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‘You still haven’t fully explained your connection with Paulu,’ Alissandru remarked softly.
Isla gritted her teeth on her fork. ‘We became friends...he was upset about his marriage breaking down and I tried to advise him on how to get Tania back.’
‘Good to know who I have to thank for that final mistake,’ Alissandru commented drily.
‘You need a filter button before you speak,’ Isla told him tartly.
‘Share with me the advice you gave him,’ Alissandru urged.
She turned her head to look at him and, unexpectedly, her heart softened. She recognised the glow of curiosity in his eyes for what it was: a kind of hunger to know and understand anything about his twin that he had been excluded from, and naturally Paulu had not shared his eagerness to reclaim his estranged wife with a brother who had probably cheered at her departure.
‘Paulu was behaving like a stalker. He was sending Tania emails, texts and showering her with invitations and it wasn’t getting him anywhere. Tania was annoyed he had followed her back to London,’ Isla admitted ruefully. ‘She told me the marriage was over.’
‘So, what changed?’
‘I don’t know for sure because, apart from a text from Paulu telling me they were giving their marriage another go, I didn’t get to see either of them again,’ Isla confided ruefully. ‘But I had warned Paulu to stop chasing her and to back off and give her some space. She took him for granted...you see.’
‘Sì,’ Alissandru agreed grimly.
‘But at the same time, Paulu was Tania’s security blanket, her safe place, and I suspect that if he did show a little backbone and she started to fear that she truly was losing him for ever, she might think again.’
‘It’s the eighth wonder of the world that Paulu and I shared the same womb,’ Alissandru intoned. ‘We barely had a thought in common.’
‘You were twins.’
‘Fraternal. I inherited more of my father’s traits but Paulu didn’t have an aggressive bone in his body.’
‘He had much more important gifts,’ Isla cut in. ‘He was kind and loving and generous.’
‘Sì, very generous,’ Alissandru sliced in darkly, setting his tray down and welding his broad shoulders to the headboard in physical emphasis of his exasperated sarcasm. ‘If he hadn’t almost bankrupted himself treating Tania to her every wish before he married her, he wouldn’t have got himself into so much financial trouble afterwards.’
Isla set down her tray as well, her heart-shaped face troubled. ‘Is that what you always do? Take the gloomy view?’
‘The truth can hurt and I don’t avoid it,’ Alissandru assured her.
‘But what you’re refusing to see is how happy Tania made your brother. You may not have liked her, but he adored her and I’m so grateful they got back together before they died,’ Isla confessed emotively. ‘How happy was he the last time you saw him?’
Unimpressed by her sentimental outlook, Alissandru thought back to his last meeting with his twin. Ironically, only days before the helicopter crash, Paulu had been full of the joys of spring, striding into Alissandru’s office to cheerfully announce that Tania was willing to try for a baby. Alissandru had been taken aback by the unashamed depth of his brother’s desire to have a child of his own because it was not an aspiration that had ever entered Alissandru’s head. No, for Alissandru, having a family featured only in some far distant future and it was not something he felt any need to consider before he even reached his thirtieth birthday.
‘He was happy,’ Alissandru admitted grudgingly, and even as he uttered those words he felt some of the weight of his grief slip free and lighten his heart. Suddenly he realised what a comfort it was to look back and recognise that his twin’s last months had been joyful because he had reunited with the love of his life and together they had been planning a more settled future.
Isla turned to study him, her wide blue eyes full of understanding and compassion. ‘And doesn’t that make you feel better? I know it makes me feel better.’
That truth was so simple it positively shrieked at Alissandru but he had not seen that truth for himself and in a sudden movement he snaked an arm round her and pulled her close.
‘Grazie...thank you,’ he breathed in a hoarse tone of relief, his eyes hot liquid gold with naked emotion.
He had such beautiful eyes, she found herself thinking again, and the spiky black lashes surrounding them only boosted their appeal. And as she gazed up at him he lowered his dark head and crushed her soft mouth under his, sending a wave of such hopeless longing snaking through Isla that she shivered with the effect of it.
‘You’re cold,’ Alissandru assumed, lifting her onto his lap to throw back the duvet and then shift her beneath it and back into his strong arms.
