Cristiano opened it as though it was the most sacred artefact in the world. His face crumpled with emotion as he lifted the first photo out. “God, she looks just the same,” he marvelled, staring at the photo before handing it to Ava.
“This was right after she’d been born, I think.” She lifted it closer and nodded. She could just make out the operating theatre in the background.
“She’s perfect.”
“She was,” Ava nodded. “Even the nurses in the intensive care ward loved her.”
“Intensive care?” He looked at her sharply and Ava felt her heart turn over.
“She was in hospital for a month, remember,” Ava glossed over the fact that she too had been in intensive care after her operation.
“I see.” He lifted the next photo from the box. “You look exhausted.”
She wriggled across the floor, so that she could sit beside him and see the photo he was looking at. It was her first photograph with Milly. Olivia had insisted on taking it, even though Sophie had suggested that Ava might not want to remember that moment in detail.
They had both been right – Ava felt a wave of nausea whenever she saw this particular image. Then again, she thought of it often. She looked away, her throat thick.
“There are much better photos in there.”
He frowned, without putting the photograph down. “You’re hooked up to so many machines.” He lifted his gaze to her face. He wanted to ask why. He wanted to know if the delivery had been traumatic for her. But it was too weak. It showed just the kind of affection he swore he wouldn’t feel for her.
“Precautions,” she said with a blasé wave of her hand through the air.
For a long time to come, Cristiano would regret the stubborn pride that had prevented him from pushing her further on the subject. He knew that she was being deliberately evasive, but he refused to show that he cared. She was supposed to mean nothing to him. Only Milly was relevant.
He stood abruptly. “Do you mind if I take this with me? I’ll bring it back.”
“Oh.” She squashed her disappointment with effort. “Sure. Of course.” The fact she had wanted to share the memories with him didn’t matter. He had every right to look into the past and to do so privately. “Let me know if you’d like anything else.”
His nod was business like. He moved towards the door but Ava felt his imminent departure keenly. “Do you have to go?” She frowned. “I only mean, you’re welcome to stay here. If you want company.”
He arched a brow, his expression one of hauteur and disdain. Ava immediately felt the force of his rejection. She closed her eyes and expelled a breath. “I’m trying, Cristiano. I’m not like you. I can’t just shut off … I have feelings. This is strange for me.”
“You think it’s not strange for me?”
She shrugged. “You seem completely fine with treating me like a stranger you barely know.”
“Do I?” He took a drink from his wine, keeping his gaze level with hers.
“Yes.”
He shrugged. “It’s for the best.”
“You can’t keep doing it forever though. Eventually Milly’s going to be old enough to understand and she’ll want to know why you’re so furious with me.”
He dragged a hand through his hair and then placed his glass carefully down on a side table. “Let’s just hope my feelings are different by then. Or that I become a better actor. Good night, Ava.”
She watched him go with a desperate feeling of loneliness.
Her sisters were far too wrapped up in their own lives, and Marie and Jackson were out for the night. Cristiano couldn’t stand her. Ava began to place the boxes back in the cabinet, keeping out those which she’d use to decorate the tree. She stowed them on the table, out of Milly’s reach, and then lifted the phone from the cradle.
It rung three times before Angus answered, and at the sound of his voice, a smile spread across her face. For the first time in weeks, she felt like herself again. Angus, dependable, reassuring Angus, was there for her as always.
7
The clock on the bedside table told him it was almost two in the morning, but he didn’t stop. He was only halfway through the box, and with every photo, he was experiencing a cathartic release of emotion. He was feeling a growing sense of loss, for what he’d missed, but also a dawning of understanding and connection. The photos were helping. He could see so much of the miniscule changes in his daughter’s face. He found a photo of her at around three months of age, and he could see her little eyes were no longer vague and unseeing. She was focussing on things and showing happiness in her face.
Then, around six months, when suddenly she was photographed sitting up, or on her stomach in the act of crawling. He ran his finger across the picture, as if he could reach through time and feel her downy little cheeks for himself.
It was three o’clock when he reached nine months, and her hair was starting to thicken into the big bouncing curls she had now. Her smile was contagious; he felt ridiculous tears on his eyes and a huge grin on his own features as he looked at his daughter with a pride he’d never known it would be possible to possess.
And then, her first birthday. Cristiano forced himself to be patient. He made a cup of coffee and brought it back to bed, not wanting to rush the milestone.
Ava had organised a small party for her. Olivia and Sophie were there, looking as beautiful as ever. The three sisters together, arm in arm, with Ava in the middle clutching a laughing Milly, was a striking montage. He recognised Jackson and Marie in the background; his smile widened. There were some other people he didn’t know; perhaps friends of the sisters’ from school? Then, there was the photograph he’d been subconsciously dreading, and seeking.
Angus Edwards, smiling adoringly at Milly with an arm draped casually around Ava’s shoulders. Ava’s pose was the picture of contentment. Her fingers were wrapped around Milly’s wrist, and her other hand caught Angus’s. They looked … like a family.
