Bound By A One-Night Vow
MELANIE MILBURNE
‘Marry me or lose everything.’The Italian’s outrageous proposalHeiress Isabella Byrne is on a deadline. She has twenty-four hours to wed or she’ll lose her inheritance! Her father’s protégé, hotel magnate Andrea Vaccaro, knows she can’t refuse his arrogant proposition for a temporary union. They’ll seal the deal at the altar that very night. But with their ever-smouldering attraction bursting into flames, can Izzy risk surrendering to the temptation that awaits her between Andrea’s sheets?
“Marry me or lose everything.”
The Italian’s outrageous proposal
Heiress Isabella Byrne is on a deadline. She has twenty-four hours to wed or she’ll lose her inheritance! Her father’s protégé, hotel magnate Andrea Vaccaro, knows she can’t refuse his arrogant proposition for a temporary union. They’ll seal the deal at the altar that very night. But with their ever-smoldering attraction bursting into flames, can Izzy risk surrendering to the temptation that awaits her between Andrea’s sheets?
Indulge in this passionate marriage of convenience!
MELANIE MILBURNE read her first Mills & Boon novel at the age of seventeen, in between studies for her final exams. After completing a master’s degree in education she decided to write a novel, and thus her career as a romance author was born. Melanie is an ambassador for the Australian Childhood Foundation and a keen dog-lover and trainer. She enjoys long walks in the Tasmanian bush. In 2015 Melanie won the Holt Medallion—a prestigious award honouring outstanding literary talent.
Also by Melanie Milburne (#u4097c5dd-146b-50dd-b0be-548dc7e885d4)
The Temporary Mrs Marchetti
Wedding Night with Her Enemy
A Ring for the Greek’s Baby
The Tycoon’s Marriage Deal
A Virgin for a Vow
The Tycoon’s Forbidden Cinderella
The Ravensdale Scandals miniseries
Ravensdale’s Defiant Captive
Awakening the Ravensdale Heiress
Engaged to Her Ravensdale Enemy
The Most Scandalous Ravensdale
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Bound by a One-Night Vow
Melanie Milburne
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07258-8
BOUND BY A ONE-NIGHT VOW
© 2018 Melanie Milburne
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my three writing doggy companions,
Polly, Lily and Gonzo,
who through the writing of this particular novel
pulled me through the rough patches
with their funny antics and adorable ways. xxx
Contents
Cover (#u2f648436-30ca-552c-9e68-178fdacebf48)
Back Cover Text (#u99b5bc66-69e0-50ea-90fa-397647251395)
About the Author (#ud8d84833-b650-5968-aea1-69242c45258a)
Booklist (#u58eae752-b988-5b61-9a14-d8b227acffa7)
Title Page (#uab28de58-4f6d-561b-af84-82220c63b0e6)
Copyright (#ud6a0ec4f-6ba7-5d82-a3af-b592a723ec91)
Dedication (#uc697cbe1-4fb3-55b3-9c97-d07652625941)
CHAPTER ONE (#uc009670a-ab84-54d4-ba3b-77c816f188e2)
CHAPTER TWO (#u48cb911d-cbe1-5eb6-b7a9-e1f392afc3db)
CHAPTER THREE (#ufd016d8d-dc60-55db-9e3b-28590814d8fc)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u4097c5dd-146b-50dd-b0be-548dc7e885d4)
ISABELLA BYRNE PUT down her coffee cup in the crowded café with a sigh. Husband-hunting would be so much easier if she actually wanted to get married. She. Did. Not. The thought of marrying someone was enough to bring her out in hives. Anaphylactic shock. A stroke. She wasn’t the girl who’d been planning her wedding day since the age of five. She wasn’t a hankering-after-the-fairy-tale fanatic like most of her friends. And now that she’d put her ‘wild child’ days behind her, even the thought of dating made her want to vomit.
She was Over Men.
Izzy looked at all the couples sitting at the other tables. Was no one single any more in London? Everyone had a partner. She was the only person sitting by herself.
She could have tried online dating in her find-a-husband quest, but the thought of asking a stranger was too daunting. And the small handful of friends she might have considered asking to do the job were already in committed relationships.
Izzy folded her copy of her father’s will and stuffed it back in her tote bag. No matter how many times she read it, the words were exactly the same. She must be married in order to claim her inheritance. The inheritance would go to a distant relative if she didn’t claim it. To a relative who had a significant gambling problem.
How could she let all that money be frittered away down the greedy gobbling mouth of a slot machine?
Izzy needed that money to buy back her late mother’s ancestral home. If she failed to claim her inheritance, then the house would be lost for ever. The gorgeous Wiltshire house, where she had spent a precious few but wonderful holidays with her grandparents and her older brother before he got sick and passed away, would be sold to someone else. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing the one place where she had been happy. Where she and Hamish and her mother had been happy. Truly happy. She owed it to her mother and brother’s memory to get that house back.
There was twenty-four hours left before the deadline. One day to find a man willing to marry her and stay married for six months. One flipping day. Why hadn’t she looked a little harder this month? Last month? The month before? She’d had three months to fulfil the terms of her father’s will, but the thought of marrying anyone had made her procrastinate. As usual. She might have failed at school but she had First Class Honours in Procrastination.
Izzy was about to push back her chair to leave when a tall shadow fell over her. Her heart gave an extra beat...or maybe that was the double macchiato she’d had. She should never mix caffeine with despair.
‘Is this seat taken?’ The deep baritone with its rich and cultured Italian accent made her scalp prickle and a tingling pool of heat simmer at the base of her spine.
Izzy raised her eyes to meet the espresso-black gaze of hotel magnate, Andrea Vaccaro. Something shifted in her belly—a tumble, a tingle, a tightening.
It was impossible to look at his handsome features without her heart fluttering like rapidly shuffled cards.
Eyes that didn’t just look at you—they penetrated. Seeing things they had no business seeing.
His strong, don’t-mess-with-me jaw, with just the right amount of stubble, always made her think of the potent male hormones pushing those spikes of black hair out through his skin. A mouth that was firm but had a tendency to curve over a cynical smile. A mouth that made her think of long, sensual kisses and the sexy tangling of tongues...
Izzy had taught herself over the years not to show how he affected her. But while her expression was cool and composed on the outside, on the inside she was fighting a storm of unbidden, forbidden attraction. ‘I’m just leaving so—’
His broad tanned hand came down on the back of the chair opposite hers. She couldn’t stop staring at the ink-black hairs that ran from the back of his hand and over his strong wrist to disappear under the crisp white cuff of his shirt. How many times had she fantasised about those hands on her body? Stroking her. Caressing her. Making her feel things she shouldn’t be feeling. Not for him.
