Mistress at the Italian's Command

Alex’s sapphire-blue gaze shifted to stare blankly at the hem of the sheet covering her chest. ‘I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d disapprove.’

‘Why would I do that, darling?’ Ally asked, although deep down she felt sure she already knew the answer.

‘He’s married,’ Alex said, confirming Ally’s suspicions. ‘I didn’t realise that until I’d thrown in my job and followed him to Rome. He told me he loved me. He even told me he was going to leave his wife. But it was all a lie…’

Ally inwardly sighed. She needed more than her fingers and toes to count the number of affairs with married men her sister had been involved in over the years. Alex seemed to misread the signals, or something. She was so easily taken in by a charming smile and ended up disappointed and betrayed time and time again. But this one seemed to have had a much more devastating effect, and Ally wished she could press for more details. But she knew it would probably do more harm than good at this point.

‘When did you stop taking your tablets?’ she asked, diverting the subject.

Alex closed her eyes. ‘I don’t remember… a few weeks ago, I think. I didn’t want him to know I was taking medication. I thought he wouldn’t love me if he thought I wasn’t… you know… normal.’

‘Alex you are normal,’ Ally insisted. ‘If you had asthma or diabetes you’d have to take regular medication. How is your mental condition any different?’

Alex’s eyes remained closed. ‘But I feel crazy. My head is full of racing thoughts. I feel out of control, and that’s why…’ She gave another defeated sigh. ‘What’s the point? What’s done is done.’

‘Darling, remember the doctors back home told you how important it is for you take your tablets regularly?’ Ally said, trying to remain patient and calm. ‘This time in the clinic will be just the thing for you. You’ll be able to get on top of things, both medically and personally.’

Alex turned her head back to look at Ally. ‘Do you really still love me, Ally? Even after all I’ve put you through? I’m a terrible person. I hate myself. I can’t do anything right. I ruin everything.’

‘That’s rubbish, Alex, and you know it,’ Ally said. ‘You’ll come through this. I know you will. You know I love you, and nothing can change that. You and me together against the world, right?’

Alex bit her lower lip and shifted her gaze again. ‘I don’t really want to end up like Mum… but I just can’t seem to help it. It must be genetic—but then you have the same genes and you’re fine…’

Ally pushed aside the giant wave of survival guilt that instantly swamped her, and grasped her sister’s hand again. ‘Mum didn’t get the help she needed,’ she said. ‘She was sick for a long time, but we were too young to realise it. Her up-and-down moods and her erratic behaviour seemed a part of who she was. There’s a fine line between personality and mental illness, Alex. It’s hard even for the professionals to know when patients cross it.’

Alex turned her head on the pillow to look at her. ‘I’ve done some terrible things,’ she said, her eyes swelling with tears. ‘I just couldn’t seem to stop myself. I wanted to get back at Rocco for… for everything…’

‘Rocco was the man you were having an affair with?’ Ally asked, trying to string the pieces together without pushing too hard.

Alex’s eyes welled again with tears and her bottom lip began to tremble uncontrollably. ‘I can’t talk about it… I just can’t…’

Ally stroked her sister’s hand. ‘That’s fine, honey. I understand. We’ll leave it for another time, when you’re feeling better.’

Alex let out a defeated sigh and closed her eyes wearily. ‘I’ll go to the clinic,’ she said. ‘I want to get well. I can’t go on like this. I know I’ve been a dreadful burden for you in the past. I wanted to make you proud of me, living independently and working abroad. I thought I could do it. But… but I guess this is my last chance to put things right.’

‘Darling it’s not your last chance. There is no such thing as last chances,’ Ally said, pressing a tender kiss to her twin’s forehead. ‘Besides, what if the shoe was on the other foot?’

Alex opened one bleary eye to look at her. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We’re identical twins,’ Ally said. ‘Like you said before, we share exactly the same DNA but by chance you have developed an illness that needs carefully managed treatment. It could just as easily be me in that bed, not you.’

Alex opened both of her dark blue eyes and looked at her sister with gravitas. ‘You should be thanking God you don’t have to step into my shoes,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t wish my life on anyone, not after what I’ve done. I feel so… so guilty.’

‘I don’t have to step into your shoes to understand what you are going through,’ Ally said. ‘But let me tell you if I had to I would do it, and do it gladly.’

Alex attempted a smile, but it was a bit crooked and tinged with aching sadness. ‘Just as well we’re the same size, then, huh?’

CHAPTER TWO

ALLY had not long returned to Rome from her trip, having settled her twin sister into the quiet sanctuary of the clinic in Switzerland, when the doorbell of her sister’s rented apartment sounded. She had come back there to do a rudimentary clean-up, knowing Alex would be out of town for possibly weeks if not months on end, and had decided a refrigerator clean-out was probably a good idea, not to mention a load or two of washing and a bed linen change before she arranged to travel back to Zurich.

