please. You want me but you don’t want to be married to me, and yet you still wear your wedding ring.
‘Frankly, I don’t have a clue what’s going on, but I’m done turning myself into a basket case trying to figure it out. So I don’t really give a damn if it’s the di Goia thing or not, Cesare. I want a divorce.’
CESARE DESCENDED THE stairs, his mood no less foul than when he’d gone upstairs three hours earlier under the pretext of going to bed.
Sleep had been non-existent. No surprise there. Irrational anger and frustration pulsed in equal measures through him. For the most part he was extremely disturbed by his reaction to Ava’s announcement in the kitchen. Which in turn confused him. He was not a man who enjoyed being confused!
And yet, what had he expected when he announced they shouldn’t have married? That she would dissolve in helpless tears and beg him to reconsider?
He gave a grim smile. Ava was not like that. No, his redheaded tigress reacted with claws, not tears. But there’d been no signs of claws last night...only a calm resignation after her hysterics-free announcement.
The disturbing hollowness inside him expanded.
Even if some masochistic part of him had wanted her to fight, what good would it have done? He wasn’t wired to be a family man. He never would be.
Di Goias do not divorce. He snorted under his breath. For a man who prided himself on being ruthlessly straight in his business dealings, he was sure as hell making a pathetic ass of himself in his private life.
Ava only needed a competent Internet search engine to verify his hot-headed statement as a pack of lies. Granted, divorce in his family was rare, but wasn’t his Uncle Gianni neck-deep in a particularly messy one with his third wife right this very minute?
Cesare slammed the door to his study and paced the room. A dark part of him registered his anger was irrational. As irrational as the fear he’d felt when he’d had to leave Ava and Annabelle three weeks ago to rush to Roberto’s side. Then, as now, he’d felt as if his life was ripping apart with the same deadly intent as the earthquake had.
He detested the hellish, out-of-control feeling.
The past weeks’ events—the earthquake, Roberto’s death, the soul-shaking despair of not being able to control anything in life had only cemented his belief that he shouldn’t have married Ava.
So why should he be angry now that she wanted out?
‘Basta!’ he swore under his breath. Glancing at his watch, he stalked to the phone. It was still early on a Saturday morning, and it was about time his lawyers earned their fat monthly retainer.
‘Ciao!’
Cesare pulled the phone from his ear, surprise spiking through him when he realised whose number he’d dialled.
‘Buon giorno, Celine.’
‘You sound surprised even though you called me.’ Her bewilderment matched his.
‘Perdono, I was calling someone else,’ he said.
Celine’s laugh was a little strained. ‘Maybe it’s Fate forcing us to finish last night’s conversation.’
He sighed. ‘I’ve told her. She knows everything.’
‘Oh, I’m so glad, Cesare. I allowed Roberto to push me away and I’ll never forgive myself for not being there for him until it was almost too late. We barely got a chance to say goodbye before he was gone. I’m glad you’re not making the same mistake...’ Her voice broke.
Pain tightened in his chest before he forcefully hardened his emotions. He wasn’t in the mood to enlighten Celine that he and wife couldn’t be further apart if they tried. ‘I appreciate what you did for Roberto, just as I appreciate what you’re doing for my fam—for me. Ciao, Celine.’ He quickly ended the call and threw the phone on his desk.
His jaw tightened against the helplessness that dogged him and he had the feeling Fate wasn’t done with him yet.
Closing his eyes, he tried to clear his head but there was no erasing his mind’s fixation on a particular woman. A woman with hair the colour of a glorious Tuscany sunset, peach-perfect skin dusted with freckles as countless as the stars. Emerald-green eyes that sucked him into seductive pools in which he wanted to happily drown.
The arousal that had plagued him since she returned throbbed to life, an insistent beat of desire that pounded through his system like a relentless drumbeat.
It would all go away. He just needed the right focus. One call on Monday to his lawyers to set divorce proceedings underway and this feeling would go away.
Satisfied that he’d regained some control, he left the study.
Lucia was laying out the breakfast things and turned at his approach. The usually stern face of the woman who’d been part of his household for longer than he could remember relaxed into a smile as she regaled him with Annabelle’s antics of the day before.
Cesare had noted the change in his household since his daughter’s return. The household staff who normally went out of their way to avoid him now smiled openly and even exchanged greetings instead of hurrying away when they saw him coming.
As he poured himself a coffee, he admitted to the lightness in his own heart since Annabelle’s return. But there was also a stab of pain so acute his hand shook. He’d almost lost her once. He had no intention of doing so again.
She was the only child he would bear; she would one day inherit the di Goia fortune. Which meant she had to be prepared. And, for starters, a daughter who spoke more English than Italian was simply unacceptable.
‘You look like you’re plotting world domination.’
Ava stood framed in the terrace doorway, dressed in a short white sundress. The sight of her long bare legs sent volcanic heat surging through his veins.
Sunlight flamed hair brightened by the Balinese sun. Her fair skin never browned enough to tan, but it glowed with a healthy hue and shimmered as if she’d smoothed a special lotion over it.
He watched her glide on bare feet towards him. In all the time he’d known Ava, he’d only seen her wear shoes when they went out and, even then, at the earliest opportunity she kicked them off. Instruments of torture, she called them. He’d never objected because he found her unadorned feet extremely sexy. He’d never have imagined he had a foot fetish before he met her.
But then he was equally fascinated with her fingers, with her lips, with the delicate bones of her clavicle and the sweet temptation of her round, supple breasts.
Madre di Dio! he cursed as his insane desire for her rose to torment him again.
Hips swaying beneath the soft, clingy material, she reached the table, chose the chair next to him and folded herself into it. Immediately the subtle scent of her perfume hit his nostrils, sending desire surging higher.
‘Should I be afraid?’
