There was a pause. ‘Is that a roundabout way of telling me I’m unoriginal?’
She shrugged. ‘Well, you know what they say...if the cap fits...’
A reluctant smile curved the edges of his lips. ‘You need to tell me something about yourself before we get there,’ he said. ‘If you’re hoping to convince people we’re an item.’
Willow stared out of the car window as they drove through the sun-dappled lanes, and as more and more trees appeared, she thought about how much she loved the English countryside. The hedgerows were thick with greenery and in the fields she could see yellow and white ox-eye daisies and the purple of snake’s head fritillary. And suddenly she found herself wishing that this was all for real and that Dante Di Sione was here because he wanted to be, not because she was holding him to ransom over some mystery package.
She wondered how much to tell him. She didn’t want him getting scared. She didn’t want him to start treating her as if she was made of glass. She was worried he’d suddenly start being kind to her if he learned the truth, and she couldn’t stand that. He was rude and arrogant and judgemental, but she rather liked that. He wasn’t bending over backwards to please her—or running as fast as he could in the opposite direction, which was the usual effect she had on people once they knew her history.
His words interrupted her silent reverie.
‘We could start with you explaining why you need an escort like me in the first place,’ he said. ‘You’re a pretty woman. Surely there must be other men who could have been your date? Men who know you better than I do and could have carried off a far more convincing performance.’
She shrugged, staring at the toenails which were peeping through her open-toed sandals—toenails which had been painted a hideous shade of peach to match the equally hideous bridesmaid dresses, because Clover had said that she wanted her sisters to look like ‘a team.’
‘Maybe I wanted to take someone who nobody else knew,’ she said.
‘True,’ he agreed. ‘Or you could—and I know this is controversial—you could always have chosen to attend the wedding on your own. Don’t they say that weddings are notoriously fertile places for meeting someone new? You might have got lucky. Or are you one of those women who believes she isn’t a complete person unless she has a man in tow?’
Willow couldn’t believe what he’d just said. Had she really thought his rudeness was charming? Well, scrub that. She found herself wishing she’d asked around at the magazine to see if anyone there could have been her guest. But most of the men she worked with were gay—and the place was a hotbed of gossip. It wouldn’t have done her image much good if she’d had to trawl around for a suitable escort, because the biggest sin you could commit in the fashion industry was to admit to being lonely.
She sneaked a glance at Dante. Whatever his shortcomings in the charm department he was certainly a very suitable escort—in every sense of the word. The formality of his pristine two-piece looked just as good against his glowing olive skin as the faded denim jeans had done. Perhaps even more so. The made-to-measure suit hugged his powerful body and emphasised its muscularity to perfection—making her shockingly aware of his broad shoulders and powerful thighs. The slightly too long black hair appeared more tamed than it had done the other day and suddenly she found herself longing to run her fingers through it and to muss it up.
She felt a rush of something molten tugging at the pit of her belly—something which was making her wriggle her bottom restlessly against the seat. Did she imagine the quick sideways glance he gave her, or the infuriatingly smug smile which followed—as if he was perfectly aware of the sudden aching deep inside her which was making it difficult for her to think straight.
She licked her lips. ‘I’m not really like my sisters,’ she began. ‘You remember I’m one of four?’
‘I remember.’
‘They’ve always had millions of boyfriends, and I haven’t.’
‘Why not?’
He shot the question at her and Willow wondered if now was the time for the big reveal. To tell him how ill she’d been as a child. To tell him that there had been times when nobody had been sure if she would make it. Or to mention that there were residual aspects of that illness which made her a bad long-term choice as a girlfriend.
But suddenly her attention was distracted by the powerful interplay of muscles as he tensed one taut thigh in order to change gear and her mouth dried with longing. No, she was not going to tell him. Why peddle stories of her various woes and make herself look like an inevitable victim in his eyes? Today she was going to be a different Willow. The kind of Willow she’d always wanted to be. She was going to embrace the way he was making her feel, and the way he was making her feel was...sexy.
Carelessly, she wriggled her shoulders. ‘I’ve been too wrapped up in my career. The fashion world can be very demanding—and competitive. I’ve been working at the magazine since I left uni, and they work you very hard. The swimwear shoot I was doing in the Caribbean was my first big break and everyone is very pleased with it. I guess that means I’ll have more time to spend on my social life from now on. Take the next turning on the right. We’re nearly there. Look. Only seven more miles.’ She pointed at a signpost. ‘So you’d better tell me a bit about you.’
Dante slowed the car down as he turned into a narrow lane and thought how differently he might have answered this question a few years back. The first thing he would have said was that he was a twin, because being a twin had felt like a fundamental part of his existence—like they were two parts of the same person. But not any more. He and Dario hadn’t spoken in years. Six years, to be precise—after an episode when anger and resentment had exploded into misunderstanding and turned into a cold and unforgiving rift. He’d discovered that it was easier to act like his brother no longer existed, rather than acknowledge the fact that they no longer communicated. And that it hurt. It hurt like hell.
‘But surely you must have looked me up on the internet,’ he murmured.
