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.’