Kitabı oku: «The Italian's Summer Seduction», sayfa 4

Chapter Six

MILLY HAD STRETCHED her wash and brush up into the best part of an hour she realised guiltily when she finally glanced at her watch. Most of that time had been spent leaning out of the bedroom window, breathing the warm scented air and making herself concentrate on nothing else but the view of the shallow wooded valley, the arc of the blue sky overhead, soaking up the utter tranquility. Anything to take her mind off her decidedly dodgy situation.

In any other circumstances she would have loved being here, especially with the man she loved. It was the perfect place for a romantic idyll.

And where that had come from she had no idea. The wayward thought shocked her. She didn’t have a man to love, here or anywhere else!

Unlike her sister, to whom the male of the species gravitated like moths to a brilliant light, Milly hadn’t had much to do with the opposite sex. Quiet and unsure of herself, always deep in her twin’s shadow, she hadn’t exactly been sought after and had certainly never been in love.

Her first date had been a disaster. Sixteen years old and, compared with Jilly, still wet behind the ears, she’d been hugely flattered when, out of the blue, the local pin-up, Mitch Farraday, had asked her out.

He’d been earthily good-looking, full of himself, pushy. Her girl friends had all drooled over him. But the date had ended up in a scary tussle at the back of the cinema with him calling her vile names. He had taken it for granted that buying her a seat in the stalls fully entitled him to have sex. It had horrified her and she’d fought him off like a wild spitting cat.

It had frightened her, had put her off the male sex for ages. Then she’d met Bruce. Twelve years her senior, an accountant, he’d lived with his widowed mother.

He’d called into the shop to buy a pot plant and they’d got talking. Discovering a mutual interest in visiting local gardens open to the public, he’d returned a week later and invited her to accompany him and his mother to Bassett Hall gardens, an annual pilgrimage for them, apparently. And because she’d heard of the acres of rhododendrons and azaleas—at their best at that time of the year, the lakes and grottos, she’d accepted. Without her own transport she hadn’t been able to get there under her own steam.

And because Bruce was solid and worthy, without a flash bone in his body, and she was comfortable in his company they had seen each other once a week for the last two years.

He was a pleasant companion. He made no sexual demands. It had only been after the death of her mother that things had changed, subtle hints from him and not so subtle ones from his mother about settling down, formalising their relationship.

Sighing, Milly turned away from the window. She liked Bruce—and his mother—but she didn’t love him and never would. She’d been trying to think of a way to tell him, before he decided to come out with a proposal. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings or his pride.

But Cesare had happened. His misconceptions about her twin, his threats.

In the turmoil she hadn’t given poor Bruce a thought. He’d be worried about her and she felt really bad about that. But there was nothing she could do about it until she got back to the mainland. She could phone him and tell him she’d taken a temporary job as a companion. And thinking about Bruce—something she rarely did unless she was actually with him—was, she recognised, a cowardly delaying tactic.

Sooner or later she was going to have to face Cesare, carry on the deception as best she could and hope to discover why exactly he had brought her here. And hope to heaven that it wasn’t what she thought it was!

Sex.

She was pretty sure Jilly had confidently expected marriage. Was as sure as she could be that her twin had taken off, hurting and humiliated, the moment that brute had told her that all he wanted from her was hot sex.

Now he believed he had a hold over his grandmother’s companion. That with his threat to go to the law hanging over her she’d do exactly as he wished. So did he think he could take up where he’d left off? Did the idea of that brand of dominating sexual revenge give him a buzz?

According to his warped mind, Jilly had stolen an as yet unspecified amount of money. Was he now intent on exacting repayment? As Jilly’s stand-in the thought was enough to give her nightmares!

Her tummy muscles tight with nerves, Milly straightened her spine until it was ramrod stiff and made her way downstairs to set about making lunch. Not that she was hungry, but he, conscienceless, would be. And it would give her something to do, maybe even take her mind off the mess she was in for all of two seconds.

To be met by the sight of Cesare confidently dividing the contents of a pan between two plates with the panache of a professional.

‘I was just about to call you.’ A warm smile, lacking guile, then a slight inclination of his far-too-handsome head. ‘I thought we’d eat outside. The wine’s uncorked; perhaps you’d like to pour it.’

