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And Cressida, Tilly thought with a sudden warning feeling of panic. And whoever she had mentioned it to in passing. Adrenalin spiked inside her. The real heiress was hardly discreet, and she would have no reason to suspect that Rio needed his link to Prim’amore kept secret.
‘I’ve been here a month,’ he said, the words darkened by memories. ‘I came to the island after my father died, intending only to stay a day or two.’
‘And yet you’ve been here a month?’ she asked with interest.
Because he felt close to his mother here. Because he was saying goodbye—to his father, yes, but to the father he might have had, should have had. He was making his peace with a bitter resentment that would eat him alive if he let it.
He shrugged his broad shoulders, tilting his head back to see her more clearly. ‘I want to sell this island and as quickly as possible. Having anything from him feels like a betrayal.’
Tilly nodded, but inside she wasn’t sure she agreed with him. ‘This island is...’ She bit down on her lip, trying to find words for the strange idea that was forming inside her. ‘It’s like it’s a part of you,’ she said, with the tilt of her head that Rio had learned indicated she was deep in thought. ‘They fell in love here; you were conceived here.’
His grunt showed how little he thought that mattered. ‘This island is too little, too late. It is a reminder of what a weak, pathetic man my father really was.’ His brows drew together. ‘And yet my mother loved him. She loved him all her life. Even at the end he was all she talked of when she faded in and out of consciousness.’
Sadness swamped them.
When Rio spoke next, it was as if from a long way away. ‘When my mother used to tell me about him, about how they’d met, it was like she’d been hit by a truck. Gravità, she called it. Gravity. Like he was earth and she was floating in the heavens and bam! She met him and fell...crashed. Burned, as it happened.’
His smile was tight, and it gave way to a rueful grimace.
‘I never understood that. How could she meet a married man and fall in love with him? How could she ignore common sense?’
‘She didn’t know about Carina,’ Tilly answered softly. ‘So far as she believed she’d simply fallen in love with a man.’
‘How could she love a lie? That’s what it was. It was all fake.’
Tilly swallowed, but panic made her blood flash hot and cold. ‘Not to her.’
‘No, not to her. But the whole idea of that kind of feeling is foreign to me.’ He shifted, his fingers tangling in the hem of her dress, pushing it so that he could connect with her bare thighs. ‘It was, anyway.’
‘Oh?’ Bang, bang, bang—her heart slammed hard against her ribcage.
‘Mmm...’ His hands pushed higher, gripping her legs right at the top, his fingers stroking the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs. ‘Until I met you I thought love at first sight was a lie invented by Hollywood.’
Her breath caught in her throat as her entire world shifted into blinding focus. Had he just said he loved her? That he was falling in love with her? Hadn’t she been feeling that since she’d first met him? Or had she misunderstood?
Doubt was quick to follow hope, but love was unmistakable and ever-present.
‘Cara...’ He spoke with gravelled determination. ‘When I decide I want something, I go after it. Do you know how long it took me to realise I wanted you?’
She shook her head, not trusting her voice to speak.
‘Minutes. When you fell into the ocean and laughed about it. You were beautiful. The most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. But it was more than that. You were humble.’
Happiness and her future hovered in front of her, like a butterfly with mesmerising wings. But no vision could wipe out the awful truth.
She’d fallen in love with him, too. But she’d lied to him. And once he knew would he forgive her?
She already knew the answer to that. She’d heard the way he’d spoken of Marina, his ex. But she’d lied about being pregnant with his baby—surely a greater betrayal than this?
A throb of resentment shifted inside her. She wanted to be honest with him, but what then? Could she tell him and be sure Cressida would never find out? And what if Cressida learned the truth? Tilly had already given the money to her brother; the lie was bought and paid for.
‘The first time I have ever told a woman I love her and I get silence.’
She laughed, a husky sound, as the present sucked her back towards perfection. ‘I didn’t expect it.’
‘Nor did I. Nothing about this is expected.’
* * *
