‘W-what—?’ she said jerkily.
Grim mouth flattening, he lifted up her hand until her fingers dangled in front of her confused face. She had to blink twice to focus on the diamond-encrusted sapphire ring twinkling back at her.
‘Oh,’ she said and swallowed. She’d forgotten all about the ring.
‘You are betrothed—?’ he enquired with blistering thinness.
‘N-no.’ Rachel shook her head. ‘It—it’s nothing; the ring is a f-fake, just w-window-dressing.’
‘Window-dressing,’ he repeated.
‘Part of the look …’ She was beginning to squirm inside again. ‘Leo needed to see it if he was going to … ‘
‘Believe you were not his wife?’
She nodded, then swallowed again. ‘Elise’s engagement ring is a big single yellow diamond. Th-this one is so glaringly different that it …’
Her voice trailed away, the hiss of his breath making it do so because she knew he had caught on.
‘So, let me see if I have this clear,’ he said grimly. ‘You dressed yourself up to look like your half-sister—from behind, then you threw yourself at my neck, kissing me as if I am your …?’
He wanted her to say it. Her heart began thumping. He was going to make her confess the final full duplicity.
‘L-lover,’ she breathed.
‘Betrothedlover?’ His voice was getting softer by the second.
Rachel licked her lips and nodded.
‘And I was not supposed to issue an instant denial about this?’
‘Th-there’s a letter going to be h-hand-delivered here to you tomorrow along with the relevant newspaper,’ she told him shakily. ‘The letter will explain everything we have talked about and point out to you that to expose the photograph as a lie will leave you open to questions about wh-whose baby it is Elise is carrying.’
‘Madre de Dio,’ he breathed. ‘You are truly devious.’
He was right and she was, but—‘This is serious, Mr Villani!’ she cried out. ‘You don’t know Leo! He’s one hell of a strict Greek! He’s also an absolute killer expert on law! If he decides that his wife has been cheating on him with you and could be having your baby … for all your wealth and power, he will drag you to the courtroom and through the gutters along with Elise!’
He threw her hand away. ‘I never touched her—!’ he bit out angrily.
‘Even this very trusting sister can’t believe that!’
Her denunciation bounced off the walls and the sheets of plate glass while the air sizzled with his undiluted rage.
‘One kiss, Mr Villani,’ Rachel stressed urgently. ‘One small kiss stolen from the wife of Leo Savakis and he will never forgive her, and you will find yourself stuck with the worst kind of enemy there is!’
He just turned and walked off, striding across the expanse of wood flooring and out through the door.
Rachel followed, quivering, shaken to the roots because it was only now, when faced with what this all meant to him, that she was beginning to realise how none of them had given much thought to how unfairly they were treating him in all of this.
She hurried after him. ‘I’m so sorry …’
The husky quaver of her apology fell on stony ground. It had been such a useless thing to say anyway, so she didn’t blame him for the filthy comment he threw back at her, as one of his arms flew out with an angry hand attached to it, which hit open another door to allow him to keep walking without altering his angry stride.
Rachel found herself coming to a trembling halt in yet another doorway. This one opened on to a shiny black and white kitchen and he was standing by a huge black mirror fronted fridge. One of the doors was swinging open, but by the way he was just staring Rachel received the pained impression that he didn’t know what it was he was staring into.
‘Please believe me when I say I did try to explain it all to you earlier—at the charity thing!’ she tried again—frantically. ‘I insisted to Mark that we should at least attempt to get your understanding and cooperation but …’ she sucked in a breath ‘ …you wouldn’t give me the chance to speak and then the whole thing j-just ran out of control!’
He slammed the fridge door shut and turned to face her. If her trembling legs would have let her, Rachel knew she would be running by now.
But—look at him, she told herself helplessly as he began striding towards her. He was so gloriously magnificent in his anger, his face muscles stretched tight across his amazing bone structure and his torso pumped up like a warrior about to begin a slaying-fest.
He reached for her.
She quivered. ‘Y-you—’
He shut her up with his hard hot mouth to mouth that totally blacked out her brain. When he let her up for air again she was dizzy and disorientated, in no fit state to find herself being dragged by the hand down the hallway then out of the door to the lift.
His free hand stabbed the call button. Bright balls of panic spun in her head. He was going to throw her out. He was going to hand her to the wolves out there and—
‘Please don’t do this,’ she begged him on the very—very edge of tears now.
He pulled her into the lift. They rode down with him standing there in front of her, with her wrist still his prisoner and the rest of her pinned against the lift wall by the steely glitter in his eyes.
‘Think about it,’ she begged unsteadily. ‘You don’t want to—’
He swooped and cut the words off the ruthless way, with another open mouthed onslaught that lost her the will to even stand.
But she had to stand. She had to follow where he pulled as they left the lift and crossed the foyer with a curious security guard looking on. Then a hard hand pushed open the main doors and Rachel lost the next few seconds beneath the glare of flashing flickering lights and the pandemonium of questions that burst out.
His arm was around her shoulders now, hugging her to him and keeping her upright.
‘Smile,’ he hissed and she smiled like an alien.
Then the words came, those low, smooth accented tones dryly confirming that no, as they could see, she was not Elise. She was in fact Elise’s beautiful half-sister, Rachel Carmichael.
Then he let drop the big one, by calmly inviting their congratulations because they had just become engaged to be married.
The fake ring was displayed on her finger for the pack to snap to their greedy hearts’ content.
How long had they known each other? Where had they met?
He answered all the questions with the relaxed humour of one who had all the answers, since he was merely duplicating facts from his short affair with Elise.
Breathing took on a shallow necessity aimed to maintain the fragile beat of her heart. The rest was a haze, a fog of nothing in which she must have performed well because no one suggested she was about to pass out or, worse, that she looked more like a horrified prisoner being hauled to the gallows than a happily betrothed future bride.
‘Now you have what you came for would it be possible that you can do us a favour and leave us in peace?’
So lightly requested, so full of lazy charm. The pack laughed. He turned her within the iron grip of his arm. Silence hit with a deafening force as the doors closed with them back inside.
‘Congratulations,