Innocent In The Billionaire's Bed

‘I’ll need some dry clothes,’ she prompted, a smile tickling her full lips as she nodded towards the duffle.

He unhooked the bag from his shoulder and passed it to her. She reached for it without looking downwards and her fingers curved over his.

It was like being bitten by a snake.

She immediately released her grip on the bag and he did likewise, so that it dropped with a thump to the floor.

‘Sorry,’ she said breathlessly, as though it had somehow been her fault rather than an involuntary reaction to the spark of electric shock that had travelled through her fingertips and flooded her entire body.

‘What for?’ he murmured, reaching down for the bag.

Her frown was spontaneous. Neither Tilly nor Cressida were prone to inane, babbling apologies. ‘I don’t know.’

His laugh tickled her overstretched nerve-endings; it was a deep, throaty sound and she imagined his voice would be husky like that when he was driven by other emotions. A charge of awareness surprised her and she felt her nipples strain hard against the fabric of her bra.

His eyes dropped to them and his lips flickered in a droll smile of sardonic appreciation. ‘Go and get changed, Cressida,’ he said, dismissing her.

It was on the tip of her tongue to challenge him, Or what? when he replied, ‘Before it’s too late.’

Too late? A frisson of awareness pulsed through her, teasing her spine and making her shiver.

She took the bag from him and moved quickly down the hallway towards the bedroom he’d marked as hers.

Too late for what?

Her mind pushed away the most obvious reading of the statement—that there was some inevitability that they were running from. It was a silly interpretation, no doubt fuelled by her propensity to read far too many romance novels.

She kept her head ducked until she reached the door he’d indicated would lead to her own accommodation.

Her first assessment had been right.

There was a small bed, a bookshelf, and a hat rack near a high, small window that had geraniums in a window box, creeping halfway up the glass in an enthusiastic display of clustered red.

There was a mirror too, and she caught her reflection and moaned audibly. She looked... She might as well be naked. The fabric of her dress had turned a dark green and it hugged her tightly, moulding her breasts, her stomach, her bottom, and clinging in a V to her womanhood.

Her fingers shook as she went to remove it quickly, stripping it off her shoulders and pushing it from her body. The sight of her bra and G-string wasn’t any better. Angrily she discarded them, until she was naked, still wet, but not caring.

Her phone was in the side pocket of her bag and she lifted it out. The picture of her and Jack smiled at her when she activated it, and for a moment she felt her stomach swoop in relief. He would be okay. She’d made sure of it. This week was a small price to pay for his safety. What the hell had he been thinking?

She swiped her phone to life and flicked up the emails.

An error message appeared. With a frown, she realised there was no internet. No signal whatsoever, in fact.

A grim sense of being completely and utterly alone with Rio Mastrangelo sent a shiver down her spine.

How could Cressida do this to her? The more Tilly thought about it, the more convinced she was that Cressida had lied. But why? What could be so important that she’d orchestrate this deception? She obviously hadn’t wanted to risk Tilly saying no—which she would have, had she known about this tiny shack and the drop-dead gorgeous billionaire only a wall away. Damn her!

Well, this would be the end of it. Once she got back to London she’d tell Cressida that their arrangement was at an end.

She ripped at the zip of the bag, pulling it roughly and lifting out another dress. But it was low at the front, and she didn’t want to wear anything that might feed into the idea Rio had of her.

Cressida Wyndham, with her fake breasts, ready smile and casual attitude to life in general and sex specifically, would have been working out how to seduce the ruthless tycoon... But Tilly wanted no part of the man.

Did she?

CHAPTER TWO

‘ARE YOU HUNGRY?’

He didn’t look up as she entered; Tilly hadn’t even realised he’d heard her.

‘Not really.’

She paused inside the doorframe, studying him surreptitiously from behind hooded eyes. She caught the moment he lifted his head, saw his eyes running over her figure, his face giving nothing away. She’d have loved to pull on a baggy shirt and jeans, but she’d only packed frothy dresses and bikinis. She’d chosen the most conservative of the dresses—a dark blue linen that fell to her knees.

