CHAPTER SEVEN

      ‘OH, MY G—!’

      Lara took her eyes off the tree-lined, private road they were driving along—it wasn’t as if they were going to meet any oncoming traffic—to look at her twin sister’s face. She imagined that she had worn a similar look a week earlier when Raoul had brought her for the first time to the family estate—her new home.

      It was all deeply surreal.

      ‘Yeah, it is a bit, isn’t it?’ It wasn’t just the size and sense of history of the golden-stoned palatial house, but the magnificent setting. Cradled by a backdrop of mountains, olive groves covered the gently sloping hills to the west and a river wound its way like a silver ribbon to the north with the palazzo like a jewel in the centre.

      ‘It looks like an illustration in a fairy tale, you know, not quite real, a bit like you getting married to someone you’ve only just met...?’

      Lara focused on the road ahead, not reacting to the unspoken question. ‘Oh, there’s Mum.’ She nodded towards a plume of dust. ‘We’ve almost caught them up.’

      ‘It is incredibly beautiful, but don’t you feel isolated here?’

      The emphasis was not lost on Lara. She supposed it was her own fault. She had kind of played up how great the social side was when she had moved to the city for her job, but it was better than admitting that for the first six months she’d been terribly homesick.

      ‘Without a night club within stumbling distance, you mean. I guess I’ll just have to make my own entertainment, like in the olden days,’ she mocked. ‘I grew up in the country too, remember, only here there isn’t a bus at the end of the lane, there’s a helicopter.’

      ‘And you have this.’ Lily patted the deep leather upholstery of her seat.

      Lara thought of all the cars in the garage that Raoul had given her the key code to on the first day, telling her she had her pick but warning her that the roads took some getting used to.

      Up until now she had driven a 4x4 but this morning she had picked out the sleek sports car to pick up her mum and sister from the helicopter strip. Now she was regretting the impulse that might appear like showing off to Lily. In the end, when she’d arrived, Raoul’s grandfather Sergio was already there with the limo.

      ‘It is only good manners to meet your family,’ he had reproached when Lara, already concerned that the hastily arranged marriage was going to exhaust him, had said he shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.

      Her mother had been delighted to be driven to the house in the style to which she laughingly said she could easily become accustomed, but Lily had opted to go back with Lara.

      Lara was glad it was a short drive. Lily had started in with the questions straight off, and Lara had avoided giving direct answers, then launched into a running commentary of the history of the house and estate. What she couldn’t remember she made up, which, keeping in mind it was her inability to lie convincingly that had got her this gig, she felt she was doing rather well at.

      If only Raoul were here to see her, she mused grimly, but he had flown off to Paris early that morning and wasn’t expected back until tomorrow morning, barely an hour before the wedding.

      He’d laughed when she’d accused him of avoiding her family but he hadn’t denied it.

      Wrapping a sheet around her, she had followed him out onto the balcony of their bedroom where he was taking his coffee. ‘Even if Mum swallows this, Lily will know I’m lying. She’ll definitely smell a rat. She knows even I wouldn’t be insane enough to marry someone I’ve only just met.’

      ‘Even I?’

      ‘Lily is the sensible twin.’

      He’d stood there with a look on his face that she had struggled to interpret. ‘Sensible?’

      ‘She wouldn’t have agreed to this...and, no, you wouldn’t have asked her.’

      The odd look had come back, along with a smile. ‘Then it is lucky for me I met the non-sensible twin. Relax, you do not have to prove anything to anyone, but if in trouble adopt the fall-back position.’

      ‘What’s the fall-back position?’

      ‘Love is crazy, and we are deeply in love, cara.’

      She’d tried to laugh but suddenly all she had wanted to do was cry.

      She’d felt his eyes on her face as the silence had stretched. ‘Try and relax. No one is going to question our motivation for getting married. Why would they? I suppose a few might wonder if the haste means that you are already pregnant.’

      The possibility had not occurred to Lara, who had reacted with a moan. ‘Oh, no!’

      He’d seemed bemused by her reaction. ‘What’s the problem?’

      ‘You don’t have a problem with people thinking I’m pregnant?’

      ‘Fictional pregnancies I can deal with. Now, a real one...’

      His expression had left no doubt as to what his reaction to that circumstance would be. Not that it was going to happen—he was meticulously careful in that way.

      ‘I really don’t think I can pull it off, Raoul.’ She hadn’t been able to keep the panic from her voice.

      ‘Of course you can.’

      The irritation in his voice had been reflected in his face as he’d lifted his eyes from the tablet his glance had drifted to.

      ‘I wasn’t expecting anything like this place.’ She’d waved a hand to encompass the view, the room, and everything that went with it. ‘I won’t be able to keep up the act.’

      ‘Nobody expects you to. It’s not as if you’re going to be on show twenty-four-seven. You’ll be living here. There are no cameras.’

      ‘Oh, and there’s nothing whatever daunting about that, and actually there are cameras.’

      ‘Security cameras are there to protect you, not intrude.’

      ‘Easy for you to say—you were brought up in a goldfish bowl.’ She’d pressed a hand to her head and groaned out. ‘This was a crazy idea.’

      ‘Anyway, I doubt I’ll be here more than one or two days a week.’

      Her hand had fallen away.

      ‘Did you think we were going to spend the next months joined at the hip?’

      ‘Of course not!’ she’d lied, trying hard not to examine the ambivalence of her reaction. ‘Won’t people think it odd...?’ she had countered, keeping her voice light. ‘Married couples usually—’

      ‘Have a honeymoon, make babies...?’ The mockery in his voice had morphed into a steely hardness as he’d spelt it out. ‘This is not meant to be a real marriage.’