Never for him.
‘No time for a quick coffee with a friend?’ His mouth curved over the words, showing a flash of white, perfectly aligned teeth. An I’ve-got-you-where-I-want-you smile that made the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand up and pirouette in panic.
Izzy suppressed a shiver and forced herself to hold his gaze. ‘Friend?’ She injected a double shot of scorn into her tone. ‘I don’t think so.’
He pulled the chair out and settled his lean athletic form into it, his long legs bumping hers under the table. She jerked her legs back as far as they would go but it wasn’t fast enough to avoid the electrifying zap of contact.
Hard. Virile. Male flesh.
Izzy began to push back her chair in order to leave but one of his hands came down on hers, anchoring her to the table. Anchoring her to him. She snatched in a breath, the warm tensile strength of his hand making every female hormone in her body get all giggly and excited. Every cell of her body vibrated like the plucked string of a cello. She looked at his hand trapping hers and disguised a swallow. Heat travelled from her hand, along her arm and all the way to her core like a racing river of fire.
She gave him a glare so cold it could have frozen the glass of water on the table. ‘Is this how you usually ask a woman to have coffee with you? By brute force?’
His thumb began a lazy stroking of the back of her hand that sent little shockwaves through her body as if a tiny firecracker had entered her bloodstream. Pippity pop. Pippity pop. Pippity pop. ‘There was a time when you wanted more than a quick coffee with me. Remember?’ The glint in his eyes intensified the searing heat travelling through her body.
Izzy wished she could forget. She wished she had temporary amnesia. Permanent amnesia. It would be worth acquiring a brain injury if she could eradicate the memory of her seduction attempt of Andrea seven years ago at one of her father’s legendary boozy Christmas parties. She had been eighteen and tipsy—deliberately, dangerously, defiantly tipsy. Just like she had been at every other party of her father’s. It had been the only way she could get through the nauseating performance he gave of Devoted Dad. She’d been intent on embarrassing her father because of all the behind-closed-doors torment he put her through. All the insults, the put-downs, the biting criticisms that made her feel so utterly worthless and useless.
So unloved.
So unwanted.
She’d foolishly thought: How better to embarrass her overbearing father than to sleep with his favourite protégé?
Izzy pulled her hand out from under Andrea’s and rose from her seat with a screech of her chair along the floorboards. ‘I have to get back to work.’
‘I heard about your new job. How’s that going for you?’
Izzy searched his expression for any sign of mockery. Was he teasing her about her job? Or was he just showing mild interest? There was no note of cynicism in his tone, no curl of his top lip and no mocking glint in his eyes, but even so she wondered if he, like everyone else, thought she couldn’t get through a week in a new job without being fired.
But, whatever he was thinking behind that unfathomable expression, Izzy was determined not to lose her temper with Andrea in a crowded café. In the past she’d created more scenes than a Hollywood screenplay writer. But how she wanted to shove the table against his rock-hard chest. She wanted to throw the dregs of her coffee cup in his too-handsome, too-confident face. She wanted to grab the front of his snow-white business shirt until every button popped off.
How like him to doubt her when she was trying so hard to make her way in the world. To her shame, it was one of many jobs she had won and lost over the years. Her reputation always got in the way. Always. Everyone expected her to fail and so what did she do?
She failed.
She had found it hard to settle on a career because of her lack of academic qualifications. She had bombed out during her exams, unable to cope with the pressure of trying to measure up to the academic standard of her older brother, Hamish. She hadn’t been one of those people who always knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. Instead she’d drifted and dreamed and dawdled.
But now she was clawing her way back, studying for a degree in Social Work online and with her job at the antiques store. Which made her all the more furious at Andrea for assuming she was lazy and lacking in motivation.
Izzy kept her chin high and her eyes hard. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t come in to the shop by now and bought some hideously expensive relic to prove what a filthy-rich man you are.’
His lazy smile tilted a little further. ‘I have my eye on something far more priceless.’
She snatched up her tote bag from the floor and hoisted it over her shoulder, sending him another glare that threatened to wilt the single red rose on the table. ‘Nice seeing you, Andrea.’ Sarcasm was her second language and she was fluent in it.
Izzy wove her way through the sea of chairs to pay for her coffee at the counter but, before she could take out her purse, Andrea came up behind her and handed the assistant a note. ‘Keep the change.’
Izzy mentally rolled her eyes at the way the young female assistant was practically swooning behind the counter. Not at the size of Andrea’s tip—although it had been more than generous—but from the mega-charming smile he gave the young woman.
Was there a woman on the planet who could resist that bone-melting smile?
Izzy was conscious of him standing just behind her. He was so close she could feel the warmth of his body. Too close. So close she could feel electric energy fizzing along every knob of her backbone.
His energy.
His sexual energy.
She could smell his aftershave—a subtle blend of lemon and lime and something fresh and woodsy that made her think of a sun-warmed citrus orchard fringed by a dark, dangerously dense forest. She allowed herself a little moment of wondering what it would be like to lean back against him. To feel his muscled arms go around her, to feel his pelvis brush against the cheeks of her bottom. She imagined how it would feel to have his large hands settle on her hips and draw her nearer...to feel the surge of his hard, virile male flesh between her legs...
Oh, God. She had to stop this fantasy stuff or she would be doing a When Harry Met Sally scene right here and now. Meg Ryan would have nothing on her.
Andrea took Izzy by the elbow and ushered her out of the café into the watery spring sunshine. She decided to go with him without a fuss because people were already starting to point and stare. She didn’t want to be photographed with him. Associated with him. Linked to him. To be seen as yet another of his sexual conquests.
Andrea Vaccaro wasn’t just a press magnet—he was press superglue. Triple-strength superglue. He was an international playboy with a turnstile on his penthouse instead of a door—the protégé of the late high-flying businessman Benedict Byrne. An Italian kid from the wrong side of the tracks who had made good due to the largesse of his well-to-do English benefactor.
Izzy wasn’t so much a press magnet but a press target with a big red circle on her back marked Spoilt Trust Fund Kid. But while there was a time when she had deliberately courted their attention, and even found perverse enjoyment in its negativity, these days she preferred to be left alone. Gone were the days of stumbling out of nightclubs pretending to be drunk in order to shame her father. But unfortunately the paparazzi hadn’t got that particular memo. She was still seen as a wild child whose main goal in life was to party. She only had to walk past a balloon or a streamer these days and someone would post a shot with a crude caption about her.
