to her youth at the time, seeing him again frightened her that it might very well happen all over again. She had come full circle. The irony of it was beyond painful; it was like a razor blade stuck sideways in her throat. She felt as if she could taste the blood of its embedment, the bitter, metallic taste of regret and heartbreak at what she had lost by leaving him, and yet here she was, back in his life and under his command.
Ava lowered her gaze from the accusing glare of Marc’s. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, but it came out grudgingly and not at all convincing.
Marc watched as she stood before him with her bottom lip trembling, her heart-shaped face pale, and her grey-blue eyes like lakes of shimmering liquid.
He turned away, his anger making his movements stiff and jerky. He clenched and unclenched his hands, wanting to punch deep holes in the walls in frustration and fury. It sickened him that he had allowed her to drop his guard. For years he had sworn he would not do as his father had done: become totally captivated by a woman who couldn’t be trusted.
His mother had slept her way through his childhood with an array of other men until she finally left the family home when Marc was seven years old. He could still recall the last time he saw her at the age of ten, getting into the top-of-the-range sports car of her latest rich toy-boy lover, waving at Marc as they drove off to their deaths three hours later on the Amalfi Coast. He had spent the next decade of his life trying to prop up the shattered shell of his father until death—with the aid of large amounts of alcohol—had finally claimed him.
Marc had waited for five years to avenge his bludgeoned pride against Ava McGuire. Five years of meticulously planning his revenge. Step by step he had rebuilt his empire, taking the greatest pleasure in finally bringing Douglas Cole to his knees, with a little help from the stock-market volatility.
Of all the people for her to marry, Ava could not have chosen a better way of ensuring Marc hated her for life. He loathed thinking about his arch enemy making love to her. His mind revolted at the thought of that bloated body heaving over her slim form. But then she was a gold-digger who would always sell herself to the highest bidder. She had just proved it by the way she had agreed to his terms. She had openly taunted him with her beautiful body, but he was not going to take what was on offer until he was good and ready. He wanted her, it was like a virulent fever in his blood, but he was not going to give in to it until she begged him to make love to her. But this time around it would not be making love; it would be sex, nothing but pure physical need that he would enjoy until he tired of her. She would not be the one to walk out on him the way his harlot of a mother had done to his father. This time around Marc would call an end to the relationship when he was satisfied he was over her.
He turned from the view at the windows and faced her. ‘I want this placed stripped of everything that belonged to Cole,’ he said. ‘I have a removals van waiting outside to take everything away in order for my things to be brought in.’
Her slim throat rose and fell over a swallow. ‘There’s not much left of Douglas’s things,’ she said. ‘Since the funeral I have sorted through it all and sent it to his ex-wife and children. The furniture came with the villa when he purchased it.’
‘You have met his ex-wife and family?’ Marc asked, his brows lifting in mild surprise.
She swept the point of her tongue across her lips, swallowing again. ‘Yes, at the funeral. They came all the way from Perth in Australia. Mrs…’ She hesitated for a fraction of a second before continuing, ‘Renata Cole was very pleasant. Adam and Lucy, his adult children, too, were very gracious.’
‘Considering their father had shacked up with a tart,’ he said, watching as her cheeks bloomed with colour.
‘Is this to be part of the deal between us?’ she asked with a defiant spark in her grey-blue eyes. ‘For you to insult me at every available opportunity?’
He ignored her comment to say, ‘You will no longer be using Cole’s name. It is in the legal document I gave you. You are to revert to your maiden name even though you are anything but a maiden.’
She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off curtly. ‘Go and get dressed. I have made a booking at a restaurant for dinner.’
Her eyes rounded. ‘You were that sure I would agree to this preposterous plan?’
‘But of course, ma belle,’ he said with a mocking smile. He patted where his wallet was inside his suit jacket pocket. ‘After all, money is the thing you most desire, is it not?’
Her eyes were like twin tornadoes, darkening with fury. ‘Doesn’t it make a difference to know I don’t want it for myself?’ she bit out through tight lips.
He gave a couldn’t-care-less shrug. ‘It is of no importance to me what or who you want it for. I understand the thickness of family blood even though I do not have a sibling. As it stands, I am happy to pay you to entertain me, but only until such time as I feel it is time to call it quits.’
The look she gave him would have sliced through steel. ‘You mean when you’ve ground my pride into the dust.’
Marc moved his lips from side to side, reining in his temper. She had some nerve to lament the damage to her pride, considering what she had done to his. ‘I have already told you to go and get dressed,’ he said. ‘I would advise you to do so and now, otherwise I may very well change my mind and take you dressed as you are.’
She turned with a swish of her shoulder-length blonde hair and padded up the sweeping staircase, the action of her endless legs and neat bottom making the blood surge to his groin.
He shoved his hands deep in his trouser pockets to stop himself from reaching for her as he so often had done in the past. He’d had lovers since, but no one made his blood heat the way Ava McGuire’s did. All she had to do was look at him from those smoky grey-blue eyes of hers and he was rock-hard. He sucked in a harsh breath, fighting against the flood of memories, but it was impossible to mentally sandbag against such powerful sensual recollections. For five years they had tortured him, making him ache with the need to feel her again, to have her in his arms, to hold her and have his fill of her.
He ran a hand through the thickness of his hair as he paced the floor again. He would get her out of his system this time once and for all. Whatever it took, he would do it.
He had to in order to move on with his life. This was his last chance and he was going to make the most of every single minute.
Ava dressed in a slim-fitting black cocktail dress from her short-lived modelling days and, slipping her feet into heels, picked up a small evening bag.
She glanced at her reflection in the mirror, grimacing at the state of her hair. She put her bag down and quickly ran a brush through her tresses so they fell about her shoulders in casual waves. Apart from a dusting of mineral make-up and a quick dab of lip gloss she left the rest of her face alone. It wouldn’t matter what she did to herself—she was never going to be good enough for Marc Castellano, she thought with aching sadness. He enjoyed the company of beautiful women all over the world, women who willingly grasped at the chance to hang off his arm or slip between the sheets of his bed. Ava’s stomach hollowed in anguish at the thought of how many had been there since she had been his mistress. The thought of him touching others the way he had touched her made her feel as if her heart was being wrenched in two. She had tried over the years not to think of it; every time she saw a Press photo of him with yet another glamorous woman on his arm she had quickly turned the page, suppressing the wave of longing until it finally subsided.
When
