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Laying down the fork he'd been using, he muttered in his own language, something that she took to be an imprecation rose to his feet and scooped her into his arms with a husky, 'There's only so much anticipation a guy can take' and carried her into the bedroom.
Even through the tinted glass windows Milly could see that the narrow streets they were driving through at a snail's pace looked pretty sleazy. For the first time this morning she was beginning to feel edgy about the coming encounter with her sister.
She'd woken feeling fabulous, sated and limp limbed from what had truly turned out to be a night to remember. Cesare had brought her breakfast on a tray. Juice coffee toast and thin slices of ham.
He'd joined her, easing his lean boxer-clad body beside her, and in no time at all he'd reached out and smoothed a hand over the curve of her naked shoulder drawing her to him murmuring unsteadily, 'You're so sexy. I can't keep my hands off you.'
‘I don't want you to ' she'd confessed huskily, drowning in pleasure as his fingers caressed her distended nipples. Pushing the tray aside, she'd turned then, her body stretching out to connect with his. With uninhibited passion she had hooked her fingers around the waistband of his boxer shorts and pulled them down.
And the rest, as they said, was history! Later they'd showered together with predictable results. Her body glowed at the memory.
She'd still been on cloud nine while she'd dressed in the cream-coloured linen trousers and a tailored dark green cool cotton shirt while Cesare had gone to the lounge area. She'd heard him talking on his mobile first in English and then in his own language with no room in her head for a single thought that centred on her delinquent twin.
Now as the driver negotiated the tangled warren of streets, the thought of the coming difficult interview made her heart thump and her stomach turn over.
As if attuned to her every thought wave Cesare's fingers tightened around hers as he stated 'There's nothing to worry about cara. Don't let her browbeat you or spin a tissue of lies. Simply break the news about your mother tell her I have incontrovertible proof that she stole from my grandmother and leave the rest to me. I promise I won't involve the police.'
On an impulse she rested her head against his broad shoulder. 6 I'm grateful. I know she deserves to have the book thrown at her, but-' 'she is your twin sister and there is a bond,' he finished for her. ‘I can understand. Though I strongly doubt she would feel the same.'
And before she could argue with that, remind him that Jilly had always looked out for her when they'd been kids Cesare announced ‘We seem to have arrived.'
They were parked in front of firmly closed doors with peeling paintwork flanked by grimy glass fronted panels containing coloured photographs of scantily clad females in suggestive poses. Inexpertly painted names were angled over and beneath them. Jacinta Le Bouchard prominent among them .
Feeling decidedly anxious over her twin's disastrous career choice not to mention her even dodgier future prospects as Cesare helped her out of the sleek black car she watched as he leaned in the front and spoke to the driver who nodded picked a newspaper from the front seat and settled down to read.
'Come.' He cupped a hand beneath her elbow as they entered a narrow malodorous alley beside the nightclub. 6 I will leave you alone with her for twenty minutes, half an hour max, before I join you.
When that is over the driver will take us to the airport and I will see you on a flight to Pisa before heading for London,' he told her flatly, releasing her elbow, some kind of tension hardening the sculpted angled of his stunning profile.
He was making her too uneasy to say anything more than a mumbled 'Thanks.'
She felt suddenly that a great yawning gulf had opened up between them, that he was deliberately distancing himself from her. Had coming face to face with the way her twin was earning a living given him second thoughts about having anything to do with her let alone marrying her and introducing tainted blood into his high status family? The thought was unworthy, too horrible to contemplate. Milly ousted it with a decisive shake of her head and followed him up a short
flight of crumbling stone steps, through an open doorway and into a narrow passage.
The first door he came to-more flaking paintwork-bore a card with the cringe-making placenta Le Bouchard' printed on it in violet ink. Pressing his finger on the bell, keeping it there, his jaw set, he didn't look at her. His mouth was flat with contemptuous distaste when, after a minute or two, the door was roughly dragged open and Jilly stood there wearing a kimono splashed all over with brightly coloured dragons, her long hair all over the place her mouth dropping open with shock.
Turning, he levelled an unreadable look at her and Milly paled even more colour leaving her face as he turned on his heel and strode back down the narrow passage as if he couldn't wait to get away.
Her troubled eyes followed him every step of the way until he disappeared out of sight.
Was he recalling her initial deception, lumping her morals with her twin's? Two of a kind? 'What the hell are you doing here with that bastard'?' Milly turned to face her twin. Her unwelcoming face still bore traces of last night's make-up and it wasn't like Jilly to be less than ultra-fastidious about her skin care routine, she thought with a pang, making herself remember that she was here for a purpose.
‘Can I come in'?' As a reply Jilly turned and walked across the tiny hallway and through a beaded curtain. Milly followed leaving the front door open, because who knew when she'd leave her twin to her own devices and leg it after Cesare to make him explain why he'd looked at her as if she was the last person on earth he wanted to be with?
Gathering herself with the reminder that there were things that had to be said, she brushed through the hanging strands of beads and stepped into a room which one look told her served as sitting room, bedroom and kitchen. Clothes were strewn everywhere and Milly had the unfold memory of how for as far as her memory stretched back she'd had to clear up after her twin.
‘I'm afraid I've got bad news,' she said softly as her twin parked herself on the scarlet satin covered bed.
‘Spit it out then.' With an uninterested shrug, Jilly reached for a pack of cigarettes and lit up, blowing a plume of smoke towards the ceiling.
Milly moved closer ready to offer comfort. There was no way to break this gently. ‘I'm sorry, but Ma passed away a few months ago. It was sudden.' She reached for her twin's cigarette free hand noted the sudden frown between the mirror-image of her own eyes, and could have wept for her vividly remembering her own shock and grief.
‘I would have contacted you,' she impressed on her quietly, abut I didn't know how. You hadn't been in touch since you left Florence.'
Jilly's face went pale and still her jaw clenched as if she were desperately holding back strong emotion. Shock and grief, Milly thought on a pang of painful sympathy, her fingers tightening around her twin's.
Jilly dragged her hand away. 'Then how did you find me? How did you meet up with that bastard'?' Her mouth twisted as she stubbed the cigarette out in an overflowing ashtray.
