by Lily Zante
Honeymoon For Three
(Honeymoon Series, Book 2)
Lily Zante
Other books by Lily Zante
Standalone Books:
Love, Inc
An Unexpected Gift
Series Books:
The Perfect Match Series
The Proposal
Lost In Solo (the prequel to The Proposal)
Heart Sync (the sequel to The Proposal)
Honeymoon Series
Honeymoon For One
Honeymoon For Three
Honeymoon Blues
Coming Fall 2014:
Tainted Love Series
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
About The Author:
Booklist
Chapter 1
A slick sheen glistened all over Ava’s naked body as she lay in bed, hot, sweaty and sated. She glanced over at Nico who lay asleep peacefully beside her. Just watching him sent her pulse racing.
He was beautiful. He had sought her out. And he was hers, for now. Whatever “now” meant.
She had never expected to find herself in this situation: in bed with a man during her honeymoon. Not her solo honeymoon, for sure, and especially not with a man she had met only recently.
Yet even though she would never have entertained the idea of this happening, she could not deny having had wicked thoughts of Nico in the days before, right up until the end when she had fled the Casa Adriana, the hotel Nico’s family owned, earlier than planned.
It had been one thing to have him rebuff her so coldly after their first, tender kiss. It had been quite another to find out, from a woman who obviously still loved him, that they had a child together. This was something that Nico had hidden from her completely.
Overcome by feelings of doubt and mistrust yet again, there was no way she could have stayed in Verona a moment longer.
Falling for the wrong man once was bad enough. She could not risk making the same mistake again.
But then Nico had come after her. He knew he had a lot of explaining to do. Now that he had told her everything, she understood. The child wasn’t his. Five years of accusations had plagued him and still he had said nothing. Then the paternity test had proved what he had known all along.
Her heart filled with warm love for this man who, until a few hours ago, she had been willing to turn her back on and never see again.
But Nico was nothing like Connor. No way. Connor was something else.
Her stomach clenched as memories of being dumped six weeks before her Valentine’s Day wedding jumped back at her. Lying in her sumptuous bed at the Hotel Sant’ Adelina in Venice, with the most gorgeous man beside her, softened the hurt a little.
This had been the whole point of coming to Italy on what would have been her honeymoon. She had come anyway, without the groom, needing time away to be by herself and to figure out, at the age of twenty-eight, what her future life direction would be.
Even though she had known for months that their relationship was floundering, when Connor ditched her, the pain had been raw. She’d still been in love with him, right through until the end. But maybe they would have ended up going their separate ways further down the line. It was better it had happened before she married him. Just as it was better that he had confessed about his one night stand.
Feeling slightly cooler now, she wrapped the soft sheet around her and turned to her side to look at Nico. It was sometime in the afternoon and they hadn’t drawn the curtains when they had rushed in, desperate to feel each other in the flesh.
Golden light streamed in, casting a yellow haze everywhere and soaked Nico in a warm light. He slept so deeply, this beautiful, handsome man and she resisted the urge to run her hands over his face. But she could not resist letting her fingers dance lightly across his bare chest. He, too, lay on his side with his arm across her hip. She bent her head and kissed the big curve of his bicep, where it dipped slightly. Just the smell of him sent a warm fuzzy feeling through her body.
If things had gone according to plan, she would have been lying here with Connor. And now she had Nico instead.
He was everything that Connor was not and the stark difference between the two men in her recent love life was never more glaringly obvious to her than now.
A sudden clicking noise at the door jolted her. She flashed a glance over her shoulder, her eyes riveted as the doorknob turned. The hairs on the back of her neck bristled.
They had put out a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign.
As she sat bolt upright in bed, her heart thumped wildly, and the figure of a man skulked into view.
“Connor?” She rubbed her eyes and blinked, then hugged the sheet closer to her chest. Beside her, Nico still lay asleep, completely oblivious to the intrusion.
Connor’s gaze flew from Ava’s face to the bare-chested man lying beside her. He slammed the door shut, set down his luggage and took a few steps toward her, his eyes swallowing up the intimate scene before him.
“What’s this?” His voice was surprisingly calm, but his eyes bored into her.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Her anger had replaced embarrassment.
Now that he was no more than a foot away, she recoiled at his closeness, still paralyzed from the shock of seeing him, and having him see her in flagrante.
Not that she was doing anything wrong, technically. She was still single.
She watched Connor’s gaze take in Nico, from his handsome face, to his powerful bare chest, with its dusting of dark hairs. Connor’s face reddened. It was perfectly obvious what she and this man had been up to.
“So we’re even now. Is that what this is about?” Not the words she was expecting to hear from him.
