A Dangerous Solace

She had almost forgotten this was a man who prowled the stock markets of the world like a ravening beast.

For the first time in many years she couldn’t have given a damn about her business. Her gaze dropped to his hands, so capable on the controls, and she flashed to an image of those hands so dark against her milk-pale flesh. Of herself arching into them, so utterly uninhibited she couldn’t quite believe she had ever been that girl.

‘Ava?’

She blinked at him, bemused, and his answering slow smile had her heart doing a pah-pound, pah-pound rhythm.

‘When did you research me?’ she uttered, with a suddenly dry mouth.

The slow smile increased. ‘This morning over coffee.’

‘Funny—I did the same with you.’ Her gaze dropped helplessly to his mouth.

‘What did you discover?’

‘Enough. But somehow not everything...’

His smile faded.

‘Benedetti International is a far-flung enterprise, cara, even I have trouble keeping track of our interests.’

She highly doubted that—Gianluca Benedetti struck her as a man who knew what he was about at all times and she would be a fool to forget it. But it was a shock to realise she hadn’t been thinking about business at all. Her thoughts had been entirely taken up with his private life, which really was none of her affair. She gave him an anxious look, thrown by her own response to him.

The mountainous terrain below was giving way to the coast, and Ava risked craning her neck to see it rather than confront where her thoughts were leading her.

The cliffs were stupendous, falling away into the water. Towns clung to the sides. She had seen picture postcards of the Amalfi Coast, but hadn’t quite believed it was this pretty.

‘It’s beautiful, si?’ he said softly.

‘Yes, beautiful. I wish—’ She stopped and his eyes captured hers.

‘What do you wish, cara?’ he asked, like the devil after her soul.

What did she wish? Too many things—and they came over her in a rush.

To be the girl she had been on that long-ago night—softer, willing to share her feelings for the first and only time in her life, instead of being constantly on her guard against being attacked, ridiculed, exposed...let down.

Her early years had taught her too many harsh lessons about showing vulnerability. About people taking advantage, not living up to their promises. She had applied those lessons to business and they had steered her well.

But she had also applied them when she’d climbed out of his bed seven years ago, and right at this minute she wished with all her heart that she had made a different decision that morning—that against all odds something could have come of that night.

Even more fancifully she wished for this to be a romantic trip away together, at the beginning of their relationship, when everything was full of possibility—and for him not to be a playboy, spoilt by too many women, and herself not to be a woman who prided herself on playing it safe.

It was foolish, and her wistful expression was undoubtedly telling him everything she didn’t want him to know, and yet she couldn’t stop the feelings from rushing in...

It was a shock when his expression unexpectedly hardened with determination.

With a quiet, ‘Hold on,’ Gianluca angled the helicopter and without warning they swooped inland.

At first she thought he was giving her a better look at the town clinging to the cliffs, and then she realised they were dropping down just below the mountain peak. Too low. Much, much too low.

Ava’s pulse began to surge.

Directly beneath them was a helipad above a grove of pines.

With a sense of inevitability she realised she was going to get her wish. They were going to land.

CHAPTER NINE

THE ENGINE CUT and the rotors slowed and whirred to a gradual halt. Gianluca whipped off his helmet, tackling his harness with the same economy of movement.

‘What’s going on? What are we doing here?’

‘I’ve got a meeting I should have taken in Rome today,’ he responded, as if he were stating the obvious. ‘I’ve decided to take it in Positano.’

Ava’s mouth fell open. ‘You’re what?’

But he was already leaping out, leaving her sitting harnessed to her seat. He’d done this on purpose. She felt sure he did everything on purpose to undermine and confuse her. Frustrated, Ava began tugging at the belts, getting herself hopelessly tangled up.

She knew she was overreacting, but her own longings suddenly felt entirely too dangerous in this new situation.

‘This was not what we agreed to,’ she erupted as he came alongside her, his capable hands taking hold of the harness.

‘Relax, cara,’ he advised. She wasn’t sure if he meant over being kidnapped or to make it easier for him to unhook her.