Castellano's Mistress of Revenge. Melanie Milburne

give a damn what you think,’ she said, searching in her evening bag for a tissue. ‘It’s pointless discussing anything with you. You’ve made up your mind and you are never wrong, or so you like to believe.’

      Marc frowned as he saw the scratch on the creamy skin of her blue-veined wrist. He took out his handkerchief from his inside pocket and, taking her arm, gently dabbed it. ‘It was not my intention to hurt you,’ he said.

      Her grey-blue eyes glittered. ‘That’s the whole point of this, isn’t it? To hurt me until I finally break.’

      He frowned and released her arm, stuffing the used handkerchief in his trouser pocket. ‘Perhaps there is a part of me that wants you to suffer the way I suffered,’ he said, looking her in the eye. ‘But I am not a violent man and you can be assured you will always be absolutely safe with me, Ava.’

      Safe? Ava wondered if she could ever be safe from his effect on her. She had told herself over the years she no longer loved him. Denying what she felt for him had been a coping mechanism, a way of navigating herself through the heartbreak of having to leave him while she still could. But in the end it had blown up in her face, for men like Marc Castellano didn’t forgive—they got revenge.

      She chanced a glance at his brooding expression. He was looking straight ahead, his dark eyes narrowed in fierce concentration, his sensual mouth pulled into an almost straight line. A nerve ticked at the corner of his mouth, like a miniature fist punching beneath the skin.

      As if he sensed her eyes on him, he turned and locked gazes. ‘Tell me something,’ he said, his eyes like steel as they pinned hers. ‘Were you involved with Cole the whole time you were seeing me?’

      ‘Of course not.’ She bit down on her lip. ‘How can you think I would—’

      ‘A month,’ he bit out the words as if they were bullets, his black eyes flashing with fury. ‘Within a month you were married to that silver-tailed, silver-tongued creep.’

      Ava closed her eyes, her head dropping into her hands. ‘I can’t do this…’ Her voice was muffled as she struggled to hold back tears. ‘Please take me back to the villa…’

      ‘We are going out to dinner as planned,’ he stated intractably.

      She lifted her head and threw him a castigating glare. ‘You never used to be such an unfeeling bastard, Marc.’

      His eyes brewed with resentment. ‘It’s a bit late to be lamenting my lack of feeling. After all, you were the one who showed me how foolish it is to trust a woman who spouts words of love all the time. But that was your intention from the start, wasn’t it? You lured me in and then once you had me dangling on the line you cast me off for a bigger, richer catch.’

      Her brow creased in bewilderment. ‘Is that what you really think?’

      ‘I should have seen it coming,’ he said, throwing his arm along the back of the seat. ‘I’ve had enough gold-diggers try it on me in the past. You were good, I’ll grant you that. Convincing and beguiling, and that little lie about only having one lover and it being an unpleasant experience was a nice touch. You really had me going there.’

      Ava felt as if he had struck her. The pain she felt at his words was indescribable. He was one of the few people she had told of the night she lost her virginity at the age of nineteen. Even Serena, her sister, didn’t know the full details, for Serena had suffered much worse at a much younger age, leaving her scarred and vulnerable for years until she had met Richard. For Marc to throw that confidence back in Ava’s face as if it were a fiction to garner sympathy was beyond cruel.

      She was glad the driver pulled up in front of the restaurant Marc had chosen, for she was beyond a reply. She got out of the car with stiff movements, not even flinching when Marc took her arm and looped it through his.

      The restaurant was crowded, but the table the maître d’ led them to was in a more secluded area. The lighting was low and intimate, the décor luxurious, the service attentive but not intrusive.

      ‘Would you like an aperitif?’ Marc asked after the waiter left them with a drinks menu.

      ‘Soda with a twist of lime,’ Ava answered, ignoring the extensive list of alcoholic drinks in front of her.

      Marc raised his brows. ‘Frightened you might lose your inhibitions and have your wicked way with me?’

      She flicked her hair back behind her shoulders, sending him another caustic look. ‘You can’t make me sleep with you, Marc,’ she said.

      He leant back in his chair, his gaze running over her tauntingly. ‘I don’t think it would be too hard to get you begging for it. After all, your sugar daddy has been dead for some weeks now and there has been nothing in the Press about you having found a replacement. A woman like you is not made for celibacy.’

      Ava buried her head in the menu rather than meet his sardonic gaze. It annoyed her to think how vulnerable she was to him. Her hand was still tingling from his touch earlier, and her body still smouldering. Every time she chanced a glance at him he seemed to be looking at her mouth, making her lips buzz and swell with anticipation of the passionate pressure of his. She wondered if he was stealthily planning his seduction, taking his time about it to make her feel on tenterhooks. If he was he was certainly succeeding. She could barely sit still in her chair at the thought of him possessing her again. Her inner muscles flickered with an on-off pulse that made it hard for her to concentrate. All she could think of was how it would feel to have him drive into her moist warmth the way he used to do. He was an adventurous lover and yet he could be surprisingly tender too. She had loved that about him, the way he made sure her needs were met before he sought his own release.

      What would making love with him now be like? she wondered. Would his quest for revenge make him selfish and demanding instead of considerate and sensually satisfying? Would he treat her like the moneyhungry woman he thought she was?

      Ava put down the menu with a trembling hand. How had her dreams for a happy life turned into such a nightmare? All she had ever wanted was to find a man who would love her and protect her, to build a family, the sort of family she and Serena had missed out on by the early death of their mother and the rapid remarriage of their father to the woman who had been callously and rather too obviously waiting for her predecessor to die.

      Ava had thought Marc was that special man of her dreams, but within a few weeks of living with him she had come to see a happy future would never be realised with him. He was too much of a playboy, a man who was used to having what he wanted, when he wanted. He was driven to succeed. She had never met a more driven man. He worked hard and he played hard. She had become a part of that play time, but only a very small part and she knew, just like all the other women he had been involved with, her days had been numbered. She had cut the countdown by leaving him, hoping it would protect her from further hurt, not realising how it had played right into the enemy’s hands…

      ‘Have you decided what you would like to eat?’ Marc asked.

      Ava placed her hands in her lap, twisting them together to stop them from shaking. ‘I’m not all that hungry,’ she said.

      He lifted one of his brows. ‘Dieting?’

      She gave him a resentful look. ‘No. I am angry at how you have orchestrated this…this situation.’

      His eyes continued to tether hers. ‘I am the one who has the right to be angry, Ava, not you. You betrayed me, remember?’

      Ava’s hands tightened in her lap. She hated thinking of how she had been manipulated into destroying him. How could she have not seen it? It had been a masterful set-up and she had stepped up to the noose without suspecting a thing until it was too late. How could she tell him how blind she had been? He would think she was trying to wriggle out of what she had done by playing the innocent victim. ‘It wouldn’t matter what I said. You’re never going to believe me, are you?’ she said.

      His jaw ticked. ‘I am not going to let you make a fool of me again,’ he said. ‘This time around I will have my