by Amy Andrews
The fact that she always dressed to hide and camouflage her figure and that tonight she was thinking purely of fashion made her restless and annoyed. She was suddenly thinking of all the beautiful outfits she’d worn in the past. In another life. Coveting them and that time as she hadn’t in years. Why? So she could attract Alexander Zaphirides?
A man whose abrupt, dispassionate dismissal of her this afternoon had left her in no doubt of his utter disinterest? His gaze had swept over her body as if she was of no more interest to him than a bug squashed on the pavement. It was crazy to entertain any other thoughts.
And she knew better than that. Paolo dumping her had been lesson number one. Anthony had been lesson number two. Even now the memory of Anthony’s response, how he had recoiled from her, still had the power to crush her into the ground. She’d been foolish to dare even to think that a man could see beyond the physical.
She shut the cupboard in disgust, trying to beat back the memories, trying to not give the swell of despair that had overwhelmed her so often sixteen years ago any purchase. It was no use getting caught up in the bitterness and anguish of the past.
Except maybe as a reminder. Maybe a good hard look at herself would remind her that this infatuation with Alex was out of the question.
She stalked into her sister’s room, heading straight for Carla’s full-length mirror. Isobella only had a small high mirror in her en suite bathroom, preferring not to be reminded on a daily basis of her mutilated body.
She peeled the towel off her body, standing naked before the glass. She clenched her hands by her sides, still shocked by her appearance after all these years. How could she blame Anthony for his reaction when her first instinct was to run screaming away from herself too?
She forced herself to look, though. It was brutal—emotional shock therapy at its worst—but it was also just what she needed. She wasn’t Izzy Tucker the high-flying international model any more. She’d made the decision at nineteen to turn her back on that world jaded by hypocrisy and the relentless pursuit of beauty. And she’d been at peace with her choice and excited about starting a new phase of her life.
But she hadn’t been prepared for the final cruel blow that had taken her controversial decision to turn her back on a successful high-profile modelling career and punished her for it. Her life as she had known it had ended during a photo shoot on an idyllic North Queensland beach sixteen years ago. In fact it had nearly ended full-stop.
The evidence still taunted her today, as she gazed in the mirror. Her nudity didn’t register. All she could see were the marks where a box jellyfish, a Chironex Fleckeri, had wrapped its tentacles around her waist, disfiguring her, branding her with its ugly signature. And almost killing her in the process.
The purple whip-like scars that criss-crossed her abdomen were as mean-looking as ever. They’d faded a little over the years, but essentially each tentacle had left its savage mark, causing a permanent welt and marring the once sought-after bikini body that had graced many a magazine cover.
Isobella trembled with the effort it took not to look away in disgust. It had been a cruel twist of fate to have her career end on such a note, instead of on the high she’d imagined. At nineteen, being selected as a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model had been a major coup, and the perfect ending to a stellar career. And then it had all gone to hell.
Isobella secured the towel around her, unable to look any longer. She collapsed back on her sister’s bed, staring at the ceiling, allowing herself to wallow in self-pity for a moment or two. It had been a long time since she’d let herself be pulled back into the awful quagmire of grief. A tear squeezed out from behind her lids and she let it trek down across her temple.
Damn Alexander Zaphirides. She hated this. It was his presence that had unsettled her so much. Here she was feeling sorry for herself when in reality she’d been exceedingly lucky. For one, she’d survived, and from what she’d been told, things had been touch and go for quite a few weeks.
And for another, her decision to leave modelling had already been announced, and she’d been happy and excited about embarking on a new career. She’d already made the mental shift away, preparing herself for a new chapter in her life. Had she been counting on continuing modelling when she finally awoke from her drug-induced coma she would have been very disappointed. The phones had stopped ringing. A disfigured model was no good to anyone.
Over the years she’d managed to develop a philosophical outlook to the incident. An acceptance, even, that there had been a grand plan for her—a destiny, a fate bigger than hers, beyond her control.
That was why she believed so much in the research that Alex was conducting. Helping to find a topical treatment for the dermonecrotic lesions caused by Chironex Fleckeri before they scarred its victims permanently. To date there had been no agent identified to reduce the long-term scarring, and she was at the forefront of the research.
It had been almost a calling from a divine force when she’d seen the advertisement just over two years ago. She’d been working in burns scarring research, but had known instantly the dermonecrosis study was her destiny. It was too late for her—but for future victims? It had been a challenge, a calling she hadn’t been able to deny.
And nothing had swayed her from that path for two years. Nothing. Not thoughts of her past or of the unfairness of life or the vile flu. She’d had her face glued to a microscope, obsessively stalked the world wide web, and stayed back way too many nights leaving no stone unturned.
But now, tonight, with the prospect of having to socialise with a man who was sexier than a hundred Greek gods, she wanted to be beautiful again. To be Izzy again. If even just for a night.
