Her Mediterranean Playboy

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Thinking of his younger sister made him all the more determined to do whatever it took to keep this scandal out of the papers. Chiara had always been a little blind to Rocco’s faults; she loved him so desperately she could not see how little he cared for her in return. They had only been married a year, and during that time Vittorio had been sickened to learn how many times Rocco had betrayed her. He just hoped that in time Chiara would feel strong enough to leave Rocco and build a better life for herself. But in the meantime there was not only his sister to worry about but the tiny baby she was carrying. If Alex Sharpe gave a damning interview to the press as she had threatened, it would devastate his sister and possibly jeopardise the baby’s safe arrival.

  He was not going to let that happen.

  Ally carried two suitcases to the small sitting room, and had barely taken a step through the door when Vittorio strode over and took them both out of her hands. The brush of his long, strong fingers against hers sent her pulses suddenly soaring, the jolt of sexual energy from his body to hers something she was totally unprepared for. She snatched her hand away, her colour rising as she met his dark fathomless gaze.

  ‘Is this all you want to take?’ he asked.

  She nodded, quickly lowering her eyes. ‘The flat is a fully furnished one. I don’t have much else but clothes.’ And the clothes and simple possessions of my sister in that second bag, she thought, glancing at it nervously. It was starkly different from her conservative black one, with its simple green ribbon on the handle as an identifier. Alex’s was bright yellow, and covered with colourful travel stickers, but if Vittorio Vassallo had noticed any difference he showed no sign of it on his face.

  ‘My driver is waiting outside,’ he informed her after a small pause. ‘I would normally drive myself, but my car is in the workshop being resprayed.’

  Ally followed him out of her sister’s apartment on leaden legs, her heart doing crazy back-flips in her chest at the thought of what she had agreed to on Alex’s behalf. When they were young they had often changed places, and usually very successfully. Not even their mother had been able to tell them apart at times. But somehow this was different.

  It felt different.

  It felt dangerous…

  Vittorio exchanged a few words in Italian with his driver as he handed over the suitcases. Ally dearly wished she could understand what was being said, but from what she could make of the driver’s expression when he looked at her he evidently realised he was in no position to argue with his employer over his choice of companion even if he wanted to. He clearly valued his job too much.

  Once Vittorio was in the car beside her he leaned forward to close the panel that separated the driver from the passengers. ‘Beppe does not approve of my being involved with a divorcée,’ he said. ‘Like a lot of people of his age and religious conviction, he is a little old-fashioned in that regard.’

  Ally frowned as she tried to wriggle further away from those long, strong thighs of his that seemed to be taking up far too much room. ‘You don’t seem to me to be the type to be overly concerned about other people’s opinions,’ she said. ‘If you were you would never have orchestrated this ridiculous charade in the first place.’

  He stretched out one of his long arms along the back of the seat, his fingers so close to the nape of her neck that she felt every single hair stand to attention, as if anticipating his touch. She drew in a wobbly breath and sent out her tongue to remove the dry dust of panic from her lips.

  ‘I have decided no one must know it is a charade,’ he said, locking gazes with her. ‘Apart from Rocco, of course.’

  She sent him a worried glance. ‘I don’t have to see him, do I?’

  He gave her a studied look. ‘You will have to be seen with him amongst the rest of my family for our affair to be taken seriously. And you will have to be very careful you do not betray yourself by hankering after him like a lovesick fool.’

  She turned her head and folded her arms crossly. ‘I can assure you I will be doing no such thing.’

  ‘I do not see why you should be so angry with him for breaking off your affair,’ he said. ‘You only slept with him—what was it?—two or three times? And he only did it because you threw yourself at him.’

  ‘That’s a lie!’ Ally said, recalling her sister’s tearful confession. ‘He told me he loved me and was going to leave his wife for me.’

