The Italian's Summer Seduction

‘We do?’ He sounded lightly amused as he positioned himself to stand behind her, his hands on her shoulders, fingers touching the bare flesh of her upper arms.

He touched his long sensual mouth to the pale hollow where her neck met her shoulder and she shuddered with forbidden delight and made herself resist the febrile temptation to turn, wrap her arms around his neck and beg for his kiss.

‘You hurt her badly,’ she pronounced baldly. She paced a step away from him, away from the danger of him. ‘That’s my educated guess.’

‘Tell me about it.’ He sounded genuinely perplexed. He was one class act, Milly reminded herself, he was a twenty-four carat womaniser. If she’d been weak enough to join in his no doubt standard seduction routine, then by now he would have been undressing her, and she would have been helping him, destination that handy big bed with no thought of future heartbreak, no thought except her consuming need for him.

Would it have given him a kick to notch up both twins?

Would she have welcomed his lovemaking because she loved him?

The thought appalled her, made her speechless so that Cesare had to prompt, ‘So tell me about your educated guess.’

The arrival of room service gave her breathing space, allowing her to piece together her fragmented wits while the slim young waiter whisked the trolley through tall windows that led out to a balcony.

‘We can talk while we eat.’ A hand in the small of her back propelled her over the sea of jade green and out on to the balcony that overlooked secluded gardens that gave up the heady perfume of jasmine into the dusky air.

Holding out a chair for her at the small round table he promised huskily, ‘And after talking, who knows?’

Milly closed her ears to that! And shivered slightly despite the warmth of the evening air. At his invitation, she helped herself to a little of this, a little of that, of what exactly she couldn’t have said because she was far too wound up to even think of eating.

A healthy gulp of the crisp, sparkling and delicious champagne gave her the impetus to state, ‘Jilly isn’t a thief. My guess is she only disappeared because you’d hurt her so badly. The last time we heard from her was when she wrote and told us she was leaving her job as a receptionist—at least I think it was a receptionist, I don’t remember exactly—at a high class nightclub here in Florence. She didn’t say where she was going or what she’d be doing, only that she would soon be able to pay back every penny she owed our mother.’

She levelled an accusing glance at him and stabbed a prawn as if she were wishing she could stab the fork into him. ‘She obviously believed everything was coming good. We had no idea she’d moved in with you, acting as your grandmother’s companion. She must have met you before, here in Florence, I would imagine. You were lovers and I guess she believed you and she would be married.’

Another throat cooling draught of champagne, then, ‘When she realised that wasn’t going to happen she left, broken-hearted.’ She shot him a darkly glittering look. ‘I know she’d never been in love before. She’d had loads of boyfriends. They didn’t seem able to resist her, from what she told us. But never anyone serious for her. Except you, apparently. And you only wanted one thing. And that was sex,’ she spelled out with brutal frankness.

She set the glass down with a mini crash. ‘There has to be some misunderstanding about the theft. And I want you to undo some of the damage and help me find her.’ Her mouth wobbled. ‘I’m getting really worried about her. And she doesn’t even know—’ the wobble got serious ‘—that Ma died.’

‘Cara.’ Cesare leaned across the table, his eyes intent on her troubled features. ‘I hate to see you upset. We will find her, I promise you. Already the search is well in hand.’

‘It is?’ A slight frown appeared between her eyes.

‘But of course.’ He leaned back again, relaxed, exuding male confidence.

‘But of course,’ she parroted as the penny dropped with a decided clang, an edge of bitterness in her tone. ‘Oh, silly me! You know, I only decided to step into Jilly’s shoes to stop you hounding her, to give her time to get over the way you must have treated her, let her get her act together so she’d be fit to speak in her own defence. But the moment you knew I wasn’t who I was pretending to be the search was back on.’

Across the table the slight elevation of one ebony brow infuriated her. She shot to her feet. ‘Take me back to the villa. It’s getting late.’ Her chin came up, her deep green eyes glinting with intent. ‘I’ll stay with Filomena until she’s back to normal—provided she wants me to when she learns who I really am—and then I’m off and you can hire another companion.’ It was the only way. She was really stupid and in grave danger of falling for a serial womaniser. Stay around him and she’d end up as broken-hearted as her twin.

‘Nonna doesn’t expect us to return tonight.’

The bald statement stopped her in her tracks. Oh, the rat! He had brought her here, had supplied her with a whole wardrobe of lovely new clothes, a fancy meal which she’d hardly touched, plied her with champagne, all with the intention of seducing her! Her face burned, hot as a furnace.

He had stationed himself in the doorway to the interior of the suite, blocking her way. She faced him. ‘Is this your normal routine? Shower your prey with pretty gifts, promise marriage and access to untold wealth, then walk away when you get bored!’ She took a deep breath, her tone as icy as she could make it. ‘Let me pass.’