Andrea slid his hand down from her elbow to brush his fingers against her ringless left hand. ‘Found yourself a husband yet?’
Izzy knew he was aware of every word and punctuation mark on her father’s will. He had probably helped her father write it. It galled her to think of Andrea being party to such personal information. He didn’t know the true context of her relationship with her father. Benedict Byrne had been too clever to reveal the darker side of his personality to those he championed or wanted to impress. Only Izzy’s mother knew and she was long dead, finally resting in peace beside Izzy’s older brother, Hamish. The adored son. The perfect son Izzy had been expected to emulate—but she had never quite managed to meet her father’s expectations. ‘I have no intention of discussing my personal life with you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to—’
‘I have a proposition for you.’ His expression was as inscrutable as a blank computer screen but she could sense the secret operating system of his thoughts. Wicked thoughts. Dangerous thoughts. Gulp. Sexual thoughts.
Izzy opened and closed her hand, trying to rid herself of the sensual energy he had evoked in her flesh. She tightened her stomach muscles, hoping it would quell the restless feeling deep in her pelvis, but all it did was make her even more aware of how he made her feel. ‘The answer is an emphatic I’m-only-going-to say-this-once no.’
He gave her a sleepy-eyed smile as if he found her refusal motivating. A stimulating challenge he couldn’t wait to overcome. ‘Don’t you want to know what I’m proposing before you say no?’
Izzy gritted her teeth, mentally apologising to her orthodontist. ‘I have no interest in anything you might say to me.’ Especially if it involves the word marriage. But would he offer to marry her? For what possible reason?
He held her gaze in a silent lock that made her heart skip a beat. Two beats. The air seemed to be tightening as if all the oxygen was being sucked out of the atmosphere, atom by atom. He was looking good. More than good. But then, he always did. Tanned and toned, with the sort of classic features you mostly only saw in men’s expensive aftershave ads. The bad boy made good. His not long, not short wavy black hair was styled in a casual manner that highlighted his intelligent forehead and the strong blade of his nose. The dark slash of his eyebrows—one of them interrupted by a zigzag scar—over eyes so dense and deep a brown it was hard to tell what was pupil and what was iris. Knowing, assessing eyes fringed by thick lashes that every now and again would lower just enough for her to think...
No. No. No.
She must not think about sex and Andrea in the same sentence.
Izzy could outstare most men. She could put them in their place with a cutting look or a sharp word.
But not Andrea Vaccaro.
He was her nemesis. And, damn him to hell, he knew it.
‘Have dinner with me.’ It wasn’t an invitation. It was a command.
Izzy raised her eyebrows like a haughty schoolmarm. ‘I’d rather eat a fistful of fur balls.’
His gaze moved over every inch of her face, from her eyes to her mouth, lingering there for so long she became aware of her lips in a way she had never been before. They started tingling as if his mouth had brushed them. Heated them. Tempted them. Whenever he looked at her she thought of sex. Hot bed-wrecking, pulse-racing sex. The sort of sex she hadn’t been having.
Had never had.
Izzy wasn’t a virgin but neither had she had as much sex as the press had made out. She didn’t even like sex. She was hopeless at it. Embarrassingly, pathetically hopeless. And the only way she could tolerate it was to get tipsy so she didn’t have to think about how much she wasn’t enjoying it.
Andrea’s obsidian-black gaze came back to hers. ‘We can discuss this out here on the street where anyone can hear or we can do it in private.’
Do it in private.
The double entendre of his words sent a shiver rolling down her spine. Images popped into her head of him doing it with her. His hands on her breasts, his mouth on hers, his body pumping and rocking and—
Izzy pulled away from her thoughts like someone springing back from a sudden flame. She hoped she wasn’t showing any sign of how flustered she felt, but she suspected there was little Andrea Vaccaro missed. It was why he was so successful in business. He could read people. He could read situations. He was clever and calculating and tactical.
She hated how he made her feel. Hated how easily he could trigger anger or desire in her. Or both. She had no interest in repeating her foolish behaviour of the past. She was no longer that brash attention-seeking flirt. She was no longer the spoilt little rich girl acting out her inner pain and shame.
She had reinvented herself.
‘I’m not doing anything with you in private, Andrea.’ Izzy only realised her vocal slip when she saw the way his dark eyes gleamed. Got you.
‘Scared of what I might say?’
Scared of what I might do. Izzy raised her chin and eyeballed him. ‘Nothing you say is of the remotest interest to me.’
Something moved at the back of his eyes. A camera shutter movement before the screen came back up. ‘Just dinner, Isabella.’ His Italian accent caressed the four syllables of her name. He was the only person who called her by her full name. She wasn’t sure if she liked it or not.
Just dinner. Could she go and see what he had to say? He had intrigued her interest, and with the clock ticking like a nuclear bomb on the deadline she would be crazy not to hear him out. But being anywhere near him unsettled her. His energy collided with hers and created something in her she wasn’t sure she could control.
Wasn’t sure she wanted to control, which was even more disturbing.
Izzy folded her arms and sent him one of her trademark bored teenager looks. ‘Tell me the time and the place and I’ll meet you there.’
He gave a sudden laugh that made something at the back of her knees fizz. ‘Nice try.’
‘I mean it, Andrea. I will only have dinner with you if I come by myself.’
The satirical gleam was back in his eyes. ‘Do you usually prefer to come by yourself?’
Izzy could feel her cheeks pulsating with heat. But they weren’t the only part of her body pulsating. Her feminine core gave off little pulses of lust that reverberated through her entire body. She put on her game face—the face she’d perfected during her wilful teens, the wild child seductress face. The I-don’t-give-a-fig-what-you-think-about-me face. Driven by an urge she couldn’t quite explain, she moistened her lips with a slow sweep of her tongue, secretly delighted by the way his eyes followed the movement.
He wasn’t immune to her.
The realisation was strangely thrilling. He might not like her. He might not respect her. But he sure as hell wanted her. He had resisted her seven years ago. Resisted her easily. Made her feel foolish for trying to seduce him. He’d called her a silly spoilt child playing at grown-ups.
But now he wanted her.
Izzy tucked that knowledge away and gave herself a mental high five. It gave her an edge, a bit of power in a relationship that had always been tipped in his favour in the power stakes. She gave him a look through her half-lowered lashes. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’
His eyes darkened until they were black bottomless pools of male mystery. ‘I’ll make it my business to find out.’ His voice was smooth with a base note so deep every nerve in her body trembled like a shivering leaf.
