Unlocking her Innocence Read online

  ‘I’ll drive!’ Gemma proclaimed, ignoring Olly before telling him that she was perfectly capable of driving them all home and refused to be driven by a teenager.

  As the argument got more heated voices were raised. Ava shouted across the bonnet of the car that Gemma wasn’t allowed to drive when she had been drinking and her mother took that as a challenge, thrusting Olly furiously out of her path and jumping into the car to rev the engine like a boy racer. Ava leant across Gemma to try and steal the car keys and the car skidded with squealing tyres on the drive while Olly tried to reason with the older woman and persuade her to stop. The car careened through the gates at the foot of the drive onto the road with Ava screaming at her mother to stop while Olly urged everyone to be calm and think about what they were doing. And a split second later, it seemed, Ava saw the tree trunk looming up through the windscreen, heard Olly cry out her name … and then everything just blanked out.

  Ava woke up with a frantic start, her heart hammering, anguish enclosing her like a suffocating cocoon as she realised that she had relived the accident. She was disconcerted to discover that the light was on and Vito, naked but for a pair of jeans, was on his knees beside her. ‘You were dreaming and you let out a shriek that would have wakened the dead!’ he exclaimed.

  But it would never wake Olly, Ava thought foolishly, a sob catching in her throat as she hugged her knees and rocked back and forth. ‘I relived the crash … I remember what happened but why now? Why couldn’t I remember before?’

  ‘Why would you have wanted to remember it when you thought you were guilty? Was your mother driving?’

  Ava nodded jerkily and told him what she had recalled, trembling as she spoke, the images so fresh and frightening she almost felt as though she were trapped back in that car again. In silence, Vito held her close. ‘I didn’t want you to relive that,’ he confessed. ‘I didn’t really think all this through when I listened to what Greg James had to tell me. I saw what I thought was the chance to fix it all for you and I went and saw David Lloyd and your solicitor and your father to check out all the facts.’ His strong profile was tense. ‘I was very pleased with myself.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ava whispered shakily, glad the tears had stopped, relaxing back into the warmth and security of his arms.

  ‘And then I saw your face this morning and I … I hadn’t a clue how to make it better for you,’ Vito admitted grudgingly, his frustration over that fact palpable. ‘It was only then I saw that you were devastated that your mother could have stood by and hurt you like that.’

  ‘She watched me take her punishment and she never breathed a word,’ Ava conceded strickenly. ‘Even if she gave way to an impulse to let me take the blame for the crash, she could have thought better of it. She could have made a statement to the police once she realised how ill she was … but even then she didn’t think better of what she had done.’

  ‘Let it go. That crash has already ruled your life for far too long,’ Vito murmured tautly as he released her and sprang off the bed.

  ‘You weren’t sleeping in here with me,’ Ava registered with a frown. ‘In fact I thought you weren’t coming back tonight.’

  ‘I thought better of that but I returned very late and I didn’t want to disturb you, cara mia.’

  ‘So where are you going now?’

  ‘I left some stuff in my room. I assumed you’d still be up when I got back,’ Vito admitted, compressing his lips.

  A little less tense, Ava rested back against the pillows. She pushed the jagged images of the crash back out of her mind, still shaken that those mislaid memories had finally broken through to the surface. Her mother had been driving, not her. A sense of relief finally flowed through her but she felt guilty about it, as if somewhere in her mind she still couldn’t quite believe that she was entitled to feel that way.

  Vito strode back from the door, still bare-chested, his remarkable abs flexing as he settled the items he carried down on the bed in front of her, for all the world like a caveman dragging a dead deer into the cave for his woman.

  ‘Er … you went shopping?’ Ava prompted in astonishment, lifting the wilting red roses. ‘You should’ve put these in water to keep them fresh.’

  ‘I haven’t physically bought flowers before,’ Vito gritted. ‘I usually order them on the phone to be delivered.’

  ‘That does cut out the practical aspect,’ Ava conceded in an understanding tone, pleased he had chosen her flowers personally. ‘Nobody’s ever given me flowers before. They’re lovely.’

