A Dangerous Solace

* * *

He swigged his beer, barely tasting it as it went down. He had no intention of settling down, providing an heir to the Benedetti name. It was enough that he’d restored its honour.

Besides, after two years on active service he knew better than most that life was lived in the moment, and at this particular moment he was enjoying a little variety in his life. He knew it irritated his mother, disappointed his grandmother, but as a Benedetti male it was almost expected that he would pursue women in numbers.

The old cliché that there was safety in numbers was true. He had a reputation now for being a bachelor who couldn’t be hooked. He played up to it.

As if conjured by the direction of his thoughts a woman stepped out onto the terrace.

She was slender and curvy all at once, and the lights turned her hair platinum.

‘There’s my cue,’ said Gianluca.

‘Fast cars and fast women—this is why I refuse to introduce you to my girlfriends,’ Tina called mischievously after him.

As he approached, the blonde turned up a flawless face and batted long lashes over her Bambi eyes.

‘Come and dance with me, Gianluca.’

‘I’ve got a better idea,’ he said, shouldering past her. ‘Let’s get a drink...’ For the life of him he couldn’t remember her name.

‘Donatella,’ she said coldly, in that moment losing the little-girl act.

‘Donatella—si.’ He suspected from her tone that he’d forgotten her name more than once tonight. It wasn’t important. She’d only latched on to him because of his name, his reputation.

He slid a hand into his jacket, dragged out his PDA. He’d have a drink, do some work, lose the blonde. But she was a good excuse to put his head back into what mattered—making a deal, setting up the next one, keeping an eye on what the Asia-Pacific markets were doing overnight. Not contemplating what Marco had found seemingly so effortlessly: a good woman. While he, Rome’s pre-eminent bachelor, had been stood up by a sexless Australian dragon who clearly didn’t know her loss was what’s-her-name’s gain...

He rifled through his mind for the blonde’s name again, gave up, and hit the bar for another drink.

* * *

Ava gave her name to the hostess and naturally only drew a blank. Part of her had hoped she would just be waved on in.

‘Strawberries,’ she whispered.

‘Scusi, signorina?’

Ava cleared her throat. ‘I believe I’m listed under the name “Strawberries”.’

Her mouth felt dry, her skin prickled, and she was sure the couple behind her were finding this hilarious. She closed her eyes briefly to fortify herself. Public humiliation suddenly felt all too close. ‘I’m Signor Benedetti’s guest.’

Just saying it made this all real, and Ava felt her Dutch courage—a glass of white wine before she left the hotel and two reds downstairs—curdle in her stomach like milk left in the sun.

‘Ah, si.’

The hostess seemed to find nothing unusual in a woman being listed as a fruit on Gianluca Benedetti’s guest list, and the thought made Ava’s belly clench a little tighter.

She made her way through a crowd of women in slips and heels and men in Armani before coming to a standstill.

Gianluca Benedetti was lounging like some kind of broad-shouldered Caesar, with his arms thrown across the back of a black leather settee, his powerful shoulders and chest delineated in a form-fitting dark shirt. His high cheekbones, sensuous mouth and uncompromisingly firm jaw gave him the look of one of Michelangelo’s marble carvings of male beauty.

Genetics had been so good to him there had to be a price. Spitefully Ava wished she could be around to see it exacted from him. He wasn’t alone—as if she had ever expected him to be alone. What had she thought? He’d be waiting for her? This was some sort of date?

His head was angled negligently to one side for a scantily clad blonde to whisper sweet nothings in his ear.

The blonde, naturally. The stab-your-heart-out heels blonde.

A sick feeling invaded her insides.

She was never going to be that woman.

For a teetering instant Ava was transported to that long-ago reception for her brother’s wedding. She had been a socially awkward young woman who just hadn’t fitted in with the glamorous, international crowd, watching from the sidelines as Gianluca Benedetti—Italian soccer star and possibly the most desired man on the planet—reclined on a banquette, gesticulating as he talked football with another guy. He’d had two girls wrapped around him like climbing vines, blonde and brunette. The equivalent of gelato flavours for grown men. He hadn’t even been paying attention to them.

At the time she had christened them vines, but, oh, how she had wanted to be like them. Just for one night to be a sexy, no-consequences girl, in slip and heels, hanging off the hottest guy at the party.

Even as she had struggled to come to terms with the odds of her ever being that kind of girl her eyes had moved over the object of their attention and for the first time in her life she’d been hit by something and hadn’t been able to hit back.

The tsunami of feeling that night had carried her past her inhibitions—past the little voice of caution that always asked if this was the right thing to do, if there would be consequences for her actions, the voice of a girl who’d had to look after herself from a very young age. That night she hadn’t cared about the consequences.

She had only cared about him.

Having him.

Feeling sick now, she was unable to credit that she had stepped so easily back into the same shoes, that she had learned nothing from her experiences.

Before she could even formulate her next move he was getting up, throwing back those broad shoulders and unexpectedly moving her way. It was so sudden her first instinct was to turn tail and flee, but she wasn’t an uncertain girl any more. She could handle this.

Sucking in her tummy, adjusting the line of her dress, she prepared herself for what she would say.

I came but I wish I hadn’t. You’re a womaniser, a cad and a bounder, and I wish I’d never met you.

He was less than a metre away when she realised he wasn’t coming over to her. His hard gaze moved unseeingly over her, as if she were one of the faceless crowd, and Ava realised she wasn’t going to have her moment.

He’d issued the invitation but he’d already forgotten about her. She hadn’t even made enough impact this morning for her face to register with him.

Her stomach buckled.

She watched him moving easily but inexorably towards the exit, the doors opening and swallowing him up.

Ava only became aware that she was struggling to push her way through the crowd when someone stepped on her foot and she lost a shoe. Pausing to scoop it up, she pushed through the exit doors, then virtually ran outside. She hesitated on the steps leading down into the square, but only to scan desperately for the direction he’d taken.

She gave a start as she caught sight of him, moving out of the darkness across the square.

Shoving it all aside—a lifetime of prudence, plans and protecting herself from men like this one...well, any man really...not to mention leaving her perfectly good A-line coat behind—Ava began to run after him.

CHAPTER FOUR

GIANLUCA HEARD THE FOOTSTEPS, light, fleet heels striking notes on the cobblestones.