Castellano's Mistress of Revenge (4 page)

His crude question was like a slap across the face with an icy hand. She wrenched her hand out of his, wincing as her wrist caught on the metal band of his watch. She glared at him from her corner of the car, holding her wrist with her other hand, her emotions in turmoil as she struggled to keep control.

‘Did you?' he asked, his expression hard with bitterness.

‘Would you believe me if I said no?' she asked with a challenging look.

His eyes bored into hers as if he was deciding whether to believe her or not. ‘You lived with him as his legal wife for five years,' he said. ‘I can't imagine there would be much you didn't do with him, especially with the amount of money he spent on you. That's probably why he ended up close to bankruptcy, trying to keep your gold-digging hands full of designer goods.'

‘I couldn't give a damn what you think,' she said, searching in her evening bag for a tissue. ‘It's pointless discussing anything with you. You've made up your mind and you are never wrong, or so you like to believe.'

Marc frowned as he saw the scratch on the creamy skin of her blue-veined wrist. He took out his handker
chief from his inside pocket and, taking her arm, gently dabbed it. ‘It was not my intention to hurt you,' he said.

Her grey-blue eyes glittered. ‘That's the whole point of this, isn't it? To hurt me until I finally break.'

He frowned and released her arm, stuffing the used handkerchief in his trouser pocket. ‘Perhaps there is a part of me that wants you to suffer the way I suffered,' he said, looking her in the eye. ‘But I am not a violent man and you can be assured you will always be absolutely safe with me, Ava.'

Safe?
Ava wondered if she could ever be safe from his effect on her. She had told herself over the years she no longer loved him. Denying what she felt for him had been a coping mechanism, a way of navigating herself through the heartbreak of having to leave him while she still could. But in the end it had blown up in her face, for men like Marc Castellano didn't forgive—they got revenge.

She chanced a glance at his brooding expression. He was looking straight ahead, his dark eyes narrowed in fierce concentration, his sensual mouth pulled into an almost straight line. A nerve ticked at the corner of his mouth, like a miniature fist punching beneath the skin.

As if he sensed her eyes on him, he turned and locked gazes. ‘Tell me something,' he said, his eyes like steel as they pinned hers. ‘Were you involved with Cole the whole time you were seeing me?'

‘Of course not.' She bit down on her lip. ‘How can you think I would—'

‘A month,' he bit out the words as if they were bullets, his black eyes flashing with fury. ‘Within a month you were married to that silver-tailed, silver-tongued creep.'

Ava closed her eyes, her head dropping into her hands. ‘I can't do this…' Her voice was muffled as she struggled to hold back tears. ‘Please take me back to the villa…'

‘We are going out to dinner as planned,' he stated intractably.

She lifted her head and threw him a castigating glare. ‘You never used to be such an unfeeling bastard, Marc.'

His eyes brewed with resentment. ‘It's a bit late to be lamenting my lack of feeling. After all, you were the one who showed me how foolish it is to trust a woman who spouts words of love all the time. But that was your intention from the start, wasn't it? You lured me in and then once you had me dangling on the line you cast me off for a bigger, richer catch.'

Her brow creased in bewilderment. ‘Is that what you really think?'

‘I should have seen it coming,' he said, throwing his arm along the back of the seat. ‘I've had enough gold-diggers try it on me in the past. You were good, I'll grant you that. Convincing and beguiling, and that little lie about only having one lover and it being an unpleasant experience was a nice touch. You really had me going there.'

Ava felt as if he had struck her. The pain she felt at his words was indescribable. He was one of the few people she had told of the night she lost her virginity at the age of nineteen. Even Serena, her sister, didn't know the full details, for Serena had suffered much worse at a much younger age, leaving her scarred and vulnerable for years until she had met Richard. For Marc to throw that confidence back in Ava's face as if it were a fiction to garner sympathy was beyond cruel.

She was glad the driver pulled up in front of the restaurant Marc had chosen, for she was beyond a reply. She got out of the car with stiff movements, not even flinching when Marc took her arm and looped it through his.

The restaurant was crowded, but the table the
maître d'
led them to was in a more secluded area. The lighting was low and intimate, the décor luxurious, the service attentive but not intrusive.

‘Would you like an aperitif?' Marc asked after the waiter left them with a drinks menu.

‘Soda with a twist of lime,' Ava answered, ignoring the extensive list of alcoholic drinks in front of her.

Marc raised his brows. ‘Frightened you might lose your inhibitions and have your wicked way with me?'

