He nodded, dismissing the sense that she was hiding something from him. ‘The island’s perfect for a holiday resort. Close enough to Capri to provide entertainment, but totally isolated at the same time. It’s easy to imagine how special any resort would be here.’
She nodded, but there was sadness in her heart. Having been on the island less than an hour, she already knew she hated the idea of buildings and roads cutting across it. Of people bobbing in the ocean, boats churning across its smooth surface, voices shouting through the serenity.
‘Yes,’ she said, her frown carrying into the simple word.
‘What would you like to see, Cressida?’ he asked, and the use of the socialite’s name reminded Tilly forcefully of just what her duties were.
‘I was just going to walk along the beach,’ she murmured, nodding in one direction.
‘Fine. We’ll walk.’
He moved towards the stairs and she followed, though his presence was knotting her tummy again.
‘You really don’t have to come with me,’ she said softly, pressing her teeth into her lower lip as she tried to calm the butterflies that were having a party inside her.
‘I really do have to come with you,’ he corrected quietly. ‘For as long as you are on Prim’amore you are my responsibility.’
A frisson of anticipation danced along her spine. She moved quickly down the stairs, her feet sinking into the sand once she reached the level shore.
‘Prim’amore... First love.’ She glanced at him. ‘It’s a romantic name. Any idea of the history of it?’
‘No,’ he lied.
Secrets, secrets. So many secrets. Hell. He’d been a secret most of his life. Only in recent years had his father lifted the ban on his identity being known, and by then the exposure had outlived any usefulness or appeal.
‘Why are you selling it?’
She was at least a foot shorter than he was. He adjusted his stride to match hers, shoving his hands in his pockets as they moved towards the water.
‘I do not want it.’
She frowned. ‘You don’t want a pristine, untouched island off the coast of Italy?’
‘No.’
Her laugh was carried by the breeze. He turned to chase it, wishing it was louder.
‘Why ever not?’
He met her eyes, his smile feeling heavy somehow. ‘I already have an island. A bigger one.’ He thought of Arketà, with its state-of-the-art home and pier, the helicopter pad and three swimming pools. ‘Two seems excessive.’
‘And here I was thinking you to be a man who thrived on the excessive,’ she heard herself tease.
At the edge of the water she paused, kicking her shoes off and bending to retrieve them. She moved closer to the ocean, flexing her toes as she reached the water’s line, then stepping beyond it so that the waves caressed her ankles.
‘So why buy it if only to sell? Or was it an investment?’
He looked at her for a moment, wondering at the instinct throbbing through him to speak honestly to her. To admit that he hadn’t bought the island so much as inherited it. That in the month he’d possessed Prim’amore it had sat heavily on his shoulders like a weight he didn’t wish to bear. That the gift was unwelcome and that selling it was his primary desire.
‘Not exactly.’ His smile gave little away. ‘I do not need it. Your father has been shopping for a resort site in the Mediterranean for years. The match is too good to ignore.’
She nodded, but he could practically see the cogs turning. ‘You said your island is called Arketà?’
‘Yes.’
‘I like the sound of that.’
He nodded. ‘It means pretty in Greek.’
She arched a brow, her grin contagious.
‘I inherited the name when I purchased it. The previous owner christened it so for his daughter.’
‘I see.’ Tilly nodded, but her smile didn’t drop.
‘That and I’m a hopeless romantic,’ he responded with an attempt at sarcasm.
Tilly shook her head. ‘Nope. I would bet my life that “romantic” is not a word ever associated with you.’
‘Oh? And how would you describe me?’ He prompted, curiosity leading him down a conversational path that his brain was urging him to reconsider.
She slowed for a moment, her eyes skimming across his face as her full lips pouted. She was a study in concentration and it almost made him laugh.
‘I think it’s better that I don’t say,’ she said finally, turning her gaze back to the beach. ‘Do you spend much time there?’