Izzy knew she was being reckless in flirting with him. Reckless and foolish. But something about the way he interacted with her always made her feel like challenging him. Pushing him. Needling him. Peeling back the carefully constructed layers of civilised man-about-town to reveal the primal man she sensed was simmering just under the surface. ‘Where shall we have dinner?’
‘I’ve booked a table at Henri’s. Eight thirty tonight.’
Izzy was annoyed she hadn’t put up more of a fight. She didn’t like thinking of herself as predictable. She had made a lifetime’s work of being anything but. How had he known she would give in? Had he been so sure of her?
Maybe because there’s less than twenty-four hours left on the deadline?
Argh. Don’t remind me.
‘Your arrogance never ceases to amaze me,’ Izzy said. ‘Does anyone ever say no to you and mean it?’
A smile flirted with the edges of his mouth. ‘Not often.’
Izzy could well believe it. She had to get her willpower back into shape. Send it to boot camp. Pump it full of steroids or something. She couldn’t allow him to manipulate her into doing what he wanted. She had to stand up to him. To show him she wasn’t like the droves of women who paraded in and out of his life. She might have slipped once, but she was older and wiser now. Older and wiser and wary of allowing him any hold over her. Of allowing any man any hold over her. She adjusted the strap of her tote bag over her shoulder and turned to leave. ‘See you later, then.’
‘Isabella?’
Izzy turned back to face him, carefully keeping her features in neutral. ‘Yes?’
His gaze drifted to her mouth and back to her eyes, holding them like a steely vice. ‘Don’t even think about not showing up.’
Izzy wondered how he could read her mind. She’d planned to leave him waiting in that restaurant to show him she wasn’t going to play whatever game he had in mind. He had probably never been stood up before. It was time he was taught a lesson and she would enjoy every second of teaching him it.
But now she had to think of another plan. She couldn’t show up at that restaurant and meekly agree to his ‘proposal’. Couldn’t. Couldn’t. Couldn’t. He was the last man she would ever consider marrying. For it was marriage he wanted, of that she was sure. She could see the ruthless determination in his eyes.
She was desperate, but not that desperate.
‘Oh, I’ll show up.’ She gave him a smile so sugar-sweet it would have made any decent dentist reach for fluoride. ‘I quite fancy a free dinner. You did say just dinner, right?’
His eyes smouldered with incendiary heat, making her insides coil and twist and tighten with need. A need she didn’t want to feel. A need she had strictly forbidden herself to feel. ‘Just dinner.’
Izzy turned and walked back along the street towards the antiques shop where she worked. She was conscious of Andrea’s gaze following her but didn’t turn back to look at him. She was quite proud of her willpower—it had made a remarkable recovery, although it had been touch and go there for a minute. But when she got to the front door of her workplace and glanced back, Andrea’s tall figure had disappeared into the crowd. Why she should be feeling disappointed she didn’t know. And nor should she care.
But somehow—annoyingly—she did.
CHAPTER TWO (#u4097c5dd-146b-50dd-b0be-548dc7e885d4)
‘GOSH. DO YOU need a bodyguard with you when you’re wearing that dress?’ Izzy’s flatmate, Jess, asked later that evening when she poked her head around Izzy’s bedroom door.
Izzy smoothed her hands down the front of her shimmery silver mini dress that sparkled like Christmas tinsel. ‘How do I look?’
‘Seriously, Izzy, you have amazing legs. You should give up your job selling those dusty old antiques and be a model instead.’ Jess tilted her head to one side. ‘So who’s your date? Anyone I know?’
‘Just an acquaintance.’
Jess’s eyebrows rose. ‘That’s a pretty impressive show of thigh for a mere acquaintance.’
Izzy picked up a tube of blood-red lipstick and smeared it over her lips and pressed them together to set it in place. She knew she would be risking press attention by being seen with Andrea dressed in such a way but this time she didn’t care. It would be worth it to show him she wasn’t playing by his rules. He was known for dating elegant and sophisticated women. She would be the antithesis of elegant and sophisticated dressed in this get-up. This outfit screamed party girl out for a wild time. ‘I’m teaching my...date a lesson.’
‘A lesson in what? How to look but not touch?’
Izzy recalled the firm press of Andrea’s hand with a delicate shiver. She was still trying not to think about him pinning her to a bed with his body doing all sorts of wicked things to her. ‘I’m teaching him not to be so arrogant.’ She pulled out the large Velcro rollers she’d put in her hair to give it extra volume, and finger-combed it into a cloud of curling tresses around her shoulders.
Jess sat on the edge of Izzy’s bed. ‘So, who is this guy?’
Izzy glanced at her flatmate in her dressing table mirror. She had only known Jess a few months and didn’t want to go into the details of her complicated relationship with Andrea. She picked up a pair of cheap dangly earrings and inserted them into her earlobes, then adjusted the front of her dress to boost her cleavage. ‘Just someone my father used to know.’
Jess got off the bed and came to stand next to the dressing table mirror so she could face her. ‘But isn’t this the last day before the deadline on your father’s will?’
Izzy wished she hadn’t let slip about the will in an unguarded moment a couple of nights ago over a takeout curry and a bottle of wine. It was a little lowering to admit to her friend and flatmate that her father had wanted to punish her from the grave. Her father had known how against the institution of marriage she was. She had witnessed him over-controlling her mother like a bullying tyrant until her mother hadn’t been able to decide what clothes to wear without asking him first. No way was Izzy going to allow any man that sort of power over her and especially not Andrea Vaccaro. ‘Yes, but he’s not a candidate.’
‘Are you going to forfeit your inheritance, then?’
Izzy slipped on a collection of jangling bracelets. ‘I don’t want to, but what else can I do? I can’t just walk out on the street and pick up someone to be my husband.’
Jess’s gaze drifted over Izzy’s outfit again. ‘You probably could wearing that get-up.’ She frowned again. ‘But this guy you’re meeting tonight. Why isn’t he a candidate? Has he actually said no?’
Izzy picked up a slimline evening purse and popped the lipstick tube inside and snapped it shut. ‘I haven’t asked him. And I never will. I know what I’m doing, Jess. I know how to handle men like Andrea Vaccaro.’
Jess’s eyes went as wide as the make-up compact on the dressing table. ‘You’re going on a date with Andrea Vaccaro? The hotel king Andrea Vaccaro? And you think he’s not a candidate? Are you out of your mind? That man is the world’s most eligible bachelor.’