She flicked her hair back behind her shoulders, sending him another caustic look. ‘You can't make me sleep with you, Marc,' she said.

He leant back in his chair, his gaze running over her tauntingly. ‘I don't think it would be too hard to get you begging for it. After all, your sugar daddy has been dead for some weeks now and there has been nothing in the Press about you having found a replacement. A woman like you is not made for celibacy.'

Ava buried her head in the menu rather than meet his sardonic gaze. It annoyed her to think how vulnerable she was to him. Her hand was still tingling from his touch earlier, and her body still smouldering. Every time she chanced a glance at him he seemed to be looking at her mouth, making her lips buzz and swell with anticipation of the passionate pressure of his. She wondered if he was stealthily planning his seduction,
taking his time about it to make her feel on tenterhooks. If he was he was certainly succeeding. She could barely sit still in her chair at the thought of him possessing her again. Her inner muscles flickered with an on-off pulse that made it hard for her to concentrate. All she could think of was how it would feel to have him drive into her moist warmth the way he used to do. He was an adventurous lover and yet he could be surprisingly tender too. She had loved that about him, the way he made sure her needs were met before he sought his own release.

What would making love with him now be like? she wondered. Would his quest for revenge make him selfish and demanding instead of considerate and sensually satisfying? Would he treat her like the money-hungry woman he thought she was?

Ava put down the menu with a trembling hand. How had her dreams for a happy life turned into such a nightmare? All she had ever wanted was to find a man who would love her and protect her, to build a family, the sort of family she and Serena had missed out on by the early death of their mother and the rapid remarriage of their father to the woman who had been callously and rather too obviously waiting for her predecessor to die.

Ava had thought Marc was that special man of her dreams, but within a few weeks of living with him she had come to see a happy future would never be realised with him. He was too much of a playboy, a man who was used to having what he wanted, when he wanted. He was driven to succeed. She had never met a more driven man. He worked hard and he played hard. She had become a part of that play time, but only a very small part and she knew, just like all the other women
he had been involved with, her days had been numbered. She had cut the countdown by leaving him, hoping it would protect her from further hurt, not realising how it had played right into the enemy's hands…

‘Have you decided what you would like to eat?' Marc asked.

Ava placed her hands in her lap, twisting them together to stop them from shaking. ‘I'm not all that hungry,' she said.

He lifted one of his brows. ‘Dieting?'

She gave him a resentful look. ‘No. I am angry at how you have orchestrated this…this situation.'

His eyes continued to tether hers. ‘I am the one who has the right to be angry, Ava, not you. You betrayed me, remember?'

Ava's hands tightened in her lap. She hated thinking of how she had been manipulated into destroying him. How could she have not seen it? It had been a masterful set-up and she had stepped up to the noose without suspecting a thing until it was too late. How could she tell him how blind she had been? He would think she was trying to wriggle out of what she had done by playing the innocent victim. ‘It wouldn't matter what I said. You're never going to believe me, are you?' she said.

His jaw ticked. ‘I am not going to let you make a fool of me again,' he said. ‘This time around I will have my eyes trained on you at all times and in all places.'

Ava stiffened. ‘What does that mean? Are you're going to have me followed?'

His expression was inscrutable. ‘Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Let's say
I am taking the necessary steps to keep what is mine exclusively mine this time around.'

She glared at him. ‘Women are not possessions you can own, Marc, or at least not in this century.'

He gave a lift of one shoulder as if he couldn't care less what she thought. ‘If you are not going to eat then you can watch me, as I am starving,' he said, signalling for the waiter.

‘No doubt all the machinations you've been engineering have worked up quite some appetite,' she put in spitefully.

His eyes glinted as he laid the menu to one side. ‘Not just for food,
ma belle
,' he said. ‘I have other appetites that require satiation, but I am prepared to delay gratification, for a little while at least.'

Ava narrowed her eyes in wariness. ‘What do you mean by that?'

He gave her an enigmatic slant of his lips that was almost a smile. ‘You think I am such an animal that I would insist on you sleeping with me from day one?'

She pursed her mouth, thinking about it for a moment. ‘You're paying me a lot of money,' she said at last. ‘I am not sure why you would want to wait on your return on it unless you have a specific agenda in mind.'

‘I have no agenda other than the one I stated earlier,' he said. ‘I want you to be my temporary mistress. It's as simple as that.'

The waiter approached, which meant Ava had no chance to respond. She gave the man her simple order, while her mind shuffled through various scenarios.