It took him a few seconds to realise she was back on the subject of Arketà. He shook his head. ‘I thought I would when I bought it.’
‘But?’ she prompted.
His shrug lifted his broad shoulders. She tried not to notice the strength in those shoulders, but she was only human.
‘Work.’
‘Ah. Yes.’ She knew the demands of Art Wyndham’s schedule intimately, and could only imagine how much more hectic Rio’s was. ‘So you’re in Rome most of the time?’
‘Si.’
Tilly could imagine that. He had an effortless chicness about him that was completely ingrained. It wasn’t an affectation. He didn’t have to try. He was both masculine, wild, untamed and...handsome. Nothing about him screamed ostentation, yet he exuded power and wealth.
‘And you?’ he surprised her by asking.
Tilly almost lost her footing, but she righted herself before he felt the need to intervene. ‘What about me?’
Out of nowhere she thought of Cressida. Cressida who was so visibly similar to her that Tilly had thought she was looking into a mirror the first time they’d met. Their red hair was long, their eyes green, their skin a similar colour—though Tilly’s tanned more easily. They were both of medium height, and though Tilly was naturally more curvaceous, Cressida had bought breast and rear enhancements two years earlier, making their figures almost matching.
‘I gather you’ve made an art form out of living fast and loose?’
Tilly frowned. As always, a whip of sorrow for the billion-dollar heiress flayed her. True, Cressida’s lifestyle was a masterpiece in modern-day debauchery, but Tilly somehow just understood her. And there was a lot more to the glamorous fashionista than partying. If only she’d let anyone see it.
‘Not really,’ she heard herself say. ‘The papers don’t always give me a fair shake.’
Now it was Rio’s turn to slow. He angled his face to study her profile. ‘Papers make up stories, but photos never lie.’
Her heart thumped hard against her chest. Had he seen photos of her? Could he tell the difference? For, as much as she and Cressida were uncannily similar, they were not the same person, and it was easy to see the differences when you set your mind to looking.
Though Tilly had an answer ready for that. She wasn’t wearing more than the bare minimum of make-up, and Cressida was never papped without a full face. Even her morning coffee run was completed in full glamour style. It was completely plausible to explain away the slight differences in their appearance by claiming a lack of cosmetic help. At least to a man, surely?
‘I think people look at photos of celebrities and see what they’re looking for,’ she said softly. ‘I could leave a nightclub at three in the morning, stone-cold sober, arm in arm with a guy I’ve been friends with for years, and the next thing you know I’m drunk and three months pregnant with his baby.’
She rolled her eyes, her outrage at such misreporting genuine. She’d personally placed enough calls to Art’s solicitor, lodging complaints and libel suits, to know how frequently Cressida was photographed and lambasted for something that was perfectly innocent.
‘Am I to feel sorry for you now?’
She lifted her face to his, her expression showing mutiny. ‘I don’t want sympathy.’
‘I can see that.’
She stepped over a jellyfish, marooned elegantly against the sand, its transparent body no longer capable of bobbing in the
depths of the ocean.
‘So you are not a wild, irresponsible party girl, then?’ he asked, his voice rich with disbelief.
Tilly shook her head, thinking of Cressida. She was everything Rio accused her of, and yet Tilly couldn’t stomach the idea of him looking at her and seeing Cressida.
‘I’m not just a party girl,’ she said after a beat had passed. ‘Honestly, I’m more comfortable somewhere like this. Somewhere away from the cameras and press. Somewhere I can just be by myself and read.’
Read? Hardly Cressida’s favourite pastime, but no matter. He wasn’t ever going to discover that fact for himself, was he?
‘It is hard for you to be alone when you’re in London?’
‘Yes,’ she said. But impersonating Cressida was wearing thin. ‘When did you buy this island?’
His eyes bobbed out to sea, chasing something invisible and transient on the horizon.
‘I recently acquired it,’ he said silkily, tweaking his response slightly to fit the facts.
