his desk. She needed the job, the chance to take up her life again. He recognised that: he just didn’t want her doing it around him. She had stolen Olly’s life and now she had her own back. Or did she? Her entire family had cut her loose. She had also given up her dream of becoming a doctor. Where was his sense of fair play? Did he usually kick people when they were already down and out? She was struggling: he could see it in the shaky set of that luscious mouth, in the fierce tension of her slim body. Given the opportunity his little brother would, he knew, have urged him not to punish Ava for what had happened. Typical Olly, always the peacemaker, Vito reflected broodingly, his even white teeth gritting as he searched inside himself for some similar strain of compassion and found only the yawning emptiness that the loss of his brother had created.
‘So do you want me to leave immediately?’ Ava enquired flatly, fighting to keep the unsteadiness out of her voice.
Vito didn’t want to look at her because she was making him feel like a bully and, whatever he was, he was not that. He glanced down at his desk and inspiration struck him in the form of the Christmas list lying there. That would be perfect: it would get her out of the office and she revelled in all that Christmas bull so it could not be viewed as a punishment either. From what he could see she had already had her punishment.
‘No, you can stay for the moment,’ he breathed harshly, thinking that he could shift her elsewhere after the festive season was over and it would cause a lot less comment. ‘I have a task I want you to take care of for me …’
Shocked by that sudden turnaround when she had been so sure he was going to sack her, Ava moved quickly forward, too quickly for her ill-fitting shoes. She stepped out of one shoe, having forgotten to clench her toes in it for staying power. ‘What is it?’
‘What is wrong with your shoes?’ Vito demanded impatiently as she lurched to an uneven halt to thrust her foot back into the item.
‘They don’t fit.’
‘Why not?’
Ava reddened. ‘Everything I’m wearing is second hand.’
Distaste filled Vito at the mere idea of wearing someone else’s clothing.
Recognising his reaction, Ava turned pale with chagrin. ‘Look, the last time I was free I was eighteen and wearing Goth clothes. I’ve grown out of that and I couldn’t turn up here to work in a pair of old jeans.’
Vito pulled his wallet out, withdrew a wad of banknotes and extended it to her. ‘Buy yourself some shoes,’ he told her drily.
Ava was aghast at the gesture. ‘I can’t take your money.’
‘You’re planning to refuse your salary?’
‘No, but that’s different,’ she argued. ‘It’s not personal.’
‘This isn’t personal either. You might try to sue us if you have an accident and you’re not much use to anyone round here when you can’t walk properly,’ Vito fielded without hesitation as he reached for the document, eager to get her back out of his office. ‘And you’ll probably be doing a lot of walking.’
‘What are you talking about?’
He handed her the sheet of paper and the money together. She was close enough to pick up on the spicy scent of his cologne and note the flexing of lean strong muscle below his shirt as he leant forward, compensating for the height difference between them. At over six feet tall, he towered over her five feet four inches. All too readily, however, she remembered the warm, solid feel of his muscular chest below her palms and she stiffened defensively. When he came close, she still wanted to touch him; it was that simple. Guilt assailed her when she thought about the way she had once behaved in his radius.
‘It’s my Christmas list for the associates we give presents to. Karen Harper will issue you with a company credit card and you will follow the suggestions and go out and gather them all up. OK?’ Vito spelt out shortly, his smouldering gaze pinned to the damp pink pout of her mouth.
What was it about her that ensnared him? Vito wondered in frustration, feeling the tight heaviness and drag of response at his groin. While she seemed naively unaware of her own sexual power he was all too aware that he found everything about her, from that peachy mouth to the tightness of her blouse over her full round breasts and the fit of her trousers, ridiculously tempting. He wanted her. He wanted to bed her so badly it almost hurt to think that he could never have her and the very thought of that shocked him afresh. It had been so long since a woman affected him on a visceral level. The last time had been with her, in fact, and that bothered him, bothered him in a way he didn’t appreciate being bothered. No, he definitely didn’t want her under his feet during his working day.
Ava looked up at him in surprise 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