Marc was a proud and bitter man who wanted revenge for the way she had supposedly betrayed him. He
had gone to extraordinary lengths to get her back into his life, but it seemed he was not going to rush her into his bed.

Why?

She chewed at her lip as she heard him interact with the waiter, her eyes watching his mouth, the way it moved with each word he articulated. His lips were beautifully sculptured, the lower one fuller than the top one, hinting at the sensuality she had already experienced. Her mouth tingled at the memory of the pressure of his, the way his tongue had played with hers, teasing it, taming it and mating with it until she had melted in his arms.

Marc looked across the table and met her eyes, a hot spurt of lust shooting through his groin as he saw the way her small white teeth were playing with her soft lips. She released her lower lip and the blood flowed back into it, making him want to crush his mouth to hers to taste her beguiling sweetness. Her grey-blue gaze wavered for a moment under the scrutiny of his, her guilt no doubt making her lower it in shame.

His gut twisted with knots of tension as he thought of the photographs in the Press of her wedding to Cole. She had been a beautiful bride; he had never seen a more stunning one, which had somehow made it so much worse. He fisted his hands beneath the table, not trusting himself to hold his wine glass without breaking it. Hardly a day went past when those images didn't taunt him with her perfidy. What a fool he had been to trust her the way he had. He had thought she was playing a game when she left him. He had bided his time, waiting for her to come crawling back to him,
begging him to take her back as his mistress. But instead she had humiliated him in the most devastating way possible.

But he was five years older now, five years wiser and five years more successful and powerful. This time things would be different. Ava McGuire had humiliated him before, but this time around he was going to have her right where he wanted her.

Not with his ring on her finger, not even in the palm of his hand, but in his bed for as long as he wanted her.

O
NCE
their meals arrived, Ava picked at her salad, her stomach recoiling from every mouthful she tried to swallow. She was intensely aware of Marc's brooding gaze, the ruthless set to his mouth at times unnerved her far more than the sexual tension she could feel pulsing between them.

They had moved to the coffee stage when Ava became aware of a slight commotion behind her. She turned in her seat to see a photographer with his lens aimed at her sitting with Marc.

‘Act as naturally as possible,' Marc said in an undertone as he reached for her hand across the table.

Ava felt the blood rush to her fingertips where his fingers touched hers, but she forced her stiff posture to relax, reminding herself all of this was for Serena's sake.

Several photos were taken and the young female journalist who had come in with the photographer asked Marc about his decision to reunite with his ex-mistress.

‘Signor Castellano, earlier this evening you released
a Press statement citing your intention to resume your relationship with Ava McGuire, the woman who left you for the late property tycoon Douglas Cole five years ago. Do you have anything further to add to that statement?'

Marc gave his white slash of a smile. ‘As you can see, we are back together and very happy,' he said. ‘That is all I am prepared to say.'

The journalist scribbled madly before asking with a provocative smile, ‘Is there any chance of wedding bells in the not too distant future?'

Marc's polite smile was still in place, but Ava could see the flint-like momentary flash in his gaze as it briefly met hers before returning to the journalist's. ‘My stance on this subject has not changed. I have no intention of marrying anyone.'

The journalist turned to Ava. ‘Mrs Cole, you have developed quite a reputation throughout Europe as a trophy wife. After all, your late husband was thirty-eight years older than you. Do you have any comment to make on that?'

Ava felt Marc's fingers subtly tighten around hers. ‘Um…I am not prepared to comment on my private life,' she said, feeling her cheeks flame at the condescending look the journalist was giving her. ‘It has always been, and will always remain, off limits.'

The journalist was undaunted. ‘Do you have any intention of working for a living other than as Signor Castellano's mistress?'

Ava squared her shoulders. ‘I am his…' she paused as she hunted for a word ‘…his—er—partner, not his mistress.'

The journalist lifted one finely plucked eyebrow. ‘His lover, don't you mean?'

Ava felt another warning squeeze from Marc's strong fingers. ‘I have already told you I am not prepared to discuss my private life,' she said.

Still with her hand encased in his, Marc rose to his feet, signalling to the journalist that the impromptu interview was now at an end. ‘If you will excuse us,' he gave the young woman another smile, ‘Miss McGuire and I have a lot of time to catch up on.'

‘One last question, Signor Castellano,' the young woman said as she strategically blocked their exit. ‘Does your reunion with Mrs…I mean, Miss McGuire mean you have forgiven her for marrying the man who won the bid for the Dubai hotel over yours? Word has it the contract was as good as yours until she shifted camps, so to speak.'