‘And now you’re selling it?’
He nodded. ‘We’ve covered this.’
Her lips pulled downwards. ‘It just doesn’t make sense.’
‘On the contrary—it makes perfect sense. I own an island I do not need or want. Your father desperately wants an island of this size, within easy boat distance of the mainland, and he is prepared to pay the price I have stipulated. Provided you do not go back and report that the volcano is about to explode, I will no longer own Prim’amore in a matter of weeks.’
There was more to it. Tilly could almost feel the words he wasn’t saying; they were throbbing beneath her fingertips. But she needed patience to massage them to the surface.
‘Volcano?’ She moved the conversation to less critical ground. ‘You’re not serious?’
‘Absolutely. It is extinct now—a relic. The lava no longer flows in its belly.’
She shuddered. ‘How can you be sure?’
His laugh was warm honey on her sensitised muscles. ‘Because a team of geologists have told me so.’ He stopped walking and angled his whole body to face her. ‘Would you like to see it?’
Her breath hitched in her throat. Staring down the chasm of a volcano would be the most dangerous thing she’d ever done. Well, almost. The more time she spent with Rio the more she was coming to realise she’d taken a step into the terrifying unknown by agreeing to pose as Cressida.
‘Yes,’ she heard herself agree. ‘I would.’
‘We’ll go tomorrow.’
He nodded with the kind of confidence that had surely been born out of his success in the boardroom. Or given rise to it. She blinked up at him and wondered if anyone ever told him no.
‘Not often.’
She frowned, her confusion apparent.
‘I am not often told no.’
‘Oh!’ Evidently her mouth had run away with her—and without her permission too. She felt heat warm her cheeks and began to move again, along the shoreline, kicking the water as she went, enjoying the feeling as it splashed against her shins.
‘I expect it has always been the same for you?’
Tilly thought of her family. Her parents who had worked hard all their lives, who adored her and would have found a way to give her the moon if she’d asked it of them.
‘Why do you say that?’ She returned his question with a question.
‘Because I have known women like you before,’ he said simply, shrugging his broad shoulders.
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
His smile was derisive, and yet her heart flipped as though he was offering her a bunch of flowers. She turned away, frustrated at the schoolgirl crush she seemed to be developing.
‘That you grew up with more money than most people see in a lifetime. And that in my experience women like you tend to be...’
‘Yes?’ she prompted, her hackles rising despite the fact he was making assumptions about her doppelgänger, not her true self.
What had he wanted to say? Did it matter that the spoiled rich girls he’d bedded in the past were all boring, entitled, selfish and dull? Why were they talking about this?
His frown deepened. He was supposed to be showing her the island; that was all. It was the kind of thing he’d never have deigned to do under normal circumstances. God knew he had more important things to focus on. Still, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—let the press get wind of his ties to Prim’amore. Rio, and Rio alone, would handle all the contracts associated with the sale.
But it should have taken days. Not a week. Art had been strangely insistent, though. Cressida wanted a week ‘to really get a feel for the place’, and Art had expressed his relief that his wayward daughter was showing such good business sense.
But he didn’t need to spend the whole time taking beach strolls with the admittedly beautiful heiress. And certainly not sharing his innermost thoughts.
‘Never mind,’ he said, his voice a dark contradiction of the light banter they’d been sharing. ‘This beach stretches for another two miles before the cove curves inwards and we’ll need to climb the cliff. I suggest we leave that for another day.’
* * *
He was being deliberately unpleasant.
No, not unpleasant.
Just a big, gorgeous roadblock to any conversation she tried to make.
He’d been like it as they’d walked on the beach. As though he’d flicked a switch and she no longer held any interest for him. He’d pointed out details of the island, suggested positions that might be suitable for a hotel, but he had made it clear that he felt obliged to provide her with business information and that was the end of it.
So why did it bother her?