  Vittorio’s teeth ground together as he struggled to rein in his anger. ‘You think he would leave his beautiful wife for a cheap little trollop like you? He used you just as you used him. A couple of quick tumbles in a sleazy hotel room, a handful of jewels and a wad of cash is usually how it goes with women like you, is it not?’

  She glared back at him. ‘Did he tell you he paid me?’

  Vittorio held her dark blue gaze. ‘No, but he did not need to—for you took the money yourself, did you not? You refused to go away. You wanted more than he was prepared to give. So you decided to make as much trouble for him as you could without giving a single thought as to how your behaviour would impact on other members of his family.’

  Ally was at a loss to know what to say in response. She could imagine how desperately hurt Alex would have been to have been so cruelly shunted aside by the man she had fallen in love with—a man who had obviously lied to her from the start. It would have devastated her sister to find she had been betrayed in such a way, and while it didn’t excuse her foolish behaviour in regard to Vittorio’s car and the theft of the cash, Ally didn’t feel it was fair that Alex had to shoulder all the blame while Rocco hid behind his wife’s brother’s broad back.

  ‘I will tell the rest of my family and the press I have fallen for you,’ Vittorio continued. ‘I do not want anyone to suspect anything to the contrary in case it somehow gets back to my sister. She is enduring a difficult enough pregnancy as it is.’

  Ally’s eyes suddenly went wide. ‘Rocco’s wife is pregnant?’ she gasped in shock.

  His own eyes narrowed as he looked at her. ‘Yes. Did he not tell you?’

  She compressed her lips, wishing she had done so earlier, so those words wouldn’t have come blurting out to raise that flag of suspicion in his astute brown gaze. ‘I didn’t even know he was married until after we…you know…got together.’

  He made a sound of derision in his throat. ‘You deceitful little tart.’ He almost spat the words at her. ‘You knew exactly what you were getting into. You chased him all the way from London. You have been hounding him for the last month, hoping to change his mind about keeping you in his bed.’

  Ally was starting to put some pieces of the puzzle together in her head, and it didn’t make a particularly attractive picture. From what she could make out Alex had had a fling with Rocco in London and fallen madly in love. Then, throwing in her job, had flown to Rome in the hope he would continue to see her. It went against everything she knew about her sister to think Alex would actively pursue a man whose wife was expecting a child. There must have been more to it than that. Someone was lying, and she was determined to find out the whole story before she revealed to Vittorio who she really was.

  ‘I didn’t know about his wife’s pregnancy,’ she said, reasonably confident she was speaking for her twin. ‘He never once mentioned it.’

  He suddenly grasped her chin between two strong fingers, forcing her gaze to meet his. ‘I do not believe you,’ he ground out. ‘My brother-in-law told me how devious you are, how conniving you can be when you want something you cannot have.’

  Ally glared at him venomously. ‘If you put your hands on me again I will scratch your arrogant face until even your cad of a brother-in-law doesn’t recognise you.’

  His smile was deliberately taunting as he released her. ‘You have quite a spirit,’ he observed musingly. ‘It needs to be tamed, of course, but we have two weeks in which to do so. I am confident I can get you eating out of my hand, given the right inducement.’

  She sent him a scathing look. ‘You would need more than two
weeks to tame me, you arrogant bastard. You are exactly the sort of man I abhor. You see women as objects to titillate your every need. You lure them in and then cast them aside as if they mean nothing to you. You disgust me. My flesh crawls at the thought of you touching me.’

  ‘And yet you enjoyed the attentions of my brother-in-law, a man who belongs to someone else?’

  Ally could hear the disgust in his tone, and turned her head to look out of the window so she didn’t have to see it on his face. It upset her more than she wanted it to. Having an affair with a married man was a mistake any woman could make if the man didn’t reveal his marital status early in the piece, but what if her sister had eventually known about Rocco’s wife’s pregnancy?