Izzy scooped up a leather biker jacket from the bed and fed her arms through the sleeves, pulling her hair out of the back of the collar and settling it back around her shoulders. ‘He might be considered a prize catch but I don’t want him. I would rather rummage through rubbish bins and sleep under cardboard for the rest of my life than marry that arrogant, up-himself jerk.’
Jess’s brows disappeared under her fringe. ‘Wow. I’ve never seen so you...so worked up. Did something happen between you two in the past?’
Izzy did a final adjustment of her outfit. ‘He thinks he can have anyone he wants but he can’t have me.’ She smiled a confident smile. ‘Don’t worry. I know exactly how to handle him.’
* * *
Andrea hadn’t planned on being late for his dinner date with Isabella but he got caught up in traffic after a minor accident in central London. He’d sent her a text to tell her he would be a few minutes late but she hadn’t replied. Her attitude towards him was exactly the reason he was going to offer her a temporary marriage. He needed a wife. A temporary wife who wouldn’t make a fuss when he called it quits. No love-you-for-ever promises. No happy-ever-after. What he wanted was a six-month contract that would conveniently solve two problems with one brief, impersonal ceremony.
The teenage stepdaughter of an important business colleague was making things difficult for him by making no secret of her crush on him. The hotel merger he was working on would be jeopardised if he didn’t take preventative action. And because Andrea had been asked to be best man at the businessman’s upcoming wedding in a few weeks, he had to do something, and do it fast.
If it had been any other business deal he would have walked away without a qualm. There were plenty of other hotels he could buy. But this one was the one he wanted the most. Buying the hotel he’d once hung outside of as a homeless teenager looking for scraps of food made it too important to walk away. Buying that hotel in Florence—more than any other he’d bought or would buy in the future—would signify he had moved on from his difficult past.
Moved on and triumphed.
A convenient wife was what he needed and Isabella Byrne was the perfect candidate.
He figured he could help Isabella with her little dilemma while sorting out his own. Marriage was not something he had ever considered for himself. He had personally witnessed the human destruction when a match made in heaven turned into a hell on earth. He admired those who made it work and felt sorry for those for whom it failed. He enjoyed his freedom. He enjoyed the flexibility of moving from relationship to relationship without any lasting ties or responsibilities.
But he was prepared to sacrifice six months of his freedom because he wanted to nail that deal. And, more importantly, to prove he could still resist Isabella Byrne. He didn’t want to want her. It annoyed him she still had that effect on him. It was a persistent ache he’d always tried his best to ignore. He had always kept his distance out of respect to his relationship with her father. Benedict Byrne had had his faults, but Andrea would never forget how Benedict’s early help had launched him in the hotel business, allowing him to put his disadvantaged past well and truly behind him. He had worked hard to build an empire even bigger than Benedict’s. An empire that more than made up for the miserable months he’d spent living as a street kid. No one looking at him now would ever associate him with that starving and shivering youth who had fought so hard to survive a childhood of poverty and neglect.
But now his mentor was dead, Andrea figured a short-term marriage to settle the terms of Isabella’s father’s will would also give him the chance to prove once and for all he no longer suffered from the Isabella itch. The itch that had been driving him mad for the last seven years.
For as long as he’d known her she’d been acting out, bringing shame to her long-suffering father. She’d been the typical trust fund kid—spoilt, overindulged, lazy and irresponsible. Not much had changed now she was an adult. She was still wilful and defiant, with a body made for sin.
He couldn’t be in the same country as her without going hard. It irritated the hell out of him that she had that effect on him. He was no stranger to lust—he enjoyed a satisfying and active sex life. But something about the attraction he felt for Isabella unnerved him. Her feminine power over him was unlike any he’d felt before. He prided himself on his ability to control his primal urges. He had boundaries he skirted around but never crossed. It would be dangerous to compromise those boundaries by marrying her, but just this once he was prepared to risk it. He would insist on a paper marriage. A hands-off affair that would give them both what they wanted.
She had less than twenty-four hours left to find a husband. He’d spent the last three months bracing himself for the announcement of her engagement to some man she’d somehow managed to convince to marry her.
But she hadn’t found anyone.
Or maybe she hadn’t wanted to.
Not because she didn’t want the money. Andrea knew she wanted that money more than anything. How else was she going to fund her lifestyle? She had an appalling employment record. The longest she’d held down a job was a month. But as much as she wanted that money, she wanted him as her husband even less. Or so she said. She would have no choice but to marry him and she knew it, which was why he’d already sorted out the paperwork. They would be married by morning or she would lose every penny of her inheritance.
And once his ring was on her finger, and hers on his, he would be off the market, so to speak, so his business deal would be safe.
Andrea saw her as soon as he walked into the restaurant. His body had sensed her three blocks away. She was sitting in the bar area, looking like a teenage boy’s fantasy in a skin-tight silver lamé mini dress that showed the creamy length of her slim legs. She had big hair and more make-up and flashy jewellery than a drag queen. He couldn’t help a secret smile. She knew she would have to accept his proposal, but she was making it as uncomfortable as possible for him. Did she think her wild child party girl outfit was going to put him off?
She was twirling the little colourful umbrella in her cocktail but she turned on her stool as if she had sensed his arrival. Or his arousal. Or both.
Her eyes sparkled with her usual defiance. ‘You’re late.’
He perched on the stool next to her, fighting the urge to stroke a hand down the slim curve of her thigh. ‘I sent you a text.’
Her chin came up and something about the tight set of her mouth made him want to loosen it with a slow, sensual stroke of his tongue. ‘I don’t like to be kept waiting.’ The words came out as cold and hard as ice cubes.
‘Understandable since you’ve so little time left in which to find yourself a husband.’ He hooked one eyebrow upwards. ‘Unless you’ve been lucky enough to find one in the last couple of hours?’
Her glare was as arctic as her voice, making him wonder if he was going to get out of this without serious frostbite. ‘Not yet, but I haven’t given up hope.’
Andrea picked up a loose curl of her hair and twirled it around his finger, holding her gaze with his. She didn’t pull away but her throat moved up and down over a small swallow and her pupils widened like spreading pools of ink. He could smell the exotic notes of her perfume—frangipani and musk and something that was unique to her. He carefully tucked the tendril of hair behind her ear and smiled. ‘So, here we are on our first date.’
Her eyes flashed as if something exploded behind her irises. ‘First and last.’ She turned on her stool and picked up her cocktail glass and took a large sip. She put it down on the bar with a little clatter. ‘You’d better say what you came here to say and be done with it.’