She quickly turned her head to look at him, and for the first time, she seemed uncertain. ‘Well, yes. I did.’
‘And didn’t that tell you everything you wanted to know?’
‘Not really. Bits of it were very vague.’
‘I pay people a lot of money to keep my profile vague.’
‘Why?’
‘To avoid the kind of questions you seem intent on asking.’
‘It’s just down that long drive. The entrance is just past that big tree on the right.’ She leaned forward to point her finger, before settling back against the leather car seat. ‘It said you had lots of siblings, and there was something about you having a twin brother and I was wondering what it was like to have a twin. If the two of you are psychic, like people say twins can be. And...’
‘And what?’ he shot out as her words trailed off.
She shrugged. ‘There wasn’t much information about your parents,’ she said quietly.
Dante’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel as he drew up outside a huge old house, whose beauty was slightly diminished by shabby paintwork and a general sense of tiredness. Bad enough that Willow Hamilton should have made breezy assumptions about his estranged twin, but worse that she had touched on the one fact which had ruthlessly been eliminated from his history. Didn’t she realise that there was a good reason why there was scant mention of his parents in his personal profile?
He felt a slow anger begin to build inside him, and if it hadn’t been for the damned tiara, he would have dropped her off there and then, and driven away so fast that you wouldn’t have seen him for smoke. Because personal questions about his family were forbidden; it was one of the ground rules he laid down at the beginning of any date.
But this wasn’t a normal date, was it? It was a means to an end. He stared down at her bare knees and felt a whisper of desire.
And perhaps it was time he started taking advantage of some of the very obvious compensations available to drive these unwanted irritations from his head.
‘I doubt whether knowing about my parentage or siblings is going to be particularly relevant in the circumstances,’ he said coolly. ‘Of far greater importance is finding out what turns each other on. Because, as lovers, we need to send out the vibe that we’ve had more than a little...intimacy. And in order to convey that to some degree of satisfaction, then I really need to explore you a little more, Willow.’
And before Willow could properly appreciate what was happening, he had undone their seat belts and was pulling her into his arms, as if it was something he had done countless times before. His cold blue eyes swept over her like a searchlight but there was something in their depths which disturbed her. Something which sent foreboding whispering over her spine. Was it the realisation that this man was way too complicated for her to handle and she shouldn’t even try? Instinctively, she tried to pull away but he was having none of it, because he gave a silky laugh as he lowered his head to kiss her.
Willow sucked in a disbelieving breath as their lips met, because this wasn’t like that lazy kiss at the airport. This was a completely different animal—an unashamed display of potent sensuality. This was Dante Di Sione being outrageously macho and showing her exactly who was in charge. It was a stamp and an unmistakable sexual boast and something told Willow that this emotionless kiss meant nothing to him.
But that didn’t stop from her reacting, did it?
It didn’t stop her from feeling as if she’d just stepped from the darkest shadows into the brightest sunlight.
His seeking lips coaxed her own apart and she felt the tips of her breasts harden as he deepened the kiss with his tongue. Did he know she was helpless to resist from the moment he’d first touched her? Was that why he splayed his fingers over her dress and began to caress her aching breast? She gave a whimper of pleasure as she lifted her arms to curl them around his neck and felt a rush of heat between her legs—a honeyed throb of need which drove every other thought and feeling straight from her body. It felt so good. Unimaginably good. She felt exultant. Hungry for more. Hungry for him.
Softly, Willow moaned with pleasure and he drew his head away, his blue eyes smoky with desire and an unmistakeable trace of mockery glinting in their lapis lazuli depths.
‘Do you want me to stop, Willow?’ he taunted softly, his words a delicious caress which whispered over her skin, making her want him to talk to her that way all day long. ‘Or do you want me to touch you a little more?’
His hand was now moving beneath the hem of her dress and she held her breath. She could feel the tiptoeing of his fingertips against the bare skin and the heat between her legs was increasing as he started to kiss her again. His words were muffled against her mouth as he repeated that same sensual, taunting question—and all the while he was inching his fingers further and further up her thigh.
‘Do you?’
Her heart pounded as she opened her mouth to reply when the sound of footsteps crunching over gravel broke into the kiss like a rock smashing through a thin sheet of ice. Reluctantly Willow opened her eyes and pulled away from him, in time to see her sister’s astonished face looking at them through the car window.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘FLORA!’ SOMEHOW WILLOW managed to stumble her sister’s name out through lips which were swollen by the pressure of Dante’s kiss. She tried to pull away from him but he wasn’t having any of it—keeping his arm anchored tightly around her shoulders. Her voice trembled a little as his fingertips started stroking at the base of her neck, as if he couldn’t bear not to be touching her. ‘What...what are you doing here?’
But Flora wasn’t looking at her. She was staring at Dante as if she couldn’t quite believe her eyes. Willow watched as her sister surreptitiously touched her blond hair as if to check that it was pristine—which naturally, it was—and then spread her fingers out over her breastbone, as if to emphasise that at least one of the Hamilton sisters had breasts.
‘And just who is this, Willow?’ she said in a voice which didn’t quite manage to hide her disbelief. ‘You really must introduce me.’