“We’re even?” she asked. She wasn’t sure what made her angrier, the fact that Nico could sleep like a baby despite the storm raging above his head, or the fact that Connor had the audacity to follow her to Venice and to turn up in her hotel room.
I thought I had closed this chapter of my life forever.
She was about to fling the sheet aside and bound out of bed before she remembered she was naked underneath.
It was hard to express anger while sitting in bed with no clothes on.
Nico stirred beside her, his arm still draped over her lower half as if he was claiming his territory. His slight movement caught Connor’s eye. Outwardly he seemed calm but Ava knew him too well. She knew that his unruffled exterior was only his corporate lawyer façade on display. As he flexed his fingers, Ava knew that inside he was anything but at ease.
“Yes,” rasped Connor, looking at Nico who had only just opened his eyes. “We’re even.”
The sound of a man’s voice in his hotel room shook Nico’s senses. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, placing his hand on Ava’s arm.
“Who the hell are you?” he barked, his suspicious gaze hooked on Connor.
When Connor said nothing, Nico looked at Ava. “Ava?” But she had bunched her knees up and hugged them toward her, refusing to acknowledge his stare, or Connor’s presence.
Connor held out his hand toward Nico, in a handshake gesture. “I’m her ex-fiancé, Connor Beachcroft. And you must be someone she picked up.”
Nico slapped Connor’s hand away. “Get out before I call security and have you thrown out,” he growled. Connor backed away.
In all this Ava remained quiet, but her anger slowly bubbled away beneath the surface. Her mind was in chaos; confused thoughts married to disbelief.
What had possessed this man to fly across the Atlantic looking for her? Why now? Why at all? She needed answers but was not prepared to have a conversation with her ex while she and Nico were naked in bed.
“Go, Connor,” she pleaded.
“We need to talk, Ava.” Connor looked at her fixedly. She had never in a million years considered that he might come for her. When he had dumped her, she’d waited for him to want to talk, to fix things, to find out where she had gone wrong. But when he hadn’t even contacted her, in those early days, she believed things were over between them forever.
Now, after her whirlwind of a trip to Verona, and having met Nico, she felt as though she had been freed.
“There’s nothing to talk about.” Nico intervened, his powerfully built body naked as the sheet slipped even further below his waist. Connor’s gaze wavered as he surveyed his opponent warily.
“This isn’t about you,” returned Connor quietly. “I’ll be waiting downstairs, Ava. Just give me ten minutes. Please.” He shot her a parting glance and walked toward the door slowly.
Nico had gotten up and put his boxers back on. He reached the door just as Connor did and let Connor take a good look at his powerful physique. He held the door wide open.
“Out, now.” Nico’s face darkened. He threw out Connor’s luggage and locked the door behind him.
Ava sat motionless in bed, watching the stand off between the two men. They were like fighting cockerels, puffing their chests out and assessing each other. She wished she had never set eyes on Connor again. The fact that he had walked in on her and Nico, invading the quiet tranquility of their world, had shattered her new peace.
Nico sat down beside her. “That was the shithead you were going to marry?” His hands tenderly grasped her arms, as he gently tried to unwrap them from around her knees.
The golden hue of their afternoon should have lifted her spirits, but she felt as if the world had ground to a halt. Energy seeped out of her body. “I don’t know why he’s here,” she mumbled, more to herself, than to Nico.
He moved forward, slowly pushing her knees down and the sheet fell away, exposing her nakedness. He kissed her on the lips lightly. “It’s obvious. He wants you back.”
Ava hooked her arms around his neck and reeled him in closer to her. “He can dream on.”
Nico rewarded her with a searing kiss that sent her senses out of control. She kissed him back deeply, needing him all over again.
Connor could wait.
Chapter 2
An hour later, a flushed Ava and Nico walked into the lobby hand in hand.
Connor was having a heated conversation, bordering on an argument, with someone at the other end of his cell phone. His gaze rested briefly at the two of them, then landed on their held hands, before he looked away sharply and continued his condescending tirade.
“Is he always so argumentative?” Nico asked.
“He’s a lawyer,” replied Ava, as though that explained everything.
“He’s an asshole,” returned Nico.
Ava couldn’t help but agree. She didn’t want to be here, waiting for Connor, wasting precious time. She wanted to be outside with Nico, carefree and happy.
The sun was still bright and the Grand Canal glittered. There would still be a slight chill in the air, but with Nico beside her, Ava knew the day would be perfect no matter what.
Her original plan, on waking this morning, had been to go for a long walk along the river before visiting the Guggenheim later in the afternoon. That had been her intention until the clerk at the hotel desk had given her Nico’s gift. The beautiful, breathtaking Flamentagostini bracelet.