  ‘If they weren’t half dead already,’ Vito quipped, settling the box of chocolates on her lap.

  Ava wasted no time in opening the chocolates while covertly eying the third and final package.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t appreciate how you would feel about what your mother did to you,’ Vito volunteered. ‘I couldn’t see the wood for the trees.’

  ‘You always think you can fix things.’ Ava comfort ate a couple of chocolates and offered them to him before reaching for the final box. It was very light and she peeled off the wrapping and extracted a bubble-wrapped bauble. ‘My goodness, it’s a tree ornament,’ she said, astonished at him having purchased such a festive item.

  The hand-decorated bauble twinkled in the light. It was marked with the year. ‘Is the date significant?’ she asked.

  ‘Dio mio, of course it is. It’s the year you brought Christmas back to life at Bolderwood. The castle looks fantastic,’ Vito informed her, sliding lithely into bed beside her. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘I love it,’ she confessed, ensnared by smouldering dark golden eyes and registering that comfort sex was as much on offer as comfort eating.

  He removed the tree ornament from her hand and set the chocolates down. But Ava evaded him by scrambling out of bed with the roses. ‘I’m just going to soak these in the basin!’ she told him, hurrying into the bathroom.

  ‘They’re half dead!’ Vito growled. ‘I’ll buy you more tomorrow.’

  Ava ran water into the washbasin and caressed a silky petal with an appreciative finger. They were still the very first flowers he’d ever given her and in her opinion, worthy of conservation.

  ‘Thanks for the pressies,’ she told him, climbing back into bed. ‘I wish I’d got something for you.’

  ‘You’re my present,’ Vito proclaimed, circling her soft mouth and then ravishing her generous lips with his own with a hunger that made her every sense sizzle with reaction and joy. ‘But there’s one more I’d like to give you first. It’s downstairs below the tree.’

  ‘Oh … downstairs,’ Ava responded without enthusiasm, her attention locked to his wide sensual mouth and only slowly skimming up to meet his smouldering dark golden gaze.

  ‘I want you to open it.’

  ‘Now?’ Ava pressed in disbelief. ‘It’s two o’clock in the morning and it’s the party tomorrow!’

  Vito vaulted off the bed and extended the silk wrap he had bought for her. ‘It’s important, bella mia,’ he urged.

  With a sigh, Ava got up and slid her arms into the sleeves. ‘You can be very demanding.’

  ‘It’s not a deal-breaker, is it?’ Vito studied her with his shrewd gaze, his innate cunning never more obvious to her and she flushed, wondering how much he had guessed about how she felt about him.

  ‘You let Harvey into your bedroom,’ she registered, hearing the dog whining behind the door at the sound of their voices and letting him out.

  Vito seized the opportunity to grab a shirt and put it on. ‘He cried at the door.’

  They descended the stairs, where the dying fire in the grate was flickering enormous eerie shadows over the walls and the decorations. Ava bent down and switched on the sparkling tree lights before spying the large gift-wrapped box below the huge tree. ‘What on earth is it?’

  ‘Your Christmas present.’

  ‘But I wasn’t going to be here at Christmas!’ Ava protested.

  ‘I wouldn’t have let you go,’ Vito countered stubbornly.


  ‘I was planning to leave the morning after the party,’ she reminded him.

  His handsome mouth quirked. ‘The best-laid plans …’ he said.

  Ava hauled out the box and began to rip the shimmering golden wrapping paper off it, only to expose another differently wrapped box inside. ‘What is this? Pass the parcel?’ she teased in surprise.

  The pile of discarded wrapping grew larger as the boxes got smaller until finally Ava emerged with one tiny box and paled. ‘What is it?’

  Vito dropped down on one knee in front of her and asked levelly, ‘Will you marry me?’

  Ava sucked in air like a drowning swimmer and stared at him with bright blue eyes filled with astonishment. Shock was snaking through her in dizzy waves. ‘Where did this idea come from? Are you insane?’

  ‘That’s not how you’re supposed to respond to a proposal!’ Vito pronounced, springing back upright again to gaze down at her with a frown.