He’d found a small table and two chairs from somewhere, she noted, as she stepped out on to the sun-soaked paved area in front of the cottage. The edges of the white tablecloth moved lazily in the gentle breeze.

Cutlery, glasses, a basket of bread rolls and a slab of creamy butter on a blue earthenware plate. Her hands shook as she poured a little red wine into both glasses and she sank on to one of the chairs because her knees gave way as he appeared.

‘Tell me what you think.’ Cesare slid a plate in front of her and retreated to the chair on the other side of the table. ‘When I cook I like to experiment.’ An eyebrow quirked in rare self-disparagement. ‘Sometimes it goes horribly wrong!’

Against all her expectations the delicate aroma enticed the appetite she thought she’d lost for ever and, struggling with confusion, Milly forked up lemony rice and one of the perfectly cooked succulent prawns. The dish was garnished with mushrooms and roasted peppers and was absolutely delicious.

Suddenly ravenous, she reached for a roll and lavished it with butter and Cesare demanded softly, ‘Well, what’s the verdict?’

‘Fabulous—you can cook for me any time you like!’ Her first real smile for days lit up her features and he returned it with a devastating grin of his own before starting on his meal.

He could actually seem human, Milly marvelled, trying to see through the mists of confusion that were now fogging her brain. And how easily, naturally, she could respond to him was an eye-opener! A tiny frown furrowed her brow. She’d honestly believed that Cesare Saracino wouldn’t know how to boil a kettle and was too arrogant to even want to know how to perform that most mundane of tasks. Yet he’d set to and produced one of the most delicious meals she’d ever eaten.

She’d been proved wrong about that; was she also wrong about believing him to be all bad? And another thought struck her a savage blow. Had she been acting like a brain dead gnat when she’d entered this utterly distasteful deception?

She was trapped here. Once back on the mainland she would be trapped at the villa. With blithe stupidity she’d seen herself tracking Jilly down before Cesare reached her, combing the streets of Florence, calling the contact number her twin had given when she’d worked there, questioning her friends and her former employer in the hope of gaining a clue to her present whereabouts.

Fat chance! She might just as well decide to explore the dark side of the moon. Jumping on a bus or taking a taxi into Florence wasn’t an option when she had no money and, as Cesare had stringently pointed out, she wouldn’t be earning any either!

Reflectively she sipped her wine and Cesare, leaning back against his chair, one arm hooked casually over the back, said softly, ‘A penny for them.’

‘You’d be wasting your money!’ Milly came back abstractedly, fighting uncertainty over what to do.

Carry on in her role as her sister or come clean and confess all, throw herself on his mercy. After all, he thought she was, in his entrenched opinion, the devious Jilly and he’d been nothing but kind and friendly since they’d reached the island. A prelude to getting her to share that huge bed with him? Should she rid herself of this hare-brained deception once and for all?

It was what her conscience told her she wanted but she’d jumped in without thinking back in England, she wouldn’t do it again. She’d have to think it out properly.

‘I wonder. I’m fairly canny when it comes to handing out such vast sums of money!’

Milly’s breath caught in her throat. He looked so relaxed, so spectacularly good to look at; the hand that toyed with the stem of his wineglass was strong yet achingly elegant. Beautiful hands to match the rest of his perfect male physique. And that slight smile, tilted at one corner—the slumbrously wicked gleam in those dark, darkly seductive, eyes as they locked with hers, was more than she could take. Her breath was quickening and, to her deep shame, she could feel her nipples pressing against the silky top, tight, oversensitive buds.

He was lethal! Jilly would have been a pushover. And in all honesty Milly couldn’t blame her!

Unable to prolong what suddenly and shatteringly seemed like a not so subtle form of torture—frantic heartbeat, trembling lower limbs, her skin scorchingly hot—Milly shot to her feet and got out through a throat that had gone suffocatingly tight, ‘I’ll do the dishes.’

‘Leave them.’ His voice was lazy but there was nothing lazy about the inescapable grip of those long beautiful fingers as they closed around her wrist. He rose to his feet, still holding her wrist, and her face flooded with hot pink as his darkly veiled eyes drifted over her body with a blatant lack of inhibition.

