“Ava?” Marie’s voice was ringing through the house. She lifted the bread out of the oven and placed it down onto the bench with a satisfied grin.
“Yeah?” She called back, smiling over at Milly, who was happily engaged in finger painting her high chair tray with yoghurt.
The door swung open and Marie strolled in. “The incredibly gorgeous Cristiano Barata is back.”
Immediately her smile dropped and her eyes flew to Milly. “Back where?”
“Out the front,” Marie hitched a thumb towards the reception.
“Oh, shit.” The colour drained from her face. “Can you stay here with Milly mouse?”
“Of course I can.” Marie turned to face the toddler and burst out laughing. “Just don’t ask me to touch her. What a mess you are!”
Ava’s smile was forced. “Marie, keep her in the kitchen, okay?”
Marie picked up on the note of tension and might have questioned her usually unflappable boss, except that Ava was out of the doors already.
“Cris?” She was so terrified that she forgot to be nervous. While she’d decided she had to tell him about their daughter, it absolutely couldn’t be in that moment.
“The power is out in my accommodation.”
“Oh. It is?” She frowned, and looked nervously towards the kitchen. “I’m so sorry. I’ll get Jackson to come and take a look.” He had to leave now!
“That is not necessary. It is probably just a fuse. Is the power run through the house?”
“No,” she said gratefully, thinking back to when the big old switchboard had been in the kitchen. The very same kitchen that currently housed a dairy-covered toddler.
“Where is it?”
“Cristiano,” she held a hand up. “You don’t have to do this. You’re a guest. I have staff.”
“So?” He said with a shake of his head and a laugh that sent a tingle of awareness dancing along her spine. “I have no doubt I know this place better than anyone you employ.”
“That’s … besides the point. You’re a paying customer. Not my …”
His lips lifted in a gesture of amusement. “Not your …?”
“Cris …” Her voice was a plea. A noise sounded from the kitchen, followed by the unmistakable tones of laughter. Two voices combined to make a single boisterous sound. “Let’s go,” she said urgently, forcing her legs to carry her out of the front doors.
He took one last look towards the kitchen and then followed behind her.
“You have to move your car,” she huffed as they walked side by side down the stairs. “That’s not a parking space.”
“It seems like it to me.”
She threw him a look of frustration. “Haven’t you learned yet that you can’t just write your own rules?”
“No, Ava. If anything, I’ve learned the exact opposite.”
“Meaning?” She demanded angrily, though of course it was fear that was in her heart, nothing more. Fear that she’d almost been caught red-handed with the enormous secret she’d been nursing for nearly three years.
He stopped walking and looked down at her, and Ava paused automatically in response. “Meaning …” he enunciated clearly but his accent was heavy and seductive. He was weighing his words; his eyes scanned her face. Then, he smiled, and it was as though the sun was beaming directly through her. “Meaning, Ava, that I have travelled the world and seen things you can only imagine. It gives one a unique perspective on life and on life’s petty rules. Such as where one may and may not park a car.”
Her mouth dropped open, and her mind spun. “That’s both arrogant and foolish.”
He shrugged in a gesture of unconcern. “Perhaps I am both those things. That is not really your problem, is it?”
“No.” She swallowed, her mouth working overtime.