Innocent in the Billionaire's Bed

by Clare Connelly

  His rebuke was swift and determined. ‘I am who I am because of my mother. Not him.’

  She ran her fingers over his cheek. ‘And he died a month ago?’ she murmured.

  At this, Rio’s face briefly flashed with an emotion she didn’t comprehend. Regret? Sorrow?

  ‘And he left me Prim’amore.’

  She expelled a soft breath. ‘I suppose he felt it was the least he could do.’

  ‘I don’t know. I think he was a stubborn, selfish man who wanted to make sure I faced this.’ His eyes glittered. ‘Because it suited him that I should.’

  Tilly stroked his cheek. ‘His wife must have been devastated when he died and she found out about you.’

  ‘She still doesn’t know,’ he said, with a flicker of something in his eyes.

  ‘But...he left you Prim’amore.’

  ‘And a lot of money I will never touch.’ It was a dark admission.

  ‘But surely when she saw his will...?’

  ‘They were divorced,’ he reminded her gently. ‘She did not go to his funeral.’

  ‘Did you?’

  Something like disappointment marked his face. ‘Si.’ And then, as though he needed to defend the action, he said angrily, ‘I know my mother would have wished it. It felt like I was closing the chapter on them.’

  Her heart squeezed with anguish. ‘I’m so sorry for you, Rio.’

  ‘I do not want the link between that bastard and me to become known. Not now. Nothing would be served by it being made public. I certainly see no benefit in hurting Carina’s feelings.’

  ‘That’s why you’re hurrying to sell the island. Why you’re handling it yourself,’ she said, remembering the way his face had been so adamant when she’d first stepped off the boat. ‘No agents,’ he’d said, as though the very idea was anathema to him.

  ‘You know what the press is like.’ His eyes met hers, grey to green. ‘You, of all people, understand about their intrusion into things that do not concern them. I want a quick, private sale. Only three people in the world know about this—you, me and your father.’

  And Cressida, Tilly thought with a sudden warning feeling of panic. And whoever she had mentioned it to in passing. Adrenalin spiked inside her. The real heiress was hardly discreet, and she would have no reason to suspect that Rio needed his link to Prim’amore kept secret.

  ‘I’ve been here a month,’ he said, the words darkened by memories. ‘I came to the island after my father died, intending only to stay a day or two.’

  ‘And yet you’ve been here a month?’ she asked with interest.

  Because he felt close to his mother here. Because he was saying goodbye—to his father, yes, but to the father he might have had, should have had. He was making his peace with a bitter resentment that would eat him alive if he let it.

  He shrugged his broad shoulders, tilting his head back to see her more clearly. ‘I want to sell this island and as quickly as possible. Having anything from him feels like a betrayal.’

  Tilly nodded, but inside she wasn’t sure she agreed with him. ‘This island is...’ She bit down on her lip, trying to find words for the strange idea that was forming inside her. ‘It’s like it’s a part of you,’ she said, with the tilt of her head that Rio had learned indicated she was deep in thought. ‘They fell in love here; you were conceived here.’

  His grunt showed how little he thought that mattered. ‘This island is too little, too late. It is a reminder of what a weak, pathetic man my father really was.’ His brows drew together. ‘And yet my mother loved him. She loved him all her life. Even at the end he was all she talked of when she faded in and out of consciousness.’

  Sadness swamped them.

  When Rio spoke next, it was as if from a long way away. ‘When my mother used to tell me about him, about how they’d met, it was like she’d been hit by a truck. Gravità, she called it. Gravity. Like he was earth and she was floating in the heavens and bam! She met him and fell...crashed. Burned, as it happened.’

  His smile was tight, and it gave way to a rueful grimace.

  ‘I never understood that. How could she meet a married man and fall in love with him? How could she ignore common sense?’

  ‘She didn’t know about Carina,’ Tilly answered softly. ‘So far as she believed she’d simply fallen in love with a man.’

  ‘How could she love a lie? That’s what it was. It was all fake.’

