Ava didn’t say anything.
He cleared his throat. ‘It’s somewhat different now.’
‘I guess Josh came as a bit of a shock, then,’ she said out of the blue.
Josh who? His normally razor-sharp brain took a few seconds to register the name.
‘Your brother,’ he concluded reluctantly, aware that the afternoon was going places he hadn’t intended it to. ‘I won’t lie and say there was universal joy, but that had less to do with him not being Italian and more to do with his ability to provide for Alessia.’
‘Provide for her?’ Ava gave a nervous laugh. ‘Last time I looked this was the twenty-first century, Benedetti, or hadn’t you noticed?’
Si, he’d noticed. If it wasn’t she’d be over his shoulder and halfway back to the palazzo, where she’d stay locked up.
‘I forgot...’ she glanced back at him over her shoulder ‘—you live in a cave.’
‘A palazzo,’ he drawled, ‘but close.’
She needed to accept he was a man who would look after her, that he was not one of these excuses for men she had been putting up with—this brother of hers, who clearly had so little regard for his sister that this was the first time in seven years she had been mentioned. Her ex-boyfriend, whom Gianluca hoped one day to cross paths with. The man who had left her fearful of intimacy—so fearful, in fact, that she’d fought him like a wildcat all the way down that mountain at Positano.
His woman now. She would never be that woman again.
He followed the sway of her hips as she stepped carefully over the broken ground.
He heard himself say, ‘Look around you, Ava. There have been people living on the Palatino for a thousand years, and I’m sure back then, as now, a man’s worth could be judged on his ability to protect his family.’
Ava stopped and drew herself tall, but didn’t turn around. ‘A woman protects her family too.’
‘Naturally.’ He stepped up close behind her. ‘You protected your brother all his life. But at some point he had to stand on his own two feet, Ava.’
‘How do you know I protected him?’
‘You told me here, on that night, about your mother’s fragile mental health. How you worried for her, how you’d had to puzzle out the best care for her as she lay dying, how guilty you felt, how alone. And I remember wondering why you didn’t have any help.’
Ava’s turned around, her face pale.
‘I had no idea you were the groom’s sister. If I’d known I would have sorted him out for you.’
‘Sorted him out?’
‘Reorganised his priorities. A man should be responsible for his mother and sister.’
Her mouth formed a tight line. ‘I don’t need anyone to be responsible for me, Benedetti.’
He understood her resistance. She wouldn’t be Ava if she didn’t struggle against any incursion on her independence. He understood that too.
‘I get it. You don’t like my brother. You think he’s beneath your high-and-mighty family. Well, newsflash—I wasn’t happy about the damn wedding either. I did my best to talk him out of it. I told him he was making a big mistake. Alessia was far too young, and so was he, and I knew your family didn’t approve. Your mother—’ She broke off, pursing her lips.
‘My mother was most vocal, I understand. I suspect she was not kind to you.’
She turned away. ‘I don’t wish to say anything critical about your mother.’
‘Then allow me.’ He turned her in his arms. ‘She’s a manipulative woman who likes everything to revolve around her. She is also highly emotional and not above using a little blackmail to get what she wants. My sisters act as her ladies-in-waiting, so I imagine the women of my family made your life miserable.’
‘They were not welcoming,’ Ava said tightly. ‘That’s why I elected to move to a hotel.’
He had to ask. ‘Where were you staying?’
Ava dropped her gaze to the base of his throat.
‘The Excelsior,’ she said in a tight voice.
The same hotel he’d picked her up from last month. The same hotel he’d driven past that day on his way to the hospital...
He couldn’t believe it—the Excelsior!
‘I stayed there all day...’ She lifted her eyes to his. ‘Hoping you’d call.’
She’d hoped he would call?
‘How?’ It burst aggressively out of him and he let go of her, because he didn’t trust the strength in his hands. ‘How was I supposed to call?’
She staggered back as if hit by a blast furnace.
‘You didn’t leave a number. But you knew who I was. There was nothing stopping you, Ava.’