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‘There are plans you can look at—plans the previous owner commissioned many years ago for a potential hotel,’ he suggested, without realising what he was saying.
He caught at the offer a moment too late; there was no way to pull the words back. Rio was not a man who made mistakes. Ever. Yet offering up his mother’s drawings was like giving her the key to his longest held secrets.
‘That would be great.’ She was nodding, her mind skipping several steps ahead. ‘I want to put together as much information as possible for Ar—Daddy.’
That was a little bonus she’d decided on for Cressida. Thirty thousand pounds had bought Cressida a week off the radar, celebrating a wedding with her friends. But Tilly was going to throw in the kind of report that would make Art think Cressida had turned over a new leaf.
‘Fine.’
Was he angry? Tilly studied him from beneath her lashes. His dark face was tilted away from her, his cheekbones slashed with colour. She wanted to reach over and trace his jawline, dip her finger into the cleft of his chin and the dimple in his cheek. She wanted to feel his stubble tickle her cheek as she ran her face close to his.
She wanted so much.
‘Ready to go back?’ His words were thick.
She turned to him and nodded. ‘I’m ready.’
And, come what may, she really, really was.
* * *
She dreamed of Jack that night. Jack, pale and shaking. Jack, crying, his eyes dark and his cheeks stained by tears. Jack, afraid. Jack, in danger.
She saw him vividly—not through a veil of sleep and memory, but as he’d really been. As he’d been only six weeks earlier, when he’d turned up on her doorstep and told her everything.
‘I made a bad bet, Tilly. A really bad bet. I didn’t realise it at the time but...but the guy...the bookie...’
She’d waited, impatient and also annoyed that he’d had the nerve to rock up on her doorstep at three in the morning when she had a big meeting to attend at work the following day.
‘His name’s Anton Meravic. I didn’t know he was hooked up, Tilly. I swear.’
‘“Hooked up”?’ she’d asked, not exactly sure what that meant. It had been late, after all. Her mind had been fogged by sleep.
‘To the mob! The Russian mob. He’s in with Walter Karkov and I owe him twenty-five thousand pounds! They’re going to kill me.’
She dreamed of Jack, pale and shaking.
She dreamed of Jack, her twin.
Her brother.
Her other half.
And she woke with a start.
Her heart
was racing, blood was pounding through her body, and her mind, her brain, were slamming with fear and adrenalin. The crashing of the waves echoed through her as bit by bit she remembered where she was.
Jack was safe. She’d done what she needed to pay off his debts. Thanks to Cressida, and the payment for this week’s ‘job’, she’d been able to fix it for him.
Nothing mattered more than keeping Jack safe. Nothing.
Not even the strange feeling that Rio was beginning to wrap his hands around her heart and squeeze it tight.
CHAPTER FIVE
IN THE MORNING she woke early, and was still tired.
