surprised that your brother’s getting married in such a hurry—’
‘When we never thought he’d get married at all,’ his third half-sister Maurizia slotted in frankly.
‘Obviously he’s nuts about you!’ Sofia giggled. ‘That’s the only explanation that makes sense. When I sent him that photo of you all dressed up to go out tonight, he wasted no time telling me that he wanted you to stay at home and that he saw no reason for you to have a hen night.’
Of course Cesare didn’t see any reason, Lizzie reflected ruefully, glugging her drink because she didn’t know what to say to his very accepting and loveable sisters or indeed to his pleasant stepmother, Ottavia, none of whom had a clue that the wedding wasn’t the real thing. She had guessed, however, that his father, Goffredo, was simply playing along with their pretence but she found that same pretence stressful and knew it was why she was drinking so much and living on her nerves. Luckily Cesare had not been required to put on much of an act, she conceded resentfully, as he had taken refuge in his city apartment, after marooning her in his unbelievably luxurious town house with his family, before flying off to New York on urgent business.
Apparently it was the norm for Cesare to move out of his flashy and huge town house into his exclusive city apartment when his family arrived for a visit. Lizzie had found that strange but his family did not, joking that Cesare had always liked his own space and avoided anything that might take his main focus off business, which evidently involved socialising with his family as well. Lizzie thought that was sad but had kept her opinion tactfully to herself.
He was so rich: in spite of the limo and the driver and the helicopter, she had had no idea how rich her future fake husband was. Lizzie was still in shock from travelling in a private jet and walking into a house the size of a palace with over ten en-suite bedrooms and innumerable staff. She had then done what she should have done a week earlier and had checked him out on the Internet, learning that he was the head of a business mega-empire and more in the billionaire than the multimillionaire category.
Indeed the house, followed by the experience of being literally engulfed by his gregarious family, had only been the first of the culture shocks rattling Lizzie’s security on its axis. Two solid days of clothes shopping followed by a physical head-to-toe makeover had left its mark. For that reason it was hardly surprising that she should be at last enjoying the chance to relax and have a few drinks in good company for the first time in more years than she cared to count.
* * *
Seated on his jet, furiously checking his watch to calculate the landing time, Cesare enlarged the photograph on his tablet and scrutinised it with lingering disbelief.
Don’t you dare take Lizzie out dressed like that to a club! he had texted his half-sister Maurizia, with a confusing mix of anger, frustration and concern assailing him in a dark flood of reactions that made him uncomfortable to the extreme.
He still couldn’t take his eyes off the photograph: Lizzie smiling as he had never seen her and sheathed in an emerald-green, ‘barely there’, strappy short dress with perilous high heels on her shapely legs. It was an amazing transformation. A magic wand had been waved over the bag lady. She looked fantastic and would outshine every woman around her now that her natural beauty had been polished up and brought to the fore. Her glorious mane of hair had been restored as he’d instructed, not cut. It gleamed in a silken tumble of silver strands round her delicately pointed face, green eyes huge, pouty mouth lush and pink. Cesare swore under his breath, outraged by his sisters’ interference and the hen-party nonsense. Lizzie was no more fit to be let loose in a London nightclub than a toddler and now he would have to go and retrieve her!
* * *
‘You’re not supposed to be here... This is her night!’ one of his sisters carolled accusingly as soon as he arrived at the women’s table.
‘Where is she?’ Cesare ground out, unamused, while he scanned the dance floor.
Looking daggers at her big brother, Sofia shifted a reluctant hand to show him. ‘Don’t spoil her night. She’s having a whale of a time!’
Cesare centred his incredulous dark gaze on the sight of his bride-to-be, a pink hen-night sash diagonally dissecting her slender, shapely body as she danced, arms raised, silvery hair flying, feet moving in time to the fast beat. What infuriated him was the sight of the two men trying to attract her attention because she appeared to be dancing in a world of her own. Suddenly Lizzie teetered to a stop, clearly dizzy as she swayed on her very high heels. With a suppressed snarl of annoyance, Cesare, ignoring his siblings’ wide-eyed disbelief at his behaviour, stalked across the floor to hastily settle steadying hands on Lizzie’s slim shoulders.
‘Cesare...’ Lizzie proclaimed with a wide, sunny smile because it only took one lingering glance to remind her how tall, dark and sleekly gorgeous he was. He towered over her, lean bronzed face shadowed and hollowed by the flickering lights that enhanced his spectacular bone structure, stunning dark golden eyes intent on her. She was really, really pleased to see him, a familiar reassuring image in a new world that was unnervingly different and unsettling. In fact for a split second she almost succumbed to a deeply embarrassing urge to hug him. Then, luckily remembering that hugging wasn’t part of their deal, she restrained herself.
‘You’re drunk,’ his perfectly shaped mouth framed, destroying the effect of his reassuring presence.
‘Of course I’m not drunk!’ Lizzie slurred, throwing up her hands in emphasis only to brace them on his broad chest while she wondered why her legs wanted to splay like a newborn calf’s trying to walk for the first time.
‘You are,’ Cesare repeated flatly.
‘I’m not,’ Lizzie insisted, holding onto his forearms to stay upright, her shoe soles still displaying a worrying urge to slide across the floor of their own volition.
‘I’m taking you home,’ Cesare mouthed as the deafening music crashed all around them.
‘I’m not ready to go home yet!’ she shouted at him.
Lizzie couldn’t work out what Cesare said in answer to that declaration. His deep-set eyes glittered like banked-down fires in his lean, strong face and he had bent down and lifted her up into his arms before she could even begin to guess his intention.
‘Think we’re going home,’ Lizzie informed his sisters forlornly from the vantage point of his arms as he paused by their table.
‘You didn’t look after her!’ Cesare growled at one of his sisters, in answer to whatever comment had been made.
‘What am I? A dog or a child?’ Lizzie demanded, staring up at him, noticing that he needed a shave because a heavy five o’clock shadow outlined his lower jawline, making it seem even harder and more aggressive than usual. It framed his wide, sensual mouth though, drawing attention to the perfectly sculpted line of his lips. He kissed like a dream, she recalled abstractedly, wondering when he’d do it again.
‘Think we should kiss so that your sisters believe we’re a real couple?’ Lizzie asked him winningly.
‘If we were real, I’d strangle you, cara,’ Cesare countered without hesitation. ‘I leave you alone for three days and I come back and you’re going crazy on the dance floor and getting blind drunk.’
‘Not drunk,’ Lizzie proclaimed stubbornly.
Cesare rolled