Dusk was deepening to night but she could see the slight flare of his nostrils, denoting anger. Well, tough. No man—especially a man as all-fired self confident and proud as Cesare Saracino—liked to have his faults rammed down his throat.

‘I don’t need a routine and I don’t recall asking you to marry me,’ he sliced back at her. His hands shot out to fasten on her forearms. ‘And there are a few things we ought to straighten out as it seems I’m to be cast as the bad guy,’ he announced grimly. ‘First and foremost, since it seems to be your priority, your twin was traced to a nightclub in this city. Where she worked as a so-called hostess, not a receptionist—no mention of that dubious occupation was made in her CV. No one had heard from her since she left, and the consensus was that no one cared. She was not well liked. Enquiries were made at the London store—supposedly the last full time job she held before she came to Italy—and again blanks were drawn. Her former colleagues hadn’t cared enough about her to want to keep in touch. Since then the investigation has returned to Italy. I’m sorry,’ he added more temperately as he felt the fight drain out of her. ‘Jilly may attract a certain type of man, but among women she is far from popular.’

Trying to get her head round what he was telling her, that her dazzling, outgoing sister was actively disliked by her female colleagues, she failed to resist when Cesare slipped an arm around her waist and walked her back into the living room.

Settling her into one of the armchairs, he sat on the arm of the adjacent one, the light from the overhead chandelier burnishing his raven-dark hair, throwing the sculpted bones of his spectacularly handsome face into hard masculine relief.

Milly averted her eyes. He was so beautiful, so tempting. She hated what he was implying about her twin and yet she still wanted him and she had to find some way of defending Jilly, but—

‘There can be no doubt about the signatures on the cheques she cashed,’ Cesare said flatly. ‘A handwriting expert confirmed what I believed. They were forgeries.’ Forcing himself to ignore the way her delicate skin lost all colour, he stated, ‘And, just for the record, I was never her lover.’

At that Milly straightened her spine. ‘You as good as admitted it,’ she reminded him thickly. ‘Once, early on, I addressed you as Signor Saracino and you made some snide comment about my not being so formal when I came to your bed!’ Her eyes defied him but she felt sick inside. If he’d lied about that he could have been lying about everything else.

‘True.’ A strong hand cupped her chin, forcing her to keep looking at him, and his voice softened. ‘I will not repeat the crude words she used when she appeared uninvited and unclad in my bedroom. That is what I was referring to when I still believed you were your twin. But I will tell you that I told her to get out of my sight in double quick time or she was out of a job—regardless of how Nonna had come to rely on her company. I was heartily sick of her coming on to me. I was not, and never could be, interested. Soon after that, no doubt realising she was on a loser, she disappeared. And a few days later, while doing Nonna’s accounts I noticed a couple of large withdrawals to cash. The rest you know.’

Milly closed her eyes to hide the sudden sting of tears. Her emotions were all over the place. She had been fighting it but now she knew she had to believe him. He had no need to lie.

But Jilly—it hurt her immeasurably, but she had the horrible feeling that everything he’d said to her twin’s detriment was no less than the truth.

Seeing her sister through unblinkered eyes, she had no option but to acknowledge that Jilly had taken their mother’s nest-egg, her only safety net, and had lost every penny and much more. Then those careless, airy promises to pay it back, something that had never even begun to materialise, her thoughtlessness in rarely contacting them, as if they didn’t matter, as if their having to live in a mean rented flat in severely reduced circumstances because they’d had to pay off the huge debts she’d incurred was nothing to do with her.

How she had always boasted that she could get any man she wanted. No problem.

But not this man!

The words echoed through her mind like an anthem of thanksgiving. And this man was stroking away an escaping tear with the ball of his thumb and she was choking with emotions she couldn’t put a name to, but they were real and shatteringly strong.

‘I’m sorry to have upset you, cara. But for my own sake it had to be said.’

For his sake? Too fraught to resist or even think about doing so, Milly found him standing over her, drawing her to her feet, into his gently enfolding arms.

She could have moved away if she’d wanted to. But she didn’t. She felt safe.

‘You’ve always hero-worshipped your sister,’ Cesare guessed astutely, marvelling at his self-restraint in the way he was holding her when he ached to kiss every wonderful inch of her. But for her sake he knew he had to wait until she came to terms with her relationship problems with her sister.

‘Yes, I suppose I have.’ She held her bright head back to meet the warm concern in his eyes, her own cloudy, he noted on a tide of protective warmth. ‘She was always the stronger character.’

Bossy, he mentally translated.

‘She looked out for me when we were growing up and told me to always go to her if there were problems with other kids—like bullying—and she’d sort it.’

