have decided she needed a break and, as it’s the Easter holidays, I was available.’
‘You do not believe that,’ he told her softly, running a questing hand down the silken length of his tie. The gesture was unconsciously sensual, though she doubted he was aware of it. Sensuality was part of his persona. Like his lean, intriguing face and the powerful body beneath his sleek Armani suit. ‘I also think you are far too understanding. I hope your sister realises what a loyal little friend she has in you.’
It was the ‘little’ that did it. Tess had spent her life insisting that people not judge her by her size. ‘All right,’ she said again, anger giving her a confidence she hadn’t been able to summon earlier. ‘I’ll phone her. Now. But if she is there—’
‘I will find some suitable means of recompense,’ he finished softly. ‘And if your sister is like you, then I can understand why Marco found her so—appealing.’
‘Don’t patronise me!’ Tess was incensed by his condescension. ‘As it happens, Ashley’s nothing like me. She’s tall and more—more—’ How could she say curvaceous to him? ‘Um—she’s dark and I’m fair.’
‘So…’ His tone was almost indulgent now. ‘Once again, I have offended you, cara. Forgive me. I suppose, being the younger sister—’
‘I’m not the younger sister,’ Tess broke in hotly, wondering why she’d ever thought that cutting her hair would make a difference. ‘I told you, my father married again after my mother died.’
‘Non posso crederci! I can’t believe it.’ He shook his head. ‘But you told me your sister was twenty-eight, no?’
‘And I’m thirty-two,’ said Tess shortly, struggling to hold on to her patience. She paused, and then in a more civil tone she added, ‘Don’t bother to tell me I don’t look it. I’ve spent the last ten years trying to convince people that I’m older than the kids I teach.’
Castelli’s mouth tilted at the corners and she was struck anew by his disturbing appeal. ‘Most women would envy you, Tess. My own mother spends a small fortune on retaining her youth.’
‘But I am not most women,’ she retorted, realising she was only putting off the inevitable. ‘And now, I suppose, I’d better make that call.’
RAFE DI CASTELLI paced tensely about the gallery. All his instincts were urging him to join her in the small office, to be present while she made the call. To make sure she actually called her sister, he conceded tersely. Despite her apparent innocence, he had no reason to trust Tess Daniels any more than her sister.
But courtesy—and an underlying belief that she wouldn’t lie to him—kept him out of earshot. He didn’t want to know how she phrased her question; he didn’t want to hear her distress if he was right. And he was right, he told himself grimly. Verdicci had been adamant. Two people had got aboard the plane to Milano, and one of them had been his son.
It seemed to take for ever. He was fairly sure her Italian wasn’t fluent and it might have been easier if he had placed the call for her. But any suggestion of involvement on his part would have seemed like interference. Besides, impatient as he was, he was prepared to give her the time to marshal her thoughts.
She emerged from the office a few moments later and he saw at once that she was upset. Her hair was rumpled, as if she’d been running agitated fingers through it as she spoke, and her winter-pale cheeks were bright with colour.
She looked delectable, he thought ruefully, despising the impulse that would put such a thought in his mind at this time. Was this how she looked when she left her bed? he wondered. All pale tangled hair and face flushed from sleep?
It was a curiously disturbing picture, and one that he chose to ignore. Engaging though she was, she could mean nothing to him. He was amused by her naïvety, but that was all.
‘She’s not there,’ she burst out abruptly as he paused, expectantly, looking at her. ‘Andrea—that’s Ashley’s mother—she hasn’t seen her.’
Rafe felt a mixture of resignation and relief. Resignation that his information had been correct, and relief that there was not some unknown woman involved.
‘You knew that, of course,’ she went on, regarding him half resentfully. Green eyes, fringed by surprisingly dark lashes, surveyed him without liking. ‘So—you were right and I was wrong. What do we do now?’
‘We?’ Her use of the personal pronoun caused an automatic arching of his brows and she had the grace to look embarrassed at her presumption.
‘I mean, I—that is, me,’ she fumbled. ‘What am I going to do now? I can’t stay here indefinitely. I’m due back at school in ten days’ time.’
‘As is Marco,’ he observed drily, feeling a little of her frustration himself. ‘May I ask, what did your sister tell you when she handed the keys of the gallery to you? Did she give you any idea when she would return?’
Tess sighed. ‘I haven’t seen Ashley,’ she muttered, lifting both hands to cup her neck, and his eyes were unwillingly drawn to the widening gap of skin at her midriff. Such soft skin it looked, creamy and flawless. Such a contrast to the ugly boots she wore on her feet.
Dragging his thoughts out of the gutter, Rafe tried to absorb what she was saying. ‘You have not seen her,’ he echoed blankly. ‘I do not understand.’
‘Ashley phoned me,’ she explained. ‘She said her mother was ill and was there any chance that I could come here and look after the gallery for a few days while she went to England. She said she wanted to leave immediately. That she was worried about her mother and she’d leave the keys with the caretaker of her apartment.’
‘So you crossed in transit?’
‘In a manner of speaking. But Ashley’s mother and I live in different parts of the country.’
‘Ah.’ He nodded. ‘So your sister had every reason to believe that she would not be found out in her deception.’
‘I suppose so.’ Clearly she didn’t want to admit it, but Rafe could see the acknowledgement in her face. She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe she’d think she’d get away with it. I could have phoned Andrea. I could have found out she wasn’t ill for myself.’
‘But you did not?’
‘No.’ Tess shrugged her slim shoulders and her hands dropped to her sides. ‘Ashley knows I was unlikely to do that, in any case. Andrea and I have never been particularly close.’
‘Yet you must have been very young when your mother died,’ he probed, and then could have kicked himself for his insensitivity. But it was too late now and he was forced to explain himself. ‘I assumed this woman—your father’s second wife—would have cared for you, too.’
Tess shook her head. ‘Andrea has always been a—a delicate woman,’ she said. ‘Having two young children to look after would have been too much for her. I went to live with my mother’s sister. She’d never married and she was a teacher, too.’
Poor Tess. Rafe made no comment, but it sounded to him as if Andrea Daniels was as unfeeling and as selfish as her daughter. ‘It seems we have both been deceived,’ he said, softening his tone deliberately. ‘It is a pity your sister does not carry a mobile. Marco’s is switched off.’
‘But she does,’ exclaimed Tess excitedly, animation giving her porcelain-pale features a startling allure. Her smile appeared and Rafe had to warn himself of the dangers of responding to her femininity. ‘Why didn’t I think of it before? She gave me the number when she moved to Porto San Michele.’
Rafe expelled a harsh breath. ‘You have the number with you?’
‘Of course.’