There was a stiff silence broken only by the clatter of plates and cutlery being cleared from the other tables in the restaurant.

Ava felt every slow-beating second like a hammer blow inside her chest. Her palm was moist and clammy within the cool, dry protection of Marc's hand, her stomach rolling like an out-of-control butter churn. Every breath she took was laboured, as if it had to travel the length of her body to inflate her lungs.

Marc's mouth tightened fractionally. ‘But of course,' he said finally. ‘The past is in the past. It is time to move on.'

This time the journalist had no choice but to step aside as Marc strode forward with Ava's hand still firmly gripped in his.

It was only once they were in the street outside that his hold loosened, but not enough to release her. The limousine purred to a halt in front of the restaurant entrance like a sleek black panther, its low growl as the driver opened the door for them making Ava feel as if she was stepping into the jaws of a predatory beast to be taken back to its lair and consumed at leisure.

She waited until they were on their way before she turned in her seat to face Marc. ‘Did you mean what you said back there or was that just all part of the act for the sake of the public?'

His eyes held hers for a moment before he answered. ‘What is done cannot be undone. I am prepared to drop it. It is of no significance to our relationship now.'

Ava screwed up her forehead in a frown. ‘No significance?' she asked incredulously. ‘How can you say that? Of course it's significant! You don't trust me. But then you never did, did you?'

His broad shoulders visibly stiffened as he held her look, although his expression remained coolly detached. ‘I was in lust with you, Ava,' he said. ‘From the moment I met you I wanted you. I foolishly let those feelings distract me. I will not make the same mistake again.'

Ava pressed her lips flat and turned to look out of the window at the twinkling lights of the port. His cold, cruel words were like poison darts in her skin, making her wince in pain as each one had hit its mark.

‘Why didn't you and Cole have children?' Marc asked after another tense silence.

‘It was not what I wanted from him.' Ava cringed as soon as she realised how it sounded, or at least how
Marc had interpreted it. She could see the disgust in his eyes, and the way his mouth thinned until it was almost bloodless. ‘I mean…it was not on the agenda,' she quickly amended. ‘It wasn't something either of us wanted. It wouldn't have suited our…our relationship.'

‘What sort of relationship did you have?' Marc asked, using his fingers as quotation marks over the word
relationship.

Ava felt cornered. She shifted on the leather seat, crossing and uncrossing her legs, her eyes darting away from the steely probe of his. It would be so easy to tell him the truth. That Serena, whilst working for Douglas in his accounts department, had made a series of errors that had meant thousands of pounds had gone missing. Just days after Ava had left Marc, Douglas had threatened Serena with legal action. He had mentioned prison and named a high-profile legal firm who would act for him to ensure Serena would not get away with it. Ava had gone and pleaded on her sister's behalf and a deal had been struck. As distasteful as it was, Ava had accepted the terms, and, although the Press had savaged her time and time again, she bore it with the assurance that she was doing the right thing for Serena—a marriage of convenience for her sister's freedom.

Ava had married a dying man who wanted a fake wife to fool his business associates that he still had it in him to attract a nubile mate. She had hated him for the first four years. She had loathed every minute, biding her time until the missing money was repaid through her role as his wife. But as his illness had finally taken hold she had come to see him not so much as a ruthless businessman, but as a lonely man who, as
his life drew to a close, began to recognise the mistakes he had made, most particularly to do with his first wife and two children who no longer had anything to do with him.

Ava forced her gaze to meet Marc's. ‘We were…friends.'

Marc threw back his head and laughed.

Ava scowled at him. ‘Only someone with your sort of sex-obsessed mind would think like that.'

His arm stretched out on the back of the seat, his fingers so close to the nape of her neck Ava could feel her skin tingling in anticipation for his touch. ‘Come now, Ava, don't take me for a fool,' he chided. ‘You shared his villa for five years. Do you really expect me to believe you didn't share his bed during some, if not all of that time?'

She lifted her chin, her eyes glittering with hatred. ‘I can't control what you think any more than I can control what the Press has reported from time to time. Yes, we shared the villa and, in time, a friendship that was very important to me as it was to him.'

‘Were you in love with him?'

Ava eyeballed him. ‘No, I was not in love with him, but that's exactly what you expected me to say, wasn't it? You have me pegged as a gold-digger and gold-diggers only love one thing—money, right?'

‘You said it, baby,' he said as his fingers became entwined in her hair.

