On This Side of Paradise: A Billionaire Second Chance Romance

cHAPTER sEVEN

"Why so shocked, querida? You left in a hurry the other day. And you didn't even leave any feedback."

"How the hell do you know where I live?" Ava was furious, and a little embarrassed in her worn bathrobe. "Where do you get the nerve to show up here?"

He shrugged, cool as cucumber. "Naturally, I had you followed."

Ava was bewildered.

"Why on earth would you do that?"

He shrugged.

"Eu não sei. Curiosity, maybe?" He replied in his indolent voice. "It is so liberating to see one's wife cavorting with another man and be cool about it."

Ava sliced right back, "Believe me. It was not cool for me at all to see you in action. So I left, to give you some space."

"You need not have bothered, amorzinha. I was doing quite well even with you as an audience, obrigado."

The mocking tone and his brazen attitude made something flare inside her. He often lapsed into his native tongue whenever he was upset or feeling strongly about something, Ava remembered. And right now, he had come fully prepared to pick a fight. She looked back at him in rebellion, her lips curved in a sweet smile.

Well, if it is a fight he wants, a fight is what he is going to get.

"You haven't changed at all, meu amor. Still picking up women in bars?"

His eyes flashed.

"Thankfully, once was enough for me. I do my pickings in more private now. You see, women picked up in bars tend to break your heart and leave it in the dust."

Ava laughed. "Oh, don't make me puke, Erico. People like you don't get their hearts broken."

In answer, Erico suddenly straightened ad pushed her inside the apartment, closing the door behind him, startling Ava.

"I am not into exhibitions, Ava, like the fool you have lined up to take my place," He derided. "We will have this conversation in private."

"But I don't want to have any conversation with you. I want you to leave."

"Ah, always the talk of leave." Instead of leaving, he made himself comfortable on her sofa. "Two years of my life, I heard nothing but how much you loathed me and wanted me to leave you alone."

"Not the entire two years." Ava said quietly.

After a second's pause, he agreed with her. "No, not the entire two years. Once, you had loved me as much as I had loved you. You had been indisputably mine, heart, body and soul. As I was yours." His blue gaze was intense on her, making her feel strange. A long lost memory was slowly beginning to surface. The way he had made her feel with just a look, or a slight touch.

"We had never even talked so much, before falling over each other."

Ava wanted him to stop. She was in shock that her body still responded to his honeyed voice. She hated that her entire being perked up, straining to rush to him like a homing pigeon.

"Could you not have loved him, Ava, for that brief love's sake? Did you hate him so much? Did our marriage mean nothing to you?"

The sudden accusation brought her to her senses. What was he talking about?

He saw the confusion on her face.

"Our child Ava. I am talking about the life we created between us." He had left the sofa and was standing close to her. He lifted his arms and bound them like two manacles around her wrists.

"Tell me, did you really wish him away, like you said? Had your prayers being so strong that you had that miscarriage?" Seeing the stillness in her face, his voice faltered. "What did you do?" His tone changed. "Did you, did you kill my child? You had that abortion?"

Ava resembled a rock in her stillness.

"Por Deus! You did, didn't you? You listened to your parents." He all but yelled at her. "You didn't want him, but I would have taken my child and raised him. Why? No... How? Ava how could you do it?" He released her, his hands gesturing wildly, "For three long years, I have wanted to look into your eyes and ask you this, that did you feel nothing? Your divorce notice arrived as soon as he was gone. As soon as you had got rid of our child." His accusations hit her like knives, she stood there helpless as his fury hit her like a volcano.

He sat back down on the sofa, visibly trying to get himself under control.

But Ava had had enough. The liar, how dare he?

"God forgive you Erico, but I won't. How dare you stalk me, then come into my home and throw these filthy accusations at me?" She seethed, quite unable to control her temper. "I, kill our child? It was you, you who told me he didn't care if he lived or died. I called you, even after what you had done to me, and you cut me off, behaved as if I was a piece of dirt beneath your shoes. I am your wife!" The last sentence came out in a screech.

Maybe that was what woke him, because a timeless minute later, feeling self-conscious under Erico's fascinated scrutiny of her, Ava's gaze shifted towards the bedroom hearing a tiny sound.

Clutching his large owl toy he never went to sleep without, Danielle stood at the threshold, rubbing his sleepy eyes.

"Momma, why are you upset?"

In slow motion, Erico turned towards her son's voice and stilled completely.