she stepped back and busied herself with pouring drinks, refusing to let her mind flash back to the hallway incident. Annabelle gulped her drink down and immediately jumped down again, ready to reacquaint herself with her home.
‘I asked if there was anything else I should know. You didn’t think I needed to know about her nightmares?’ he rasped fiercely.
Ava bit her lip. ‘They started last week, after I sent Rita home. She calms down when she knows I’m nearby.’
Cesare swore fluently under his breath. ‘I needed to know, Ava.’
She nodded. ‘This was why I wanted to come back. She’s always been happier here.’
His jaw clamped so tight a pulse kicked in his temple. ‘You will tell me everything, no matter how small or insignificant. Agreed?’
The power behind his words rocked her to the core. From near total distance to this fierce protectiveness of Annabelle made her reel. That she had a destructive force of nature to thank tightened chaotic knots in her stomach. ‘Agreed.’
After several seconds, he relaxed.
‘So,’ Cesare drawled, his gaze following Annabelle, who’d picked up Ava’s iPod, inserted one earphone and was now dancing around the room, ‘your commune didn’t just teach you to eat, pray and love, did they also teach little girls how to dance like eccentric rock stars?’
Ava found herself taking her first easy breath since she’d arrived back home. ‘Just because you can’t dance to save your life doesn’t mean you can look down your nose at others. Besides, she gets her dancing gene from me.’
‘No doubt about that,’ he drawled.
‘Watch it!’
Annabelle danced over to them. ‘Can I have a biscuit, please?’
Cesare picked up the plate and held it out to her. ‘It’s called biscotti. Try saying it, piccolina.’ He smiled with undisguised pride when she pronounced it perfectly.
Ava swallowed but the solid lump wouldn’t move from her throat. Blinking away sudden tears, she jumped up and picked up her laptop.
‘If you don’t mind watching her, I’ll go and put this away.’
‘Then we can swim, Mummy? You promised.’ As a prize for being good on the plane, she’d promised her daughter the earth—and a long swim when they got home.
‘Yes, we can, so don’t have too much lemonade, okay?’
As she left the room, she felt Cesare’s incisive gaze probing her back. Her steps quickened, defiantly trying to outrun the calm, completely rational voice asking if she knew what she was letting herself in for.
* * *
They weren’t in the salone or at the pool when she returned five minutes later, dressed in an orange one-piece swimsuit and white shorts with a loose white shirt over the top. Ava was about to return indoors when she heard her daughter’s voice.
Following the flower-lined pathway that curved round the villa, she stopped in her tracks. Cesare and Annabelle were bent over a rose bush, admiring a trio of butterflies fluttering from one bud to the other.
It wasn’t the picture of wonderment on her daughter’s face that stopped Ava’s heart. It was the look of intense pain reflected in Cesare’s face as he gazed at Annabelle. He looked so starkly distraught that she leaned her hand against the wall to steady herself.
And immediately pulled back with a gasp as the baking concrete singed her hand. Cesare glanced up. In an instant the look was gone. If it hadn’t registered for more than a few seconds, Ava would’ve thought she’d imagined it. She held her breath as he straightened up and strode to her.
‘Are you all right?’ he questioned coolly.
‘Hot wall, bare skin. Bad idea. Should remember that.’
He claimed her hand and examined the heated flesh. ‘There’s some ice on the table. I’ll put some on it for you,’ he said.
She glanced at Annabelle.
‘She’s enthralled with her butterflies for now. Come.’ The word was more command than suggestion.
‘Seriously, it’s nothing.’
He cast her a grim smile and marched her to the poolside. ‘Is that why you’re grimacing? Because it’s nothing?’
‘Fine, it hurts like hell. Satisfied?’
Pushing her into one of the padded seats, he sat opposite her. ‘Why do women always say it’s nothing, when clearly it isn’t?’
‘I don’t know. You’ve probably known more women than me. You tell me.’
He didn’t deny it. Just smiled in that oh-so-smug way that made her yearn to kick him. Hard. ‘Normally, it’s just a way of attracting more attention.’
Irritation grew, along with her already heated temperature. He’d used the fully equipped pool house to change into swimming trunks in the time she’d gone upstairs and his bare muscular thighs almost imprisoning hers were covered in short silky hairs that taunted her with their luxuriant promise. The reaction it caused to her body was as unwelcome as it was unstoppable.
‘You think I burned myself deliberately to get your attention? You really think I’m that pathetic?’ Why did her voice sound so husky? And why, when he hadn’t even administered the ice on her stinging palm, were her nipples peaking so painfully?
He smiled, wrapped several ice cubes in a linen napkin and placed it in her palm. ‘No, cara mia. Because you’re not most women.’ His gaze captured hers, the tawny depths smoky, intense and way too captivating for her sanity.
‘Thank you. I think.’ Foolish pleasure stole through her, accelerating her already racing heartbeat.
‘Prego.’ The deep, softly muttered word flowed over her overheating senses.
Everything fell away. The sound of the water splashing against the side of the pool, the warm buzzing of bees in the afternoon air, the sound of boats on the lake. Everything, except the heat radiating from Cesare’s eyes, the warmth of the fingers curled around hers and the emotions rippling through her. His gaze traced her face. When it lingered on her lips, it took all her willpower not to lick them in shameless anticipation.
Unavoidably, her own gaze fell to the sensual curve of his lips; lips she’d tasted mere hours ago.
Heat collected and oozed between her legs, stinging with a need that gripped with relentless force. Realising she hadn’t taken a breath in a dizzyingly long time, she sucked in air through her mouth.
The sound ripped through their sensual cocoon, intensifying the tension arcing between them. Cesare swallowed, the movement of his strong neck making her pulse skitter and her fingers yearn to caress his skin.
His fingers convulsed around hers. Her gaze returned to his face and found his attention riveted on her breasts.
Desire wove
