A Dangerous Solace

‘He didn’t want you to fly?’

Ava had been propped up in his arms, her head beside his. She’d been wearing that little ice-blue lace thing he’d bought her.

‘My father wanted me to come into the family business—the banking group. It was all he wanted for me. He saw the planes as a hobby, at worst, a distraction.’

‘But it was your passion.’

‘It meant nothing,’ he said bluntly. ‘My entire upbringing was based on discipline—being tough, being a man. What I wanted didn’t much come into it.’

‘Yet you pushed for it? For what you wanted?’

‘Si.’ He had noticed how fierce Ava looked in that moment. ‘You had to fight for something too, Ava mio?’

‘Working class girl, left school at fifteen,’ she’d said, lifting that stubborn chin of hers. ‘Damn right I did.’

He’d kissed her then, and made love to her until the memory of how hard he’d had to push for what he wanted and the consequences of that had been wiped out by a deep sense of having something special at last within his grasp. Something far more important than his passion for flight, his ability with the stock market, all the decisions right or wrong that he’d taken in life. Something that had nothing to do with duty or the family name.

Lying in his arms afterwards, she’d told him more about her business back home—a firm that turned over multi-million-dollar accounts—and how she’d drudged full-time to put herself through university in a variety of jobs, the three years she’d worked for other companies as a broker, setting up her connections as ruthlessly as a Roman emperor assembling legions, until at the incredibly tender age of twenty-eight she’d taken the plunge and set up her own firm.

He had told her in turn one of his other secrets—the breaks he took in Anguilla in the Caribbean, at the place he owned down there, the hideaway nobody knew about. And once he’d told her he’d found himself wanting to show it to her. When he’d asked her if she had somewhere she went to drop out of sight for a time she’d admitted it had been a while since she’d been on a holiday.

‘Define “a while”?’ he’d teased, kissing her neck.

‘Never.’

‘You’ve never been on a holiday?’

‘I’m here now, and I came here for Josh’s wedding. I’ve travelled for business, but just for me, getting away from it all—no.’

She’d looked embarrassed, but also defiant, as if daring him to pass comment.

A knot had formed at the base of his throat.

That knot was still there now.

His lawyer said intrusively, ‘If we move now we’ll have them over a barrel.’

He flicked his thoughts back to the present. ‘Then we move. Let me know when it’s done.’

He turned away from the window and the display of happy couples everywhere.

Thinking about Ava, he focussed not on the future but on the now, where he was most comfortable—on the rather narrow, unrelieved tedium she’d described—and it galvanised him.

Certamente he’d take her to Anguilla. He’d take her around the world if her heart desired it. But right now he wanted to play hooky with her. Take the day off. Stand on top of the world.

But first he had an important errand to run. He got his assistant on the line and asked her to notify the bank that he’d be paying a visit to the vault in around half an hour.

* * *

He picked her up in the Aventador and headed for Palatine Hill.

They took a picnic with them and in the late afternoon climbed through the ruins of the imperial palace complex, looking down over the Circus Maximus.

Ava had fallen quiet when they’d first arrived. It wasn’t the spot they’d come to seven years ago, but there was the same view of the city, the long grass, the pencil pines. Not that he was in a hurry to rake over those coals. Whenever he remembered waking that morning to reach for her, only to grasp emptiness, anger rolled through him—and he didn’t want to be angry with her.

Not today.

‘When my grandparents were courting they came up here,’ he said. ‘My grandmother was an archaeologist and very much obsessed with this place.’ He found himself adding, ‘It was a love match, not at all arranged.’

‘Does that make a difference?’ asked Ava, picking her way over the rocky ground.

‘If it had been arranged there would have been respectful afternoons at one another’s parents’ houses, chaperoned trips to the opera and summer on the coast where the two families would discuss terms.’

‘All so two strangers could marry?’

‘Not strangers, cara. All the families knew one another. I should add that my grandmother came from another old family, so it wasn’t a difficult concept for the two sets of parents to accept.’