  Tilly swallowed, but panic made her blood flash hot and cold. ‘Not to her.’

  ‘No, not to her. But the whole idea of that kind of feeling is foreign to me.’ He shifted, his fingers tangling in the hem of her dress, pushing it so that he could connect with her bare thighs. ‘It was, anyway.’

  ‘Oh?’ Bang, bang, bang—her heart slammed hard against her ribcage.

  ‘Mmm...’ His hands pushed higher, gripping her legs right at the top, his fingers stroking the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs. ‘Until I met you I thought love at first sight was a lie invented by Hollywood.’

  Her breath caught in her throat as her entire world shifted into blinding focus. Had he just said he loved her? That he was falling in love with her? Hadn’t she been feeling that since she’d first met him? Or had she misunderstood?

  Doubt was quick to follow hope, but love was unmistakable and ever-present.

  ‘Cara...’ He spoke with gravelled determination. ‘When I decide I want something, I go after it. Do you know how long it took me to realise I wanted you?’

  She shook her head, not trusting her voice to speak.

  ‘Minutes. When you fell into the ocean and laughed about it. You were beautiful. The most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. But it was more than that. You were humble.’

  Happiness and her future hovered in front of her, like a butterfly with mesmerising wings. But no vision could wipe out the awful truth.

  She’d fallen in love with him, too. But she’d lied to him. And once he knew would he forgive her?

  She already knew the answer to that. She’d heard the way he’d spoken of Marina, his ex. But she’d lied about being pregnant with his baby—surely a greater betrayal than this?

  A throb of resentment shifted inside her. She wanted to be honest with him, but what then? Could she tell him and be sure Cressida would never find out? And what if Cressida learned the truth? Tilly had already given the money to her brother; the lie was bought and paid for.

  ‘The first time I have ever told a woman I love her and I get silence.’

  She laughed, a husky sound, as the present sucked her back towards perfection. ‘I didn’t expect it.’

  ‘Nor did I. Nothing about this is expected.’

  * * *

  ‘Look. It’s clearing.’

  Tilly yawned, her head pressed against his shoulder. He stroked her hair absentmindedly, his gaze settled on the wall opposite. It was not late, but a day in the darkened cabin, distracted by so much emotion, had left Tilly tired. The storm was finally abating, though, and a hint of sunshine crested through the window.

  He shifted abruptly, placing her head against a pillow. ‘Stay here.’

  It was a command she didn’t care to disobey. Her body was languid and floppy after being pleasured by him again and again. Her heart was full to overflowing with his suggestion of love.

  She let her eyes drift closed, but didn’t sleep. How could she? There was a constant shuffling of things, and the regular slamming of the door to keep her awake.

  She listened, though, with a smile playing about her lips. A smile that was wilfully ignoring the prickly path that lay before her.

  She wasn’t who he thought she was. And if she revealed the truth to him how would he react?

  Her heart turned over, and briefly a frown crossed her features. Imagining life outside the island had become impossible. She had joked, on her first day on Prim’amore, that it was as though they were the only two people on earth. Yet that was how she felt after a few days alone with Rio.

  The pressures that
had brought this to be—worries about her brother, compassion for Cressida—all came to nought when she was with Rio. Could they not just remain on the island for ever? Pretending the outside world did not exist? With a few trips to Capri to secure essentials?

  Life would go on; the world would spin. And she would spin with Rio.

  Her heart.

  Her soul.

  Her other.

  ‘I’m ready.’

  She blinked, opened her eyes, yawning as she focussed on him.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Come.’

  She followed him towards the door of the cabin and down the steps. The sand was cold and wet beneath her bare feet, but she didn’t care. She wanted to look up at him, but a glow in the distance called to her.

  Several candles were set out in the sand, and in the middle a makeshift bed.

  ‘You did this?’

  He linked his fingers through hers and lifted her hand to his lips, then pulled her towards the blanket.

  They walked slowly, breathing in the scent of fresh air in the wake of the passing storm. It was on the horizon now—a dark cloud dissipating into the sea.