  Ava opened the box and stared at the gorgeous diamond ring inside, the jewels of which shone with blinding brilliance when the flickering tree lights caught them. She blinked, her throat closing over all tight. ‘You don’t mean this … you’re not thinking about what you’re doing. You know you don’t want a wife. You know you think that if you get married your wife will divorce you and take your castle and your kids and at least half your money—’

  ‘It’s a risk I’m prepared to take to have you in my life,’ Vito admitted tautly.

  Ava looked up at him with drowning eyes. ‘You know, I think that’s probably the nicest thing you ever said to me but I can’t marry you. You’re only asking me because you know that I wasn’t driving that night, after all,’ she condemned painfully. ‘And that wouldn’t feel right.’

  ‘I bought the ring the day before Greg James phoned me,’ Vito traded. ‘And I can prove it.’

  ‘Before?’ Ava pressed, startled by the claim. ‘But I thought you couldn’t forgive me?’

  ‘And I thought it too until I tried to imagine my life without you,’ Vito admitted, crouching down so that they were on the same level, his eyes filled with grave honesty as they met hers. ‘The forgiveness was there all along. I just didn’t realise that I’d already achieved it. We both loved Olly. He loved you and I love you as well. It’s a link we will never lose.’

  ‘You love me?’ Ava gasped, suddenly out of breath as her heart began to hammer inside her chest.

  ‘Why else do you think I’m asking you to marry me?’ Vito demanded with some impatience. ‘I didn’t think I would ever fall for anyone but I started falling for you the moment you came back into my life.’

  ‘Oh …’ Ava said again, sharply disconcerted. ‘I love you too but I thought this was just a casual affair?’

  ‘That was my fault. I’m so used to laying down limits and then you came along and washed them all away. Very quickly, I just wanted you, amata mia.’ Vito reached for her hand, tugged the ring from the box and threaded it onto her engagement finger. ‘And tomorrow, when you’re acting as hostess at the party, I want that ring on your finger so that everyone appreciates that you’re the woman I intend to marry.’

  Ava looked down at the ring sparkling on her finger in wonderment and then back at him to take in the tenderness in his gaze with a leaping joyful sense of recognition. ‘You really do love me … even though I’m hard work?’

  ‘You made me think, you made me try to be something more than I was. No woman ever affected me that way before,’ Vito confided. ‘You’re not hard work … you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. Only one thing about you bothers me …’

  Concern assailed Ava. ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t confide in me. You spent three years in prison and you never ever talk about it.’

  ‘It’s not something you want to accidentally refer to in the wrong company. It was a different world with its own set of rules,’ Ava told him uncomfortably. ‘I had some very low moments in prison. I was scared a lot of the time. I got bullied for having a posh accent. I was strip-searched once because my cellmate was caught with drugs. At the beginning I was on suicide watch under constant surveillance for weeks—’

  Troubled, Vito gripped her hand. ‘You were suicidal?’

  ‘No, I never was. Unfortunately the psychologist thought I was more at risk. But I was down because I got a six-year sentence for drunk driving. I had no visitors, nothing to do, it took me a long time to adapt and learn how to keep myself occupied.’

  ‘How did you adapt?’

  She told him about the reading and writing programme she had eventually participated in and how feeling useful had lifted her mood. The move to an open prison where she had fewer restrictions had also provided a tremendous boost.

  ‘When my parole was granted, when I knew I was getting out, I decided to put the whole experience behind me,’ she admitted. ‘I didn’t want it colouring my life for ever. I just wanted to forget it … can you understand that? Remembering those years just made me feel bad about myself.’

  ‘I do understand,’ Vito murmured tautly, closing his hand over hers in reassurance.

  Ava shivered. ‘It’s cold. Let’s go back to bed.’

  Vito bent down and scooped her up in his arms.

  ‘You can’t carry me up the stairs!’ Ava told him.

  But he did, although he was noticeably relieved to settle her down on the bed again.

  Ava dealt him a teasing smile. ‘You’re wrecked. You’ll not be fit for anything now.’

