‘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