‘I like your outfit.’ Andrea dipped his gaze to the delicious shadow of her cleavage. ‘I haven’t seen this much of you in years.’
Her cheeks darkened into twin pools of pink and her mouth tightened until her full lips all but disappeared. ‘I thought it’d be appropriate, given what I suspect you’re going to say to me.’
He stroked a finger along the back of her hand, the base of his spine tingling when he saw his darker skin against her creamy whiteness. He could resist her. Sure he could. But he couldn’t stop imagining her silky-smooth legs wrapped around his, her soft mouth beneath his own. His aching need driving into her warm, wet womanhood and taking them both to oblivion. ‘You need me, Isabella. Go on. Admit it. You need me so bad.’
She snatched her hand away and used her index finger to poke him in the chest, each word like a heavy punctuation mark. ‘I. Do. Not. Need. You.’
Andrea captured her hand and brought it up close to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the back of her knuckles. ‘Marry me.’
Green and blue chips of ice glittered in her gaze and the muscles in her hand contracted as if his touch burned. ‘Go fry in hell.’
He tightened his hold on her hand. ‘You’ll lose everything if you don’t find a husband by morning. Think about it, Isabella. That’s a heck of a lot of money to forfeit for the sake of six months living as my wife.’
He could see the indecision on her face—the doubts, the fears, the calculations. She had grown up surrounded by wealth. She had wanted for nothing but seemingly had been grateful for nothing. She had wasted the education her father had paid for by getting expelled numerous times for rebellious behaviour and poor academic performance. She had frittered away or sabotaged all the opportunities her father had provided. She acted like a selfish and sulky spoilt brat who had expected to inherit her father’s entire estate without doing anything to earn it. It was no wonder she hadn’t been able to find a husband willing to marry her. Her reputation was of a hell-raiser who deliberately drew negative attention to herself.
But lately Andrea had often wondered if there was more to Izzy than met the press’s eye. It was like she wanted people to think the worst of her. She took no steps to counter the negative opinions written about her in the media. It was like she was playing a role, just as she had done this evening, dressing in an eye-popping outfit that made her look like a wild child out on the town. But in spite of her garish look-at-me clothes and make-up, he could see tiny glimpses of insecurity in the way she carried herself when she thought he wasn’t looking.
Andrea knew most people wouldn’t consider her ideal wife material, but he figured any wife would be better than no wife given the urgency of his situation with his business merger and the man’s upcoming wedding. Besides, he was confident he could cope with Izzy. She was like a flighty thoroughbred in need of skilful handling.
And when it came to handling women, no one could say he wasn’t skilful.
Her eyes suddenly hardened as if her resolve had shown back up for duty. Her hand pulled out of his and she began rubbing it as if it was tingling. ‘I can think of no worse torture than to be tied to you in marriage.’
‘It will be a paper marriage.’
Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. ‘A...a paper marriage?’
‘That’s what I said.’
She blinked and then blinked again, slowly, as if her eyelids were weighted. ‘Do I have your word on that?’
He held her look. ‘Do I have yours?’
Her mouth thinned again to a flat white line. ‘You’re assuming I’m going to say yes to your proposal.’
Andrea picked up her left hand and stroked her empty ring finger. Her body trembled as if his touch triggered a tiny earthquake in her flesh. Touching her triggered the same in his. He could feel himself tightening, swelling, his blood heating with want and need. A need he would continue to ignore because when he said it was to be a paper marriage, that was exactly what it would be. Even if he had to put his desire for her in chains. And a straitjacket. ‘You don’t have any choice but to accept and you know it.’ He let her hand go and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. He handed her a velvet ring box. ‘If you don’t like it you can change it.’
Her eyes flew from the ring box to his, narrowing to slits so only her hatred shone through. ‘You were so sure I was going to accept?’
‘I’m your only chance to get your hands on that money. Even if, by some chance, you found someone at this late stage, you wouldn’t be able to marry without the necessary paperwork. I’ve seen to it. I have a lawyer and a marriage celebrant on standby. Marry me or lose everything.’
She opened the ring box and took out the diamond and sapphire ring. She spent time eyeing it, turning it this way and that. Her gaze came back to his and she gave him a tight little smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘You want me to wear this?’
‘That’s the general idea.’
She slipped off the stool, standing so close to him he could smell the fresh flowery fragrance of her hair. Her mouth was still set and her eyes as hard and blue as the diamonds and sapphires glittering in the ring. She picked up the tail of his silk tie and tugged him even closer, posting the ring down the loosened collar of his shirt. It bumped and tumbled down his chest until it lodged coldly and sharply against his stomach.
‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ She gave his stomach a little pat as if to emphasise her point.
Andrea captured her hand and held it against his abdomen, every one of his muscles contracting under her touch. ‘I’ll give you two minutes to make up your mind and then the deal is off the table. Permanently. Understood?’
CHAPTER THREE (#u4097c5dd-146b-50dd-b0be-548dc7e885d4)
TWO MINUTES? IZZY could feel that clock ticking in her chest like a pin pulled on a grenade. She wanted to walk away. Wanted to slap that confident smile off his face. Wanted to poke him in the eyes and kick him in the shins and stomp on his size twelve Italian leather–clad feet.
But another part of her wanted to fish that gorgeous ring out from underneath his shirt and put it on her finger before her inheritance slipped out of her reach. For ever.
He was offering her a paper marriage but his eyes and his body were promising something else. She could feel that erotic promise thrumming in her own body. If she married him she would never have to worry about money again. She could pursue her dream of buying back her mother’s childhood home and turning it into a happy place for other people, a place where families could go on holiday together during tough times, just as she and Hamish had done before he’d got cancer.
She could set herself up for life. She would no longer have to work in underpaid jobs just because she hadn’t focused enough in school. Once the six months was up she would be totally free. At no one’s mercy. Under no one’s command.
But if she married Andrea she would be thrown into his company. Sharing his life. And yes, in spite of what he said to the contrary, sharing his bed. She could see the desire in his eyes. She could sense it in his body. She could feel it in the air when he was near her.
Could she agree to such a plan? Six months married to a man she hated and wanted in equal measure? His touch had evoked a fire in her blood that sizzled even now. He only had to look at her with those pitch-black eyes and her insides contracted and coiled and cried out loud with lust.
Izzy met his gaze and knew she couldn’t possibly say no. She would have to trust him. More to the point...she would have to trust herself. He had her cornered. Trapped. She could not refuse him at this late hour and he knew it. He had it all organised. He had been so sure of her. So damn sure of her.