Wary of distracting him when he was in the middle of working, she gnawed on her lip for a moment. Then, ‘My phone doesn’t work here.’

That caught his attention. He flicked a brief glance at her. ‘No. There’s no cell tower. No infrastructure of any nature.’

She nodded, but one side of her mouth quirked downwards at the corner. ‘What do you do in an emergency?’

‘What kind of emergency?’ he prompted curiously.

‘Um...any kind. A band of marauding pirates storming the beach, or any angry flock of seagulls pecking their way across the sand...’

His smile was unexpected—and so was its effect. Her tummy filled with frantic butterflies; her skin dotted with goosebumps.

‘You don’t think I could defend you against a band of pirates?’

She arched a brow. ‘I think you have an inflated sense of your physical abilities.’

He arched a brow. ‘A theory I’m willing to disprove at any time,’ he promised darkly.

And now the butterflies went into overdrive, fluttering down to her knees and making them wobbly.

‘I’m serious,’ she said, the words stiffened by disapproval. ‘What if there’s a fire, or you break your leg or something?’

‘I have a satellite phone.’ He shrugged.

‘But what about emails?’

‘I can connect to it for internet access,’ he said. ‘It’s slow as hell, but it gets the job done.’

‘Electricity? Water?’

‘Generator. Tank.’

Her mind was busy processing that. ‘Whoever built this really wanted to be off the grid.’

‘Not a lot of options on a deserted island,’ he pointed out, with a pragmatism that annoyed her.

‘I don’t know... It seems like a post-apocalyptic bolthole.’

Or the perfect love-nest for a cheat and liar, Rio amended silently. How many women had Piero brought here over the years? Whispering sweet nothings about Prim’amore, promising a future he had no intention of providing.

‘Do you need to use the phone?’ he asked belatedly, drawing his attention back to her original query.

Fantasies of calling Cressida and unloading on her were clouds Tilly would never catch. Of course she could do no such thing. Besides, Cressida had said she was ‘going to ground’ until the wedding—that she didn’t want to be seen or heard by anyone for the week, and that included turning her cell phone off.

Tilly shook her head, a distracted smile flickering across her lips. ‘I thought I’d go exploring.’

He stood, and ran a hand through his hair. His shirt lifted, revealing an inch of tanned flat abdomen. She looked away as though she’d been burned.

‘You know I only have a week, and Art is... Daddy is,’ she corrected quickly, ‘keen to hear what I think of the place.’

‘Your wish is my command.’ His voice was low and husky and her body reacted instantly, her nipples straining against the fabric of her dress, her eyes widening. And he saw. She just knew he was aware of the effect he was having.

‘I’m fine.’ She shook her head with an attempt at professional detachment. ‘I can find my own way.’

His face wore a slow, sardonic grin. ‘Just like you were fine to get off the boat?’

She huffed. ‘That’s not very gentlemanly of you.’

‘What gave you the impression I’m a gentleman?’ he queried softly, moving closer so that she found thoughts difficult to string together.

‘Nothing,’ she muttered. ‘But I really will be fine. I’m just going to walk along the beach today. If I get lost, I’ll turn back. Even I should be able to navigate my way around an island without coming to grief.’

‘Still,’ he said, wondering in the back of his mind why he was arguing with her. ‘I’m here to show you around.’

She nodded, lifting her gaze to his face thoughtfully. She caught a flicker of emotion in his eyes that she didn’t understand. ‘Why?’

He shrugged. ‘Because it’s a big island and you could get lost.’

‘No, I mean why you? You must have people who could sell an island for you.’

‘Yes.’ His mouth was a grim slash in his face.

‘So? Aren’t you too busy to act as tour guide?’