What she hadn’t expected to find was a rather nasty eviction notice and a demand for six weeks’ rent in arrears, with a letter written in Italian that looked as if it was from a lawyer. But what Ally couldn’t understand was why her sister had neglected to pay the rent, for as she was folding Alex’s clothes in the bedroom she had come across a large amount of money, tied in neat bundles and placed inside a jacket pocket. Uncertain of what to do with such a sum, Ally had placed it in her handbag until she could consult her sister.

The doorbell rang again, this time with a little more force, so Ally pushed the papers and the rest of her sister’s unpaid bills to one side and, giving the newly made-up bed a quick straighten, made her way to the front door. She opened it to find a tall, dark-haired man standing there, his stance autocratic and his gaze very determined as it locked down on hers.

‘Mrs Alexandra Sharpe?’

Ally stared back at the bottomless brown eyes boring down into hers and felt a shiver of apprehension shimmy up her spine. ‘Look… if it’s about the rent I can explain—’

He slanted one dark eyebrow at her. ‘Don’t tell me you have forgotten me already?’ he said. ‘I know we only met the once, but surely I am not that forgettable?’

‘Um… I… Um…’ Ally was at a loss for words.

‘Perhaps I should refresh your memory?’ he said with a contemptuous set to his mouth. ‘You gate-crashed a business function my brother-in-law Rocco Montano and I attended three weeks ago. Your behaviour created quite a stir. Had I known then what I know now I would have personally evicted you from the premises, instead of engaging Security to do it for me.’

Ally stared at him with wide eyes. She wasn’t sure if she should tell him who she was or go along with his assumption that she was Alex. She suddenly felt as if she was on a set of delicately balanced scales. A tilt one way could clear away the confusion; the other could cause catastrophic results…

Or would it?

Once the thought had blossomed in her brain she couldn’t quite get rid of it. Had Alex ever mentioned to her lover about having an identical twin? she wondered.

She stared at the man’s classically handsome features as her heart did a hopscotch routine in her chest. ‘You seem sort of vaguely familiar,’ she said, to fill the silence.

‘May I come in?’ he asked, although Ally felt it was more of a command than a request.

She opened the door and he moved past her before she could balance the scales of reason in her scrambled brain.

He was very tall, towering over her five foot eight height, and he had long legs and broad shoulders which were a perfect hanger for the Italian designed suit he was wearing. His neither long nor short casually styled black hair was as glossy as a raven’s wing, brushed backwards—although not willingly, it seemed, as a thick strand seemed to fall forward across his forehead almost every time he moved. One of his hands moved upwards to shove it back, the action so automatic Ally couldn’t help feeling it was almost unconscious. He probably did it a hundred times a day and didn’t realise.

His eyes were a brownish black, fringed with thick sooty lashes that acted like a screen over his fathomless gaze as it collided with hers. He was the most strikingly handsome man she had ever met. He exuded power and male potency from every olive-toned pore of his body. His mouth was full and sensual, his blade of a nose distinctly Roman. However, his strongly chiselled jaw had a hint of stubborn arrogance about it, as if he liked his own way and did everything he could to achieve it.

‘My name, in case you have forgotten, is Vittorio Vassallo,’ he said. ‘But I think I do not need to tell you why I am here, sì?’

Ally felt her skin involuntarily tighten at the sound of that deep velvet-toned voice, its clear-cut diction indicating English was not his preferred tongue even though he spoke it fluently, as if he had been educated abroad. Oxford or Cambridge, she guessed. His name rang a tiny bell at the back of her brain. On the flight over from Sydney she had read an article about a high-flying Italian billionaire fund manager who had a reputation as an international playboy. Looking at him now, Ally could see why women all over the world fell over themselves to be his mistress.

‘Um… now is not really a good time…’ she faltered.

He hooked one dark brow upwards in a derisory arc. ‘You have another commitment right now?’

She rolled her lips together before moistening them with the tip of her tongue. ‘Um… no, but I don’t see what possible reason you could have for being here.’

‘Do you not?’ The dark brow was still slanted upwards, the black-brown gaze unwavering as it held hers.

Ally knew she should probably tell him who she was. Now was the time, before things went any further, but for some reason she felt compelled to find out why he was here before she revealed her identity. She wanted to know what he had planned to say to her sister. What would it hurt to step into her sister’s shoes for the next few minutes? Besides, his imperious stance annoyed her. He was looking down at her as if she was a guttersnipe, and that really irked her. Her sister was suffering a mental illness. She did not deserve to be ridiculed or threatened, or at least not while Ally could prevent it. Besides, she wanted to know if he knew what had gone on between his brother-in-law and Alex, and it seemed this was as good a way as any.

‘I have no idea why you are here,’ she said, in a deliberately haughty tone.

A mocking smile tilted his mouth. ‘Rocco warned me you liked to play the dumb blonde role,’ he said. ‘But that is how you get men to do what you want, is it not? You woo them with those dark blue bedroom eyes and that delectable body of yours. No wonder you have the reputation you have. Few men would be able to resist what you have on offer.’