Italian Escape with the CEO

Ava saw the sincerity in his eyes, and a thrill shot through her that Liam too had found the night magical. ‘You didn’t take advantage of me at all. I wanted last night.’

‘I sense a but...’

He was right. Because whilst she did believe Liam’s concern that he had taken advantage of her was legitimate, she could still see that he was haunted. ‘But I know you must be feeling something about Jess.’

His flinch was almost imperceptible though his gaze stayed locked on hers. ‘This isn’t about Jess, this is about you.’

Leave it at that, Ava. But she couldn’t. ‘It’s also about you and what you feel. Do you feel guilty?’

There was a fraction of a heartbeat before he answered and before he could Ava raised a hand. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that.’ Wished, oh, so much that she hadn’t, but it was too late to swallow the question. ‘Of course you feel guilt. You loved her. So a magical night with someone else must feel like a betrayal.’ That knowledge hurt—too reminiscent of a lifelong awareness that, by being with his second family, her father was betraying his first family. But that wasn’t Liam’s fault. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Ava.’ His voice was hoarse. ‘I—’

‘It’s OK. Last night took us both by surprise. We’ll put it behind us and—’

He shook his head. ‘Stop. I need to tell you something. I can’t let you believe this any more.’

‘I don’t understand.’

He rubbed a hand over his face, inhaled deeply. ‘My marriage wasn’t the idyll you believe it to be.’ Ava saw his pain, but she also sensed he didn’t want comfort or interruption. He simply needed to get the words out. ‘I met Jess when I was young and grieving. She was there and I mistook liking and need for love. When she thought she was pregnant I married her, even though I knew by then I didn’t love her. It turned out she wasn’t pregnant but by then the knot was tied. I’d made my vows and I wanted to stand by them.’

As his mother had done.

‘I believed that I could make myself love her, force the emotion into being. Believed her love would somehow force me to do the right thing and love her back. It didn’t work like that. The worst of it was that Jess still loved me and I was too much of a coward to admit I didn’t. So I let her waste her life on me.’

‘No!’ The denial pulled from her as her heart turned at his words. At the pressure he’d piled onto himself, born of his own hopes and wishes that his parents would be happy together, would make their marriage work.

Born of his belief that a person should never renege on a promise. After all, his father had been betrayed by a man who had done just that. So his word was his bond. Liam would have been incapable of breaking his marriage vows and as long as Jess had wanted to stay he would always have done his best. ‘You did what you thought was right. You didn’t want to hurt Jess.’

‘But if I had, if I had been more honest, then perhaps she would have found real happiness.’

‘It doesn’t work like that. You can’t second-guess something you can’t change. Jess may have been miserable without you and...’ she kept her voice gentle ‘... Jess had choices too. She chose to stay in your marriage as well. Neither of you could have known of the tragedy in store.’

‘But she is the one who paid the biggest price.’

‘Yes. But that is no fault of yours.’ But she knew to Liam it felt as if it was, knew that he blamed himself for the failure of his marriage, the might-have-beens and what-ifs. She moved closer to him. ‘All the worst-case scenarios. You don’t really know them. If you’d left Jess she may have ended up more unhappy, if your mother had left your father she and John may not have worked out. It all may have been worse.’

‘You’re right. But it all may have been better. I’ll never know. Because I can’t change the past. But I can at least control my present and my future.’

And that was why he’d never risk a relationship or love again. Even as she understood that, the knowledge sent a sudden stab of bleakness through her, one she refused to give in to. Especially when she could see the demons that rode his shoulder, saw the haunted depths of his cobalt eyes.

‘You’re right. The past can’t be changed and we don’t know the repercussions if we could. We can imagine all the what ifs but we can’t truly know. But we can make choices in the here and now.’ And she moved closer to him, looped her arms around his waist, stretched up on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his. ‘I think we should choose to enjoy our magic for a few weeks, forget the past and focus on the present.’

For a moment his body remained taut with a hard edge of tension and then slowly she felt him relax, the soft expel of breath, the release of tightness as he gathered her close.

‘Are you sure it’s what you want?’

‘I’m sure.’ And she was, knew that, whatever happened next, this was the right decision, the start of a heady few weeks that she would always remember. ‘So how about we postpone breakfast and head back to bed?’ And with a provocative look she sashayed to the door in her best model walk, stood in the doorway and in one fluid move unzipped her dress and let it pool to the ground, stepped over the material and continued to walk. She heard his sharp intake of breath, shivered in anticipation as she sensed his presence mere centimetres behind her, felt the brand of his hand on the small of her back as they walked towards the stairs.

A week later—the night of the fundraiser

Ava checked her to-do list yet again, told her twitching nerves that she had everything under control. She looked round the plush hotel room, tried to ground herself, smiled as Liam emerged from the shower.

‘Need some distraction?’

‘You’ll do nicely.’ It still seemed surreal to Ava that for now she had unlimited, unfettered access to Liam’s sheer gorgeousness. That she had an intimate knowledge of the swell of every muscle, the sweep of his spine, the crook of his arm where she fell asleep each night.

His gaze devoured her with equal interest. ‘Shame you’re already in the dress,’ he said.