Page 214 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

But there was something about this man that made her eloquent.

No, not this man, she corrected herself quickly. It was the situation. Being here, in Italy, on this island. It felt as though she were outside space and time, outside herself.

‘In my job, there’s a lot of sitting around waiting for things to reveal themselves so I get a lot of time to think.’

Or she could just say the first, stupid thing that came into her head.

Her words reverberated loudly around the terrace and her jaw clenched tight as Tiger’s eyes flicked to her face.

‘Am I to assume by job you mean the part in the day when you hack my server in order to steal my IP? Rather than what I was paying you to do?’ Tiger said softly. He hadn’t moved a muscle but the air around them seemed to shudder a little and she swore silently because they had come full circle. The guarded rapprochement of moments earlier had evaporated and Tiger was once again the man who had stared down at her in his office with such contempt.

‘I was just trying to—’ she began, but he cut her off.

‘No matter. You’re here to do a different job now and time is moving on.’ His gaze sharpened. ‘I’ll give you a quick tour of the house and then we need to go over a few things, get our stories straight.’

The villa was beautiful and she would have liked to stop and admire the gilt and the marble and the tapestries and the glittering chandeliers, but the tour was brief and perfunctory, with Tiger opening doors and listing off rooms at breakneck speed so that she had little more than a blurred impression of pink and dark red and burnished gold.

Finally, they made their way upstairs and he ticked off the various bedrooms and bathrooms until they reached their bedroom, where the housekeeper stood waiting by the door.

‘Ah, Silvana,è tutto pronto?’

The housekeeper nodded.‘Quasi.’

‘Bene.’He turned back to Sydney, gesturing through the door. ‘Shall we?’

She stepped into the bedroom and stopped. There was a rail in the middle of the room and hanging from the rail were clothes. Not her clothes, but fluid, figure-hugging couture that came without price tags because only people who didn’t care about money would buy them.

‘What are these?’ She turned towards Tiger, who frowned, unsurprisingly, because it was obvious what they were.

‘They’re for you to wear this week. It’s not just the regatta and the ball, there are other events and you need to look the part. You’re welcome,’ he added, his mouth twisting, clearly underwhelmed by what he perceived as a lack of gratitude on her part.

‘What’s wrong with my clothes?’ she said, pushing back against the memories of Noah throwing her favourite jeans in the trash. As on everything else, her ex-husband had had opinions on what she should wear. And now Tiger seemed to think he could have an opinion too. Only it was more than that. Ever since she’d talked about her job at breakfast, his mood had shifted. But why was he so angry about something he already knew? It made no sense, only that was the worst kind of anger to manage.

‘I knew I was going to have to borrow something for the ball, because I don’t have a ball gown, but—’

‘Are you being serious?’ he said after a moment, his tone cool and sardonic. ‘What you’re wearing is fine for here, but you need something more high-end.’ He flicked the sleeve of a beautiful dark green dress.

‘You said smart-casual.’

His golden gaze seemed to tear into her. ‘I meant for the flight. Obviously, I’m not expecting you to wear your own clothes when we’re in public.’

Sydney stared at the contents of the rail, a small shiver winding through her body. ‘Why “obviously”? My backstory is that I’m someone you met through work. We’re not pretending that I come from money.’

‘Because that’s how this works.’ He was impatient now. ‘Because I’m not just a guest, I’m a sponsor of the race and the ball and you’re going to attend those events asmygirlfriend, which means you have to wear the kind of clothes that a girlfriend of mine would wear. Most women would be happy, grateful, excited.’

Trying to stay calm and centred, Sydney let her gaze move over the shimmering silks and gauzy wisps of chiffon. ‘But I wouldn’t wear anything like this. It’s not who I am.’

‘You are who I say you are.’

His voice was harsh but it was the shrug accompanying that blunt statement that made the floor ripple beneath her feet as if it were made of quicksand, because that tiny, careless shift of his shoulders was more than just proof that he was unmoved by, and impervious to, her point of view, her wishes, her feelings.

It was a sharp, stomach-churning reminder of how quickly her world had shifted and shrunk six years ago.

‘Think of it like Halloween. Only there’s an upside. You don’t have to return the costume.’ Now he picked up the green dress and let it dangle mid-air from the hanger like something broken. ‘You can keep it. Keep all of them.’ He gestured to the rail. ‘And as they’re “not who you are”, you can sell them. Because they’re worth a lot of money and we both know that’s what matters to you, isn’t it, Sydney?’

In the past she would have kept quiet, tried to defuse the situation, but Tiger had reduced her life, her ambition, her essence, into one cutting rhetorical question. Because as she already knew it was only his opinion that mattered.

‘Says the billionaire who stays up until three a.m. working.’

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