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Ava answered. ‘She’s fine, thank you for asking.’
‘Is she adjusting well to being back home?’
‘Sun, lake, swimming pool and all the toys a little girl could have, thanks to a suddenly attentive and over-indulgent father. What’s not to like?’ She couldn’t quite curb the sarcasm that emerged with her answer.
Celine’s smile slipped another notch.
Watch it, Cesare’s gaze warned.
Drop dead, she threw back. He shouldn’t have invited her if he expected her to play nice with his girlfriend.
‘I was hoping to see her this evening,’ Celine said, breaking into the tense silence.
Surprise and more than a little anger surged through Ava, until she remembered she wasn’t supposed to have been here when Cesare invited Celine to dinner.
Was that what he’d planned all along? Had he made plans to get rid of her and spend the summer with Annabelle and Celine?
The sheer scale of Cesare’s anger at her arrival suddenly fell into place.
Pain swiftly replaced surprise. Calmly she placed her wine glass on the table. She didn’t think the crystal was safe in her hand any more because the sudden urge to throw it at Cesare’s head had gained astronomical proportions.
How dared he arrange for Annabelle to meet his girlfriend...without consulting her?
She shot him a glance. His cool, composed expression told her the same story it had since she’d got to know him. Cesare answered to no one. He did what he wanted when it suited him. And if he wanted to introduce his mistress to his daughter tonight, that was exactly what he would have done.
Except he hadn’t. They’d put Annabelle to bed together with no mention of her meeting his guest.
‘She’s asleep. We put her to bed over an hour ago,’ Ava responded since Cesare didn’t seem inclined to.
‘Oh.’ Celine’s disappointment made Ava experience a small fizz of gleeful satisfaction. ‘Perhaps I can just look in on her?’
Glee and satisfaction evaporated. ‘You want to look in on her?’
Again Cesare didn’t seem surprised by the odd request. When Ava glanced at him, he merely shrugged and carried on twirling the stem of his glass between his fingers.
Ava swallowed down the heated Over my dead body that sprang to her lips. It was clear Celine was very much a fixture in Cesare’s life. Whether it was tonight or another night in the very near future, Celine and her daughter would meet.
But it didn’t have to be tonight, an irrational pain-filled voice whispered in her head. It might happen, but it didn’t have to be right now!
‘I don’t think it’s a good idea—’
Cesare pushed back his chair, and rising to his feet, halted her words. ‘Come, Celine. I’ll take you.’
‘No you won’t!’
His smile brushed the outer fringes of courtesy. ‘Don’t worry, Ava. She won’t be disturbed. I’ll make sure of it.’
He rose and beckoned Celine. The other woman’s clear discomfort made Ava cringe inside but she forced her chin up and smiled despite the tide of acid anxiety that swallowed her whole.
‘Make sure you don’t. If she wakes up she’ll be impossible to put back to sleep.’
Cesare didn’t turn around as he escorted Celine out of the dining room, their footsteps echoing in tandem down the hallway.
Ava sat frozen in her seat, unable to stem the ever-increasing tidal wave of despair. A small part of her hadn’t quite accepted it when Cesare told her Celine was important to him. Even through the ordeal of dinner, a small part of her had hoped that she was nothing more than a fond family friend.
But would a family friend insist on seeing Annabelle after being told she was asleep?
Of course not. Which meant, the woman whom her daughter might soon be calling stepmother was now upstairs, looking in on her precious daughter...
...while she sat here, clutching her figurative pearls like a tragic, overdramatic Victorian heroine.
Swift burning anger propelled her upright. She reached the sweeping staircase before she remembered she’d discarded her shoes under the dining table.
Whispered voices as she reached halfway up the marble stairs made her thankful for her bare, silent feet. Her hand curled over the smooth wood of the banister, her heart in her throat as she froze on the step.
‘How long are you going to keep this from her?’ Celine questioned passionately.
Cesare responded in Italian, his delivery too quick for Ava to follow, but she sensed it wasn’t what the other woman had expected to hear.
