Castellano's Mistress of Revenge Read Online Free PDF Page A

you want it for. I understand the thickness of family blood even though I do not have a sibling. As it stands, I am happy to pay you to entertain me, but only until such time as I feel it is time to call it quits.’
    The look she gave him would have sliced through steel. ‘You mean when you’ve ground my pride into the dust.’
    Marc moved his lips from side to side, reining in his temper. She had some nerve to lament the damage to her pride, considering what she had done to his. ‘I have already told you to go and get dressed,’ he said. ‘I would advise you to do so and now, otherwise I may very well change my mind and take you dressed as you are.’
    She turned with a swish of her shoulder-length blonde hair and padded up the sweeping staircase, the action of her endless legs and neat bottom making the blood surge to his groin.
    He shoved his hands deep in his trouser pockets to stop himself from reaching for her as he so often had done in the past. He’d had lovers since, but no one made his blood heat the way Ava McGuire’s did. All she had to do was look at him from those smoky grey-blue eyes of hers and he was rock-hard. He sucked in a harsh breath, fighting against the flood of memories, but it was impossible to mentally sandbag against such powerful sensual recollections. For five years they had tortured him, making him ache with the need to feel her again, to have her in his arms, to hold her and have his fill of her.
    He ran a hand through the thickness of his hair as he paced the floor again. He would get her out of his system this time once and for all. Whatever it took, he would do it.
    He had to in order to move on with his life. This was his last chance and he was going to make the most of every single minute.
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    Ava dressed in a slim-fitting black cocktail dress from her short-lived modelling days and, slipping her feet into heels, picked up a small evening bag.
    She glanced at her reflection in the mirror, grimacing at the state of her hair. She put her bag down and quickly ran a brush through her tresses so they fell about her shoulders in casual waves. Apart from a dusting of mineral make-up and a quick dab of lip gloss she left therest of her face alone. It wouldn’t matter what she did to herself—she was never going to be good enough for Marc Castellano, she thought with aching sadness. He enjoyed the company of beautiful women all over the world, women who willingly grasped at the chance to hang off his arm or slip between the sheets of his bed. Ava’s stomach hollowed in anguish at the thought of how many had been there since she had been his mistress. The thought of him touching others the way he had touched her made her feel as if her heart was being wrenched in two. She had tried over the years not to think of it; every time she saw a Press photo of him with yet another glamorous woman on his arm she had quickly turned the page, suppressing the wave of longing until it finally subsided.
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    When she came down the stairs, Marc was speaking to a man who was dressed in a removals company uniform, the first of some items already placed in the foyer in cardboard boxes.
    Ava’s stomach clenched at the thought of how quickly things had changed. Marc had wasted no time in taking possession of the villa; how soon would he insist on the other more intimate terms of the deal? In the past she had shared his bed with love, or at least on her part. But how could she possibly share it with the hatred that bubbled like volcanic mud between them now?
    Marc dismissed the man and turned as she came down the last of the stairs, his dark gaze running over her in hot-blooded appraisal. ‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘But then you have always had the amazing ability to lookglamorous in whatever you are wearing—’ his eyes glinted as he added ‘—or not wearing.’
    Ava hoisted her chin at a haughty height. ‘In case you are