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‘Wrong.’
‘You’re a relative?’ Franca pressed dubiously.
‘No, we’re——’
Franca gasped in horrified disbelief. ‘He’s not——?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Mina was shattered by her crude assumption.
‘I’ll call a car for you. You should leave now,’ Franca told her with a smile of suppressed rage. ‘If I hadn’t been away on location, you wouldn’t have got a lookin! Cesare is mine.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Mina retorted drily.
Franca spat something at her in voluble Italian, her magnificent breasts heaving against the flimsy beach cover-up. Then, disconcertingly, she laughed and dealt Mina a look of supreme scorn. ‘Stay, then, and watch me in action.’
‘I can hardly wait.’
‘Cesare is a living legend between the sheets. I hear he’s an animal in bed,’ Franca purred with rich appreciation and enormous complacency. ‘You couldn’t begin to compete with me.’
With that parting shot, Franca departed. Exit stage left, Mina reflected, in no doubt that the flamboyant brunette was an actress after her theatrical display and decidedly relieved that Franca had apparently not had hands-on experience of Cesare’s legendary attributes in the bedroom.
She drained her glass of champagne and dragged open one of the closets to rifle through the swimwear available. All of a sudden she was desperately keen to be rid of the yellow sundress. Ten minutes later, she emerged from the changing-room somewhat self-consciously sheathed in a brief black bikini with chain clasps on the hips and top.
‘Bella! Bella!’ a male voice exclaimed and a hand captured her wrist as she attempted to walk past his table and held her fast.
Bemused, she stared down at the man.
‘I am your host, Roberto Ecchio…and, unlike my sister, I love British women.’ He pressed a practised kiss to her inner wrist, shooting her a smouldering upward glance clearly intended to make her collapse gratefully at his feet.
Mina couldn’t help it. She laughed.
He gave her a pained look, drawing her down on to the vacant chair beside him. ‘You’re in love with Cesare?’
‘Mind your own business,’ Mina told him, her attention roaming over to the far table where Cesare was in deep conversation with Franca, their dark heads intimately close. Her stomach cramped up, perspiration moistening her upper lip. It crossed her mind that, although she did not expect Cesare to stick to her like superglue in company, since they had entered the villa she could well have dropped dead without him noticing.
‘Crazy about him,’ Roberto Ecchio decided. ‘What a waste of your emotion, cara. Cesare’s a loner and not the faithful type. Here today, gone like greased lightning tomorrow. You’ll never hold him. He’s a professional heartbreaker.’
Mina tensed. ‘How well do you know him?’
‘We went to school together,’ Roberto laughed, pushing a brimming glass towards her. ‘A lot of women have cried on my shoulder about Cesare.’
‘I’m not crying.’
‘But you will.’ Roberto cast a meaningful look in Cesare’s direction. Franca was running a caressing finger playfully along his strong jawline and laughing at whatever he was saying. ‘Franca’s been after him for a long time and I’m afraid my sister doesn’t listen to warnings. Don’t worry about it. She’ll get her fingers burnt too.’
‘Very probably.’ Mina wondered if Franca had deliberately set her brother on her to keep her away from Cesare. Not that Cesare was exactly fighting to escape the brunette’s attentions.
‘He’s not the marrying kind
.’
‘He is,’ Mina said gruffly. ‘He’s married to me.’
Roberto Ecchio looked at her fixedly.
‘We got married ten days ago. Ask him if you don’t believe me,’ Mina continued defensively.
‘Then what the hell is he playing at?’ the other man demanded with a frown.
