So Sante Trovato, the man Mia was about to marry, was the same boy her mother and the rest of the staff had whispered about at Westwick that summer. The boy who had supposedly left Dario on the roadside to die…except he hadn’t.
The greasy knot in Tali’s stomach became a snake, threatening to gag her as Mia’s impassioned explanations continued. And Tali’s avid curiosity about Dario’s past only ramped up her guilt. She shouldn’t be listening to any of this. He wouldn’t want her to know… That much had been obvious from the closed-off expression on his face when she’d offered to discuss it with him at the summer house.
‘Please, Mia… You have to stop talking!’ she finally blurted out.
Mia stopped abruptly. ‘What, why?’ she asked, utterly confused.
‘Because… I’m not… I’m just… Not…’ Tali stumbled to a halt, the confession dying on her lips.
She was breaking a confidence, not to mention a binding NDA agreement, by telling Mia the truth about her arrangement with Mia’s brother.
‘It’s okay, Tallulah, whatever it is, you can tell me…’ Mia said, confusion giving way to compassion. And suddenly Tali understood. She couldn’t lie about this. Even if Dario ended up suing her. Or pulling out of their agreement. She’d never intended for anyone to get hurt. And Mia would be hurt, if she continued to believe Talimeantsomething to Dario, that one day soon Tali would be a genuine part of their family. Mia was so obviously a good person—a kind, sweet, passionately loyal person—who wanted the best for her brother, even though it sounded as if he’d been as distant with her as he had with everyone else… And while a part of Tali desperately wanted to knowwhyDario found it so hard to let anyone in, even his own sister, she couldn’t let Mia confide in her. Because Mia would regret it when she learned the truth. That Tali meant nothing to Dario, even if he was starting to mean something to her—which was probably just her delusional Miss Fix-it issues resurfacing.
‘I’m not Dario’s real fiancée. We’re not in love. I only met him a couple of weeks ago…’ The truth burst out.
Mia stared at her, her expression going from confused to completely dumbfounded. ‘You’re not getting married?’
‘Well, yes, but… That’s not real either. Well, it will be a real marriage, as in a legal one, but I won’t be his real wife. He needed to marry an Englishwoman, to inherit his mother’s…Yourmother’s palazzo in Capri. Something about the terms of your father’s will. I guess the palazzo means a lot to him. Obviously.’
For goodness’ sake, stop talking now… You sound like an imbecile.
Mia’s eyes narrowed as the truth dawned on her, but the compassion remained. There was no anger, not even irritation in her tone when she spoke again. ‘My brother is pretending to love you, so he can inherit Palazzo di Constanzo?’
‘Well…yes,’ Tali murmured. God, how had she not realised until this moment how crass and manipulative their arrangement sounded?
‘And how did he persuade you to do this?’ Mia asked, her tone still level, but the spike of irritation there, underneath. Weirdly, though, it did not seem to be aimed at Tali.
‘I’m the estate manager at Westwick Hall… I love my job, and the Hall, but it’s been in decline for years, and since Dario inherited it, he hasn’t wanted to have anything to do with it. He finally came to the estate a few weeks ago to inform me he was demolishing it… But then he agreed to invest two million euros in Westwick, which would secure its future and all our jobs…if I agreed to pose as…his…’ Embarrassment gave way to shame as the truth got locked in her throat. ‘To pose as his…’
‘Shhh, it’s okay, Tallulah.’ Mia reached out and took Tali’s hand, squeezing her fingers. Until that moment, she hadn’t realised she was shaking. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong…’
Except she had. She’d lied to Mia, to Sante, to all the staff at Westwick. She’d even tried to lie to her mother…
Gripping Tali’s hand, Mia pulled her to the fountain and encouraged her to sit on the low wall that surrounded it. Tali dropped onto the warm stone, stupidly grateful, because her legs were shaky now, too.
Mia sat down beside her, still holding her hand. The chirps of birds, the buzz of bees, the tinkle of the fountain, the distant rumble of cars as the guests arrived and the hum of activity from the staff nearby faded, until all Tali could hear was the hard thuds of her own heartbeat—telling her what an idiot she’d been.
‘Tallulah, is my brother sleeping with you?’ Mia asked gently.
‘No,’ Tali replied. ‘God, no!’ Because that would make this situation even more sordid. But the rush of heat quickening Tali’s heartbeat and flame-grilling her cheeks had Mia’s gaze sharpening.
‘But he wants to? Am I right? That much is obvious from the way he looks at you, the way he touches you,’ Mia said with such confidence, the burning in Tali’s cheeks got worse.
‘That’s all for show,’ Tali managed, dying a little more inside. Because she knew it wasn’t for show as far as she was concerned. And she had one devastating kiss that she couldn’t forget, a whole lot of sleepless nights—not to mention the wettest wet dreams known to woman—to prove it.
‘I hate to break it to you, Tallulah,’ Mia muttered, ‘but my brother is not that good an actor. If he was, he would not have fallen foul of our father so often—and been punished so harshly.’
Harshly how?Tali wanted to ask but stifled the urge—after all, her curiosity about Dario had only made this conversation more difficult.
‘And we also have that gushing article inRagazzaas exhibit B,’ Mia continued. ‘Gianna Lombardi is a very shrewd journalist. She would not have been fooled that yours was a love match if some of what she saw wasn’t real.’
‘Well, he definitely doesn’t love me,’ Tali said, feeling oddly deflated. ‘We hardly know each other. And he’s made it quite clear he doesn’t want to get to know me better.’
‘But he does want to sleep with you. Tallulah,’ Mia reiterated. It wasn’t a question.
‘Please call me Tali,’ she replied. Because really, if she was going to have the most excruciating conversation of her entire life with this woman, it seemed only fitting Mia should address her by the name everyone knew her by, except Dario. ‘And in the interests of full disclosure, I want to sleep with him, too,’ she blurted out, because it seemed unfair to let Dario take all the blame. After all, shehadkissed him back two days ago. And if he’d put any real moves on her since, she wasn’t sure she would have been able to resist him. Her cheeks became radioactive. ‘He’s, well… He’s very charismatic…’And beyond hot. But no way was she about to mention that to his sister. ‘And, sometimes, I feel what he really needs is a friend. Which is silly, I know. But I always had a bad habit as a kid of taking in wounded creatures. And Dario seems…well, wounded too, I guess.’
Mia blinked, her expression changing, until a pensive smile brightened her features. ‘You have feelings for my brother…’