The clutch of jealousy was sharp and strong. He understood it immediately.
This should have been him.
This could have been him.
If he hadn’t been so foolish and left Ava behind, when he had wanted so desperately to stay, he would have known about her pregnancy. He would have been there from the beginning. If he hadn’t been so proud, when she’d come to him in Rio, he would have learned the truth.
And then what? Would he have forgiven her for insisting that she wanted to go through with her ridiculous marriage to a man she didn’t love? Would he have forgiven her anything?
He was so furious with her at that time. So wounded and so desperately disappointed. For the first time in his life, Cristiano had been told ‘no’, and it was an experience he had bitterly resented – and Ava for wielding that weapon.
The next photograph was similar. Angus and Ava were holding Milly over her cake; her eyes were enormous as she studied the cream frosting and pale pink letters.
Cristiano expelled a frustrated sigh and laid the pictures down in a heap beside him. It caused the remainders in the pile to jump a little and scatter. The bottom picture instantly caught his attention.
His own eyes, crinkled in the corners and smiling, looked back at him. He lifted the photograph for closer inspection. It was taken years ago. He turned it over automatically, and felt a wave of memory. In Ava’s neat, precise hand on the back was a single word that made his whole heart crumble. Daddy.
The sun crested over the valley with urgency the next morning. Its heat was fierce and it woke Ava earlier than normal. She was uncomfortably hot. The fan overhead was moving with reliable speed, but it only served to stir up the heat.
She eyed the dam from her bedroom window, a little way in the distance, and from it, she let her gaze drift to his cabin.
He would be sleeping. She pushed that mental image aside – the wondering what he would be like asleep, all naked and glorious – and focussed instead on the dam.
She’d be quick. He�
�d never notice her. She pulled on her bathers and tied her hair back in a small ponytail. It was too short to do anything else with it, but that suited Ava’s hectic lifestyle these days.
Jackson and Marie were sharing toast in the kitchen. Ava poked her head around the door, her smile encompassing them both.
“Morning, guys.”
“Howdy, Aves. You wanna coffee?” Jackson stood, already on his way to the machine.
She shook her head. “You going to be at the house for a bit longer?”
Marie tried to smother her smile with a bite of her toast. She failed miserably. “You going somewhere?”
Ava rolled her eyes. “Not where you’re thinking. It’s hot this morning. I thought I’d go for a quick dip before the sun really gets going.”
“Sounds perfect. You should head to the beach. I’ve got stuff to do here this morning; I can keep an eye on little miss Sunshine when she gets up.”
“Nah,” Ava smiled to soften the rejection. “I’ve got things to do here too.”
“By things, do you mean the Christmas tree?” Jackson laughed. “We saw the decorations out this morning.”
She pulled a face of mock surprise. “Christmas? Me? Never!”
Marie laughed. “You’re like a little elf at this time of year, d’you know that?”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“I can grab a tree from town later today. I’m heading in for some supplies anyway,” Jackson offered with his trademark kindness.
“That would be great.” She smiled at them both then headed towards the door. “I won’t be long. Milly should sleep the whole time anyway.”
“Have fun,” Marie insisted and Ava waved her hand in farewell.
Her Crocs were by the door; she slipped them on and moved quickly away from the house, cutting to the lake via one of the rows of vines rather than the more commonly used path. She told herself it was so that she could check on the leaves, rather than to avoid being seen from Cristiano’s accommodation.
Another couple had just checked out of the cottages the day before. Cristiano was, temporarily, the only occupant.
Ava resisted the urge to look towards the buildings. She beelined for the lake, and chose the end that was furthest from his cottage. Even the short walk from the house had built up her temperature. She had fine beads of perspiration across her forehead. But she took a moment to enjoy the view of the water, glistening in the early morning sunshine, as it always did in summer.
As a child, she had crept out of the house early, like this, to dip into the cool depths of the murky water. She crouched down now and ran her fingers through the water. It rippled beneath her touch.
The dam itself was part of what made the property so perfect. It was naturally occurring, and it provided a great source of irrigation for the vines. The nearby Crosman river kept it topped up year-round, even in the peak of summer.
Ava slipped her shoes off her feet then stood, taking a small step into the shallows. It was delightfully cool and refreshing. She moved deeper, and deeper still, until the water came up to her belly button.
When she was pregnant with Milly, she’d swum like this, and Milly had kicked and turned in her belly with such force that she’d caused the surrounding water to shake. Ava had nicknamed her ‘rocket’, for the speed with which she had seemed to somersault in utero. Of course, she’d been preparing for an early departure, Ava had since realised.
She waded in deeper, up to her neck, and then kicked onto her back, so that she could float with her eyes closed and stare up at the sky. Blue with streaks of gold and purple, the last of dawn’s sleepy fingers were blowing away to give light to the brightness of the day ahead. But it was still pleasant. It was still early. She kicked her feet and drifted across the surface, like an angelic mermaid.