Ava felt a shiver cascade like a trickling fountain down her spine as he drew her closer, inch by inch, until she was almost on his lap. She pushed against his broad chest, straining to get away, but her hair had tethered
her to him far more effectively than chains of steel. ‘L-let me go,' she said, trying to keep the edge of desperation out of her voice.

‘Is that what you really want?' he asked, his warm, coffee-scented breath skating over her lips.

Her eyelids lowered, her tongue coming out to brush over her lips to moisten them as her chest rose and fell in rising panic. ‘Don't do this, Marc…not yet…I'm not ready…'

‘Not quite ready to beg?' he asked, brushing the pad of his thumb where her tongue had just been.

She watched in a spellbound stasis as he ran his own tongue over the end of his thumb, tasting her. It was such an intimate act, it made her stomach hollow out and her legs weaken, the base of her spine melting into a pool, like honey poured from a hot jug. Her mouth prickled with the need to feel his hard mouth on hers, to feel the thrust and glide of his masterful tongue claiming hers, taming it into submission.

‘It's all right,' he said, releasing her hair and moving back along the seat. ‘I can wait until you are ready.'

Ava felt herself slump like a sack of wet washing without his support. She ran an agitated hand through her hair, hating him for being so in control when she was so undone by his very presence, let alone his touch. Every hair on her head seemed to be crying out for the sensual comb of his fingers. Her heart was still thumping inside her chest wall, the exquisite expectation of his kiss and then the sudden let-down was too much for her to have any chance of regulating her pulse.

It was a revelation to her that even after all this time and all the bitterness she had stored in her heart against
him, he could still turn her into a helpless pool of need. She was ashamed of her weakness, knowing how it would please him no end to be aware of it as he surely must be, if not already, then as time went on as they shared the villa according to his arrangements.

Think of the money, think of Serena
, she chanted to herself. She silently garnered her courage, steeling her resolve to keep her heart intact this time around. He could do what he liked, treat her like the wanton woman he thought she was, but this time he was not going to break her heart the way he had done before. She would be his mistress, she could act both in public and in private, but he was not going to have the one part of her that she had so freely given him before.

The driver pulled into the driveway of the villa, the gates swinging open via the remote security device as the car's wheels growled along the gravel to come to a halt outside the stately entrance.

Marc helped Ava from the car and escorted her up the stone steps to the massive foyer. The scent of the fresh roses Celeste had arranged on the marble hall table earlier filled the air, somehow giving the commodious residence a homely feel. Ava had done what she could over the last few months of Douglas's life to make the place as comfortable and peaceful as she could. She had always found the austere formality of the villa off-putting, and over the years she had lived there had made some subtle changes that had made her feel less intimidated.

The removal men had been busy while Ava and Marc were at dinner, for upon entering the formal sitting room she could see various works of art belong
ing to Marc already hanging on the walls. It was as if he was marking his territory. Even when she excused herself to use the bathroom upstairs she saw that he had taken over the master bedroom. Two well-travelled suitcases lay open on the bed as well as a black toile-tries bag. Even the air smelled of him, that enticing aroma of citrus and male pheromones that never failed to make her toes curl.

‘Madame?'
Celeste appeared from the walk-in wardrobe. ‘Did you want me for something?'

‘Non, Celeste,'
Ava said, blushing at being caught peering into Marc's domain. ‘I was just…er…checking that Signor Castellano has everything he needs.'

‘Oui,'
Celeste said. ‘I was given instructions to unpack for him.' She seemed to hesitate before asking, ‘Shall I move your things in here too?'

Ava's eyes rounded, her heart banging against her breastbone like a church bell pulled too hard. ‘Did he ask you to do that?'

Celeste gave a Gallic shrug. ‘It is inevitable,
oui
?'

Ava pulled her shoulders back. ‘What makes you say that?'

‘He is a very handsome man,' Celeste said as if that explained everything.

Ava pursed her lips, wondering how to explain the situation. ‘Look, Celeste,' she began, ‘I don't want you to think the wrong thing, but—'

‘It is all right,
madame
,' Celeste assured her with a knowing look. ‘I was young once. You have a history with him,
oui
? It is hard to resist a man who has gone to such trouble to get you back in his life.'

Ava frowned. ‘Celeste…I'm not sure you under
stand. Marc Castellano ruined Douglas. He took everything off him. His ex-wife was left with nothing, not to mention his children. Douglas wanted Adam and Lucy to have something to remember him by. It was his dying wish.'

Celeste glanced past Ava's shoulder, clearing her throat diplomatically.
‘Excusez-moi, Signor Castellano,'
she said with a little bow. ‘I am not quite finished unpacking your things.'