Damn it. Damn her vanity to hell!
‘Hey, babe? Are we having a slumber party?’
Carla? Her plane wasn’t due back until later tonight. Was it? Isobella dashed away the moisture beneath her lids. She gave a shaky laugh, not bothering to rise from the bed. ‘Sure, if you like.’
She looked up as Carla came into her line of vision. She looked as professional as she always did in her stewardess uniform. Her sister frowned down at her as she pulled her shirt out of the waistband of her skirt.
‘Move over,’ she ordered, and flopped back onto the mattress like a felled tree next to her.
‘Exhausted?’ Isobella asked as she watched Carla shut her eyes and give a deep contented sigh.
‘No.’ Carla shook her head. ‘What year is it?’
Isobella laughed, and could have hugged Carla for arriving home at the precise moment she needed a pick-me-up. ‘Poor Carla. Flying around the world, staying in gorgeous hotels, waiting on rock stars and screen gods. Italy is so hard to take this time of year.’
Carla laughed too. ‘I’m afraid I pulled the economy section this time. Crying babies and a group of soccer hooligans who tried to set a new record for the most beer consumed on a transatlantic flight.’
Isobella laughed again, and they both lay looking at the ceiling for a while.
‘So?’ Carla said. ‘What’s up?’
Isobella exhaled a pent up breath. ‘Dr Alexander Zaphirides, that’s what.’
‘Good grief!’ Carla’s head turned and she looked at her sister. ‘That’s right. Sorry—I’d forgotten McHusky was in town.’
Isobella smiled. Carla was the only person she’d ever confided in about her infatuation with her boss’s voice. And her sister had nicknamed him very aptly.
‘Is he as gorgeous as his voice suggests?’
Isobella nodded miserably. ‘I think he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.’ And she had seen some very beautiful men.
Carla raised herself up on an elbow and looked down at her sister. ‘Hah! Told you,’ she crowed.
‘I’m having dinner with him tonight.’
Carla sat up and stared at her sister incredulously. ‘You are?’
Isobella shrugged her slim shoulders. ‘He insisted.’
‘Well, I like him already.’
‘Don’t get too carried away. The whole team will be there.’
‘But still,’ Carla grinned. ‘You and McHusky.’
‘Carla, be sensible,’ she chided, absently rubbing her finger over the small scar in the centre of her neck. ‘Nothing good can come of this.’
‘Well, I don’t know about that. He’s finally getting you out of this house. Pulling you out of your comfort zone. For that I think the man deserves a medal.’ Carla jumped up. ‘Come on, let’s get you ready. What are you going to wear?’
‘I haven’t got anything to wear,’ Isobella murmured, feeling so depressed she just wanted to crawl into her bed and pull the covers over her head. ‘I think I’ll just plead a headache and stay home.’
Carla regarded her sister seriously. ‘Izzy. What harm can it do?’ she asked softly.
Isobella looked at her sister, flinching slightly at the childhood endearment—the name that had been on every designer’s lips back in her heyday.
Was Carla mad? What if she wanted more?
She’d trained herself to not want more. Of anything. She didn’t want to open the lid on a whole bunch of cravings she’d kept tightly locked away.
Carla lay back down on the bed. ‘Not all men are like Anthony, babe. You have a great figure. Stop hiding it.’
Isobella snorted. ‘I had. Past tense.’
‘Your figure is as divine now as it was when you were storming those Paris catwalks.’
Isobella heard the slight trace of envy in Carla’s voice. The sisters were chalk and cheese in the looks department. Carla was shorter and curvier, and although her figure was trim she always struggled to keep weight off. Isobella could, and did, eat like a horse, with no negative side effects whatsoever.
‘You know what I mean,’ Isobella replied.
‘Babe. Any man worth his salt won’t care about what you look like with your clothes off,’ Carla said gently.
Isobella shook her head incredulously at Carla, knowing full well that the male of the species usually judged women exactly on what they looked like under their clothes. ‘I look hideous!’
Carla shook her head. ‘God. Once a model always a model. You have such a screwed-up body image, babe. So, your body’s not what it was? But you are far from hideous. Your scars are part of you. You can lock yourself away because of them or live despite them. Beauty is more than skin-deep, and any man who judges you for the marks on your body isn’t worthy of oxygen.’
Isobella knew what her sister was saying was right. She’d heard Carla and her parents say it a thousand times. She did have a skewed sense of beauty. She knew that. The international fashion scene was as catty as it was cut throat. It was hard to overcome how much it had screwed with her head.
‘I know, I know.’ She sighed. ‘I just wish…I wish it had never happened.’ Another tear squeezed out from beneath her lids and she wiped it away. It had been years since she’d uttered those words. Damn Alexander Zaphirides!