She’d come to the island expecting to meet with a dull estate agent. She’d brought books and bathing costumes, anticipating a delicious week on her own, soaking in the sunshine and relaxing.
But now her nerves were stretched on tenterhooks.
She flicked the page of her book, even though she had no concept of what she’d read, and briefly lifted her eyes to where he sat. There was only one living space in the house and he’d taken up position on the small table. It held his laptop, and thick files spread in each direction. His head was bent, he had a pen in his hand, and as he read one of the files he occasionally scratched a note angrily in the margin.
Unexpectedly he flashed his eyes in her direction and she looked away, stumbling her focus back to reading. His eyes continued to burn her skin, though.
He stood abruptly, scraping his chair noisily against the tiles. She kept her head bent as he moved into the kitchen and she heard the fridge open and shut.
She turned the page—again with no concept of where she was in the story.
The sound of butter simmering in a frying pan finally captured her interest, and she risked a glance towards him.
Her heart stuttered. Rio Mastrangelo was a seriously gorgeous man at any time. But with his shirtsleeves pushed up to the elbows, his head bent as he chopped tomato and fennel...he was the poster boy for sexiest man alive.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, wishing she hadn’t when his eyes lanced her and she felt her stomach swoop.
‘Stringing a fishing line,’ he replied, with a sarcasm that he softened by smiling.
He had a dimple in one cheek. Deep enough to dip her finger into. She looked back at her book.
‘I presume you eat normal food?’ he asked, with a challenge she didn’t understand in his question.
‘It depends what you call “normal.”’ She gave up on the book, folding down the corner at the top of a page and placing it on the sofa.
She stood and padded towards the kitchen, curious as he added basil leaves to the chopping board. He reached for the fridge once more and returned with fish, adding each fillet one by one to the sizzling frying pan. He sliced a lemon down the middle and squeezed it over the top, then ground salt.
‘That smells delicious,’ she said seriously. ‘You like to cook?’
; He shrugged. ‘I like to eat, so...’
Her smile was involuntary, and her attention was momentarily distracted by the sizzling fish, so she didn’t realise that his eyes had dropped to her mouth and were staring at it with an intensity that would have boiled her blood.
‘I would have thought you’d have a chef. No—a team of chefs. All ready to obey your every whim.’ She lifted her brows as she turned her attention back to his face.
‘No.’
More of the stonewalling she’d faced that afternoon.
‘No? Why not?’
‘Because, Principessa, not everyone grew up in the hyper-indulged, rarefied way you did. I learned to cook almost as soon as I could walk. Just because I can afford to employ chefs it doesn’t mean it’s necessary.’
The hostility of his statement hurt far more than it should have. He was judging her—no, he was judging Cressida, she reminded herself forcibly—and she didn’t like it. Not one bit.
Her throat ached. With mortification, Tilly realised his harsh rebuke had brought her to the brink of tears. She took a steadying breath and looked away.
He expelled an angry breath and reached for the fish, flicking it deftly. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said after a moment. ‘That was rude of me.’
If his judgemental bitterness had surprised her, the apology had even more so.
She lifted her eyes to him slowly. ‘You think I’m spoiled.’
His smile was brief. A flicker across his face that she thought she must have imagined. He reached for two plates and scooped the tomato and fennel mixture into the middle, then added several fish fillets and half a lemon. It had the kind of presentation a five-year-old would have been proud of, but it smelled incredible. Her stomach groaned in agreement with that thought and she cleared her throat in an attempt to cover it.
‘I believe you drink champagne?’
Tilly frowned, and was on the brink of pointing out that she really didn’t drink much at all before remembering that Cressida was practically fuelled by the stuff. She found it perfectly acceptable to start her day with a glass of bubbles. And, despite the fact she could knock off a bottle on her own in no time, she never seemed affected by it. Which showed she had an incredible tolerance for the stuff. Unlike Tilly.
Innocent in the Billionaire's Bed Page 3