  ‘You must have mixed feelings about selling the island?’

  He squeezed her fingers, perhaps to acknowledge that he’d heard the question, and then focussed his gaze out to sea. ‘No.’

  ‘Even though it’s where they fell in love?’ she murmured, saddened to imagine him selling it and that link being lost for ever.

  ‘Their love broke her.’

  ‘Cancer broke her,’ she corrected pragmatically, wrapping an arm around his waist as they walked.

  ‘I know that.’ He expelled an angry breath, then cleared his throat. ‘When she was dying, at the end, she spoke of him almost more than she spoke to me. He was so heavy in her mind and heart. I couldn’t ever forgive him for that.’

  His smile was tight.

  ‘He cheated on his wife. Mistake number one. Never cheat; never lie. He left my mother pregnant and alone, and never once checked to see that we were comfortable. And we weren’t.’

  He cleared his throat again. They were almost at the blanket and he slowed a little.

  ‘I was twenty when I made my first million. If she’d managed to live a few more years I could have given her comfort and security...’

  Tilly’s stomach churned. ‘I think... I think she wanted you to be happy and smart and brave, and you are. I think you were the greatest gift in her life.’

  His smile was perfunctory. He nodded towards the carpet and she moved to sit on it, but her eyes stayed glued to his face.

  ‘I really am sorry for what you’ve gone through.’

  He shrugged. ‘I do not think your childhood has been a walk in the park either,’ he said pragmatically.

  She thought of Cressida, and then she thought of Art, and it confused her. Art adored Cressida. Tilly knew he did. But he didn’t understand her. And Cressida was not the kind of daughter the businessman knew how to work with. She was beautiful, and she was smart, but she was smart with people and things—not numbers and contracts.

  Cressida Wyndham was never going to step into Art’s shoes and start running the family business. She didn’t want to. She wanted to live her own life and to live a darned good life, too, with all the luxuries that most people could only dream of.

  But that wasn’t exactly Cressida’s fault. She was a product of her upbringing.

  Speaking to Rio, and reflecting on Cressida, could only make Tilly recognise her luck in having been born into the Morgan family. Sure, Jack was a bit anxiety-inducing—especially with his recent interest in gambling—but essentially things for the Morgans were simple. They loved each other and they were there for each other.

  That was family for Tilly.

  ‘I don’t think I have any right to complain,’ she said softly, settling herself onto the rug and staring out at the ocean.

  It was angry and churning, and the sun was a fluorescent orange as it tunnelled through the woolly clouds.

  ‘Why not?’

  Tilly put herself in Cressida’s shoes, but they were pinching now—leaving blisters she knew she didn’t want to deal with.

  ‘Because I had everything growing up.’ She smiled at him as he sat beside her, glad when he put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. ‘My family life is idyllic compared to yours,’ she said seriously. ‘No offence.’

  He stroked her hair. ‘None taken.’

  She turned to face him, feeling safe and complete in the circle of his arms. ‘Why did you do this?’

  His eyes linked to hers before flicking back to the storm-ravaged ocean. ‘I have never known a woman like you before.’

  She saved that little admission for revelling in later.

  ‘Most of the women I have slept with have been good for only one purpose.’

  Jealousy was a fever inside her. ‘I see,’ she responded crisply.

  ‘I have not wanted to know what moved their hearts and minds.’ He ran his fingers over her shoulder, sending goosebumps of fire and ice through her soul. ‘With you, I want to know everything and I want to see everything. The sun setting after a storm like this? I want to share it with you and only you. I want to feel your thoughts as we watch it together. Cara, I do not know I could ever watch a sunset without knowing you would see it with me.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE SOUND OF a motor broke through their solitude. Tilly spun in the water, her eyes scanning the horizon, a frown nudging across her face when she saw a boat coming close to shore. It took her a moment to recognise it as the speedboat that had first brought her to the island, almost a week earlier.

