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Isla lost every scrap of colour at those words and backed away in haste from her visitor. Was it true? How could she know? Tania had always done what she wanted to do, regardless of morality or loyalty. Isla had recognised that disturbing trait in her sibling and had refused to dwell on it, telling herself that it was none of her business because she had been keener to see similarity rather than a vast gulf of understanding stretching between herself and her sister.
‘Paulu would’ve told me,’ Isla muttered in desperation.
‘Paulu didn’t know everything that she got up to but I did. I saw no reason to humiliate him with the truth,’ Alissandru confessed harshly. ‘He suffered enough at her hands without me piling on the agony.’
And the wild defensive rage drained from Isla in that moment. What on earth were they doing? Fighting over a troubled marriage when both parties had since passed away? It was insanity. Alissandru was grieving, she reminded herself reluctantly, bitter as hell about his twin’s need for Tania when clearly he himself—in his brother’s shoes—would have dumped Tania the first chance he got. He was not a forgiving man, not a man capable of overlooking moral frailties in others.
‘Oh, go and fetch your coat back in, for goodness’ sake!’ Isla urged him impatiently. ‘We’ll have tea but if you want to stay under this roof you will not insult my late sister again...is that clear? You have your view of her but I have my own and I will not have you sullying the few memories I have of her.’
Alissandru studied her set face. It was heart-shaped, full of determination and unconcealed exasperation. In all his life no woman had ever looked at Alissandru Rossetti as Isla did at that moment. As if she was thoroughly fed up with him and being the bigger person in her self-control and practicality. Her bright eyes challenged his, her head at a defiant angle as she awaited his response. Alissandru retrieved his coat. Per Dio, even inside the house he was cold!
An odd little creature, he reasoned as he scooped up his coat with a frown. No glamour, no grooming, no flirtation or fawning either. He didn’t drink tea! He was Sicilian. He drank the best coffee and the purest grappa. It was, however, possible that in a temper he had been ruder than was wise in the circumstances, he conceded grudgingly. He had a very bad temper. He knew that; everyone knew that about him and made allowances. She didn’t, though—she had talked down to him as though he were an angry, uncontrollable child. He was enraged by that little speech she had made; Alissandru’s lean dark features froze into icy proud immobility and he stepped back indoors to head straight for the smoking fire. On his passage there, however, something bit at his ankle and he bent down with a Sicilian curse to smack away the little animal with the sharp teeth set into his leg.
‘No!’ Isla thundered at him, charging across the room to scoop up the weird little dog but only after slipping a finger into its mouth to detach its resolute teeth from Alissandru’s silk sock and the bruised flesh beneath. ‘Puggle’s only a puppy. He doesn’t know any better.’
‘He bit me!’ Alissandru snarled.
‘You deserved to be bitten and bitten hard!’ Isla told him roundly, cradling the strange little animal to her chest as if it were a baby. ‘Stay away from him.’
‘I don’t like dogs,’ Alissandru informed her drily.
Isla dealt him an irritated glance. ‘Tell me something that surprises me,’ she suggested just as drily.
Huge ears set wide above his curly head, Puggle rested big round dark eyes on his victim from the safety of Isla’s arms and if a dog could be said to smile, Puggle the puppy was smiling.
CHAPTER TWO
CLAD IN HIS COAT, Alissandru lowered himself reluctantly into a chair by the kitchen table. The silence was uncomfortable, but he refused to break it. It didn’t help that he had never been so cold in his life or that Isla was still running around in bare feet and clearly much hardier in such temperatures than he was. His body wanted to shiver but, macho to his very fingertips, he rigorously suppressed the urge.
Watching Isla’s quick steps round the small kitchen area that encompassed a good half of the claustrophobic low-ceilinged room, he absently and then more deliberately found himself taking note of the surprisingly full curves that rounded out the unflattering clothing she wore. Her sister Tania had been tall and model-thin but, being both small in height and curvy at hip and breast, Isla had a very different shape. The sort of shape Alissandru much preferred in women, he acknowledged grudgingly, momentarily becoming rigid as his body found something other than the intense cold to respond to while he struggled to curb that male weakness.
