Unlocking her Innocence

‘I don’t know, sir …’

‘Find out,’ he instructed.

Ava was in the basement, the layout of which she now knew like the back of her hand. She had filed away entire boxes of documents, and when she had completed that task Karen had introduced her to her shiny new and fiendishly complex filing system and put her to work on it. In the distance she heard the lift clanging as the doors opened and she did not have long to wait for her visitor.

‘Since you won’t go out to lunch, I’ve brought lunch to you,’ a familiar voice announced.

Suppressing a groan, Ava spun round from the cabinet of files she was reorganising and smoothed down her skirt in a movement that came as naturally as breathing to her in Pete Langford’s radius. Of medium height and lanky build, Pete looked over her slender figure in a way that made her feel vaguely unclean. It was a few days since he had made his first call down to the basement to chat to her and even her display of indifference had failed to daunt him. Now he extended a panini and a soft drink to her while he lounged back against the bare table in the centre of the room.

‘Take a break,’ he urged, setting the items down on the table.

‘You shouldn’t have bought those.’ Her stomach growled because her tiny budget didn’t run to lunches. ‘Give them to someone else—I have some shopping to do.’

‘Do it after work. I’m here now,’ he pointed out as if she ought to drop everything to give him some attention.

Ava hated being railroaded and valued her freedom of choice. She didn’t fancy an impromptu lunch with Pete in the solitude of the basement and had no desire to drift into a situation where she would have to fight him off. He was the sort of guy who thought he was God’s gift and who believed persistence would pay off. One of her co-workers had already warned her that he went after all the new girls. ‘I’m going to take a break upstairs,’ she told him.

Pete sighed. ‘What’s your problem?’

‘I don’t have one. I’m just not interested,’ Ava told him baldly.

‘Are you gay?’ Pete demanded abruptly. ‘I mean, all that time in prison, I suppose you didn’t have much choice …’

Ava lost colour and stiffened. ‘Who told you I was in prison?’

‘Was it meant to be hush-hush? Everybody knows.’

‘It’s not something I talk about,’ Ava retorted curtly, trying not to react to the news that her past was an open secret amongst her co-workers, some of whom had proved quite reluctant to speak to her. The bite of humiliation, the pain of being the oddity and distrusted while people speculated about her crime, cut deep.

‘Who told you?’ another, harsher male voice enquired from the doorway. ‘That was supposed to be confidential information.’

Ava levelled her stunned gaze on Vito. He must have used the stairs because she hadn’t heard the lift. He stood at the door, his gorgeous eyes a brilliant scorching gold, his lean strong face hard as granite as he awaited Pete Langford’s response. Having heard that last crack about Ava being gay, Vito was taut with outrage and simmering fury. He did not understand why he was so furious to find Ava with another man until it occurred to him that after her prison sentence she was probably a sitting duck for such an approach and that as her employer it surely behoved him to ensure that nobody took advantage of her vulnerability. Not that at that precise moment Ava actually looked vulnerable, he conceded abstractedly. Her eyes were sparkling with angry resentment and her slim but undeniably curvy figure was beautifully sculpted in the black pencil skirt and tight-fitting red shirt she wore. Without any warning, another image was superimposed over her: Ava, amazingly elfin cute in a lace corset top, short black leather skirt and clunky boots. Startled, he blinked, but the damage had been done and he was left willing back a surge of arousal.