A grim sense of being completely and utterly alone with Rio Mastrangelo sent a shiver down her spine.
How could Cressida do this to her? The more Tilly thought about it, the more convinced she was that Cressida had lied. But why? What could be so important that she’d orchestrate this deception? She obviously hadn’t wanted to risk Tilly saying no—which she would have, had she known about this tiny shack and the drop-dead gorgeous billionaire only a wall away. Damn her!
Well, this would be the end of it. Once she got back to London she’d tell Cressida that their arrangement was at an end.
She ripped at the zip of the bag, pulling it roughly and lifting out another dress. But it was low at the front, and she didn’t want to wear anything that might feed into the idea Rio had of her.
Cressida Wyndham, with her fake breasts, ready smile and casual attitude to life in general and sex specifically, would have been working out how to seduce the ruthless tycoon... But Tilly wanted no part of the man.
Did she?
CHAPTER TWO
‘ARE YOU HUNGRY?’
He didn’t look up as she entered; Tilly hadn’t even realised he’d heard her.
‘Not really.’
She paused inside the doorframe, studying him surreptitiously from behind hooded eyes. She caught the moment he lifted his head, saw his eyes running over her figure, his face giving nothing away. She’d have loved to pull on a baggy shirt and jeans, but she’d only packed frothy dresses and bikinis. She’d chosen the most conservative of the dresses—a dark blue linen that fell to her knees.
Wary of distracting him when he was in the middle of working, she gnawed on her lip for a moment. Then, ‘My phone doesn’t work here.’
That caught his attention. He flicked a brief glance at her. ‘No. There’s no cell tower. No infrastructure of any nature.’
She nodded, but one side of her mouth quirked downwards at the corner. ‘What do you do in an emergency?’
‘What kind of emergency?’ he prompted curiously.
‘Um...any kind. A band of marauding pirates storming the beach, or any angry flock of seagulls pecking their way across the sand...’
His smile was unexpected—and so was its effect. Her tummy filled with frantic butterflies; her skin dotted with goosebumps.
‘You don’t think I could defend you against a band of pirates?’
She arched a brow. ‘I think you have an inflated sense of your physical abilities.’
He arched a brow. ‘A theory I’m willing to disprove at any time,’ he promised darkly.
And now the butterflies went into overdrive, fluttering down to her knees and making them wobbly.
‘I’m serious,’ she said, the words stiffened by disapproval. ‘What if there’s a fire, or you break your leg or something?’
‘I have a satellite phone.’ He shrugged.
‘But what about emails?’
‘I can connect to it for internet access,’ he said. ‘It’s slow as hell, but it gets the job done.’
‘Electricity? Water?’
‘Generator. Tank.’
Her mind was busy processing that. ‘Whoever built this really wanted to be off the grid.’
‘Not a lot of options on a deserted island,’ he pointed out, with a pragmatism that annoyed her.
‘I don’t know... It seems like a post-apocalyptic bolthole.’