Even so, his response didn’t surprise him because Isla was beautiful, even if she was rather less flashy and far more of a natural beauty than he was accustomed to meeting. She wasn’t ever going to stop the traffic, he reasoned with determination, but somehow she constantly drew a man’s attention back to the delicate bones of her face, the vivacity in her eyes and the sultry fullness of lips that would inspire any man with erotic images. Any man, Alissandru told himself insistently, noting the fine scattering of freckles across her fine cheekbones, even more naturally wondering if she had any anywhere else.
His mobile phone rang, uncannily loud in the silence.
‘My goodness, you get reception here!’ Isla exclaimed in surprise. ‘You’re lucky. I have to drive a mile down the road to use my mobile.’
The call was a welcome interruption, however, throwing Alissandru out of a rare moment of introspection and thoughts that thoroughly irritated him. He leapt upright and pulled out his phone with the oddest sense of relief at that sense of being connected with his world again. But, unfortunately, the call brought bad news and sent Alissandru straight to the window to stare out broodingly at the big fluffy snowflakes already falling and drifting as the wind caught hold of them.
‘The helicopter can’t pick me up until tomorrow,’ he breathed grittily, annoyance and impatience gripping him. ‘Blizzard conditions will hit this evening.’
‘So, you’re stuck here,’ Isla concluded, wondering where on earth she was supposed to put him because there was only one bedroom and one bed and no sofa or anything else to offer as a handy substitute. Usually when she stayed her uncle and aunt borrowed an ancient sofa bed from their neighbour and set it up downstairs for her use but in their absence she had been sleeping in their bed.
‘Is there a hotel or anything of that nature around here?’ Alissandru enquired thinly.
‘I’m afraid not,’ Isla told him ruefully, setting his tea down by his abandoned chair. ‘We’d have to drive for miles and we could easily get trapped in the car somewhere. We don’t go out unless we have to in weather like this.’
Alissandru expelled his breath in a hiss and raked agitated long brown fingers through his luxuriant black hair. ‘It’s my own fault,’ he ground out grimly as he swung back to her, his lean, strong face grim. ‘The pilot warned me before we took off about the weather and the risk and I didn’t listen.’
With admirable tact, Isla compressed her lips on the temptation to remark that she wasn’t surprised. Alissandru Rossetti had a very powerful personality and she imagined he rarely listened to the advice of others when it ran contrary to his wishes. Evidently, he had wanted to see her today and no other day and waiting for better flying conditions hadn’t been an option he was prepared to contemplate. Now his impatience had rebounded on him.
‘You can stay here,’ Isla announced wryly. ‘And I’m sure we’re both absolutely thrilled by the prospect.’
An unexpected glimmer of amusement flared in his eyes, lighting them up with pure gold enticement. Isla wondered why nature had bothered to bless him with such beautiful eye
s when most of the time they were hard and cold with sharpness and suspicion. She shook away that bizarre thought and instead tried to concentrate on what she could defrost from the freezer to feed him.
Alissandru sat back down and manfully lifted the mug of tea, his mother’s training in good manners finally kicking in. But even as he did so he was wondering if he should simply have asked for coffee because he had never before been in a situation, aside of his brother’s marital problems, where he was forced to make the best of things that were bad. He supposed he was very spoilt when it came to the luxury of choice because the Rossetti family had always been rich. It was true that Alissandru’s business acumen had made his nearest and dearest considerably wealthier, but he still had to look back several generations to find an ancestor who had not been able to afford the indulgent extras of life. The tea proved not to be as horrible as he had expected and at least it warmed him up a little.
‘Where will I sleep?’ Alissandru enquired politely.
Isla rose in haste. ‘Come on, I’ll show you,’ she said uncomfortably, leading the way up the small twisting staircase.
Alissandru’s gaze flickered over the three doors opening off a landing the size of a postage stamp. ‘That’s the bathroom,’ she told him, opening up one of the doors. ‘And this is where you’ll have to sleep,’ she added tautly, opening up a room that was rather larger than he had expected and furnished with a double bed, old-fashioned furniture and a fireplace.