He couldn’t make his expectations more explicit, she thought wildly, out and out panic warring with the most unnerving sensation of being on a perpetual roller coaster ride.

The strong, imperative physical awareness was something she wasn’t equipped to handle. She most definitely didn’t need it. What type of creature was she to be turned on by a monster, just because he was the most handsome, sexy and wickedly charismatic male she was ever likely to set her eyes on?

And when he stepped round the table, released her wrist, gave her a tap on her curvy backside that lingered that little bit too long and said in a voice like melted chocolate, ‘Put on a pair of walking shoes; I’ll introduce you to my island,’ Milly fled, her haste making her heartbeat race even faster.

As Cesare cleared the decks and made short work of washing the dishes and returning the kitchen to pristine order a small satisfied smile hovered at the corners of his long mouth.

The imposter was running scared! A job well done. His off-the-wall decision to bring her here was completely justified. And he couldn’t believe that she could be so naive. She still believed she was successfully deceiving him.

Santo cielo! How could she be so naive? A deliberately steamy look and she coloured like the sunrise, trembled. Didn’t she know how her twin would have reacted?

The Jilly Lee he knew would have returned that look with interest, parted her glossy lips and lowered her artificially enhanced lashes over sultry green come-bed-me eyes. She would have smouldered, not trembled like a sacrificial virgin!

The imposter, Milly, gave herself away at practically every turn and he was debating how much longer he would wait before he dropped his bombshell when she appeared at the head of the stairs.

She was still wearing the blue top that skimmed her pert and perfect breasts, and the cropped white jeans that clung to her slender, beautifully formed thighs. And on her feet she wore what he supposed she classed as walking shoes. Flat soles and thin straps, gladiator-style.

But the thing that riveted his attention, squeezed his heart, was the way that stress had darkened her clear green eyes, widening them with a mute appeal that pierced him like an arrow, the way her soft unpainted lips hovered between a tremble and a wary smile.

Out of nowhere came the unwelcome feeling that he was behaving badly, married to an intense desire to care for her, protect her, keep her safe, kiss that lovely, vulnerable mouth until it melted into passion until desire and wanting replaced the stress in those beautiful stress filled eyes.

She was descending the stairs now. Slowly, uncertainly. Cesare closed his eyes briefly to shut her out and cursed himself for reacting like a green fool, an immature sucker for an exquisitely feminine face and form.

The vulnerable, little girl lost look had to be an act; he had to remember that or he’d find himself believing he was behaving like a monster! That he was wrong.

He was never wrong!

Like her twin, she would have left innocence and purity behind her soon after she’d first climbed out of the cradle! Despite her perfect, unsullied beauty—the opposite of her twin’s brash in-your-face would-be sexiness—she was just as devious and deceitful as her freeloading, thieving sister, he reminded himself with brutal firmness.

And later this evening—let her stew a little longer, not knowing what he expected of her in her role as Jilly—he would tell her what he knew and shock her into telling him where her twin was.

She would know; of course she would. Back in England she hadn’t corrected his initial belief that she was the absconding Jilly, as she surely would have done had she had an honest bone in her body!

As soon as he’d left she would have contacted her sister—who might even have been skulking in the flat above for all he knew. They would have concocted the plan between them. As long as Milly could keep up the deception Jilly would be free to disappear again, cover her tracks completely. And as soon as she thought her sister was safe from his demands for retribution Milly too would slope away in the night.

As she drew level he forced a light tone, a smile. ‘Let’s go.’ And turned away before she could sense the anger building inside him.

‘Wait.’ Firmly said but inside she was a quaking wreck. At some moment during the time she’d spent searching through her caseful of Jilly’s cast offs for something remotely resembling walking shoes it had hit her that she couldn’t go on with this. With every moment that passed the deception became more distasteful. Intrinsically honest, she hated living a lie and, to be brutally truthful, she wasn’t brave enough to face his formidable anger when she gave herself away—as she surely would. Better to confess first. That way she could show herself to be not all bad in his eyes. Though why his opinion of her should matter one way or the other she brushed aside as being unimportant.

