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tendrils, and wearing nothing except this robe
    which plainly didn't belong to her. She was in no fit state to cope
    with anyone—least of all this stranger who behaved as if he owned
    the place.
    He was very dark, she saw, with thick hair untouched with grey,
    growing back from his forehead. He was deeply tanned with a
    high-bridged nose and a mouth that despite its sensual curve looked
    as if it had never uttered the word 'compromise' in its life. His eyes,
    when he swung back to look at her, were surprisingly light in
    colour—almost tawny, she found herself thinking, and oddly
    sinister against the darkness of his skin. And he was good and
    angry. About that there wasn't the slightest doubt.
    For reasons she could not have explained even to herself, Juliet
    found that she was instinctively tightening the sash of that stupid
    robe.
    He rapped a question at her in Italian, and she shook her head.
    'I'm sorry.' She was ashamed to hear a slight tremor in her voice.
    'Sono inglese. No comprende. Do you speak English?'
    'Of course I speak English,' he snapped furiously, and so he did,
    faultlessly with barely a trace of an accent. 'But I understood,
    signorina, that you spoke fluent Italian. Or is that merely another of
    the fairy stories that my impressionable brother has chosen to
    believe about you?'
    Juliet swallowed. So her instinct had been right. His height alone
    should have warned her. He was certainly taller than most of the
    men she had seen that day, lean too, in an expensive dark suit with
    a silky texture. He had pushed the jacket back and was standing
    watching her, his hands resting lightly on his hips. But there was no
    relaxation in his pose. She was reminded all too strongly of a
    mountain lion about to spring.
    What had Jan said? As dark as Satan, and she was right, except for
    those curious tawny eyes. But perhaps she hadn't teen close enough
    to him to notice them, Juliet thought, and wished very much that she
    wasn't either, particularly when they appeared to be contemptuously
    stripping her naked.
    Trying to steady her voice, she said, 'I think, signore, that you have
    made a mistake.'
    He smiled grimly. 'On the contrary, signorina, it is you that has
    made the mistake. I ordered you to leave my brother alone. I
    offered what I believe were generous terms for you to do so, yet
    you have ignored my letter and flagrantly disobeyed my orders.'
    Juliet's lips parted soundlessly. Jan had said she had only seen him
    once and that at a distance, but had he seen her? It seemed not, or
    he would never have mistaken her for her sister.
    A feeling of helplessness was beginning to overwhelm her. She
    simply wasn't prepared for this. Jan had mentioned no letter nor any
    offer of terms, only talked vaguely of threats. Stealing a glance at
    Santino Vallone, Juliet could well believe that he would carry out
    any threat that he might utter. The dark face wore an expression of
    almost patrician disgust as he stared at her, but there was a
    ruthlessness about its hard lines that it was impossible to ignore.
    Formidable was a word she rarely used, but it applied to him.
    The thought came to her that Jan might have been expecting this
    visit and might have deliberately absented herself, but she crushed it
    under. Jan had gone away to get married, and this man was here to
    put a spoke in the wheel of her wedding plans if he could.
    Only—he thought she was Jan, and clearly he had no idea that her
    marriage to his brother was so imminent.
    All she had to do was explain, show him her passport from her
    handbag in the bedroom and he would leave. But he would leave in
    search of Jan and Mario and it was possible, even probable, that he
    would find them and perhaps even prevent the wedding taking
    place. Jan was obviously more disturbed by his influence than she
    had revealed, or why her hurried and secretive departure?
    But if—if she let him go on believing that she was Jan, it was just
    possible that she could keep him on a