Rio thought of the paperwork cluttering his desk in Rome and shook his head. Contracts for the high-rise in Manhattan. The lease for the Canadian mall. The purchase offer he’d made on a mine in Australia.

It could wait. Keeping the invasive tabloid press away from his private life was priority number one. He’d spent the last five years making sure his parentage wasn’t revealed, and he wasn’t going to let the truth come out now. Involving more people than necessary in this deal was a sure-fire way to invite public attention.

‘Yes.’

Why had he decided that distraction was the best way to get her off the scent and stop her questions? He couldn’t have said, but he moved closer, noting with interest the way her pupils darkened.

‘But I don’t really like the idea of you drowning in my ocean. Or tumbling off a cliff on my land.’

‘Your ocean? Your land? Someone’s got a bit of a God complex, haven’t they?’

His laugh was deep; it resonated right through her.

‘Until your father signs on the dotted line, that is the truth of the matter.’

She tilted her head to one side, lost in thought. ‘I don’t know if I believe anyone truly owns an island like this.’

‘I have a piece of paper that would beg to differ.’

She waved her hand through the air distractedly. ‘Yes, yes—legally. But don’t you think...?’ She left the sentence unfinished as she realised what she’d been about to say. Discussing her personal philosophies wasn’t part of the job. And, essentially, she was on Prim’amore to work.

She’d been paid—and paid a small fortune. Now she had to uphold her end of the bargain.

‘Yes?’ he prompted, but Tilly had zipped away from their conversation.

‘Well,’ she said, injecting her voice with the same sense of entitlement she’d personally been on the receiving end of any time Cressida had called and asked for a favour, ‘if you really want to waste your time playing sales agent, then let’s go.’

He arched a brow, but if he was surprised by her pronouncement he didn’t otherwise show it.

Tilly did a pretty good Cressida huff as she strode down the corridor and pushed the door to the cottage open. But the moment she stepped on to the small deck she froze, a gasp escaping her mouth.

He followed, almost bumping into her. ‘Problem?’

She shook her head, her eyes wide as they took in the sheer beauty of the spot. He watched her, and understood the wonderment in her face. Hadn’t he felt a similar sense of incredulity when he’d first arrived?

‘It is heaven on earth, mi amore.’

His mother had been confused at the end. She’d slipped in and out of her past just as a dolphin rippled over the surface of the ocean, and most of her memories had revolved around him. Piero. The bastard who’d broken her heart and left her pregnant and destitute.

‘It is as if God left a small piece of heaven just for us to find and enjoy.’

His expression was grim as he studied the horizon, seeing it as Cressida was. The ocean was immaculate. A deep turquoise colour disturbed only by the gentle cresting of waves. The sky was a blanket of deep blue, the sun an orb of white, high in the sky.

‘I feel like we’re the only ones on earth,’ she said with a shake of her head. ‘I hadn’t expected the island to be so...’

He waited, curious as to how she would choose to describe it.

‘It’s not just beautiful,’ she said, searching for words. ‘It’s...magical.’

‘Magical?’ he repeated derisively, ignoring how close the description was to his mother’s first impression.

The amusement in his tone was enough to drag her back to the present. ‘Yes.’ She forced a cynical smile to her face. ‘At least that’s what Daddy will be hoping hordes of tourists think.’

He nodded, dismissing the sense that she was hiding something from him. ‘The island’s perfect for a holiday resort. Close enough to Capri to provide entertainment, but totally isolated at the same time. It’s easy to imagine how special any resort would be here.’

She nodded, but there was sadness in her heart. Having been on the island less than an hour, she already knew she hated the idea of buildings and roads cutting across it. Of people bobbing in the ocean, boats churning across its smooth surface, voices shouting through the serenity.

‘Yes,’ she said, her frown carrying into the simple word.

‘What would you like to see, Cressida?’ he asked, and the use of the socialite’s name reminded Tilly forcefully of just what her duties were.

‘I was just going to walk along the beach,’ she murmured, nodding in one direction.

