‘I don’t need you to tell me that.’ He was only confirming what she had already known, what she had inexplicably allowed herself to forget over the past halfhour. Yet the reminder made Daisy feel incredibly empty and degraded. The intimacy she had foolishly believed they had recaptured had only been an illusion, born of her own stupid sentimentality and sexual hunger. She hated herself for that weakness. She wanted to lie down and die, but not in front of him.
Without warning, Alessio strode over to the door and flung it wide, an impatient frown drawing his black brows together. ‘I think we have a visitor.’
‘A visitor?’ Daisy repeated in bewilderment.
A female voice echoed through the upper reaches of the villa, the distant tap-tap of stiletto heels sounding on the marble staircase, telegraphing their wearer’s impatience.
‘Bianca,’ Alessio breathed, already moving out into the corridor to intercept his sister.
Daisy paled. ‘But how on earth did she get in?’ she gasped. ‘Through a window on a broomstick?’
Alessio froze, his dark head whipping round, the smooth planes of his strong profile hardened by a flash of angry incredulity.
Daisy turned crimson as she realised what she had said.
‘Grow up, Daisy,’ Alessio advised with withering bite. ‘You may be stuck in a time-warp but the rest of us have moved on. If you can’t behave like an adult and be civil, I suggest that you stay up here!’
‘I—’
But the door closed with a final thud. With a groan of frustration, Daisy flung herself back against the pillows. Smart move, Daisy. Alienate him more by attacking his twin. Alessio had no idea how much abuse she had once had to take from his sister. Daisy hadn’t told tales. And it was too late now to redress the balance. She would only sound like a sulky child harbouring a grudge. And really Bianca was the least of her problems, she told herself painfully as she threw back the sheet and got up.
For only now did she truly appreciate the depth of Alessio’s bitterness. In angry impatience, he had taken her beliefs and shaken them inside out, shattering her view of the past. Alessio had not been grateful to be released from their shotgun marriage. Alessio had been equally devastated by their divorce. He had actually thought he was the one being dumped.
That picture dredged a shaky laugh from Daisy but it also made her think. Bianca’s assurance all those years ago that within months of their wedding her brother was already involved with his former girlfriend again no longer seemed credible. Had her sister-in-law lied about Sophia and that supposed reconciliation in a cruelly clever play on Daisy’s insecurity?
Whatever—Daisy gave her head an impatient shakenaturally Alessio was still seething at the fact that after walking out on their marriage she had chosen to deny him all knowledge of his daughter. Alessio thought she was a greedy, shallow woman who could not be trusted. Although, with cool Leopardi calculation, he had not shared that news with her until after the wedding. Daisy shivered, suddenly cold with apprehension about what the future might hold. She had still fallen into his arms, her every defence destroyed, a physical hunger that terrified her betraying her with humiliating ease.
Ten minutes later, she descended the sweeping staircase, her battered confidence bolstered by the elegant pale blue dress she wore. Inside she was still a mess of see-sawing emotions and conflict but she had no intention of entertaining Bianca with a miserable face.
The front doors in the hall were wide open. On the last step of the stairs, Daisy froze. Alessio was standing outside with a blonde draped round him. Daisy blinked and looked again, unable to credit the evidence of her own eyes. Slender brown arms were linked round Alessio’s throat as the woman laughed up at him, her flawless profile and the flowing mane of her corn-gold hair instantly recognisable to Daisy...
Her heart gave a sickening lurch as she was plunged into shock. Nina Franklin. What was she doing here? And why had Alessio led her to believe that the visitor was his sister? A stifled moan of distress trapped in her throat, Daisy reeled off the stairs before she could be seen and fled into the drawing room.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘SOMEHOW you don’t look quite as smug as I expected,’ a languidly amused female voice remarked.
Startled, Daisy spun round, breathless and bewildered. In shock, she focused on Alessio’s sister. Bianca was standing by the window, a tall, rake-thin brunette in an enviably simple white shift-dress that screeched its designer cut. ‘Bianca...?’ she muttered dazedly, her brain refusing to function.
