The Billionaire's Bridal Bargain

e,’ he said brusquely, lying through his teeth.

All of a quiver after that pointless exchange, her nerves jangling, Lizzie vanished into the bedroom, closed the door and opened her case to extract a sun top and shorts. She needed to blow the cobwebs off with a good walk. Cesare was nowhere to be seen when she went downstairs again and she went into the kitchen where Primo reigned supreme and eventually emerged with Primo’s luxury version of a picnic meal and a bottle of water. With a little luck she could stay out until dark, then dive into bed and wake up to a new day and the big show for his poor grandmother’s benefit.

Cesare was furious when he discovered that Lizzie had left the house. He strode down to the beach but there was no sign of her and not even a footprint on the pristine strand to suggest that she had come that way.

Several hours later, sunburned, foot weary and very tired after her jaunt across Lionos, Lizzie returned to discover that Cesare had gone out. Thankful, she settled down to supper as only Primo could make it. Sliding into her comfortable bed, she slept like a log.

Athene arrived mid-afternoon the next day. Cesare decided to be grateful for that because it brought Lizzie out of hiding. It had not once crossed his mind that she could be so intractable that she wouldn’t even give him a hearing and then he thought of all the years she had slaved for her unappreciative and critical father and realised that she would have needed a strong, stubborn backbone.

Relaxed and colourful in a red sundress, Lizzie ushered Athene into her former childhood home. Tears shone in the old lady’s eyes as she stood in the hall, gazing down the slope at the beautiful view. ‘I thought it would all be overgrown and unrecognisable.’

‘You showed me a photo once. I had the trees cut back,’ Cesare told his grandmother softly. ‘Shall I show you around?’

‘Yes, this is your home and Lizzie’s now,’ Athene said a little tearfully and fumbled for a tissue. ‘I have so many memories of my brothers and sisters here and now that they’re all gone...’

Lizzie watched Cesare mop up his grandmother’s tears with a deft touch and the right words and, minutes later, Athene was laughing as she recounted a childhood adventure with her brothers. She accompanied them on the official tour and Primo served afternoon tea out on the terrace, apparently an old tradition that Athene loved.

‘Primo is an absolute treasure,’ Athene told Lizzie as Cesare murmured an apology and withdrew to answer his phone before walking back into the house.

‘And even better he cooks, which I’m not very good at,’ Lizzie admitted, topping up the older woman’s tea.

‘Have you and Cesare had a row?’ her companion asked without warning. ‘I’m not an interfering old woman but I can feel that something’s wrong.’

Lizzie felt that even an award-winning actress would have been challenged to carry off a smile at that point. ‘A hiccup,’ she downplayed studiously, her cheeks burning tomato-red as if the lie might be emblazoned on her forehead.

‘My grandson has a remarkable brain, which serves him well in business. He’s not quite so good at relationships,’ Athene remarked wryly, gentle amusement in her warm brown eyes. ‘There’s bound to be hiccups as you call them. He’s set in his ways and you’ll challenge him. That’s good for him. After all, anyone with eyes can see how deeply attached you are to each other.’

Lizzie’s opinion of Athene’s shrewdness nosedived at that pronouncement but the awkward moment passed over and she managed to relax again. The old lady eventually nodded off in the shade and Lizzie went back indoors.

‘I need to warn you,’ Lizzie almost whispered round the corner of the door of the room Cesare had set up as an office. ‘Athene thinks we’ve had a row but that that’s normal, so not really anything to worry about...but we’ll need to make a real effort to impress.’

‘Wouldn’t it be easier simply to talk to me?’ Cesare suggested, rising from behind his desk, all sleek Italian designer style in his tailored oatmeal-coloured casuals.

Lizzie continued to hover defensively in the doorway. ‘I just don’t think we have anything to talk about.’

‘Do you know what time I went to bed last night?’

Lizzie blinked in confusion. ‘How would I?’

‘I was out tramping round the island looking for you. Primo couldn’t raise a signal on my cell phone until midnight and I only found out then that you had returned to the house hours earlier!’

Lizzie dealt him an astonished look. ‘But why were you looking for me in the first place? I wasn’t lost.’

Cesare studied her as if she were irretrievably dim. ‘There are all kinds of hazards out there. Fast currents in the sea, steep drops, dangerous rocks...’

Definitely behaving oddly, Lizzie labelled as she breathed in deep. ‘Cesare, I’m not some little fluffy woman who can’t look after herself. I’m an outdoors woman, used to working in all weathers and accustomed to constantly considering safety aspects on the farm.’

‘But I was worried about you!’ Cesare shot back at her in furious frustration.

Lizzie tossed her head, platinum-blonde hair shimmering across her slight shoulders in the sunlight, green eyes wide and wary. ‘Well, you didn’t need to be. I should’ve thought you would’ve been more worried about how Serafina is managing while we’re together here when you belong with her.’

‘I do not belong with Serafina!’ Cesare raked at her so loudly, she jumped.

‘No?’

‘Do I strike you as being an idiot? I was a boy when I fell in love with her and full of romantic idealism but I’m all grown-up now,’ he completed grimly.

‘Well, you went rushing over to that palazzo fast enough the other night,’ Lizzie argued in a less aggressive prompt. ‘That was where you went, wasn’t it?’