  It worried her that Alex might have been unstable enough to continue the affair regardless. She had been off her medication for weeks, maybe even longer. That in itself was a recipe for disaster. She had witnessed her sister’s rapid mood swings before. Life was like an out-of-control rollercoaster when Alex was not properly medicated. It was such a delicate balancing act, getting the right levels, making sure her sister stayed on her medication regime and avoided all the triggers that would cause a relapse.

  ‘But you are not my brother-in-law’s mistress now,’ he said. ‘To all intents and purposes you are mine. Every step you take from this moment on will be documented by the press. If you put even one foot wrong the prison cell I was talking about will become a cold, hard reality. Do not think I will not do it, for I can and I will if I feel it is necessary.’

  Ally secretly admired his loyalty to his brother-in-law and pregnant sister. It reminded her of her own devotion to Alex. She almost wished she could tell him so, but current circumstances prevented it. Although he was undoubtedly a playboy, he seemed so much more principled than his cowardly brother-in-law.

  The car pulled into a leafy street close to the Villa Borghese. The driver was out of the car and dealing with the suitcases before Ally could even unfold her trembling legs from the vehicle.

  She looked up at the impressive building; it was a seventeenth-century palazzo, with several sun-drenched terraces that made the most of the view over the city and the green oasis that housed so many of the tourist attractions she had read about in her travel guide.

  The warm air carried a seductive hint of honeysuckle and star jasmine as she walked up the steps with Vittorio’s palm beneath her elbow, the touch of his flesh against hers sending little jolts of electricity up and down her arm.

  ‘I have cleared my diary for the next few days,’ he said as they entered the building. ‘We will spend as much time as possible together in order to send a very clear message to the press that they got it wrong when they cited you as Rocco’s lover. It happens occasionally, as we are very similar in looks and are the same age. We could almost be taken for twins.’

  Ally physically stumbled on the palazzo steps as he mentioned the word. She looked up at him, to see if he had noticed anything untoward, but he was already speaking to someone who appeared to be some sort of senior housekeeper. She couldn’t follow the staccato Italian, but she caught one or two words that seemed to suggest Vittorio’s household staff were not generally used to accommodating his various mistresses. The looks she was receiving seemed to confirm it. She was apparently in a class of her own, being allowed access to his private domain. She wasn’t sure what to make of that. Although it made sense he would want everyone to assume she was his current lady-love, and moving into his palazzo was certainly a confirmation to the press that she was being treated unlike any other woman he had been involved with previously.

  ‘You have been assigned the suite of rooms next to mine,’ Vittorio said. ‘There is an adjoining door between the bedrooms, but you can lock it on your side if you should feel the need to do so.’

  Ally couldn’t help curling her lip at him. ‘You surely don’t think I would be tempted to crawl into your bed, do you?’

  His eyes communicated his arrogant disdain. ‘You would be turned away if you did,’ he said in a harsh undertone. ‘I have no interest whatsoever in pursuing any sort of relationship with you. You are exactly the sort of woman I make every effort to avoid. You are clingy and dependent, intent on finding yourself a benevolent fool who will indulge your every whim.’

  Ally was sure his bruising tirade wasn’t over, but the appearance of yet another staff member put an abrupt end to it.

  A demure young woman carrying a vase of summer roses smiled shyly, and in halting English asked if Ally would like to be shown her room.

  ‘That would be lovely, thank you,’ Ally said, without bothering to seek Vittorio’s approval. She was exhausted, and could think of nothing better than a few minutes on her own to gather her scattered thoughts.

  The suite the girl called Ghita led her into was luxuriously appointed beyond anything Ally had ever experienced. The floors were of polished Italian marble, covered here and there with ankle-deep rugs, and the windows were full length, festooned with voluminous silk curtains, and overlooked massive gardens awash with colourful blooms similar to the fragrant ones the young girl had just placed on the bedside table.

  ‘Would you like me to pour you a cool drink?’ Ghita asked. ‘It is very hot today, sì?’

  Ally smiled, instantly relaxing in the atmosphere of the girl’s open friendliness. ‘Yes, it is. I’m not used to it yet. I guess it will take a few more days to acclimatise. It was still winter when I left home.’