She had gone running after Nico, needing to thank him and to return the gift. It was impossible for her to accept something so expensive, yet the thought that he remembered, that he cared, touched her deeply. So when she had found him, and thanked him, just earlier this morning, everything changed. It was all she had wanted – to know that he did care. Because towards the end she hadn’t been sure anymore.
After their many mistakes, with him playing the part of a hotel driver only because she had mistakenly assumed him to be one, and with him not being sure of why she had come alone on her honeymoon, after all of that, their feelings for one another had still shone through. Was it love? Perhaps it was too early to give what they had a label.
Instead of spending time admiring works of art at the Guggenheim, she had spent the afternoon admiring Nico’s body. And he had taken his slow, sweet time worshipping hers.
Until Connor had walked in on them.
Now they were both not only starving, but also wanting to be anywhere but here. The thought of lunch at Harry’s Bar had her salivating, but she was brought back to reality as Connor bellowed more orders into the phone.
Even the clerk at the reception desk looked up startled. He caught sight of Ava and smiled. She held up her wrist to show him the Flamentagostini bracelet and he nodded his head in admiration.
It was the only thing Nico had let her wear in bed. The afternoon had been spontaneous and satisfying. Ava smiled in spite of herself.
“That’s better,” said Nico, tugging her towards him.
“What is?”
“Your smile.”
“Ah,” she said, “you don’t know what I’m smiling about.”
Nico moved to within earshot of her and whispered, “I can imagine, and you can show me later.” His lips brushed her earlobe, igniting her senses. Maybe they could skip lunch and just have dinner, later?
She was about to make her newfound suggestion to him when Connor’s commotion burst her bubble as surely as if she had been slapped.
She waited with rising frustration for him; she was used to waiting for him. It was something she had slipped into more and more toward the end of their relationship when he had become so driven, to the point of excluding everything else in his life and giving over his soul to the prestigious law firm. He finished his call abruptly and stood up.
Nico and Ava eyed him warily.
“I’ve been waiting over an hour for you.” He stared at Ava.
“And I’m on holiday,” Ava shot back, her irritation getting the better of her.
“You were supposed to be on your honeymoon.” Connor held his gaze steady as his eyes scanned her face for a reaction.
“Then I must thank you for saving her from such a sorry predicament,” Nico snarled. Ava flinched. She had not planned on having this private conversation in front of Nico, even though he now knew her story. She still did not want to involve him in her sorry mess.
“Can we talk in private? Please, Ava. It’s important.” Just as suddenly the resentment was gone from Connor’s voice. For a short moment she was taken back to a snapshot of their earlier dating days, when he had been so much gentler and softer.
“I’ll be over at the desk if you need me.” Nico’s lips brushed against hers and his fingers fluttered lightly across her cheek, in full view of Connor. Ava resisted the urge to pull away. She was torn between falling fully into Nico’s lips, with memories of his hard body against hers so fresh in her mind, and pulling away, under Connor’s icy gaze.
Nico walked away without so much as acknowledging Connor. Ava found herself once more staring into the face of the man whose actions had driv
en her to escape Denver.
If Connor had not called the wedding off on New Year’s Day, Ava would have been here at this hotel with Connor on this very day. In hindsight, she considered herself to have been saved from a fate worse than death.
Now, the same fate had reared its ugly head, and at a time when she had least expected him. To make matters worse, he had caught her in bed with a man who, until a week ago, had been a complete stranger. If the world seemed to have turned upside down from Connor’s viewpoint, it was nothing short of weird for Ava.
Connor held out his arm, but Ava refused to take it. She walked past him instead and sat down on the single sofa.
“You wanted to talk?” She was still furious with him for showing up at all. She sat stiffly. Try as she might, she could not relax, even though the big soft leathery sofa coaxed her body to flop backwards. With her back as straight as a rod and her legs crossed over, Ava clasped her hands tightly in a knot on her lap. “How did you manage to just walk into my hotel room?”
“It was our hotel room. You booked it for our honeymoon, remember? Then I find out you’ve gone ahead and taken the trip to Italy anyway.”
Ava felt her body go rigid. “And you thought you’d just come along and surprise me?”
He looked down at his feet, his face reddening. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just walked in. I could have scared you.”
“You did scare me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t expect you to be with anyone.”
“You assumed way too much if you thought I’d be pining over you and waiting for you to tell me you’d made a mistake. Why are you even here?”
Connor sat down on the sofa next to her. “The last time I saw you was on New Year’s Eve. I know I should have gotten in touch with you sooner. I’m sorry for what I did.”
Ava remembered that day well. “You didn’t even have the decency to tell me in person.” He’d been a total bastard to her. ‘You didn’t even want to get together, afterwards, to talk things through.”
Connor hung his head in shame. He looked up at her, looking lost for words.