The Italian's Summer Seduction. Karen Van Der Zee

drawled, ‘There is nothing on the island but one stone cottage. No people, no roads and no bright lights.

      His hands dropped from her shoulders and he turned away, striding along the rough track to where he’d dropped the luggage, then waited until she joined him. ‘My father had it built when he bought the island many years ago. By all accounts he was a workaholic and came here at least once a year to recharge his batteries.’

      ‘You must have happy memories of childhood holidays,’ Milly responded to his totally unexpected mention of anything remotely personal, trying to act as normally as possible under difficult circumstances, doing her level best not to get too het up over the possibility of him leaving her here with no way of returning to the mainland once her deception had been uncovered. She certainly wouldn’t put that kind of action past him!

      For a moment she thought he wouldn’t respond to her innocuous remark. She glanced up at his tanned, extravagantly handsome features and saw his mouth tighten with what she could only translate as scorn. ‘My mother never came here. She was a metropolitan creature. My father brought his mistresses here, he didn’t want me around. I only learned of the existence of this hideaway after his death.’

      Biting back instinctive words of sympathy because she knew he wouldn’t want them, Milly concentrated on getting up the increasingly steep track that traversed the sun-baked hillside where herbs and wild flowers merged their perfume with the tang of the sea and the scent of the pines she could see ahead of them. Breathless with heat and effort—neither of which seemed to affect him in the slightest—her mind was busy.

      If his father had taken mistresses openly enough for him to know about them then that would explain why, given such an immoral role model, Cesare took it as the norm to take a woman to his bed and throw her out of it when he got tired of her.

      Poor Jilly!

      Glancing up at him, Milly noted with a peculiar twisting sensation in her tummy that the slight breeze from the sea had ruffled his short, dark as night hair. It made him look more approachable, less the hard-nosed, ultra sophisticated business tycoon, and it was again impressed on her exactly why her up-until-now inconstant sister had at last fallen truly, deeply in love. Very few women would be able to resist his potent brand of sexual charisma.

      ‘Almost there.’

      The effect of his voice rippled through her like a mild electric shock. Smooth as silk, consoling? Her heart pattering she narrowed her eyes against the sun. They had crested the brow of the hill and a shallow wooded valley lay before them. On the opposite side, its back to the hill, beyond which she could glimpse the sea and the sand of a small cove, was a sturdy stone house facing the green valley. A quiet, secluded place, ideal for lovers.

      ‘Why have you brought me here?’ She didn’t want to know the answer because she knew she wouldn’t like it but she had to ask because not knowing was getting to her. And his reply made her feel giddy.

      ‘Why do you think, Jilly?’

      The slanting smile on his shamelesly sexy mouth and the glinting, terrifyingly intimate light in those stunning eyes made her tummy loop over, forcing her to recall why this secluded hideaway on an uninhabited island had been built by his womanising father. Had he given her that snippet of information to make sure she made the connection?

      He and Jilly had been lovers. Did he mean to take up where they’d left off? Demand her presence in his bed—away from his grandmother’s sharp eyes and knowing smiles—in part payment for the massive debt she had accumulated by, according to his warped and cynical mind, forging those cheques?

      Her heart squeezed in a severe contraction and her legs turned into wavering pillars of cotton wool. Surely he couldn’t mean that! And, if he did, what on earth was she to do?

      Looking down into her suddenly pale as milk face Cesare bit back a peal of husky laughter. Aside from her looks, her imposter rating would be lower than nought out of ten. She’d obviously got the message loud and clear and it had floored her. Didn’t she know how her twin would have reacted to such a neatly couched invitation? Like a heat seeking missile homing in on a coveted target. All over him like a second skin.

      ‘Come, I’ll help you. The track’s steep in places.’

      Milly shuddered right down to her toes as he took her hand, the warmth of his soft, silky tone, the heat of his skin as his strong lean fingers closed around hers made her heart beat in a frenzy, her lungs struggling painfully because, try as she might, she couldn’t seem to breathe.

      Yet, uncaring breaker of hearts as she guessed him to be, he was more than careful as he helped her to negotiate the trickier places, only releasing her hand as they came to the paved area in front of the house.

      Windows lay open and the stout wooden door was unlocked; obviously he had no fear of squatters or thieves intent on lifting anything they could carry away.

      Mild surprise deepened to bewilderment as he ushered her into a square stone-flagged room that appeared to double as kitchen and informal living area.

      Flowers in a terracotta bowl graced the central chunky pine table and near a small but functional looking cooker a fridge hummed gently.

      Driven by feminine curiosity, Milly dived to open the fridge door and survey the lavish contents. She turned, her eyes wide. ‘If no one else lives here, how did this stuff get here?’ Had he lied? Were there other people on this island, someone she could turn to for help if he left her here after discovering—as he surely would eventually—that she wasn’t who she claimed to be?

      ‘By motor launch, not by magic.’ His slight smile registered superior amusement. ‘I have a caretaker on the mainland who, apart from checking up on the property from time to time, sees it is stocked if I phone him to tell him I’m going to be here. He gets the generator working, makes sure the water pump is functioning properly and soon.’ One strongly marked brow elevated mockingly. ‘Did you imagine I brought you here to starve or exist on fish from the sea? If so, you’d have had to do the catching of them. I do not own such patience.’

      Face flaming, her chin notched up by several degrees, Milly faced the unwelcome truth that they were indeed alone here.

      She ought to have known how the other half lived. Just one word and a minion would be found to carry out orders at a moment’s notice! Silly of her to have overlooked that fact of a life!

      And she wasn’t about to ask again exactly why he had brought her here and risk another loaded answer. Instead she said tightly, ‘Show me where I’m supposed to sleep and tell me what you want for lunch. I’m sure you expect me to wait on you!’

      Because he wouldn’t know how to boil water. He might be a whiz at doing whatever clever stuff he did to earn a dazzling living, but brought up surrounded by a platoon of servants, anxious to cater to his slightest wish, he wouldn’t have a domesticated bone in his body.

      ‘Now there’s a thought!’ Slumbrous eyes scorched her, and Milly hastily looked away. He was lethally attractive and she sure as Hades wasn’t going to follow her twin down that fatal track. She heaved a sigh of relief when he picked up her suitcase and led her up the staircase tucked away at the far side of the room.

      There were two doors leading off the square landing. The first he flung open revealed a bathroom of almost clinical utility, the second a bedroom that contained the biggest bed she had ever laid eyes on and not much else.

      Did Cesare, following his father’s track record, bring his women here? Had he brought Jilly? If so, she had goofed badly when she’d queried the lavish supply of foodstuffs, asked where she would sleep, because there appeared to be only this one bedroom.

      So where would he sleep? Her throat closed and her stomach churned with the weirdest sensation she had ever experienced. Whipping round on her sandalled feet, intent on telling him that there was no way she was sharing a bed with him and if he had brought her here with that in mind he was going to have to think again.

      But there was just empty space where he had been and from downstairs she could hear his tuneful whistle. She