Part 12 (1/2)

At what point she started dreaming, she later had no clear idea. In her dream she was running down the steps of the castle the night of the crash and she was doing it over and over again. Ol y was behind her, tel ing her he would run her home, and then without the slightest warning the picture in her head changed and her mother erupted into Ol y's lecture about Ava's provocative erupted into Ol y's lecture about Ava's provocative behaviour with Vito.

'I'l drive!' Gemma proclaimed, ignoring Ol y before tel ing him that she was perfectly capable of driving them al home and refused to be driven by a teenager.

As the argument got more heated voices were raised.

Ava shouted across the bonnet of the car that Gemma wasn't al owed to drive when she had been drinking and her mother took that as a chal enge, thrusting Ol y furiously out of her path and jumping into the car to rev the engine like a boy racer. Ava leant across Gemma to try and steal the car keys and the car skidded with squealing tyres on the drive while Ol y tried to reason with the older woman and persuade her to stop. The car careened through the gates at the foot of the drive onto the road with Ava screaming at her mother to stop while Ol y urged everyone to be calm and think about what they were doing. And a split second later, it seemed, Ava saw the tree trunk looming up through the windscreen, heard Ol y cry out her name ... and then everything just blanked out.

Ava woke up with a frantic start, her heart hammering, anguish enclosing her like a su ocating coc.o.o.n as she realised that she had relived the accident.

She was disconcerted to discover that the light was on and Vito, naked but for a pair of jeans, was on his knees beside her. 'You were dreaming and you let out a shriek that would have wakened the dead!' he exclaimed.

that would have wakened the dead!' he exclaimed.

But it would never wake Ol y, Ava thought foolishly, a sob catching in her throat as she hugged her knees and rocked back and forth. 'I relived the crash ... I remember what happened but why now? Why couldn't I remember before?'

'Why would you have wanted to remember it when you thought you were guilty? Was your mother driving?'

Ava nodded jerkily and told him what she had recal ed, trembling as she spoke, the images so fresh and frightening she almost felt as though she were trapped back in that car again. In silence, Vito held her close. 'I didn't want you to relive that,' he confessed. 'I didn't real y think al this through when I listened to what Greg James had to tel me. I saw what I thought was the chance to x it al for you and I went and saw David Lloyd and your solicitor and your father to check out al the facts.' His strong pro le was tense. 'I was very pleased with myself.'

'Yes,' Ava whispered shakily, glad the tears had stopped, relaxing back into the warmth and security of his arms.

'And then I saw your face this morning and I ... I hadn't a clue how to make it bet er for you,' Vito admit ed grudgingly, his frustration over that fact palpable. 'It was only then I saw that you were devastated that your mother could have stood by and hurt you like that.'

hurt you like that.'

'She watched me take her punishment and she never breathed a word,' Ava conceded strickenly. 'Even if she gave way to an impulse to let me take the blame for the crash, she could have thought bet er of it. She could have made a statement to the police once she realised how il she was ... but even then she didn't think bet er of what she had done.'

'Let it go. That crash has already ruled your life for far too long,' Vito murmured tautly as he released her and sprang of the bed.

'You weren't sleeping in here with me,' Ava registered with a frown. 'In fact I thought you weren't coming back tonight.'

'I thought bet er of that but I returned very late and I didn't want to disturb you, cara mia.'

'So where are you going now?'

'I left some stu in my room. I a.s.sumed you'd stil be up when I got back,' Vito admit ed, compressing his lips.

A lit le less tense, Ava rested back against the pil ows.

She pushed the jagged images of the crash back out of her mind, stil shaken that those mislaid memories had nal y broken through to the surface. Her mother had been driving, not her. A sense of relief nal y owed through her but she felt guilty about it, as if somewhere in her mind she stil couldn't quite believe that she was ent.i.tled to feel that way.

Vito strode back from the door, stil bare-chested, his Vito strode back from the door, stil bare-chested, his remarkable abs exing as he set led the items he carried down on the bed in front of her, for al the world like a caveman dragging a dead deer into the cave for his woman.

'Er ... you went shopping?' Ava prompted in astonishment, lifting the wilting red roses. 'You should've put these in water to keep them fresh.'

'I haven't physical y bought owers before,' Vito grit ed. 'I usual y order them on the phone to be delivered.'

'That does cut out the practical aspect,' Ava conceded in an understanding tone, pleased he had chosen her owers personal y. 'n.o.body's ever given me owers before. They're lovely.'

'If they weren't half dead already,' Vito quipped, set ling the box of chocolates on her lap.

Ava wasted no time in opening the chocolates while covertly eying the third and final package.

'I'm sorry I didn't appreciate how you would feel about what your mother did to you,' Vito volunteered. 'I couldn't see the wood for the trees.'

'You always think you can x things.' Ava comfort ate a couple of chocolates and o ered them to him before reaching for the nal box. It was very light and she peeled o the wrapping and extracted a bubble-wrapped bauble. 'My goodness, it's a tree ornament,' she said, astonished at him having purchased such a festive said, astonished at him having purchased such a festive item.

The hand-decorated bauble twinkled in the light. It was marked with the year. 'Is the date signi cant?' she asked.

'Dio mio, of course it is. It's the year you brought Christmas back to life at Bolderwood. The castle looks fantastic,' Vito informed her, sliding lithely into bed beside her. 'Do you like it?'

'I love it,' she confessed, ensnared by smouldering dark golden eyes and registering that comfort s.e.x was as much on of er as comfort eating.

He removed the tree ornament from her hand and set the chocolates down. But Ava evaded him by scrambling out of bed with the roses. 'I'm just going to soak these in the basin!' she told him, hurrying into the bathroom.

'They're half dead!' Vito growled. 'I'l buy you more tomorrow.'

Ava ran water into the washbasin and caressed a silky petal with an appreciative nger. They were stil the very rst owers he'd ever given her and in her opinion, worthy of conservation.

'Thanks for the pressies,' she told him, climbing back into bed. 'I wish I'd got something for you.'

'You're my present,' Vito proclaimed, circling her soft mouth and then ravis.h.i.+ng her generous lips with his own with a hunger that made her every sense sizzle with reaction and joy. 'But there's one more I'd like to give reaction and joy. 'But there's one more I'd like to give you first. It's downstairs below the tree.'

'Oh ... downstairs,' Ava responded without enthusiasm, her at ention locked to his wide sensual mouth and only slowly skimming up to meet his smouldering dark golden gaze.

'I want you to open it.'

'Now?' Ava pressed in disbelief. 'It's two o'clock in the morning and it's the party tomorrow!'

Vito vaulted o the bed and extended the silk wrap he had bought for her. 'It's important, bel a mia,' he urged.

With a sigh, Ava got up and slid her arms into the sleeves. 'You can be very demanding.'

'It's not a deal-breaker, is it?' Vito studied her with his shrewd gaze, his innate cunning never more obvious to her and she ushed, wondering how much he had guessed about how she felt about him.

'You let Harvey into your bedroom,' she registered, hearing the dog whining behind the door at the sound of their voices and let ing him out.

Vito seized the opportunity to grab a s.h.i.+rt and put it on. 'He cried at the door.'

They descended the stairs, where the dying re in the grate was ickering enormous eerie shadows over the wal s and the decorations. Ava bent down and switched on the sparkling tree lights before spying the large gift-wrapped box below the huge tree. 'What on earth is it?'

wrapped box below the huge tree. 'What on earth is it?'

'Your Christmas present.'

'But I wasn't going to be here at Christmas!' Ava protested.

'I wouldn't have let you go,' Vito countered stubbornly.

'I was planning to leave the morning after the party,'