True, so far he hadn’t had any suspicions that anything was wrong, that she wasn’t who she was pretending to be. He’d actually been rather nice, flirtatious at one unforgettable point. Intent on getting Jilly back in his bed even though the No Marriage proviso was still writ large? After all, as he saw it, Jilly was in no position to refuse his demands.

The whole business was making her feel thoroughly ashamed of herself, not to mention horribly nervous on her own account, but now, against her former reasoning she’d reached the snap conclusion that she had to carry on with it. Opening her mouth, telling him to wait prior to making her confession, she’d had a sudden blinding mental flashback to the way her twin had always been so protective of her when they were growing up. She couldn’t let her down now. Somehow she was going to have to find a way to track Jilly down before he did.

The broad shoulders beneath the soft white cotton stiffened perceptibly and after a strained moment he slowly turned. The smile he gave her was breathtaking, one ebony brow was raised slightly, half questioning, half humorous, adding even more charisma to those lean hard features. ‘You want to borrow some footwear that won’t disintegrate after the first dozen yards?’

‘No.’ If only it were that simple! If she were to carry on with this ridiculous deception, then for her own sake she had to get things straight—never mind how Jilly would have reacted in this situation. Slim shoulders tense, her soft mouth firm, she levelled at him, ‘I want to know why you thought it necessary to bring me here.’ A deep breath. ‘And where you’ll be sleeping tonight.’

Chapter Seven

‘YOU KNOW WHY I brought you here,’ Cesare responded lightly and with the apparent sincerity that hid the initial much darker intent. ‘As I said to Nonna—in your hearing, as I remember—after your recent loss you need a break. I am not a complete monster.’

As her lovely eyes darkened with pain at the reminder of her mother’s death Cesare fisted his hands and cursed himself, bitterly regretting the glib distortion of his motives.

A devious little liar she might be, but she was capable of having deep feelings.

Unlike her twin.

The hedonistic Jilly would have shed a few facile tears at the loss of a parent, he assessed. But, knowing her as he did, he couldn’t imagine her having a single unselfish emotion. When pressed about her family she’d dismissed them with that irritating tinkling laugh, claiming her mother to be small-town, small-minded and her kid sister as being practical and deadly dull, too boring—Not our kind of people, not worth talking about, dahling.

But this one—Ebony brows clenched, he narrowed his eyes on her expressive features. Silky lashes were lowered to veil her dark green eyes, her soft pink mouth trembled just slightly and her glorious breasts were heaving with suppressed emotion. Yes, this twin had deep feelings, despite her manifest faults—

‘Come.’ His voice soft with sympathy and regret for his own insensitivity, he slotted an arm around her shoulders, drawing her into the sunlight. ‘We will walk, relax.’ Unbidden, his long fingers caressed the firm warm flesh of her upper arm before he realised what he was doing.

When he did he suffered the sharp reminder of her duplicity and his arm dropped back to his side in double quick time. His voice was flat with cynicism as he made himself focus on her deception and the punishment he was meting out. ‘As for the sleeping arrangements, there is a ground floor bedroom beyond the kitchen. If that is a disappointment to you, you only have to say so. On the other hand—’ his voice purred now, surprising him by its husky quality ‘—you might find yourself sleepless, wondering when I will give in to my baser instincts and seek the pleasures of your bed.’

‘More pasta?’ His voice was slow, deep and nerve-quiveringly sexy.

Milly shook her head, trying to cope with the sudden, highly unwelcome way her tummy muscles went into hot spasm. Nothing to do with the spicy tomato sauce and spaghetti they’d cooked together, working companionably enough with just the odd tingling frisson when they’d touched, hands brushing or bare arm gliding against bare arm, and everything to do with the way he made her feel.

As if she were walking a tightrope in a high wind without a safety net.

He’d been lying when he’d said he’d brought her here to give her a break; did he think she was stupid enough to believe that? He thought she was Jilly, his ex-lover, the woman he was blisteringly angry with. This so-called break was a punishment. And the worst thing was she had no idea what form that punishment would take.

And on another level entirely, she felt utterly disorientated. Nothing made sense.

Why had she warmed to him during the long afternoon as he’d shown her around his island, forgetting why she was here, the depth of her own deceit?

Why had she relaxed enough to enjoy every single moment of it?

