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It was those eyes, though, she thought, turning her attention back to the twin masterpieces in his face.
She felt as though she’d been slapped. They locked to hers: grey warring with green. The boat lurched again. She reached down to the polished timber rail to steady herself, her manicured fingers running over it for strength.
She’d chosen a simple dress for the flight to Italy. It was a designer brand, but she’d picked it up in a charity shop a long time ago—before this crazy plan had even been hatched. It was turquoise—her favourite colour. It complemented her eyes and set off the auburn highlights in her long cherry-red hair. And her skin, though nowhere near as deep a tan as Rio’s, looked golden all over. She’d chosen the dress because it looked good on her and she’d wanted to look good. But not for Rio.
She’d chosen it for the photographers who might snap her passing through Rome’s airport, or travelling on the ferry to Capri. For the tourists with cell phones who would recognise Cressida Wyndham, her doppelgänger, en route to a luxurious Mediterranean holiday. She’d kept her head bent, as though she really was an heiress avoiding attention, but she’d courted it at the same time.
She’d chosen to wear the dress for those reasons.
For Rio, she suspected, she would be safer wearing a nun’s habit.
Anything to discourage his eyes from drifting over her in that slow, curious way they had.
She understood the speculation in them; she’d met enough men in her twenty-four years to know what interest looked like. Cursed, in many ways, with the kind of curves most women would kill for, Tilly had long ago come to despise her generous cleavage, neat waist and rounded bottom. There was something about her figure that seemed to signal to men that she wanted to strip naked and jump into their bed.
The boat shifted again, as a wave rolled beneath it, and she paused, reaching for the rail once more. The driver had backed it as close as possible to the shore but even so it wouldn’t be possible to disembark from the boat without getting her feet wet. She slipped her shoes off and hooked them with her finger, self-consciously aware that Rio was watching her from the shallows of the ocean.
She stepped down, and at the bottom moved to disembark from the luxury craft. But she mistimed it—badly. Another wave rolled and she lost her footing, stumbling almost completely into the water.
Rio caught her, of course. With Cressida’s bag hoisted safely over one shoulder, and taking only a single, long step in Tilly’s direction, he swept his arm around her back at just the moment she would have gone completely underwater.
He pulled her upright, his eyes crinkled with mocking amusement.
He was even more devastatingly handsome up close, where she could see the freckles that danced on his aquiline nose and appreciate the depths of his eyes, which weren’t just grey. They had flecks of black and green in there too, swirling together in a combination of shapes and colours that she could stare at all day.
‘I thought you could manage?’ he prompted.
Tilly was stricken. What a fool she was! Cressida would never have fumbled such a basic manoeuvre as exiting a speedboat. No, Cressida would have taken his damned hand when he’d offered it and run her fingernails over his palm, encouraging him to stare at her all he wanted. Inviting him to do much more than that.
Matilda Morgan, though, was a Grade A klutz. Falling off a speedboat was just the kind of thing her twin brother Jack would have laughed about, and she would have joined him. Tilly never missed a chance to be amused by her own lack of finesse.
She heard the amusement escape from her mouth as a giggle at first, and then finally a full-blown laugh, though she lifted a hand to cover it.
‘I’m sorry.’ She smiled up at Rio, lifted a hand around his neck in an automatic response. ‘I’m perhaps the clumsiest person you’ll ever meet.’
Her laugh, and the admission of a lack of coordination hot on its heels, caught him unawares.
When Art Wyndham had said he’d be sending his daughter Cressida to complete an inspection of Prim’amore Rio had felt mixed emotions.
On the one hand, the beautiful heiress was known to be vapid and uninterested—he suspected he’d have her desperate to buy the island in a day or two at the most. And on the other, from what he’d heard of the mogul’s daughter, Cressida Wyndham was the kind of woman he had only ever found good for one thing. She was all beauty, no substance, and she was the last person he’d willingly spend time with—except, possibly, in his bed.
But he had to admit her laugh was lovely. Like music and sunshine.
Still smiling, she pushed away from him, standing on her own two feet. ‘I’m fine,’ she assured him. ‘Just a little wet.’
He made a guttural noise of agreement and then released her abruptly. ‘You can dry off inside.’
He nodded towards the shoreline and for the first time her attention moved to the island. It was lush and green, right in front of them, but a little way further down she could see dark red cliffs that were bare of greenery. High above them there was more red, like ochre, and then in the distance the hint of trees—cypress, olive and citrus, she guessed. Back down on the coastline the sand was crisp white in both directions. Only one building broke up the expanse of beach.
A boathouse
of sorts, it was of simple construction, a cross between a cabin and a hut. It was whitewashed stone, and the window frames had been painted a bright blue at one time—though a lot of the paint looked to have chipped off now. There was a small deck at the front, with two cane armchairs propped on either side of a small card table. A jaunty pot plant that had clearly been tormented by the wind stood sentinel at the door, though it had grown heavily in one direction, casting a diagonal shadow. To the side of the cabin a motorbike was propped, and beside it a speedboat on a trolley, smaller than the one she’d just stepped off—or rather leaped off into the ocean.
It was on the tip of Tilly’s tongue to ask Rio what the building was, but he was already moving towards it. Sand clung to his bare feet as he strode easily across the beach. She didn’t rush to catch up. Not because Cressida wouldn’t rush, though she wouldn’t. Tilly was captivated by the beauty of this place and she wanted to savour this, her first opportunity to drink it in.
Halfway between the shoreline and the cabin she stopped walking altogether. A light breeze trembled past her, but it was a hot day and it brought welcome relief to her through her wet clothes. She stared up at the sky, her eyes noting the colour—a glistening cerulean blue.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said to herself.
