A hand in the small of her back he edged her forwards, towards the bed, but she dug her heels in and said, ‘I can’t take them!’ And then, because that sounded really ungrateful because he obviously believed he’d been doing her—Jilly—a favour and no one liked having their generosity and good intentions shoved back at them, she amended, ‘It was a nice thought but I can’t take them.’ She dragged in a huge breath and got out in a rush, ‘I’m not Jilly. I’m her twin sister. I’m sorry to have deceived you, but I did have my reasons.’
For a long moment Cesare found it impossible to articulate a single word for the flood of relief that took his breath away. Many signs had told him that she was deeply uncomfortable with the situation she had put herself in—or her twin had forced her into—but finally she had found the courage to tell him the truth and saved him from having to accuse her. He admired her for that. More than admired her? He shelved that question and studied her instead.
Her long lashes veiled the brilliance of her eyes as she stared at the floor and her face was pale, her shoulders tense as if she were expecting a blow. Or his anger.
Quick to disabuse her of that expectation, he put a gentle forefinger beneath her chin and lifted her face to his.
Her colour returned in a flood. Milly felt it in the hot burn of her skin as she met the steady intensity of those dark-as-night eyes and dizziness almost overwhelmed her as he announced softly, ‘I know, Milly. I began to have suspicions almost as soon as we reached the villa from England. They were confirmed by telephone on the following morning just before we set out for the island. Jilly Lee had an identical twin, Milly.’
‘Oh!’ Her heart began to pound and her knees turned to unset jelly. ‘Why? Why didn’t you—?’
‘Say something?’ he supplied and, placing a steadying arm around her waist, he led her to a white velvet upholstered chaise and watched while she sank on to it with every appearance of wishing the floor would open up and swallow her. ‘I made a mental date on several occasions to hit you with what I knew but something always happened to make me hold back.’ He folded his lean powerful length on to the seat beside her and a smile warmed his voice to smooth honey. ‘And in retrospect I’m glad. My first intention was to let you stew during that first day on the island and then come down on you like several tons of bricks. Had I done so I would not have discovered how unlike your twin you really are.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Milly said strickenly, her breath catching in her throat. He was so close that the spicy, faintly lemony, husky male scent of him was in her nostrils; it made every nerve-ending in her body quiver. She felt punch drunk by his proximity and knew she shouldn’t.
A tiny whimper of distress escaped her and Cesare sprang to his feet and strode out of the room, so lithe and graceful he made her heart ache, and she didn’t know whether to be grateful because the raging anger she’d braced herself to meet hadn’t materialised or whether to curl up with smothering humiliation because all the time he’d known she wasn’t Jilly and must have been laughing his silk socks off at her useless attempts to pretend she was.
Returning moments later, Cesare put a glass into her hands, closing her fingers around the cut crystal bowl. ‘A little brandy. You are in shock, I think.’
He sounded so damned complacent! Milly tossed the fiery liquid back and a rare upsurge of rage had her blurting, ‘So all the time you were laughing at me! Watching me make a fool of myself! I hate you!’
‘No, you don’t,’ Cesare stated with infuriating calm and prised the empty glass from her tense fingers. ‘Whatever emotions you have inspired in me, mirth wasn’t one of them. I admit to being as furious as an angry bull when I first had my suspicions confirmed. That changed to interest. Why had you stepped into your twin’s shoes—quite literally—when you are so unlike each other?’
‘Not so!’ Milly contradicted, the effect of the alcohol in her bloodstream making her reckless. ‘We wear our hair differently, that’s all. Jilly would never wear hers short, but you weren’t to know that.’
‘Superficially you look alike, providing one scrapes away the layers of make-up your sister uses. But deep down, where it matters, you are astonishingly different.’ On that assurance, he cupped her flushed face with both hands. ‘Jilly is hard, self centred. Manipulative. Charming when it serves her purpose but insincere. She flaunts her sex to get what she wants. That makes her ugly.’
The balls of his thumbs stroked her delicate cheekbones and Milly’s heart missed a beat then turned over, making her forget what she’d been about to say in her sister’s defence as he continued. ‘You are beautiful. You are warm and gentle, caring. Yet unafraid to speak your mind if you think someone else has suffered an injustice—as you rebuked me, quite rightly, when my recent anxiety made me speak sharply to my grandmother. I admire that. That is the difference that sticks out a thousand miles.’
Glorying in the touch of his hands, heat curling deep in her pelvis, her nipples shamingly prominent, it was all Milly could do to stop herself from hurling herself at him, hold him close, beg him to kiss her.
She had to remind herself very vigorously that he was merely being kind to someone who’d just been shocked to learn she’d been the biggest fool in Christendom. Showing him that she wanted him quite desperately would only make her look an even bigger fool in his eyes than she already did!
‘Now—’ his hands left her face as he unfurled his impressive length and rose to his feet ‘—all this must have been difficult for you. Come—’ he took her hand and urged her to her feet ‘—you will shower and change into something more suited to you and then we will eat and you will explain why you felt it necessary to impersonate your sister.’
Loving the feel of his strong fingers as they curled around her own, and despising herself for that weakness, Milly allowed herself to be escorted to the bed. ‘Choose what you would like to change into,’ he suggested, hitting the nail on the head with the shrewdness she was beginning to expect from him when he added, ‘You clearly are not comfortable in your sister’s choice of clothing.’
That comment needed no reply but Milly’s hands were unsteady as, at his prompting, she opened the nearest box and gasped as Cesare plucked a dream of a dress from the tissue layers. Delicate voile in subtle soft stripes of oyster and pale pink, it had a discreet V neckline, a slightly bloused bodice and a soft flowing skirt below the neat waistline. It was just the sort of dress she would have bought herself had she ever been remotely able to afford to do so.
Quelling her excitement as further goodies were revealed—tailored linen trousers, cream-coloured and light charcoal, elegant shirts, cool filmy skirts and tops, shoes with neat kitten heels, delicate fine cotton underwear hand-embroidered with pretty sprays of forget-me-nots—Milly felt deeply regretful as she stressed, ‘I can’t possibly accept all this.’
‘But of course you can.’ Cesare swept her objection aside with a downward slash of one long-fingered hand. ‘Look on these things as payment in lieu of wages.’
‘You said I had to work for nothing,’ she reminded him sternly because so far he had held the moral high ground and she was determined to snatch some of it for herself. Gentle and caring in his eyes—although she had never looked at herself in that light—but a doormat she most certainly wasn’t!
But as usual he had an unassailable come-back. ‘I made that stipulation when I believed I had cornered your sister. You are not your sister. You have put in the hours caring for my grandmother. Reading to her, chatting, bringing her flowers, taking her mind away from her injuries. I wouldn’t expect anyone to work for my family for nothing. I suggest you take that shower and get out of that thing you are wearing.’
Cesare turned away. The temptation to take that tacky apology for a skirt off her, strip the tight-fitting matching leather top from her lovely body and join her in the shower was overwhelming. An over-active libido? Or something else?