Lynne Graham: Unlocking her Innocence

So what if your father never liked you? So what if your mother never defended you or hugged you and both parents always favoured your sisters over you? So what if they labelled you a troublemaker in primary school where you got bullied? So what if your mother was an alcoholic and her problems were ignored for years?

There would never be an excuse for what she had done to Olly, whom she had loved like a brother, she thought wretchedly as she walked wearily home to her bedsit. Everything always seemed to come back round to the events of that dreadful night. But somehow she had to learn to live with her massive mistake and move on from it. She would never ever forget her best friend but she knew he would have been the first to tell her to stop tormenting herself. Olly had always been wonderfully practical and great at cutting through all the superficial stuff to the heart of a problem. Had he lived, he would have become a wonderful doctor.

‘It’s not your fault that your mother drinks … it’s not your fault that your parents’ marriage is falling apart or that your sisters are spoiled stuck-up little brats! Why do you always take on the blame for everything wrong in your family?’ Olly used to demand impatiently.

Full of anticipation, Ava laid out her clothes for the next morning. Having been assured by New Start that her history would remain confidential, she had no fear of being seen as anything other than the new office junior. She had learned to love being busy and useful because that gave her a feeling of achievement, instead of the hollow sense of self-loathing that had haunted her for months after the crash when she had had far too many idle hours in which to dwell on her mistakes.

‘You can make the coffee for the meeting. There will be twenty members of staff attending,’ Karen Harper pronounced with a steely smile. ‘You can make coffee?’

Ava nodded vigorously, willing to do anything to please and already sensing that pleasing Miss Harper, as she had introduced herself, might be a challenge. Shown into the small kitchen, she checked out where everything was and got busy.

At ten forty-five, Ava wheeled the trolley into the conference room where a formidably tall man was speaking to the staff surrounding the long table. There was colossal tension in the room and nobody else spoke at all. He was talking about change being inevitable but … it would not be happening overnight and redundancies looked unlikely. His voice had a mellifluous accent that was instantly recognisable and familiar to her ears: Italian. As his audience shifted in their seats with collective relief at the forecast, Ava poured the boss’s coffee with a shaking hand. Black, two sugars, according to the list. It could not be Vito, her dazed mind was telling her, it could not possibly be Vito. Fate could not have served her up a job in a company run by the man whom she had most injured. And yet she knew Vito’s voice, the deep drawl laced with a lilt over certain vowel sounds that used to make her tummy flip as if she were on a roller coaster. She did not dare look, would not allow herself to look, as she walked down the side of the room to serve the boss first and slipped right out of her too large shoes so that by the time she reached the top of the table she was barefoot!

Vito had glanced at the girl bent over the coffee trolley, noting the fiery hair glinting with gold and copper highlights wound into a knot on the top of her head, the delicacy of her profile, the elegance of her slender white hands and the tight fit of her trousers over the small curvy behind that segued down into long slim legs. There was something about her, something that captured his attention, something maddeningly familiar but what it was he could not have said until she straightened and he saw an elfin face dominated by pansy blue eyes. His breath caught in his lungs and he stopped breathing, unable to believe that it could be her . The last time he had seen her she had had black hair cropped short and the blank look of trauma in her gaze as if she couldn’t see or hear anything happening around her. Ferocious tension etched harsh lines into the almost feral beauty of his strong handsome face.

Oh dear heaven, it was Vito Barbieri! Feeling sick from shock, Ava froze with his cup of coffee rattling in her trembling hand.

‘Thank you,’ Vito breathed with no expression at all, his dark golden eyes skimming her pale shaken visage as he accepted the coffee from her.

‘Mr Barbieri, this is Ava Fitzgerald who joined the staff today,’ Karen Harper advanced helpfully.

‘We’ve already met,’ Vito pronounced with icy bite. ‘Come back when the meeting is over, Ava. I’d like to speak to you.’

Ava managed to step smoothly back into her shoes on her way back to the tea trolley. With the rigorous self-discipline she had picked up in prison, she served the rest of the coffee without mishap although her skin was clammy with perspiration and she breathed in and out rapidly to get a grip on herself.

Vito Barbieri—it was a horrible coincidence that her job opportunity should turn out to be in his business. But what on earth was he doing at AeroCarlton? She had read the company website and there had been no reference to Vito, yet he was obviously the boss. So much for her big break! Vito wouldn’t want her anywhere near him: he despised her. When she returned to that room he would tell her that she was sacked. Of course he would. What else could she expect him to do? It was her fault that Olly was dead so why would he employ her? He had been shocked to see her. The grim tightness of those lean, bronzed features had been unusually revealing. Had he known who she was in advance he would have withdrawn her placement before she’d even arrived at AeroCarlton.

Vito, the bane of her life from the age of sixteen. She clamped an uneasy hand to the tattoo seared over her left hip where it seemed to burn like a brand. She had been such a stupid and impulsive teenager, she acknowledged wretchedly, deeply shaken by the encounter that had just taken place. None of the boys at school had attracted her. She had had to go home with Olly for the weekend to see her dream guy. Ten years her senior and a fully grown adult male with the killer instincts of a business shark, her dream guy had barely noticed she was alive, let alone sitting up and begging for his attention. True, he had seemed a little taken aback by his brother’s choice of companion, taking in Ava in her Goth getup with her dyed black hair and mutinous expression. She had never stayed in a castle before and had been trying very hard to act as if she were cool with the intimidating experience.

‘Ava?’ Ava wheeled round and found Karen Harper studying her. ‘You didn’t mention that you knew Mr Barbieri …’

‘My father works for him and we lived near his home,’ Ava admitted awkwardly.

The brunette pursed her lips. ‘Well, don’t expect that to cut you any slack,’ she warned. ‘Mr Barbieri’s waiting for you. Clear the coffee cups while you’re in there.’

‘Yes. I didn’t know he … er … worked here.’

‘Mr Barbieri took over AeroCarlton last week. He’s your employer.’

‘Right …’ With a polite smile that was wasted on the disgruntled woman frowning at her, Ava beat a swift retreat, nausea bubbling in the pit of her stomach. Serious bad luck seemed to follow her round like a nasty shadow! Here she was trying to adjust to being back in the world again and the one man who probably wished that the authorities had kept her locked up turned out to be her new boss.

Vito was resting back against the edge of the table and talking on the phone in fast fluid Italian when she reappeared. Nervous as a cat facing a lion, Ava used the time to quietly load the china back onto the trolley but the image of him remained welded onto her eyelids: the tailored black business suit cut to precision on his very tall, broad shouldered and lean-hipped frame, the white shirt so crisp against his bronzed skin, the gold silk tie that echoed his eyes in sunlight. He was breathtakingly good-looking and exotic from the bold thrust of his high cheekbones and strong nose to his slashing dark brows and beautifully moulded sensual mouth. He hadn’t changed. He still exuded an aura of authority and crackling energy that whipped up a tension all of its own. Olly’s big brother, she thought painfully, and if only she had listened to Olly her best friend might still have been alive.