Why hadn’t she tried harder to find someone? Why had she let it get to this? Why had she wasted her one last chance to get away from him?
Maybe you didn’t want to.
Izzy refused to listen to the prod of her conscience. She had wanted to get away from him. She hated him. She hated that he had received her father’s love and attention, not her. He was a rich self-made man who thought he could have anyone he wanted.
Well, he was in for a big surprise because she would hold him to this paper marriage. She blew out a long breath and sat back on the stool and held out her hand. ‘Okay. Give me the ring.’
His eyes held hers in a steely tussle. ‘Come and get it.’
A shiver coursed down her spine at the thought of touching him again. His abs had felt like coils of concrete. And she didn’t want to think about the hardness that lay just beneath them.
It was always this way between them—this tug of war of wills. She hated letting him win. It went against everything in her to allow him that much power over her. But the only way to handle him was to stand up to his challenges. Show him she was immune to him even if she wasn’t and never had been. She had acted her way out of situations in the past, especially with men. Pretending to feel things she didn’t. Faking it. She was an expert at fooling those she wanted to fool.
Izzy decided to brazen it out. She would prove she wasn’t his for the asking. She would marry him but it would be a hands-off affair... Well, it would be once she got that wretched ring out of his shirt. She took a steadying breath and stepped between his thighs, every cell of her body intensely aware of his arrant maleness. She took the end of his tie and flipped it over his left shoulder. She undid the middle button of his shirt just above his belly button, revealing tanned muscled flesh sprinkled with jet-black hair that tickled the backs of her fingers. She undid another two buttons, breathing in the warm musky scent of him, her senses reeling like stoned bees in an opium field.
She chanced a glance at his face, her breath locking in her throat when she saw the dark satirical gleam in his eyes. His lean jaw was liberally dusted with stubble, making her want to trail her fingertips across its sexy prickliness. His hands settled on her waist and something in her stomach fell from a shelf and landed with a soft little thud that sent a shivering shockwave to her core.
‘You’re getting warm.’ His voice was husky and low. ‘Warmer.’
Izzy had to remind herself to breathe. His thighs moved closer together, brushing against the outside of hers like the slowly closing doors of a cage. She undid another button on his shirt and dipped her hand into the opening to search for the ring. He sucked in a breath and gave a slight shiver as if her touch electrified him. She knew the feeling. The feel of his hard warm body against her hand was enough to send her ovaries into spasm. The press of his hands on her hips were melting her bones. Sending tongues of fire to her secret places. She located the ring and drew it out of his shirt and stepped back but his powerful thighs gripped her tighter.
‘What are you doing?’ Her voice was breathless. Too breathless. I’m-not-immune-to-you breathless.
He held out his hand for the ring, his eyes tethering hers. ‘I believe it’s the man’s job to put the ring on his future bride’s finger.’
Izzy dropped the ring into his palm before she dropped it on the floor. He slid it over her ring finger, gently but firmly pushing it into place, and gave her a smile that made something dark and dangerous glint at the back of his eyes. ‘Will you marry me, Isabella?’
Izzy had never hated him more than at that moment. He was making a mockery of one of the most important questions a man could ever ask a woman. He was grinding her pride to powder. Pummelling it. Pulverising it. Relishing in the chance to overpower her.
To control her.
‘Yes. I will marry you.’ The words tasted like bile and Izzy wanted to wash her mouth out with soap. Buckets and buckets of soap.
He relaxed his thighs and she was suddenly free. Well, apart from his ring on her finger. The ring was as effective as a noose. He had her where he wanted her and there wasn’t a thing she could do to stop it.
He rose from the bar stool and offered her his hand. ‘We have a date with a lawyer and a marriage celebrant in fifteen minutes. Once that’s done we can come back and have dinner to celebrate our marriage.’
Izzy glanced towards the restaurant, desperate to stall the inevitable for as long as she could. ‘Don’t you have to let the maître d’ know to hold the table?’
Andrea’s smile made something prickle across her scalp like millions of miniature marching feet. ‘I’ve already told him.’
* * *
Izzy stood like an ice sculpture beside Andrea as the female marriage celebrant took them through the short ceremony. Five minutes before she had signed a prenuptial agreement in front of Andrea’s lawyer. She hadn’t minded signing...not really. Did he really think she would come after his money once their marriage was over?
She didn’t want his money. She wanted hers.
Izzy tried not to think of the importance of the words they were saying to each other—the vows that were meant to be sacred and meaningful. And the fact she was dressed like a party girl while saying them. Why had she been so headstrong and stupid? She should’ve known he wouldn’t let a silly look-at-me outfit get in the way of his plans. Anyway, why should she care she was mouthing words she didn’t mean? Andrea didn’t mean them either.
She tried to think of the money instead. Heaps of money that would help her finally buy back her grandparents’ house and turn it into something special, something healing and special so that her mother’s and Hamish’s death weren’t in vain. Izzy’s grandparents’ house had been sold after their death in a car crash not long after Hamish had died, because her father insisted on using the money to prop up his business, even though he knew Izzy’s mother didn’t want to sell it. Even when they were first married, her father had used her mother’s wealth to build his empire and then told everyone he had done it on his own. Her mother hadn’t had the strength to stand up to him. She had handed over everything—her money, her pride and her self-esteem.
But Izzy was not going to be that sort of wife—the sort of wife who said yes when she meant no. She would not bend to Andrea’s will the way her mother had to her father.
She would remain strong and defiant to the bitter, inevitable end.
Andrea slipped the white-gold wedding band on her ring finger. His dark gaze seeming to say, Mission accomplished.
Izzy was surprised he’d been prepared to wear one himself. She placed it over his finger as instructed by the celebrant and repeated the vows in a voice that didn’t sound like hers. It was too husky and whispery so she made sure her gaze counteracted it.
‘I now pronounce you man and wife.’ The celebrant smiled at Andrea. ‘You may kiss the bride.’
Andrea dropped his hold of Izzy’s hands. ‘That won’t be necessary.’
Izzy stared at him, desperately trying to conceal her shock. Or was it relief? No. It wasn’t relief—it was rage. Red-hot rage. Why wasn’t he going to kiss her? They might not have meant the vows, but surely for the sake of appearances he would have kissed her? She glanced at the celebrant but the older woman seemed unsurprised. Perhaps the celebrant had witnessed dozens of impersonal marriages and thought nothing untoward of a groom who refused to kiss his bride.
