexuality, not to mention the memory of how she had once felt about him, could now make her vulnerable. So, take a chill pill, she urged herself impatiently, you’re only human and he’s the equivalent of toxic bait to a rat. He might have spectacular packaging but he also had a brain like a computer in which actual emotion had very little input. Even at eighteen she had appreciated that Vito’s fondness for his little brother was the sole Achilles’ heel in his tough and ruthlessly maintained emotional armour. She had not required Olly’s warning to appreciate that she and Vito were chalk and cheese in every way that mattered. Money and success mattered way more to Vito than people. He kept other human beings at a distance and rarely allowed anyone into his inner circle or his private life. She did not count his affairs in that category for, according to what she had witnessed on the sidelines of his life, more sex than feeling was involved in those relationships.
Karen Harper was just replacing the phone when Ava entered her office and she wore an expression like a cat facing a saucer of sour cream. ‘Company credit card, right?’ she checked icily.
Ava nodded and presented the Christmas list. The brunette gave it a cursory glance. ‘You appreciate that I will be checking your purchases very closely,’ she spelt out warningly. ‘I also advise you to stay strictly within budget. In fact your main objective should be to save money rather than spend it.’
‘Of course.’
‘Obviously Mr Barbieri believes you’re up to the challenge because he knows your family,’ Karen commented curtly, making her own poor opinion of the decision crystal clear. ‘But unfortunately shopping is not work.’
‘I just do what I’m told to do,’ Ava fielded and turned on her heel, hoping that being at an enjoyable distance from Karen for a couple of days would ultimately do her no harm.
Ava returned to her allotted desk to go over the list and make plans. Saving money? When it came to the question of saving money she was, without a doubt, the go-to girl for she had never had enough cash to get by comfortably. Even though her family had always lived well, Ava had rarely been given money and had survived during term time at school through a series of part-time holiday jobs waiting tables and stacking shelves. Studying the list, she dug out Marge’s catalogue to see if any suitable substitutes could be found within those pages. Surely charitable gifts would be more acceptable during a period of economic austerity when most people were feeling the pinch? She did a little homework on the computer to find out what she could about the interests of the recipients and hit pay dirt several times on that score, making helpful notes beside those names. That achieved, she paused only to pin a picture of Harvey to the office noticeboard in the forlorn hope that the dog might take someone’s fancy. Marge had said Harvey could stay only two more weeks in her home as she was expecting the usual influx of abandoned and surrendered animals that followed the festive season. Ava tried to picture Harvey with a bow in his hair as a much-wanted gift and frowned: he just wasn’t cute and fluffy enough to attract that kind of owner. But he was such a loving animal, Ava reflected painfully, knowing that the dog would have to be put to sleep at the vets’ surgery if she could not find him a home. How could she have been so irresponsible as to let herself get attached to him?
When she left AeroCarlton, Ava went straight to buy a pair of shoes because the muscles in her feet were aching at the effort it took to keep the second-hand ones on. As soon as she could she would pay Vito back. Although she then made a start on the Christmas list unfortunate images continued to bombard her brain at awkward moments, scattering her thoughts and disturbing her. She didn’t want to think about the night of the party but suddenly she couldn’t think of anything else.
Every year Vito held a Christmas party for his senior staff, estate employees, tenants and neighbours. It was the equivalent of the local squire of Victorian times throwing open his grand doors to the public. That last year Ava had become so obsessed by Vito that she wouldn’t even go out on a date