  ‘Rafaelo,’ Rio murmured beside her, standing in the water and striding towards the shore.

  He was more beautiful than any person had a right to be. Broad-shouldered, strong, tanned. She stared after him as he emerged from the crystalline ocean, droplets running down his back, and her stomach swooned, as if she was on a rollercoaster that had gained speed and was heading into its deep descent.

  She watched as Rio moved to the boat and stood, one hand on his hip, his chest shamelessly ridged, his expression relaxed as he spoke to the old man. He threw his head back and laughed, then pointed towards Tilly and laughed again.

  They were too far away for her to hear what they were discussing, but when Rafaelo pointed at the generator she got the gist.

  The engine revved again and then Rafaelo was leaving, waving at Tilly as he passed, and Rio was returning to Tilly, cutting easily through the water with his strong legs.

  Her heart flipped.

  She didn’t want to leave him.

  Ever.

  Yet that was an inevitability.

  Unless...

  Unconsciously, she frowned as possibilities and thoughts ran through her mind. Unless she could find a way to tell him the truth. She would need to speak to Cressida first—to promise Cressida it wouldn’t go any further. And then she’d need to be sure Rio would understand why she’d gone along with the charade. She’d need him to know she hadn’t ever intended to deceive him.

  ‘Rafaelo wanted to see how the island had fared in the storm.’ Rio wrapped his arms around Tilly under the water and she curled her legs around his midsection, enjoying the feeling of being close to him underwater. ‘He’s going to pick up some supplies from Capri and drop back later today.’

  She made a sound of agreement, but it rankled.

  His laugh showed that he understood. ‘You are pouting.’

  Tilly made an effort to straighten her expression. ‘I am not.’

  ‘He won’t stay long,’ Rio promised, kissing the side of her mouth.

  Was she that transparent?

  ‘Does he live on Capri?’ she asked, purely to move conversation away from how selfishly she was guarding her time with Rio.

  ‘Yes. He’s looked after the island for a long time.’

  ‘Did he know your dad?’

  He dipped his head forw
ard. ‘And my mother, it turns out,’ Rio murmured.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘He is the same age as her. When my mother came to stay on the island he came and laid down a lot of the tracks, helped her find the volcano. He comes and tinkers every month or so—it’s been a long time since my father came to the island and the cabin needs attention. The generator... The bike...’

  ‘How does he feel about you selling it?’

  His laugh was unexpected.

  She angled her face towards his. ‘What? Why is that funny?’

  ‘It just hadn’t occurred to me to ask him for his emotional assessment of my real estate choices.’

  She felt heat darken her cheeks. ‘You don’t think it’s reasonable?’

  ‘You think if he is upset I should keep it?’

  She turned to face the island. The white sand, the green trees, the blue sky behind it and the cabin that had been the place of her Prim’amore.

  ‘I think your father would feel pretty aggrieved if I backed out now,’ he said. ‘Making his daughter my lover and then reneging on a deal that is almost locked in.’

  A shiver danced along her spine. There was something in the way he spoke that said so much more than the words alone. It created the impression of a future. A future with Art, Tilly and Rio. A future that was impossible to envisage. No, that wasn’t true. She could see it—she just couldn’t imagine reaching out and grasping it. It was like trying to catch rain in your hands.

  This wouldn’t work. It could never be more than this week. Unless she could somehow work something out with Cressida. And even then...? What if Rio didn’t forgive her?

  ‘You didn’t make me your lover,’ she pointed out, surprised at how normal her voice sounded when her heart was shattering just a little. ‘It was definitely mutual.’

  She was distracted, so when he kissed her it felt like their first kiss—except so much better. Because he loved her, and she loved him, and their kiss was full of that.

  ‘I am addicted to you,’ he growled against her neck, flicking his tongue against the sensitive skin that covered her racing pulse.

  ‘That’s mutual, too.’

  * * *

  The ocean was lapping quietly, the sun was warm overhead, the air smelt like salt and Rio was beside her—still working, but beside her. And she needed him there.