Anger curdled cold and hard and heavy in Izzy’s belly—a festering, simmering stew of wrath. How dare he make a fool of her in front of the celebrant and witnesses? Damn it. She would make him kiss her. She softened her expression to that of a dewy-eyed bride. ‘But, darling, I was so looking forward to that part of the ceremony. I know you’re stuffy and uptight about public displays of affection, but surely just this once will be okay? You don’t want everyone to think you don’t love me, do you?’
His gaze held hers for a beat then went to her mouth and his eyes darkened to coal. His hands took hers, bringing her closer so their bodies were touching from chest to thigh. His fingers interlocked with hers in a way that contained a hint of spine-tingling eroticism. She tried to ignore the reaction in her body—the contraction of her core, the increase of her heart rate, the wings flapping sensation in her stomach. His eyes became hooded, his head bending down so his mouth was within reach of hers. She felt the warm breeze of his mint-scented breath against her lips, every nerve in her lips tingling in anticipation of his touchdown. She suddenly felt as if she would die if he didn’t kiss her. Not from any sense of loss of pride, but because she needed to feel his mouth like she needed air to breathe.
His mouth connected with hers with a brush as soft as a floating feather. He lifted off but his lips were dry against her lipstick and clung to hers for an infinitesimal moment. He came back down and pressed a little harder, sealing her mouth and drawing her closer with a hand at the small of her back, the other moving up to cradle the side of her face.
Izzy had enjoyed and, yes, even endured many kisses. But nothing had ever felt like Andrea’s mouth. It was electric. Exhilarating. Erotic. His lips moved against hers in a soft, exploratory way, as if he were testing and tasting the surface of her lips, storing the feel and texture of them deep in his muscle memory. She breathed in his clean male scent, her senses overloaded with sun-warmed citrus and dark, cool wood. She could feel the graze of his stubble against her face, the sexy rasp of hard male against soft female that sent a tumultuous wave of longing through her body. Even the spread of his fingers where they cradled her face made her aware of every whorl of his skin, every muscle and tendon and finger pad like her skin was reading his code.
He opened his mouth over her lower lip, stroking his tongue along its contours with such slowness, such exquisite, almost torturous slowness her legs threatened to give way. She had to cling to the front of his jacket to keep upright, pressing her body even closer. But that only made her want him more, the hungry need clawing at her, making her aware of her breasts where they were crushed so intimately against his chest, the nipples hard and tight, sensitive, aching for his touch.
She told herself she was only reacting this way because it had been so long since she’d had a lover. But she had a feeling making love with Andrea would be completely different from making love with another man. Her body recognised his touch. Reacted to it. Revelled in it. Rejoiced in it. She couldn’t bear the thought of him ending the kiss. She wanted it to go on and on and on, giving her time to explore the secrets of his mouth and body, the delicious ridges and contours she could feel jutting against her body.
He sucked on her lower lip and then gently nipped at it in little tugs and releases that made her senses sing like an opera star. His tongue moved against hers in teasing little stabs that were so shockingly sexual she could feel her lower body intimately preparing itself.
Izzy heard herself whimper, those most betraying of sounds that showed she was not as immune to him as she’d wanted him to think. Her only consolation was he seemed just as undone by their kiss. She could feel the tension of his lower body, the surge of his male flesh against her, ramping up her need to an unbearable level. His breathing rate changed, so did the way he was holding her. His hand at her back pressed her more firmly against him as if he couldn’t bear to let her go.
But then suddenly it was over.
He dropped his hands from her and stepped back, his expression shuttered. ‘We’ll lose that table if we don’t get going.’ His words were a slap down to her ego, making her wonder if she had imagined what had just transpired between their mouths. But then she noticed the way he ran his tongue over his lips when he thought she wasn’t looking as if he was still savouring the taste of her.
Izzy followed him out of the room with her senses still spinning like circus plates on sticks. She felt dazed, drugged, disordered. Her mouth felt swollen. She could taste him on her lips. Inside her mouth. Her body was tingling from head to foot, her insides twisted and tight with unrelieved lust. For years she had wondered what it would be like to be kissed by him.
Now she knew.
But even more mortifying...she wanted him to do it again.
* * *
Izzy waited until they were inside a cab on their way back to the restaurant before she turned to look at Andrea. ‘What was all that about?’
He was scrolling through his messages on his phone and didn’t even glance up. ‘What was all what about?’ His tone sounded bored, disinterested, as if he’d been forced to share a cab with a stranger and couldn’t be bothered making small talk.
She snatched his phone out of his hands and glared at him. ‘Will you at least look at me when I’m talking to you?’
His expression showed no tension but she could sense it all the same. He was a master at cloaking his feelings, but something about the way he was holding his body suggested he wasn’t quite as in control as he would like. ‘The kiss, you mean?’ His eyes drifted to her mouth as if he were remembering every pulse-racing second of when it had been crushed beneath his. His eyes came back to hers but they now had a hard sheen as if an internal screen had come up. His top lip curled over a slow but cynical smile. ‘I thought we agreed our marriage was a paper one. Or are you keen to shift the goalposts?’
Izzy affected a laugh but even to her ears it didn’t sound convincing—kind of like a mortician trying to be a clown. She handed him back his phone, careful not to touch him in the process. ‘In your dreams, Vaccaro.’
‘You will address me by my Christian name or a term of endearment when we’re in public.’ His voice had a note of stern authority that made her bristle like a cornered cat. ‘I will not have you imply to anyone that our relationship is not a normal one. Do you understand?’
Izzy glanced at the driver, who was behind a glass soundproof screen. She turned back to look at Andrea, anger a bubbling, blistering brew in her belly. ‘You think you can make me do what you want? Think again. You didn’t marry a doormat.’
‘No. I married a spoilt brat who doesn’t know how to behave like a grown woman of twenty-five.’ His smile had gone and in its place was a white line of tension. ‘We can fight all we like in private, but in public we will behave as any other married couple who love and are committed to each other.’
Izzy folded her arms to stop herself from slapping that stern schoolmasterly expression off his face. ‘And what if I don’t?’
He held her gaze for a long beat. ‘If either of us walks out of this marriage before the six months is up, you will be the one to lose. It’s in your interests to keep me invested in this. I have much less at stake.’
Izzy frowned so hard she would have frightened off a dose of Botox. ‘What exactly do you get out of this marriage? You’ve never actually told me your motivations.’ It shamed her that she hadn’t asked before now. Not that there had been much time to do so, but still. It made her look foolish and naïve. And the last thing she wanted to appear in front of him was foolish and naïve.
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