Castellano's Mistress of Revenge Read Online Free Page A

living together as of now.’
    Ava looked up at him in wide-eyed trepidation. ‘So…so soon?’
    His eyes went to her mouth before returning to hers. ‘I have waited five years to have you where I want you,’ he said.
    She gave him an embittered look. ‘Where mightthat be?’ she asked. ‘In the palm of your hand, begging for mercy?’
    He traced a long finger over each of the upper curves of her breasts before dipping into the valley of her cleavage, the nerves beneath her skin going off like miniature explosives. ‘I think you know exactly where I want you,’ he said in a tone that was rough and deep and sensually, sinfully dangerous.
    Ava felt her body quiver at the thought of him plunging into her, claiming her as his.
    Not in love.
    Not in mutual attraction.
    But in lustful, hate-filled revenge….

CHAPTER TWO
    I N SPITE of the warmth of the room Ava felt her skin rise in goose pimples. She rubbed at her upper arms, trying so hard to hold her ground. Her head was aching with tension, her mind trying to stay clear and focused while the earth seemed to be shifting beneath her feet. The air was fizzing with Marc’s hatred, high-voltage waves of it zapping at her, making her skin pepper all the more.
    â€˜Are you cold?’ Marc asked.
    She kept her mouth rigid with anger. ‘What is that to you?’
    He held her glare for a pulsing moment. ‘Have you had dinner?’ he asked.
    â€˜No, and if you think I am going to dine with you dressed like this you can think again,’ she said with a lift of her chin.
    He smiled as his gaze raked over her again. ‘Delightful as that sounds, no—I will not take you out in public like that. As of this evening your body is for my eyes and my eyes only.’
    Ava found it hard to stand still for the rage that was rumbling through her like seismic activity preceding amassive earthquake. ‘You know there are probably street workers who come much cheaper than me,’ she said, goaded beyond caution.
    â€˜Yes, but I want you,’ he said with a devilish gleam in his black-as-night gaze. ‘We have unfinished business, do we not?’
    Ava glared at him. ‘Any business we had ended five years ago. I thought I had made that perfectly clear.’
    His top lip lifted in disgust. ‘Oh, yes, by moving out of the apartment I had set up for you without even telling me to my face. I came home to find the place empty apart from a note.’
    Ava felt a twinge of guilt about not meeting him face-to-face back then, but she knew if she had he would have persuaded her to stay with him. A note had seemed safer, she’d had more control, the sort of control she had lost the moment she had met and fallen in love with him. She had been so weak where he was concerned, and, although she had put it down to her youth at the time, seeing him again frightened her that it might very well happen all over again. She had come full circle. The irony of it was beyond painful; it was like a razor blade stuck sideways in her throat. She felt as if she could taste the blood of its embedment, the bitter, metallic taste of regret and heartbreak at what she had lost by leaving him, and yet here she was, back in his life and under his command.
    Ava lowered her gaze from the accusing glare of Marc’s. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, but it came out grudgingly and not at all convincing.
    Marc watched as she stood before him with her bottom lip trembling, her heart-shaped face pale, and her grey-blue eyes like lakes of shimmering liquid.
    He turned away, his anger making his movements stiff and jerky. He clenched and unclenched his hands, wanting to punch deep holes in the walls in frustration and fury. It sickened him that he had allowed her to drop his guard. For years he had sworn he would not do as his father had done: become totally captivated by a woman who couldn’t be trusted.
    His mother had slept her way