The Italian's Price

Filomena got stiffly to her feet and Cesare handed her a walking cane. Then Milly noted sinkingly that his strong lean face was turned to her, those dark penetrating eyes burning into her apprehensive green ones as he addressed her in a torrent of Italian.

Feeling sick with nerves, Milly bit into the soft underside of her bottom lip, her brain turning dizzily as it scrambled to recall what Jilly had written on one of those postcards.

That she was picking up the language!

Was the deception to be uncovered so soon, so easily? There was a thumping silence as she failed to respond to what it was he’d been saying to her.

‘Now, Cesare.’ Unwittingly Filomena came to her rescue. ‘You know the rules. English only!’

‘Of course, Nonna. I apologise.’ Cesare dipped his dark head and Milly was sure a hard smile tugged at the corners of his handsome mouth. ‘I shall reframe my question in perfect English,’ he delivered silkily, eyes as cold as the Arctic winter holding hers. ‘Would Jilly like to give me her home number? I can dial it for her as I know the correct international code.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Milly returned thinly, and smiled for Filomena. ‘I’ll see you to your room before I phone home.’ She shot Cesare a challenging glance. ‘Milly won’t have left work yet. And I expect she’ll need to do some grocery shopping before she heads home.’

She had no intention of making that pointless call and with the feeling that she had survived somehow, had avoided quite a few pitfalls—even if the survival had relied more on luck than judgement—she accompanied the elderly lady to her ground floor suite, saw her settled and finally left with the promise that, yes, she would herself rest before dinner.

Thanks to her earlier foresight she found the room that had been Jilly’s with no trouble at all and sat on the edge of the huge, opulent bed and lowered her bright head to her hands.

Back in England, anxious to save her twin from being treated like a criminal, hauled before a judge to answer to charges she was surely innocent of, she had blithely believed that this deception was necessary if only to give her the time to try and trace her missing sister, put her in the picture and get her to clear everything up.

She hadn’t wanted the cold-hearted Cesare to find her first, refuse to listen to anything she said in her own defence and have her clapped in irons before she could draw breath.

She still didn’t. Of course she didn’t! But the deception was making her feel ill and desperately ashamed of herself. Not on Cesare’s account, that was for sure! He was the brute who had broken her sister’s heart, bedded her, led her to believe he would marry her. Then dumped her. At least everything pointed that way. Why else would Jilly have disappeared?

But deceiving a lovely, kindly old lady was despicable. It was pricking her conscience like a red-hot poker! She couldn’t do it.

She was going to have to come clean.

Cesare ended the second call and swivelled his chair away from the leather-topped desk so that he could face the bank of tall windows that overlooked the expanse of emerald-green lawns that swept uninterrupted to the stone perimeter wall.

Shadows were lengthening as the sun sank towards the horizon and beyond the wall he could see the misty amethyst of distant hills, the nearest terraced and surrounded by clusters of ochre-walled houses and farmsteads.

His strongly angled brows drew down darkly as he dragged in a huff of breath and swooped back from the view that always calmed him and faced his desk again, one lean tanned hand reaching for an address book.

The enigma he was tussling with was his grandmother’s wretched thieving companion. Lots of things about Jilly Lee didn’t sit right.

Her demeanour was quiet, almost subdued. Instead of in-your-face bright and bubbly. Short, unvarnished fingernails, the lack of beauty-salon-glossy make-up.

All of which could be put down to the fact that the bounce had been knocked out of her when he’d caught up with her and forced her to come back and work without remuneration until the amount she had stolen had been repaid. Plus, she would be on a low following the death of her mother. No puzzle there. Her grief had been genuine, the emotion real and raw.

Yet he had always been an astute judge of character and early on he had decided that Jilly Lee was completely shallow, incapable of an emotion that wasn’t entirely self-centred.

And then again—he had instant recall of her look of mystification when he’d addressed her in Italian. Jilly Lee was pretty near fluent.

True, English only was Nonna’s strict rule and it had paid off because she was now conversing with ease and the challenge to brush up on the language had been good for her, had given her a real interest.

But her companion had always used Italian when speaking with the staff and when she was alone with him—a situation she had contrived with tedious regularity.

So why the seeming lack of comprehension when he’d simply asked for a phone number?

Something didn’t sit right.

His mouth compressed, he leafed through the address book until he found the number he wanted. There were ways to get to the bottom of the enigma. Already he had put two investigators on the case. The one in England who had initially found Jilly Lee’s family’s home address, the other here to follow a possible Italian trail.

There was something he could do himself to get to the bottom of what was needling him. But he couldn’t do it here.

He drew the phone towards him, lifted the receiver and punched in numbers.

‘Contessa—’

The dining room was magnificent but Milly couldn’t exclaim over the wonders of the painted ceiling, decorated with garlands of flowers, fruits and impish putti, or the two fantastic Venetian chandeliers above the long, highly polished table because as Jilly she would know the interior of the villa inside out.

And she was in no real state to properly appreciate any of it, the room, the food served on delicate porcelain plates, the heavy silver flatware, the wine—a different one for each course—in exquisite crystal glasses.

Because.

She was riven with guilt over the deception. Had made up her mind to confess all to Filomena. But not while that handsome, cynical devil was around. His wrath at having been fooled would be shattering and his willingness to listen to her defence of her twin nonexistent.

But she was sure Filomena would listen. The old lady, trigged out in violet silk with diamonds at her throat was chattering nineteen to the dozen. Cesare remarked laconically, ‘You’re in good form this evening, Nonna.’ The old lady lifted her glass and replied, ‘That is because my dear Jilly is with me again, to keep me entertained and stop me from expiring from tedium.’

