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Tilly almost lost her footing, but she righted herself before he felt the need to intervene. ‘What about me?’
Out of nowhere she thought of Cressida. Cressida who was so visibly similar to her that Tilly had thought she was looking into a mirror the first time they’d met. Their red hair was long, their eyes green, their skin a similar colour—though Tilly’s tanned more easily. They were both of medium height, and though Tilly was naturally more curvaceous, Cressida had bought breast and rear enhancements two years earlier, making their figures almost matching.
‘I gather you’ve made an art form out of living fast and loose?’
Tilly frowned. As always, a whip of sorrow for the billion-dollar heiress flayed her. True, Cressida’s lifestyle was a masterpiece in modern-day debauchery, but Tilly somehow just understood her. And there was a lot more to the glamorous fashionista than partying. If only she’d let anyone see it.
‘Not really,’ she heard herself say. ‘The papers don’t always give me a fair shake.’
Now it was Rio’s turn to slow. He angled his face to study her profile. ‘Papers make up stories, but photos never lie.’
Her heart thumped hard against her chest. Had he seen photos of her? Could he tell the difference? For, as much as she and Cressida were uncannily similar, they were not the same person, and it was easy to see the differences when you set your mind to looking.
Though Tilly had an answer ready for that. She wasn’t wearing more than the bare minimum of make-up, and Cressida was never papped without a full face. Even her morning coffee run was completed in full glamour style. It was completely plausible to explain away the slight differences in their appearance by claiming a lack of cosmetic help. At least to a man, surely?
‘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 files he occasionally scratched a note angrily in the margin.
Unexpectedly he flashed his eyes in her direction and she looked away, stumbling her focus back to reading. His eyes continued to burn her skin, though.
He stood abruptly, scraping his chair noisily against the tiles. She kept her head bent as he moved into the kitchen and she heard the fridge open and shut.
She turned the page—again with no concept of where she was in the story.
The sound of butter simmering in a frying pan finally captured her interest, and she risked a glance towards him.
Her heart stuttered. Rio Mastrangelo was a seriously gorgeous man at any time. But with his shirtsleeves pushed up to the elbows, his head bent as he chopped tomato and fennel...he was the poster boy for sexiest man alive.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, wishing she hadn’t when his eyes lanced her and she felt her stomach swoop.
‘Stringing a fishing line,’ he replied, with a sarcasm that he softened by smiling.
He had a dimple in one cheek. Deep enough to dip her finger into. She looked back at her book.
‘I presume you eat normal food?’ he asked, with a challenge she didn’t understand in his question.
‘It depends what you call “normal.”’ She gave up on the book, folding down the corner at the top of a page and placing it on the sofa.
She stood and padded towards the kitchen, curious as he added basil leaves to the chopping board. He reached for the fridge once more and returned with fish, adding each fillet one by one to the sizzling frying pan. He sliced a lemon down the middle and squeezed it over the top, then ground salt.
‘That smells delicious,’ she said seriously. ‘You like to cook?’
He shrugged. ‘I like to eat, so...’
Her smile was involuntary, and her attention was momentarily distracted by the sizzling fish, so she didn’t realise that his eyes had dropped to her mouth and were staring at it with an intensity that would have boiled her blood.
‘I would have thought you’d have a chef. No—a team of chefs. All ready to obey your every whim.’ She lifted her brows as she turned her attention back to his face.
‘No.’
More of the stonewalling she’d faced that afternoon.
‘No? Why not?’
‘Because, Principessa, not everyone grew up in the hyper-indulged, rarefied way you did. I learned to cook almost as soon as I could walk. Just because I can afford to employ chefs it doesn’t mean it’s necessary.’
The hostility of his statement hurt far more than it should have. He was judging her—no, he was judging Cressida, she reminded herself forcibly—and she didn’t like it. Not one bit.
Her throat ached. With mortification, Tilly realised his harsh rebuke had brought her to the brink of tears. She took a steadying breath and looked away.
He expelled an angry breath and reached for the fish, flicking it deftly. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said after a moment. ‘That was rude of me.’
If his judgemental bitterness had surprised her, the apology had even more so.
She lifted her eyes to him slowly. ‘You think I’m spoiled.’
His smile was brief. A flicker across his face that she thought she must have imagined. He reached for two plates and scooped the tomato and fennel mixture into the middle, then added several fish fillets and half a lemon. It had the kind of presentation a five-year-old would have been proud of, but it smelled incredible. Her stomach groaned in agreement with that thought and she cleared her throat in an attempt to cover it.
‘I believe you drink champagne?’
Tilly frowned, and was on the brink of pointing out that she really didn’t drink much at all before remembering that Cressida was practically fuelled by the stuff. She found it perfectly acceptable to start her day with a glass of bubbles. And, despite the fact she could knock off a bottle on her own in no time, she never seemed affected by it. Which showed she had an incredible tolerance for the stuff. Unlike Tilly.
Yet she nodded, knowing it would lead to questions if she disavowed something so intrinsic about the heiress.
He reached into the fridge and pulled out a bottle—Bollinger, she saw as he unfurled the top.
‘The cabin is not exactly well appointed,’ he explained, pulling out a single tumbler and half filling it with champagne. He handed her the glass, then scooped up their plates and cutlery.
‘You’re not joining me?’
‘No.’
He moved down the corridor, pushing the door to the balcony open with his shoulder and holding it for her to move past. It surprised her; she’d assumed they’d sit inside at the table.
But when she looked up she let out a sound of astonishment.
Somewhere between their walk on the beach and the pages she hadn’t read, the sky had caught fire. Red, orange, pink and purple exploded in every direction, backlit by warmth and turning the ocean a vibrant hue of purple.
‘Wow!’
He set the plates on the small table, his eyes following hers.
‘Remember when we swam as the sun dipped down and the sky was orange? And you told me I was a mermaid who’d come from the sea?’
His mother’s voice had been crackly and faint. The last of her cancer treatments had left her disorientated and confused.