‘Fine. We’ll walk.’

He moved towards the stairs and she followed, though his presence was knotting her tummy again.

‘You really don’t have to come with me,’ she said softly, pressing her teeth into her lower lip as she tried to calm the butterflies that were having a party inside her.

‘I really do have to come with you,’ he corrected quietly. ‘For as long as you are on Prim’amore you are my responsibility.’

A frisson of anticipation danced along her spine. She moved quickly down the stairs, her feet sinking into the sand once she reached the level shore.

‘Prim’amore... First love.’ She glanced at him. ‘It’s a romantic name. Any idea of the history of it?’

‘No,’ he lied.

Secrets, secrets. So many secrets. Hell. He’d been a secret most of his life. Only in recent years had his father lifted the ban on his identity being known, and by then the exposure had outlived any usefulness or appeal.

‘Why are you selling it?’

She was at least a foot shorter than he was. He adjusted his stride to match hers, shoving his hands in his pockets as they moved towards the water.

‘I do not want it.’

She frowned. ‘You don’t want a pristine, untouched island off the coast of Italy?’

‘No.’

Her laugh was carried by the breeze. He turned to chase it, wishing it was louder.

‘Why ever not?’

He met her eyes, his smile feeling heavy somehow. ‘I already have an island. A bigger one.’ He thought of Arketà, with its state-of-the-art home and pier, the helicopter pad and three swimming pools. ‘Two seems excessive.’

‘And here I was thinking you to be a man who thrived on the excessive,’ she heard herself tease.

At the edge of the water she paused, kicking her shoes off and bending to retrieve them. She moved closer to the ocean, flexing her toes as she reached the water’s line, then stepping beyond it so that the waves caressed her ankles.

‘So why buy it if only to sell? Or was it an investment?’

He looked at her for a moment, wondering at the instinct throbbing through him to speak honestly to her. To admit that he hadn’t bought the island so much as inherited it. That in the month he’d possessed Prim’amore it had sat heavily on his shoulders like a weight he didn’t wish to bear. That the gift was unwelcome and that selling it was his primary desire.

‘Not exactly.’ His smile gave little away. ‘I do not need it. Your father has been shopping for a resort site in the Mediterranean for years. The match is too good to ignore.’

She nodded, but he could practically see the cogs turning. ‘You said your island is called Arketà?’

‘Yes.’

‘I like the sound of that.’

He nodded. ‘It means pretty in Greek.’

She arched a brow, her grin contagious.

‘I inherited the name when I purchased it. The previous owner christened it so for his daughter.’

‘I see.’ Tilly nodded, but her smile didn’t drop.

‘That and I’m a hopeless romantic,’ he responded with an attempt at sarcasm.

Tilly shook her head. ‘Nope. I would bet my life that “romantic” is not a word ever associated with you.’

‘Oh? And how would you describe me?’ He prompted, curiosity leading him down a conversational path that his brain was urging him to reconsider.

She slowed for a moment, her eyes skimming across his face as her full lips pouted. She was a study in concentration and it almost made him laugh.

‘I think it’s better that I don’t say,’ she said finally, turning her gaze back to the beach. ‘Do you spend much time there?’

It took him a few seconds to realise she was back on the subject of Arketà. He shook his head. ‘I thought I would when I bought it.’

‘But?’ she prompted.

His shrug lifted his broad shoulders. She tried not to notice the strength in those shoulders, but she was only human.

‘Work.’

‘Ah. Yes.’ She knew the demands of Art Wyndham’s schedule intimately, and could only imagine how much more hectic Rio’s was. ‘So you’re in Rome most of the time?’

‘Si.’

Tilly could imagine that. He had an effortless chicness about him that was completely ingrained. It wasn’t an affectation. He didn’t have to try. He was both masculine, wild, untamed and...handsome. Nothing about him screamed ostentation, yet he exuded power and wealth.

‘And you?’ he surprised her by asking.

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.