‘He’s...’ Willow’s voice faltered. He’s the man I’ve bribed to be here. The man who made me feel I was almost going to explode with pleasure, and that was only from a single kiss.
‘My name is Dante Di Sione and I’m Willow’s guest for the wedding,’ interjected Dante, and Willow saw Flora almost melt as his sensual lips curved into a lazy smile. ‘Didn’t she tell you I was coming?’
‘No,’ said Flora crisply. ‘No, she did not. We weren’t...well, we weren’t expecting her to bring anyone—and as a consequence we’ve made no special allowances. Which means you’ll be in Willow’s old bedroom, I’m afraid.’
‘And is there a problem with Willow’s old bedroom?’ he questioned.
‘I would say there is, especially for a man of your dimensions.’ Flora looked Dante up and down, as if shamelessly assessing his height. ‘There’s only a single bed.’
Willow wanted to curl up and die, and that was before Dante moved his hand from her neck to place it proprietarily over her thigh. He smiled up at her sister as he pressed his fingers into her flesh. ‘Great,’ he murmured. ‘I do love a good squeeze.’
This clearly wasn’t the reaction Flora had expected and the sight of Dante with his hand on her sister’s leg must have confused the life out of her. But a lifetime of social training meant that her irritation didn’t last long and she made an instant recovery. ‘If you’d like to park over by the stables, Dante.’ She flashed him a glossy smile. ‘Once you’ve settled in we’ll be serving coffee in the drawing room and you’ll be able to meet my mother. Oh, and you’ll have to try on your bridesmaid dress again, Willow—though I warn you that Clover is going to go ballistic if you’ve lost any more weight! And don’t you think you ought to put a cardigan on? Your arms are covered in goose bumps.’
Dante started up the engine as they watched Flora walk into the main entrance of the grand house. Her blond hair swung down her back in a glossy curtain and she walked with the confident wiggle of a beautiful woman who knew she was being watched.
‘So that’s one of your sisters,’ he said slowly as she disappeared through the open front door.
‘Yes.’ Willow nodded her head. So get in first, she thought. Say all the stuff he must be thinking and that way you won’t come over as vulnerable. ‘I told you my siblings were gorgeous, didn’t I? And Flora especially so. Every man she meets falls in love with her. I...I think maybe she’s single at the moment, though you can never be...’
‘Willow.’ He halted her flow of words by placing his finger firmly over her lips. ‘Will you please shut up? I may have something of a reputation where women are concerned but even I would draw the line at going to a wedding with one sister, and then making out with another.’
‘Not taking into account the fact that she might not be interested in you,’ she said indignantly.
‘No, of course not,’ he murmured as he started up the engine. ‘She was looking at me with nothing but cool indifference in her eyes.’
Willow couldn’t decide whether to pull him up for his arrogance or simply acknowledge that he was telling the truth, because Flora had been looking at him as if she’d like to eat him up for breakfast, lunch and dinner and then maybe go back for a midnight snack. And yet he had been kissing her, hadn’t he? Kissing her in a way she’d never been kissed before. She could still recall the fizzing excitement in her blood and the way she’d wanted to dissolve beneath his seeking fingers. She’d wanted him to carry on burrowing his fingers beneath her dress and to touch her where she was all hot and aching. Would he laugh or be horrified if he knew she’d never felt like that before? Would he be horrified to discover that she’d never actually had sex be
fore?
They parked the car and she led Dante through the house by one of the back doors, beginning to realise what a big gamble she’d taken by bringing him here. Was he really a good enough actor to pretend to be interested in her when there was going to be so much Grade One crumpet sashaying around the place in their killer heels?
She pushed open the door of her old bedroom, the room where she had spent so much of her childhood—and immediately it felt like stepping back in time. It always did. It made her feel weird and it made her feel small. Little had changed since she’d left home, and whenever she came here, it felt as if her past had been preserved in aspic—and for the first time, she began to question why. Had her parents’ refusal to redecorate been based on a longstanding wish not to tempt fate by changing things around?
Willow looked around. There was the portrait done of her when she was six—years before the illness had taken hold—with a blue sparkly clip in her blond hair. How innocent she looked. How totally oblivious to what lay ahead. Next to it was the first embroidery she’d ever done—a sweet, framed cross-stitch saying Home Sweet Home. And there were her books—row upon row of them—her beloved connection to the outside world and her only real escape from the sickroom, apart from her sewing. Later on, she’d discovered films—and the more slushy and happy-ever-after, the better. Because fantasy had been a whole lot better than reality.
Sometimes it had felt as if she’d been living in a gilded cage, even though she knew there had been good reasons for that—mainly to keep her away from any rogue infections. But her inevitable isolation and the corresponding protectiveness of her family had left her ill-equipped to deal with certain situations. Like now. She’d missed out on so much. Even at college she’d been watched over and protected by Flora and Clover, who had both been studying at the same university. For a long time she’d only had the energy to deal with maintaining her health and completing her studies and getting a decent degree—she hadn’t had the confidence to add men into the mix, even if she’d found anyone attractive enough.
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