Watching from the veranda of his cabin, Cristiano was transfixed. She reminded him of Ava as she’d been three years earlier. Ethereally beautiful; utterly captivating. Her body was perfect – graceful and lithe – as she glided effortlessly across the surface. Her movements were swan-like, and her progress slow.
He placed his coffee cup down on the railing and moved towards the dam without realising he was walking. He was caught in her magnetic force, powerless to do anything but obey her hold over him. At the water’s edge, he paused only to lift off his shirt and discard it onto the grass. Then, he was wading in, moving towards her with strong legs, and then a powerful stride.
The splashing caught her attention and she straightened quickly and turned around. At the sight of Cristiano, she sucked in a deep breath, and tried with all her will-power to effect an expression of nonchalance.
He stopped swimming right in front of her and kicked up to standing. Unlike Ava, who was treading water, he was able to touch the bottom of the lake.
“Hello.” His voice was thick from disuse and lack of sleep.
“Hi.” She didn’t smile. She couldn’t. She was stricken by the confused emotions he brought out in her. The desire to touch him and tell him that she loved him required all her efforts to ignore.
They stared at each for what felt like an eternity. His dark eyes probed hers, looking, trying to see, trying to understand.
“Do you remember how often we used to swim in here?” He said finally, his smile contemplative.
She nodded. “Where else could we go without attracting attention?”
“You were just lucky I could hold my breath for so long. Remember when Olivia came to talk to you that time?”
She laughed despite her swirling emotions. “And you duck dove under the water for, like, five minutes?”
“I think it was closer to a minute, but yes,” he grinned. “I thought she’d never leave.”
“And I thought you were going to bubble up and ruin the secret.”
He laughed. “No chance. It was too much fun sneaking around.”
She shook her head with a growing sense of nostalgia. “We were such kids back then.”
“It was only three years ago,” he pointed out with a sobering of his expression. “Three long years for you, I suppose.”
“A year’s a year,” she demurred, spreading her arms in the water and pulling herself towards the edge. “And I have to get back now.”
He watched as she swum away from him with an increasing weight of frustration. He told himself, as she strode out of the water and shook her hair over her shoulder, that he felt desire for her. That desire was confusing him. That his need for her physically was making him overlook behaviour that he could never, in good conscience, justify. On paper, what she had done was hateful. To have concealed his daughter from him was heinous and wrong. But faced with what they shared, and the way his body seemed to want to touch hers constantly when they were together, it was more and more difficult for him to remember that.
Ava turned slowly, her eyes hesitant to meet his. “I’m going to put the tree up today. Do you want to … I mean … it’s something special. And Milly will really get what’s going on this year. Do you want to …”
He narrowed his eyes, and pushed down anything he was feeling for her. It was desire. That was all. Lust. Physical want. Nothing more.
“Yes, Ava?”
Ava was not prone to blushing but her eyes darted self-consciously from him to the house. “You’d be welcome to join us,” she said awkwardly, as if already regretting having made the offer.
“I have work to do,” he said with an air of unconcern.
But it caught Ava’s attention. “Work?” She prompted quickly, her breathing shallow.
“Yes, work. If I am to stay in the area, I will want to find work.”
“But … where? What are you doing?”
He scooped water into the palm of his hand and let it drizzle back to the dam’s surface with a splashy splash sound. “The Berries have asked me to coordinate with them on a Shiraz – basket pressed, using French oak. It would be interesting.”
“Are you going to do it?”
He sh
rugged. “I’m considering my options.”
Cristiano Barata was world-famous and award winning. Any wine he crafted was guaranteed to attract international attention. But she would never ask him to work at Casa Celli. It would reek of using their personal history and shared future to involve him in her professional life. And so she smiled politely. “I’m sure that will be excellent.”
His laugh was softly mocking. “I’m sure it will be too.”
She turned away from him and began to move towards the house. Far from having cooled off though, her temperature felt like it had spiked several points of degree.
Cristiano had always had that effect on her. When first she’d met him, it had been similarly hot. Though at the tail-end of Summer, the relief of Autumn was still in the distance. But one look from him made her feel as though she’d stumbled into Dante’s inferno.
Had she known from that first moment that it was love? She frowned, and teased her damp hair with her fingers as she walked.
No, she remembered with clarity, and a small sound of surprise for the strength of the memory. She had fought that initial feeling, and put it down to attraction.
Because she had still believed then that she loved Angus.
How quickly had Cristiano changed her mind? Days? Hours? Certainly by the end of that first week, she had known she loved him in a terrifyingly real way.
Terrifying because their mother had taught them from a very young age that love was a dangerous and frightening emotion, best to be tempered by rational thought and considered appraisal. Her love for Angus was just like that! She knew him well, and had done for almost her whole life. She thought the world of him, as did everyone who knew him. He was kind and thoughtful and compassionate, and he loved Ava with dedication and devotion.
Loving Angus was safe.
Billionaires: They're powerful, hot, charming and richer than sin... Page 70