The only image stamped inside her head was that of Nina with her arms linked round Alessio, laughing and smiling with confident intimacy, certainly not reacting as any woman might have been expected to react when her lover had broken off their relationship and almost immediately married another woman. That disturbing image still twisted like a fiendish knife in Daisy’s shrinking flesh.
Bianca strolled forward, a mocking smile pinned to her lips. ‘Yes, I have to admit that much as I despise you, Daisy, I also have to admire your sheer nerve. You are holding a real live Leopardi as a hostage to fortune.’
In an uncertain gesture, Daisy pushed back damp tendrils of silver-fair hair from her brow. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Tara...your miracle ticket back into the family circle!’ Bianca vented a scornful laugh. ‘But I wouldn’t get too comfortable if I were you. Alessio may have married you to get custody of his daughter but I don’t think he’s planning to hang on to both of you—’
‘What are you trying to say?’ Daisy cut in tautly, fighting to get a grip on her wits again.
‘So you still need everything spelt out in words of one syllable.’ Bianca shot her a look of pitying superiority. ‘Alessio will keep Tara and ditch you. And why not? The way he sees it, you did the same thing to him!’
‘Why do you still hate me so much?’ Daisy whispered in a shaken undertone, appalled by the brunette’s continuing malice. ‘And what on earth are you doing here?’
‘You loused up my brother’s life once and now you’re trying to do it again. Twins stick together,’ Bianca told her succinctly. ‘As to what I’m doing here at the villa... business, strictly business, although I do feel that I ought to apologise for inadvertently reuniting Alessio with Nina. You’re such a passionately jealous little soul, and what hope have you got against a girl that age?’
Daisy turned bone-white. ‘You bitch,’ she mumbled strickenly.
‘Madre di Dio, what the devil is going on here?’ Alessio’s whiplike intervention cut across the room like an icy wind on a hot summer day.
Sharply disconcerted, Daisy whirled round, cannoned into an occasional table and sent an exquisite vase of flowers smashing down onto the marble hearth of the fireplace. Glass flew everywhere. ‘Oh, hell!’ she gasped, and automatically dropped down, intending to gather up the shattered shards of crystal.
Bianca released her breath in a long-suffering hiss. ‘I’m afraid that your wife is not prepared to let bygones be bygones, Alessio. I tried...now you can’t say I didn’t try...but you heard what she called me, didn’t you?’
‘Daisy, leave that glass alone!’ Dark eyes blazing, the cast of his strong features implacable, Alessio followed up the scorching command by striding over and hauling Daisy upright. ‘Right now we can do without a bloodspattered bride playing a starring role here.’
‘It must be a frightful embarrassment to be so clumsy,’ Bianca commented drily.
As her teeth sank into the soft underside of her lower lip and absolutely brutalised the tender flesh, Daisy tasted the sharp, acrid tang of blood in her mouth. Bianca had heard Alessio’s approach; she realised, and all Alessio had heard was Daisy insulting his sister.
‘I’m sorry Daisy has been so rude,’ Alessio drawled with gritty delivery, one powerful hand anchored to his wife’s slight shoulder like an imprisoning chain, long brown fingers exerting meaningful pressure. ‘But I’m sure that she wants to apologise for losing her temper.’
Daisy went rigid and remained mute, outraged to be dragged forward like a misbehaving child and ordered to eat humble pie. Frustration and fury lanced through her, for she was painfully aware that anything she said now in her own defence would not be convincing.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Bianca sighed with a forgiving smile.
Daisy surveyed the brunette with barely concealed loathing, every nerve in her body still jangling from what she had both witnessed and withstood in the space of ten nightmare minutes.
‘Under the circumstances...’ Alessio hesitated, and then shrugged a fatalistic shoulder. ‘You can use the grounds for your fashion shoot. I appreciate that it would be difficult to find another venue at such short notice—’
‘I knew Nina would change your mind!’ Bianca carolled in a nauseating tone of girlish relief.
Daisy’s teeth ground together.
‘We only need a few hours and the crew are already here,’ Bianca continued sweetly and apologetically. ‘I know it’s very inconvenient timing but I never dreamt that you and Daisy might be coming to this old place for your honeymoon!’