Why couldn’t she blank out that refusing-to-budge memory of exactly how she’d felt when those long tanned fingers had caressed her arm, or the way he’d slipped a protective arm around her waist as they’d stood on top of the cliffs above the cove nearest the cottage, looking down to the white sands far below. ‘Tomorrow we will bathe,’ he’d told her, ‘take a picnic, spend the day.’

She’d felt dizzy. Not because the narrow zigzagging track down to the secluded beach looked hair-raising but because the warmth of his strong hand clamped to her waist had sent a quiver of heat across her breasts, rippling and stinging there until it had arrowed down to the pit of her stomach with devastating accuracy, making her go weak at the knees and catch her breath.

Now he said, ‘You are tired? You would like to go to bed?’

His low, husky drawl made it sound like an invitation. A slow burn ignited her skin. If it had really been an invitation would she have had the strength of will to turn it down? Or would she, like her poor betrayed sister, have accepted it with open arms, giving him her love only to have it tossed aside?

But it had been nothing of the sort, she decided shortly. What had he said earlier? That she would spend a sleepless night wondering if he would give in to his baser instincts and seek her bed.

Meaning he would have to overcome his fastidious distaste for having sex with a woman he believed to be a thief! But he’d been her sister’s lover before. Was he still in lust with her?

Lying sleepless—nerves screaming—and wondering!

No, thank you!

‘I’m fine,’ she said, glossing over her raging internal turmoil. ‘I’ll sit awhile. It’s so peaceful.’

And it was. Despite his presence.

Darkness was closing in. They’d eaten supper outside. There was a candle in a glass bowl on the table and she could hear the mesmeric whisper of the incoming tide. If it weren’t for worrying about his intentions, agonising over the way she was drawn to him, she could have believed she was in Paradise.

‘Fine!’ Cesare scoffed silently. She was nothing of the sort. Tension came off her in almost tangible waves. Worrying about the prospect of his probable sexual demands? As he’d intended her to, he conceded toughly. A small, easily justified revenge for the way she had set out to deceive him.

A contrary impulse to rise, go to her, massage the taut muscles of her neck and shoulders until she relaxed, leant back into him while he gave in to temptation and slid his hands down to slip beneath the top that left little to the imagination to caress her inviting breasts was slapped down hard before the erotic wanderings of his imagination could do any real damage.

Initially he’d fully intended to hit her with what he knew this evening, demand she tell him the whereabouts of the twin she was impersonating so badly. But during the day something had changed. He didn’t know how or why or even what, but changed it had.

He needed more time to find out what she was really like. He grimaced. More time to analyse his own ambivalent reactions to her was probably nearer the truth.

As he settled back into the shadows his long mouth curved with hastily manufactured cynicism as he watched her reach for the wineglass he’d refilled. Her hand shook. She set the glass down again. Fearful of spilling the contents, betraying herself?

He’d have to be brain dead to have missed the signs. The way her soft flesh had quivered whenever he’d touched her, the tell-tale huff of indrawn breath, the unmistakable peaking of her tight nipples against her silky top.

So would she welcome him if he went to her bed? The unbidden thought had shattering appeal, set his skin tingling with the slow burn of desire.

Dio mio! His tough jaw-line hard, Cesare shot to his feet. Male lust was taking him places he didn’t want to be. The object of this exercise had been to punish her, not himself!

‘Finish your wine.’ His voice emerged coldly. He didn’t look at her, didn’t trust himself to see the look of soft vulnerability she seemed incapable of hiding and not do something about it. Something he’d bitterly regret. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

As Cesare swept back into the cottage Milly expelled a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. She heard an inner door slam. The door to the ground floor sleeping quarters he’d talked about?

Whatever. He was suddenly riven with anger, that much she did know. But didn’t know why.

She passed a hand over her forehead in an attempt to rub away the tense frown lines. He was angry with Jilly, not with her, she had to remind herself. Keeping up with her dual identity was really getting to her.

She was finding the deception more than distasteful but at least it bought time she consoled herself as she hauled herself to her feet and began to stack the used dishes. More time for her to somehow figure a way of tracking her twin down, more time for Jilly to get over her going-nowhere affair with the charismatic far-too-sexy Italian tycoon so that she’d be in a stronger emotional state to argue her case, convince him that there had been some dreadful mistake.