  It was only when Ghita gave her a confused look that Ally realised her little slip. ‘I—I m-mean it was much cooler in London than here,’ she amended quickly.

  ‘Sì,’ Ghita said, smiling again. ‘I have not been to England. I have heard it rains a lot there, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ally said, surreptitiously letting out a relieved sigh. ‘It does.’

  ‘Signor Vassallo is very nice, is he not?’ Ghita said. ‘I think it very funny how the paparazzi got it wrong—you know, about you being Signor Rocco’s lover.’

  ‘Yes…yes, it was highly…er…amusing…’ Ally said weakly, searching around for her handbag without success. Had she left it in the car, or was it with the rest of her things? It had been on the floor of the car at her feet. Her mind was so rattled and her head was starting to pound so sickeningly she couldn’t remember whether she had brought it upstairs or not. She thought of the money stashed inside it and wished she could ask Alex what she had been doing with it. Had she stolen it from Rocco Montano, as Vittorio had said? Her sister might be a little unpredictable at times, but Ally was sure Alex would never take something that wasn’t hers.

  ‘Ghita, do you think you could bring me my handbag?’ she asked. ‘I think I must have left it in the car, or on one of the tables in the foyer. I have the beginnings of a headache, and I have some painkillers that will ease it if I take them in time.’

  ‘Sì,’ Ghita said. ‘I will see to it straight away.’

  The young girl came back a few moments later with Ally’s bag and handed it to her.

  ‘Anyway, the press are stupido,’ she prattled on as she poured a tall glass of iced water from a jug on a side table. ‘They know nothing about anything. Everyone knows they make things up to sell papers and magazines.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Ally asked absently as she took the glass from the girl and swallowed two pills from her bag.

  ‘Why would you damage Signor Vassallo’s car if you were Rocco’s lover?’ Ghita asked. ‘It does not make sense. It was a lovers’ tiff, no? You were angry at Signor Vittorio for not publicly acknowledging you. So what if you have been married before? It is the twenty-first century, sì? But he has openly presented you now, and all is well, is it not? You are here in his palazzo. No other woman has ever had that privilege. It will be fun. Like a celebrazione, no?’

  Ally had never felt less like celebrating in her life, but she smiled back at the young girl regardless. ‘Yes,’ she said, her stomach tying itself into knots. ‘I’m sure it will be heaps of fun.’

>   CHAPTER FOUR

  ALLY whooshed out an exhausted breath once the young housemaid had left. She sank onto one of the deeply cushioned sofas and, laying back her head, closed her eyes, trying to allow the pills to do their job and ease the vice-like tension across her brow.

  She had never been in such an awkward position before. She felt as if she was betraying every principle she had clung to all of her life. Honesty and openness had been tossed aside for subterfuge and mendacity. How long could she maintain this appallingly dangerous charade? What if she had to meet her twin’s lover face to face? Would he see the swap for what it was? After all, he had been her sister’s lover. The physical intimacy they had shared, even if it had only been on a few occasions, would surely give him an edge Vittorio did not have, having only met her the once.

  Even thinking about Vittorio Vassallo set her nerves jumping all over the place. He was going to be sleeping on the other side of that door—the door that she had not yet locked. What if he took it upon himself and came in to claim his mock mistress? She wouldn’t put it past him. She had seen the attraction in his black-as-night gaze every time it rested on her, reluctant as it was. He was fighting it just as much as she was, but for totally different reasons. He would think it beneath himself to sample his brother-in-law’s leftovers, but she had much more to lose—her virginity, for one thing. Even though she was twenty-five years old, she had never taken a lover. There had been plenty of opportunities, but her natural reserve had made her cautious around men. And her responsibilities towards her twin had made it almost impossible at times to have a life of her own. It had only been during the last year or so that she had felt an easing of the burden, and even so it had all blown up in her face yet again.