‘Which role I am obviously unable to fill,’ Cesare returned with wry fondness.

‘Of course!’ The faded eyes twinkled. ‘Girl-talk is a stranger to you! Besides—’ she dipped her spoon into her zabaglione with obvious relish ‘—you are so often away. Although I have noticed—’ again the twinkle this time accompanied by a tiny knowing smile ‘—that since Jilly joined us you have rarely left the villa.’

The interchange made Milly wonder if Filomena had guessed that the two had become lovers and had silently condoned it, hoping perhaps—as Jilly must have done—that marriage was on the cards.

Which reinforced her opinion that Filomena would listen to her, side with her in defence of her missing twin; she was genuinely very fond of her. Jilly had obviously done what she did best, had used her charm until the recipient was eating out of her pretty hands. A knack, Milly ruefully reminded herself, that she singularly lacked.

Yes, Filomena would roundly deny that Jilly had forged those cheques, would explain that she had signed them herself when she hadn’t been feeling on top form, which would be why the signatures had raised suspicions.

Emboldened by that possible explanation, she raised her eyes and found Cesare’s eyes on her, focused with an intensity that made her blood run cold and then hot. Very hot. The smile that played around the edges of his mouth was wilfully sinful and it did awful things to her.

Her stomach tightened then flipped, just as it had done earlier when he’d come to her room.

He’d entered after a perfunctory knock and she’d been standing there in her plain un-Jilly-like undies. Her face flaming, she’d grabbed her sister’s black silk sheath from where she’d laid it ready on the bed and held it in front of her. Feeling sick with embarrassment, she spilled out, ‘What do you want?’

Leaning with casual grace against the door frame he looked magnificent. All dark and brooding and unnervingly sexy in his cream dinner jacket and narrow black trousers. No wonder Jilly had fallen hook line and sinker for the heartless brute, was her near hysterical thought as she clasped the black dress infront of her as if it were body armour.

‘To remind you that we dine early, at seven-thirty, for my grandmother’s sake—in case you’d forgotten. You are already late.’ Delivered with extreme dryness.

‘Of course I hadn’t forgotten,’ she denied. How could she forget something she hadn’t known? ‘I fell asleep,’ she excused untruthfully, unable to tell him that she’d spent ages going over the room here and in the luxurious en suite bathroom, opening cupboards and drawers to see if Jilly had left anything behind that would tell her that her sister had meant to return when she’d recovered from the worst effects of a broken heart and shattered dreams.

She had found nothing, not even a hairpin. Disconsolately she’d run a bath and had soaked for an hour, then selected the black dress from amongst the things one of the staff must have unpacked, and had been getting ready to dress and go down to Filomena’s room and tell her everything.

‘I’ll be even later if you don’t leave so I can get dressed,’ Milly said tightly, willing him to take his desperately unnerving presence away.

‘I’ll wait.’ Posting his intention, Cesare sauntered further into the room and Milly, her chin set at a stubborn angle, her eyes glittering with loathing, backed out and slammed the bathroom door behind her.

Who the hell did he think he was? she raged internally. Bang went her intention to explain everything to his unsuspecting grandmother before they all had to sit through dinner together.

Struggling into the dress, she did her best to calm down. In her role as Filomena’s companion she would get loads of time alone with her tomorrow. She had wanted to get everything off her chest right now, but it would just have to wait.

And at least he hadn’t figured out that she wasn’t the real Jilly. If he had she would have been thrown out of the villa at the speed of light, the doors locked and barred behind her and her intentions to confess to Filomena and get her on side vanishing like a puff of smoke in a hurricane.

Facing one of the mirrored walls Milly noted that her face had gone scarlet from the combined effects of temper, frustration and her inability to pull the back zip all the way up.

And then, to her huge annoyance, Cesare’s reflection appeared behind her. ‘Allow me.’ In one concise movement he had the zip in place, the backs of his fingers brushing against skin that suddenly felt unbearably sensitised. ‘I thought you might have died in here.’ His mouth curved in sardonic humour and, Milly translated huffily, he thought she might have jumped out of the window with the family silver concealed in her underwear!

His reflected eyes, partially veiled by his thick dark lashes, swept slowly down her body and Milly’s insides squirmed, her face reddening again. The dress fitted like a second skin. Jilly had always worn her clothes on the tight side. ‘If you’ve got it, flaunt it!’ Whereas she had always preferred not to draw attention to her curvy hips, tiny waist and the generous breasts that were even now humiliating her by peaking, thrusting unashamedly against the fine silk barrier of the dress.

She didn’t know what had come over her to make her body respond this way. The stress of the situation, she guessed, frustrated because she seemed to have no control over her own body.

Moving briskly to one side, she turned and marched back into the bedroom, pushed her feet into a pair of Jilly’s heels and followed him out into the corridor and now here they were, the ongoing stress of having to pretend to eat and respond to Filomena’s chatter thankfully coming to an end and he was leaning back in his chair, cradling his wineglass in one lean, tanned hand, the picture of smooth sophistication.

Cesare had made little contribution to the conversation, just watched her from the depths of those clever eyes, making her wish the floor would open like a trapdoor and swallow her up, but when a stout black-clad woman entered with a dark-haired slip of a girl in close attendance, Filomena stood. ‘No coffee for me, Rosa. I think I will retire early after today’s excitement.’ Cesare stood too and settled his grandmother back in her chair.

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