  Vito laughed appreciatively as he unzipped his jeans. ‘Dio mio, I love you! Do you realise I’ve never said those words to anyone before?’

  ‘Not even when you were a teenager?’

  ‘I was a very cynical teenager. Watching my father screw up after my mother left him made a big impression on me. My father thought he was in love with every new woman who came into his life and then, five minutes later, it would all be over again,’ he explained with a curled lip. ‘I didn’t think I had what it took to fall in love and then you came along and lit up everything for me like the sun on a dull day.’

  ‘You do realise that marrying me will commit you to celebrating Christmas every year?’ Ava warned him.

  ‘I’ll share it with you. I’ll always remember that Christmas first brought us together. We’ll make new memories. I feel I can be myself with you.’

  ‘Domineering, arrogant, impatient, stubborn,’ Ava slotted in, spreading her fingers across his hair-roughened chest and gazing into black-fringed dark golden eyes that made her heart quicken its pace. ‘But I do love you very very much. You are also generous and kind and surprisingly thoughtful.’

  Vito lifted his tousled dark head in apparent wonderment. ‘Is that a compliment from you?’

  ‘I’ll give you the occasional one,’ Ava promised, running possessive fingers through his black silky hair and studying him. ‘You always felt like mine and now you are finally …’

  He kissed her and her head swam. She muttered something about needing all her sleep with the party ahead: he ignored it. In the end she kissed him back and the excitement sizzling between them took over to send them soaring with the passion their deep emotions had generated. Afterwards, Ava could never recall feeling happier or more secure and she could feel the past sliding back into its proper place. She had learned lessons from that past but she wanted her future fresh and free of regrets.

  The next day the party was an amazing success. Ava wore the green velvet dress under protest, thinking it was far too fancy. Many of the guests arrived on coaches laid on by their employer. She presided as hostess over a select lunch and her ring was very much admired. Vito talked of a winter wedding, Ava gave him a look and talked of a summer one and asked her sisters to be bridesmaids.

  ‘You might be pregnant,’ Vito breathed when he got her alone again.

  ‘Of course I’m not. Is that why you asked me to marry you?’ Ava asked worriedly.

  ‘Of course not. I’m marrying you because I can’t liv
e without you, you little minx,’ Vito groaned. ‘I suppose I could wait until Easter?’

  ‘No, I’ll be a summer bride. We’ve got to be engaged at least six months to prove that we can live together,’ she told him seriously.

  ‘Of course we can. The summer’s too far away.’

  They got married at Easter and she wasn’t pregnant. Vito admitted to being disappointed by that discovery and the idea of a baby took root. The idea of making a family gave Ava a warm, secure feeling inside.

  ‘I don’t think it’s possible to love anyone more than I love you,’ Vito told her on their wedding night in Hawaii.

  And Ava knew she felt the same way and rejoiced in the fact that they could agree on some things.

  EPILOGUE

  OLIVIA Barbieri was born after a short labour two years later, forcing her mother to ask for her recently won place at medical school to be deferred. She had her mother’s eyes and her father’s hair and even as a baby proved to be rather fond of getting her own way.

  Vito grew accustomed to being engulfed by dogs, child and wife when he came home and discovered much to his own surprise that he loved it. His castle had finally become a home. Harvey had been joined by Freda, a cross terrier puppy tied up with string to the gates and abandoned one evening. Vito had put up less of a fight to that development than expected but the dogs slept downstairs in what used to be the boot room. From an early age Olivia displayed every sign of wanting to sleep there as well and had to be strenuously reclaimed from her doggy companions. Ava had also become fast friends with her sisters and the three families regularly met up together.

  Three years after their marriage, Ava commenced studying medicine. She had thought long and hard before reapplying to medical school but had come to the conclusion that she needed a strong career to focus on for the future. She knew it would be difficult to study and do work placements in hospitals at the same time as she had a young child but Vito was prepared to reduce his hours and work more from home so that he could be around to step into the breach. That same year, Ava had her conviction for drunk driving set aside as unsafe and she was content with that judgement.