my brother. Was that not enough for you? What gave you the insane idea that desecrating his room and my memory of him would make me feel better?’
At that lethal reminder, spoken to her by him for the first time, Ava flinched as though he had struck her. The blood slid away from below her skin, leaving only sick pallor in its wake. He had the right to hate and revile her: who could deny him that outlet when he had never before confronted her on that score? Her tummy filled with nausea and an appalling sense of shame and guilt that she knew she could do nothing to assuage.
‘I was unforgivably high-handed … I can see that now,’ Ava admitted jerkily, pained regret slicing through her that she could have been that thoughtless and inconsiderate. Unfortunately she had always been quick to act on a gut reaction and think about consequences later and this time it had gone badly wrong for her. ‘But I honestly wasn’t thinking about how I felt when I cleared the room. I was thinking about you.’
‘I don’t want you thinking about me!’ Vito roared as he strode across to the decanter set on the sofa table and poured himself a shot of whiskey. ‘My thoughts and feelings about my brother’s death are entirely my affair and not something I intend to discuss.’
‘Yes, I have got that message but that locked-up untouched room didn’t strike me as a healthy approach to grief,’ Ava dared to argue, her attention resting on the rigid angles and hollows of his strong face and the force of control he was clearly utilising to hide his feelings. He was as locked up inside as that blasted room, she thought in sudden frustration, but it was a revelation to her that he possessed the depth that fostered such powerful emotions.
‘What would you know about it?’ Vito slashed back at her rudely, for once making no attempt to hide how upset he was, which she found oddly touching.
‘I’ve been through something similar and talking about it or even writing about it for purely your own benefit helps,’ she murmured ruefully. ‘Grief can devour you alive if you get stuck in it.’
He skimmed her with cutting emphasis. ‘Spare me the platitudes! And don’t ever interfere in my life again!’
‘I won’t, but remember that it was you who told me that you can’t live in the past for ever and that life has to go on,’ Ava reminded him wretchedly. ‘I’m sorry if I misinterpreted what you meant by that. I thought I was helping.’
‘I don’t need or want your help!’ Vito slammed at her in a wrathful fury as he wrenched open the library door again. ‘Tell Eleanor I’m eating out tonight!’
And Ava was left standing there in the pool of light by the desk. She gritted her teeth. She was hurting, Vito was hurting but he didn’t want anyone, least of all her, to recognise the fact. That wounded her but she had no right to feel wounded because she had been insensitive not to broach the topic of clearing Olly’s room with him personally.
A soft knock sounded on the door and Ava moved forward to open it. ‘Vito said—’
‘Don’t worry, I heard him,’ Eleanor confided with a grimace and she winced as the sound of a powerful car tearing down the drive carried indoors. ‘I hope you told the boss that clearing that room was my idea.’
‘I encouraged you and I got stuck in first. I thought it was the right thing to do as well. Forget about it,’ Ava advised.
Eleanor frowned. ‘I’ve never seen Mr Barbieri lose his temper like that. Should I start putting the room back the way it was?’
‘I would wait and see how he feels about it tomorrow … but maybe listening to my opinion isn’t the right way to go,’ Ava pointed out heavily, reaching down to fondle Harvey’s ears as he bumped against her knee.
‘Harvey’s got a lovely nature,’ the housekeeper remarked in the awkward silence. ‘I’ll spread the word about him needing a home but, if you ask me, he’s already happy to have found a home with you.’
‘But pets aren’t allowed where I live in London,’ Ava muttered, struggling to concentrate when all she could hear, over and over again in her buzzing head, was Vito saying, ‘You killed my brother.’ And she had, not deliberately but through recklessness and bad judgement. That was a truth she had to live with, but just then acknowledging it wounded her as much as it had the day in hospital when she had first learned that Olly had died in the crash.
Ava had no appetite for the delicious evening meal brought to her in the solitary splendour of the dining room. After rooting through Vito’s library to find a Jane Austen novel she hadn’t read in several years, she went for a swim in the basement, desperate to escape her unhappy thoughts. Afterwards, the warmth and privacy in her bedroom along with Harvey’s relaxing presence enclosed her. Momentarily she remembered how noisy prison had been and how comfortless, with metal furniture fixed to the wall and a tiny floor space with only a view of another prison block out of the small window. Bells had rung sounding out meal times and exercise periods, barred gates had clanged and sometimes alarms had gone off as well. Pounding music had been an almost constant backdrop while other inmates shouted from cell to cell, bored silly at being locked up for so many hours a day. She shivered. The first two years she had had to struggle to get through every day but she had eventually settled into a routine. She had found work helping others to read and write and had learned to appreciate tiny things like the right to buy a hot chocolate drink or a snack with her meagre earnings. She had also learned very fast to stop feeling sorry for herself because there were so many others dealing with much worse stuff than she had on her plate.
Recalling that stark reality, Ava decided to run a bath in the opulent turret room en suite and luxuriate in the selection of bathing products available. Staying at the castle was very much like staying at a five-star hotel. It was a luxury holiday and she ought to make the most of it because reality would soon be back loudly knocking at her door again, she reminded herself impatiently. But she felt so horribly guilty about having wounded Vito by forcing him to face up to his half-brother’s death all over again. She had trod in hobnail boots all over his sensibilities by foolishly underestimating his attachment to the picture of the past that could still flourish in that locked room. He was right. Who was she to say it was healthy or otherwise to leave that room as though time had stopped dead?
Ava wasted a lot of time lounging in the decadent bath, topping up the water to warm it when she got cold, fighting with all her might to escape her unhappy thoughts. She had screwed up again and she clenched her teeth hard and tried again to blank her mind. She donned her pyjamas, blew dry her hair and set her mobile phone alarm to wake her up early. But not early enough to run into Vito as she was convinced that he wouldn’t want to share the breakfast table with her. She took Harvey out for a last run before clambering into her comfortable bed to read until she got sleepy.
When the door opened rather abruptly, Harvey leapt up and barked and Ava sat up with a start. Just about the very last person she was expecting walked in, leaning back against the door to close it. Harvey barked again, tense with suspicion at the interruption. Ava leant out of bed to soothe him into silence and he subsided and slunk back to his favourite spot by the dying fire.
‘I saw the light from outside and realised you were still awake,’ Vito informed her as she glanced at her watch to note that it was after eleven. ‘Damien gave me a lift home from the village pub.’
Absolutely flummoxed by his appearance in her bedroom wearing nothing more than his boxer shorts—his towelling robe was, after all, still lying in a heap on her floor—with his hair still tousled and damp from the shower, Ava was as tense as a bowstring but trying against all the odds to act normally. ‘Oh, yes, I met Damien when I was out walking today and he introduced
