interior of a sleek black car.
‘You said Herman Munster,’ Miranda breathed accusingly.
‘I said he might have been Herman Munster for all I could see of him,’ Emily corrected tensely.
‘Looks like you were both wrong in this instance,’ their father commented dryly.
Alessandro felt a frisson of anticipation as he double-checked the address his private secretary had passed on to him that morning.
He wasn’t used to waiting, and eighteen hours was far too long in this case.
But then he wasn’t used to speaking to someone hiding behind a screen either, or accepting anyone’s terms but his own—which was how he now found himself getting out of a rented Mercedes outside a perfectly ordinary semi-detached house in North London.
He smiled a little in amused acceptance. He couldn’t recall a single instance of being turned down by a woman, let alone agreeing to a time of her choosing for an audience as begrudging as this one. His sharp gaze took in the small rectangular lawn, freshly mowed, and then moved on to the splash of vivid colour provided by a pot of petunias to one side of the narrow front door. For someone who moved between palaces, embassies or the presidential suite in some luxury hotel when he was really slumming it, this chance to sample suburbia was a novelty…No. A welcome change, he decided as he swiped off his dark glasses.
Behind a snowy drift of net, the Weston family watched Alessandro Bussoni’s progress towards the house in awe-struck silence.
‘He’s absolutely gorgeous,’ Miranda murmured. Their distracted mother barely managed a weak gasp of, ‘Oh, my!’
‘Go, before he sees you,’ Emily suggested urgently, having already turned her back on the window.
‘But your make-up,’ Miranda said, hopping from foot to foot, torn between going and staying.
Emily’s hand shot automatically to her face. ‘What about it?’
‘You’re not wearing any,’ Miranda exclaimed with concern.
‘Can’t be helped. He’ll still think I’m you. Why shouldn’t he? Anyway, you’re not wearing any make-up,’ Emily pointed out.
‘Only because I’m sick.’
‘Well, there’s no time for me to do anything about it now,’ Emily said firmly. ‘I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.’
‘Sure?’ Miranda asked hopefully.
‘Sure,’ Emily said briskly, hoping no one had noticed that her hand was shaking as it hovered over the doorknob.
‘I’m going to change,’ Miranda shouted, on her way up the stairs. ‘Then I’m taking over from you.’
‘No!’ But even as Emily’s gaze raked the empty landing to call her sister back she knew it was too late. Sucking in a deep, steadying breath, she seized the doorknob tightly and began to turn…
‘You go and wait in the lounge, pet.’
‘Dad—’
‘Go and compose yourself,’ Mr Weston urged gently, refusing to let go of her arm until Emily allowed him to steer her away from the door. ‘You look like you could do with a few minutes. I’ll keep him busy until you’re ready.’
‘You’re an angel,’ Emily whispered, reaching up on tiptoe to give her father an affectionate peck on the cheek. But a moment alone was all it took her to realise that she couldn’t go ahead with the charade after all, and she rushed upstairs to find her sister.
The twins waited motionless, hardly daring to breathe as they stood just inside the door to Miranda’s bedroom. It felt as if the conversation downstairs had been going on for ever while their father satisfied himself as to their visitor’s identity and then invited him into the house, but at his signal they started down the stairs.
Emily was dressed in her customary relaxing-at-home-uniform of blue jeans and a simple grey marl tee shirt. Her well-buffed toenails, devoid of nail varnish, were shown off in a pair of flat brown leather sandals, while her long black hair was held up loosely on top of her head with a tortoise-shell clip.
In complete contrast, Miranda had somehow found enough time to coat the area around her large green eyes with copious amounts of silver glitter, add blusher to her cheeks and staggeringly high platform shoes to her seemingly endless legs.
Surely there could be no mistake, Emily thought, giving her twin the final once-over before they reached the sitting room door. Signor Bussoni would immediately presume it was Miranda he had seen on stage. ‘Relax,’ she whispered, taking hold of her twin’s wrist. ‘It’ll be all right.’
‘Then why are you shaking?’ Miranda remarked perceptively.
‘Girls? What’s keeping you? You’ve got a visitor.’
‘We’re coming now, Dad,’ Emily called back, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. She had no idea what she was up against, and had nothing to go on but that disconcerting voice. For all she knew it might be Herman Munster hiding behind that impressive physique and those super-sleek clothes.
‘Come on, love. What’s the hold-up?’ Popping his head round the door, her father drew her into the room. ‘Your mother will have tea ready in about fifteen minutes,’ he said. ‘You two know each other,’ he added, with an expectant smile.
Emily felt as if her powers of reason had vanished. Her mind’s eye wasn’t simply unreliable, it was positively defective, she decided, gazing up into a man’s face that was almost agonising in its perfection. Thick ebony-black hair, cut slightly longer than was customary in England, was swept back and still tousled from the wind. Conscious he would think her rude, she forced her gaze away, only to discover lips that were almost indecently well formed and the most expressive dark gold gaze she had ever encountered.
Restating his name with a slight bow, Alessandro viewed the two sisters standing one behind the other. ‘Miss Weston,’ he murmured.
Lurching forward in response to Emily’s none too subtle prompting, Miranda extended her hand politely. ‘Delighted to see you, Signor Bussoni,’ she said, letting out an audible sigh when Alessandro raised her hand to his lips.
‘And I you,’ he said in a voice as warm as the sunlight that had tinted his skin to bronze. ‘But, forgive me, it is the other Miss Weston I have come to see.’
‘The other Miss Weston?’ Miranda squeaked, looking helplessly behind her to where Emily was standing rigid, wishing the ground would swallow her up.
‘Indeed,’ Alessandro said in a voice laced with humour. ‘You did invite me, Miss Weston,’ he said, looking straight at Emily.
Shock rendered both sisters speechless, and for a moment no one moved or spoke. If their own parents couldn’t tell them apart, how could Signor Bussoni? Emily wondered tensely. She breathed a sigh of relief as her mother breezed into the room.
‘Ah, Signor Bussoni, what a pleasure it is to have you in our midst.’
‘The pleasure is
