Did he feel anything?
It was impossible to tell. He walked with the gait of a man who was completely himself. His hands were not shaking like hers. His face did not show signs of sleeplessness, like hers.
Though he was still a small distance away, she watched as he climbed the steps two at a time, and she tried to see if he was any different.
His hair was shorter than he’d worn it then; now it was a practical style that suited him well, as opposed to the unruly dark mane he had kept pulled into a bun on top of his head. That had suited him too, though. He had been unruly and dark.
His face was just as striking as it had been when she’d loved him. A square jaw dusted with stubble and cheeks that had dimpled when he laughed. And he’d laughed a lot. They both had. Like carefree teenagers with the world at their feet. Cristiano had made her truly happy for the first time since losing her mother Meredith.
Ava stared at him as though time no longer mattered. She had loved him with all her heart, and that same heart was rabbiting furiously in her chest. His eyes were covered by sunglasses but she didn’t need to see them to know exactly how they would look. Dark brown and as meltingly desirable as warmed chocolate. She remembered his eyes perfectly, for she’d stared into them for so many hours she had lost any perception beyond him, and them, and what they meant to one another.
She tried to swallow but her tongue was heavy and thick in her mouth. He wore a pair of beige chinos and a white polo shirt, and Ava knew exactly what was concealed by the casual clothes. He was slim, but muscled, lean and lithe. He had a strength that came from his being; a strength that his virile, beautiful body had easily expressed. As he reached the top of the stairs, he paused for a moment and Ava’s breath hitched in her throat.
Was he thinking of her? Was he remembering their time together? Or had she truly become what he’d said she would: a girl he’d known once and never thought of again?
Her chest contracted painfully at the remembrance of his words. There’d been more of course. Such harmful claims never came out of nowhere. No; the statement had been buffered on both sides by painful utterances.
And everything he’d thrown at her had proved only one thing: that she had been right to end it.
Oh, she’d never stopped loving him. How could she? But nor had she regretted her decision. When faced with his personality and hers, compatibility was a fantasy. In all ways but one, anyhow.
She heard the glass doors of the house opening, and steeled herself. She could not be hiding out in the kitchen when he arrived. Appearing resilient and unscathed was part of her plan to handle this turn of events.
With a quick glance at her reflection in the mirror on the kitchen wall, she stepped into the reception area.
And froze.
Resilient and unscathed? Yeah, right. She might as well have had physical scars scored deep into her face, for all that she was unmarked by him, and what he’d meant to her.
Barely anything stood between them. Only perhaps ten steps, or eight of his longer strides. But Ava was powerless to take them. Her feet were planted to the floor as though the soles had been glued. Her body wouldn’t work. Every single fibre of her being was employed waiting to see him. To observe him. To process the fact that now, after more than three years apart, they were back in the same room. In this room, where they’d last spoken.
Her stomach dipped and her throat constricted.
He was looking in her direction, but she couldn’t see beyond his reflective glasses. Slowly, almost like he had read her thoughts, he lifted the sunnies from his eyes, brushing them along his forehead to sit in amongst his thick crop of dark hair.
His eyes seared hers.
And she knew then that the same rage he’d felt when he’d stormed away from her was there.
Time had passed. Temper had not.
“Good afternoon, sir. You must be the last of our wedding party.” Marie, blessed Marie, calm and efficient, glided out from the hallway and moved towards Cristiano, rendering Ava obsolete.
He didn’t speak. He stared across the reception area at Ava, his eyes charged with the same electricity that powered her soul.
“Ava.” A drawl. A cynical, condemnatory use of her name.
Her smile was shaky; it was clearly a fraud, and yet it came to her automatically. “Cris.” The word ached in her mo
uth. It was soaked with emotion. How she had uttered the shortened version of his name over and over again. Through laughter. Passion. Love. Lust. Hunger. Need. And finally desperate rage and grief. Her gut clenched.
He placed his suitcase down on the floor without taking his eyes off her face, but the simple act seemed to bring her back to the present with a thud. “Marie,” she shifted her gaze to her off-sider. “I’ll check Mr Barata in.” Her voice was raspy and thin, hardly surprising under the circumstances.
“You sure, Aves? It’s no worries for me to do it.”
Ava shook her head, and moved jerkily towards the enormous oak desk. It had been in the house since the beginning; over a hundred and fifty years of wine making history were encapsulated in the property, and Ava was now a proud part of that. She ran her hands over the smooth timber surface to take comfort from its strength, and tried to see him as just another guest.
But he wasn’t.