Thereby ensuring she was the dominant one, making sure she stayed that way, he assessed, pretty sure that the selfish Jilly wouldn’t do anything without an ulterior motive, his hands taking on a will of their own and softly caressing her slim back.

‘She could stand up to Dad,’ Milly remembered quietly. ‘He was a bit of a control freak and she couldn’t always get her own way with him. But she could with Ma—she could twist her round her little finger.’ Much to their mother’s financial impoverishment, she thought with a stab of anger as she remembered the way they’d had to scratch and scrape to pay the rent and buy food.

Then, as if to make up for the ferocity of that thought, she confided shakily, ‘When you appeared threatening prosecution I had to go ahead with—’ her voice faltered, then gathered strength ‘—I had to do what I could to help her. We are twins and, believe me, whatever her faults there’s a very strong bond.’

A bond that went one way only, Cesare amended savagely, but held his tongue, promising instead, ‘When she’s found, and she will be, I won’t drag her through the courts, if it will please you. But I’ll give her such a fright that never again will she be tempted to develop sticky fingers.’

Milly closed her eyes on a rush of relief. She trusted him to keep his word. Jilly might be careless with other people’s money, careless when it came to keeping in touch with her family, dishonest—but maybe she’d been really desperate. It didn’t excuse what she’d done—but she was her sister and she still couldn’t bear to think of her having to face a prison sentence.

‘Just one other thing—’ She felt the warm brush of his lips on first one eyelid and then the other and she whimpered low in her throat in weakening response and dragged in a jerk of breath as he told her, ‘I had those clothes delivered because I knew you weren’t comfortable in the sort of gear your sister wore. And I didn’t bring you here to seduce you, though I do admit to being very tempted.’

Her eyes flew open at that admission and locked on to the undisguised hot desire in his. She was shaken to the core as she realised that only this man had ever, could ever, awaken such a hunger in her that she would be trembling on the brink of taking everything he could offer, giving back everything she was, and to hell with the consequences.

‘And you, too, are tempted.’ His seductive hands caressed her swollen breasts with breathtaking tenderness and her breath fluttered in her throat as she fought to control her desperate craving for him, snatching at a fast receding memory of the way she used to be—the glamorous Jilly’s out-of-focus, boringly sensible shadow—just to get her feet back down to earth again.

‘I think this shouldn’t be happening,’ she managed, almost disintegrating as fire burned low in her pelvis, mortified by her almost manic need to drag his clothes off. Her face glowed scarlet at the novel wanton thought. He touched his mouth to hers, his lips brushing hers lightly as he murmured, ‘Feel with your heart; don’t think with your head.’

Exactly where the danger lay! She felt light-headed, her entire body aching with powerful sexual awareness, and she had to scratch around for something to bring her back to her senses and finally managed unevenly, her breath melding with his as his mouth continued to tease and torment her, ‘You forget, I am not my sister.’

His head came up, his stunning eyes holding hers as he denied, ‘I forget nothing, cara mia. If you were your sister I would not be here. I would not be wanting you as I have never wanted any woman.’

His hands slid down to her narrow waist as he eased her closer to make her discover for herself exactly how much he wanted her and, ignoring her gasp, he elaborated, his voice thickening, ‘Stop comparing yourself unfavourably to her. ‘You are beautiful in a way she could never be. It comes from within you. She is base metal, you are pure gold. Remember that.’

His words filled her head until she felt dizzy. All of her life people had rated Jilly above her. She didn’t think anyone had meant to, but when her sister walked into a room, a flash of bright colour, a stream of animated chatter, she dominated the space, all attention fixed on her.

Without a jealous bone in her body, Milly had always accepted her subordinate position as a fact of life that had no hope of changing. But now—now this fantastically charismatic, sexy man actually put her first!

Something twisted tightly inside her. She trembled violently and coiled her arms around his neck, knowing she had fallen in love with him and not afraid, now, to recognise that fact. It was a glorious, heady feeling and she would never regret it, even though she knew he would never feel the same way.

Both his hands snaked up to the back of her head, his fingers deep in the soft brightness of her silken hair as he bent his mouth to hers, lightly at first, a mere brush of butterfly wings against her quivering lips, and then as those lips parted the pressure increased and his tongue sought and found hers. He felt her body go up in flames as she kissed him back with all the fervour of an addict and he was lost, he who never lost himself, was drowning in this perfect woman.

He drew back, closing his eyes as her body squirmed with wanton eagerness against his, and said thickly, ‘I burn for you.’

Her response was a mew of pleasure, the exploration of her small hands beneath the shirt that had somehow become unbuttoned. A shudder of driven need raked through him as he lifted her in his arms and strode with her to the bedroom beyond.

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