And more time for her unwilling fascination with him to develop into a deeper phase? was the utterly disquieting thought that popped into her head.

Thrusting it aside as brutally as she knew how, she carried the dishes through and washed them at the deep stone sink and, drying her hands, listened to the silence until she felt calmer.

A door on the far wall, tucked between the dresser and a painted closet, a door she hadn’t noticed before, must lead to the bedroom he was using. Annoyingly, her eyes would keep straying to it. As if she were expecting Cesare to emerge, black hair damp from the shower, droplets glistening on the golden skin of his perfectly crafted torso, a towel slung low on his narrow hips?

Expecting? Wanting?

Ashamed of the burning heat, the sullen ache, that was claiming the most private part of her anatomy, she dragged in a shaky breath, turning her back on the door and carefully folded the towel she’d been using, naming herself for the worst kind of fool.

At least his manner of leaving her—anger because of what he thought Jilly had done taking precedence over what she, the imposter, guessed was his callous decision to exact sexual part payment for her perceived wrongdoing meant that she’d be safe from his desire to carry on from where he and her twin had left off.

Safe, too, from her own emerging weakness?

Even so, if there had been a key to her bedroom door she would have locked it.

‘The sea is waiting. Remember?’

The soft drawl brought Milly out of her troubled sleep at the speed of light, as if every nerve in her body had been hit by a bolt of lightning. Jerking up against the pillows, she belatedly tugged the sheet up to cover her breasts, bitterly regretting her decision to slip naked between the cool crisp sheets after her shower last night.

Embarrassment colouring her cheeks, deep emerald eyes flinchingly sought him beneath the tousled pale silk of her fringe. Sought and locked.

Casually leaning against the doorframe, incredibly sexy in narrow-fitting jeans and a sleeveless olive green T-shirt, he looked magnificent, magnetic, all male strength, lean lines, hard muscles.

Her breath stopped in her throat. Her eyes slid up to his face. That slight utterly devastating smile, the straight Roman nose that flared a little when he was angry, the dark as night eyes veiled now by impossibly thick and silky lashes.

It was so unfair!

If her worldly-wise sophisticated twin, who’d been wrapping besotted males around her little finger ever since she’d reached her late teens, hadn’t been able to resist falling for him then how the hell was she supposed to cope?

Conquests had always come so easily to Jilly, and had just as easily bored her. She’d always walked away without a single regret. But this time, if her hunch was right, Jilly had met more than her match. She’d finally fallen in love and Milly couldn’t blame her.

Worriedly she recalled that last postcard from Florence. It must have been sent just before Jilly had joined the Saracino household. She had been so sure that in the future money would be no object, that she would be able to repay her debts. She must have been convinced that her new lover would soon be her husband.

‘Get ready. We’ll eat breakfast on the beach and swim later,’ he delivered, fascinated by the blush that bloomed like wild roses on her cheeks. And turned away before he could get too fascinated by her naked state beneath the tangled sheet, tangled in a way that left one long, smooth and shapely leg exposed all the way to the apex of a creamy thigh, sternly reminding himself of the questions he had lined up for the lying little witch today.

He turned away, leaving the room, and Milly released a pent-up sigh of deep relief. She couldn’t believe how vulnerable she’d felt, lying here in a sheet and nothing else.

And the way he’d been looking at her, as if he could see right through the fine white cotton! Her whole body blushed and, to take her mind off it, she leapt out of bed and told herself she was doing fine. Just fine.

As she rummaged through her suitcase for something to wear she mentally ticked off all the pros.

So far he still had no idea that she wasn’t Jilly.

While that state of affairs remained he wasn’t out there hunting down the real Jilly, no doubt with a pair of handcuffs in his pocket.

He hadn’t made any attempt to get up close and personal.

She was sensible enough to slap him down if he did. Wasn’t she?

As for the cons.

There was the rest of the week to get through.

But she could hack it!

Sifting through Jilly’s cast-offs, she extracted an outrageous black bikini. Three triangles of fabric and a sort of thong thing. Her face went scarlet. Cleo must have added it to the pile while she had been helping her decide what to take. She, Milly, would never dream of flaunting herself in something so revealing!