Spontaneous laughter shook Alissandru’s body as he held her. ‘You feel furry like a teddy bear,’ he confided unevenly. ‘Is there really a woman underneath the fur?’
Taken aback by both his boldness and his amusement, Isla winced. ‘I didn’t want to be wearing anything provocative around you.’
‘It’s definitely not provocative,’ Alissandru assured her, long fingers smoothing her soft curls back from her face. ‘But then I only need to look at you to want you, mia bella.’
Sentenced to stillness by that startling admission, Isla gazed up at him, barely crediting that she was in his arms in a bed. Could it be true that she attracted him to that extent? Even though he had despised her sister and had revealed, with his accusation about Paulu, a worrying bias against her likely character as well?
‘Stop thinking so hard,’ Alissandru urged her, a fingertip smoothing the frown line forming between her delicate brows.
The heat of his big powerful body filtering through her lounging pyjamas made her feel warm and secure. He actually wanted her. Alissandru Rossetti wanted her and somehow that made Isla feel less alone. But then, at the age of twenty-two she had lost every living person who had ever mattered to her and she often felt alone. Her uncle and aunt were one of those couples so content to be a couple that they rarely invited visitors and, although they always assured her that she was welcome, Isla was not comfortable inviting herself.
‘Are you warm enough now?’ Alissandru enquired silkily, a hand sliding beneath her top to splay across her midriff.
Her breath snarled up in her throat at the feel of his big hand against her skin. She couldn’t think straight and an instant of panic claimed her because she had never been in such an intimate situation with a man. Her brain whirred at a frantic pace because she knew that Alissandru would expect sex. And why not? another little voice chimed in the back of her head. Why not? Why shouldn’t she? She was finally with a man who made her heart beat so fast she felt breathless. And shouldn’t that be celebrated rather than denied or suppressed?
‘Yes...you’re as effective as an electric blanket,’ she told him awkwardly.
Alissandru dealt her an incredulous look from glittering dark eyes and then his wide sensual mouth curved and he laughed again. ‘Never heard that one before.’
And Isla knew it was the moment where she should mention her lack of experience because he obviously hadn’t a clue, but pride silenced her. He would think she was a freak still being so innocent at her age and she didn’t want him thinking that of her, much preferring that he should assume that she was as casual about sex as she had been told he was.
‘I feel at peace for the first time in weeks,’ Alissandru admitted reflectively. ‘What you said about Paulu being happy...it helped.’
‘I’m glad,’ she whispered, lifting a hand to trace her fingers down over his stubbled jaw line, appreciating the masculine roughness of his skin and the dark shadowing that accentuated his beautifully shaped
mouth.
‘Maledizione...ti voglio... I want you,’ Alissandru breathed in a raw, driven undertone, his body hot and taut from even that glancing caress.
His sensual mouth ravished hers, sending a shower of sparks flaring low in her belly, and he shifted against her, letting her feel the hard thrust of his readiness in the cradle of her thighs. The pressure of him at the junction of her thighs electrified her, making her almost painfully aware that that was where she really needed to be touched. He leant back from her to lift her top up over her head and she gasped in surprise, only just resisting the urge to cover her exposed breasts.
The cold air pinched her nipples, and she flushed all over as he gazed down at her hungrily.
‘It’s a sin to cover those,’ Alissandru growled, curving a reverent hand to a lush breast crowned with a pouting pink nipple and dipping his head to savour that peak with his mouth.
Her brain in a wild whirl, Isla felt her back arch of its own volition and her pelvis tilt up as heat surged between her legs. He toyed with her other breast, tugging at the sensitive crest until her head fell back, her neck extending as the storm of her response grew stronger. She had never felt anything so powerful before, had not known her body had the ability to feel anything that intense. And then before she could even catch her breath, Alissandru was divesting her of her pants and prying her thighs apart to bury his wicked mouth there instead.
Shock consumed Isla and she parted dry lips to protest. Of course, she knew what he was doing but it was not something she had ever thought would appeal to her, at least until Alissandru applied his tongue to the most sensitive spot on her entire body and a spectacular wave of sensation engulfed her. And the tide of sensation built and built as he entered her with his fingers until she was writhing in response, agonised gasps torn from her parted lips, and for a split second as that explosive peak of pleasure gripped her she saw stars, jerking and out of control, blissful cries wrenched from her lips.
