AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘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.
‘That you grew up with more money than most people see in a lifetime. And that in my experience women like you tend to be...’
‘Yes?’ she prompted, her hackles rising despite the fact he was making assumptions about her doppelgänger, not her true self.
What had he wanted to say? Did it matter that the spoiled rich girls he’d bedded in the past were all boring, entitled, selfish and dull? Why were they talking about this?
His frown deepened. He was supposed to be showing her the island; that was all. It was the kind of thing he’d never have deigned to do under normal circumstances. God knew he had more important things to focus on. Still, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—let the press get wind of his ties to Prim’amore. Rio, and Rio alone, would handle all the contracts associated with the sale.
But it should have taken days. Not a week. Art had been strangely insistent, though. Cressida wanted a week ‘to really get a feel for the place’, and Art had expressed his relief that his wayward daughter was showing such good business sense.
But he didn’t need to spend the whole time taking beach strolls with the admittedly beautiful heiress. And certainly not sharing his innermost thoughts.
‘Never mind,’ he said, his voice a dark contradiction of the light banter they’d been sharing. ‘This beach stretches for another two miles before the cove curves inwards and we’ll need to climb the cliff. I suggest we leave that for another day.’
* * *
He was being deliberately unpleasant.
No, not unpleasant.
Just a big, gorgeous roadblock to any conversation she tried to make.
He’d been like it as they’d walked on the beach. As though he’d flicked a switch and she no longer held any interest for him. He’d pointed out details of the island, suggested positions that might be suitable for a hotel, but he had made it clear that he felt obliged to provide her with business information and that was the end of it.