‘Me and you both, babe.’ Carla raised herself up on her elbow. ‘Not least of all because those first few weeks you spent in Intensive Care were so harrowing there wasn’t a day that went by when we didn’t think you were going to die. But here you are. Alive. Don’t let it keep robbing you of your life.’
Yes, Carla was right. She was right. But even though she’d already decided to give up modeling, the whole reverse fairy-tale—the swan turning into the ugly duckling—had been a huge psychological blow. Her self-esteem had taken an even bigger hit than her body. Her physical scars had reduced slightly over time, but she still grappled with her mental ones every day.
‘Now up!’ Carla ordered, grabbing Isobella’s arm. ‘Let’s find you something to wear.’
Isobella followed reluctantly, and stood passively while Carla hunted through her cupboard.
‘Aha! This. You bought it and never wore it. It’s perfect.’
Isobella looked at the dress Carla was brandishing. It was one of many things she’d bought over the years since the accident, despite knowing she’d never wear it. Mainly because she didn’t socialize, but also because it revealed more than it concealed. But the female inside her had been unable to resist. The Fleckeri’s brand might have robbed her of her confidence, but it hadn’t taken away her love for shopping or beautiful clothes.
It was the colour of a deep merlot, and was made from a fabric that clung in all the right places. Isobella shrank from it. ‘No. It’s too…It’ll show my trachey scar…I can’t possibly…’
‘It’s perfect,’ Carla bossed.
The feminine side of her wanted to reach out and touch the very sexy dress, but Isobella knew if she touched it she’d be a goner. ‘It’s all wrong.’
‘Why did you buy it, then?’ Carla demanded.
Because it was beautiful. ‘It’s not the image I’m trying to project,’ she said primly.
‘McHusky is here for a few days, and then you won’t see him again. Don’t you want to at least make him drool a little?’ Carla held up her thumb and index finger with a whisker of space separating them. ‘It’s one night, babe. Just one. Don’t you want to feel like a woman instead of a nerdy, four-eyed lab geek?’
‘Hey,’ Isobella protested at her sister’s blunt assessment. But she could hardly refute it. A ‘four-eyed lab geek’ was the image she’d meticulously presented to the world. ‘I do not want to attract Alex.’
Carla shrugged. ‘So do it for yourself. You just said you wished it had never happened. Put on the dress and pretend for one night that it didn’t. Be Izzy again.’
Carla held out the dress, and Isobella felt herself reach for it against all her better judgments.
Alex wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting from Isobella tonight. In fact he wouldn’t have been surprised had she not shown at all. But secretly he’d hoped that maybe they’d all get to see a little more of the person beneath the coat and the glasses.
Unfortunately not.
He spotted her the second she walked in. She was late, and he’d been eyeing the doorway while making polite conversation with Roland about the project. She paused at the ‘Wait here to be seated’ sign, searching for their table.
She was wearing horrible baggy trousers and a shapeless shirt that flared down from a mandarin collar in an A-line and left everything to the imagination.
She looked around, her eyes darting from table to table. She seemed nervous, one hand clutching at her bag the other pushing her god-awful glasses back up her nose. Her left foot tapped, and she flinched as a man at a table near the door let out a booming laugh.
She was obviously uncomfortable as her gaze continued to flit around the room, and he started to wonder whether Isobella suffered from agoraphobia. She had seemed perfectly at home in the lab, albeit completely alarmed at his suggestion that she come out tonight. But here she looked completely out of place.
She finally spotted them, and he noticed her hesitation before she squared her shoulders and moved towards them. One thing was certain—Isobella Nolan did not want to be here.
Without the camouflage of the white coat he could see her legs were long and slender as she strode to the table but the second she stopped the layers of trouser material swallowed their shape.
Isobella was conscious of her colleagues all watching her as Alex stood and greeted her. His husky rumble rendered her powerless to move. Her nipples hardened as if he had reached out and trailed his fingers across her breasts.
‘Sorry I’m late.’ She addressed the table. ‘I was…’ mentally hyperventilating ‘…my sister held me up.’
‘You’re here now.’ Alex nodded. ‘We saved a seat for you.’
Isobella was pleased to see her legs were still obeying impulses from her brain, even if the rest of her body was not. The empty seat was directly opposite Alex, and she cursed Carla for delaying her departure.
She stroked her throat reflexively as she settled in her chair, reassured by the presence of the high collar. She nervously adjusted her glasses,
pleased she had changed out of the dress after Carla had retired to her bed. The dress had looked amazing, and had felt so feminine against her skin, with its clingy fabric and plunging neckline. But she lacked the confidence to wear it. She would have felt exceedingly self-conscious in it, and she was already way out of her depth.
Luckily the same couldn’t be said for her underwear. Lingerie was a major weakness of hers—always had been—and the feeling of soft satin and the rub of lace was one she freely indulged. Something had to compensate for the blandness of her lab wardrobe and the fact that no one at the table tonight knew the silken wisps that lay beneath her baggy clothes made the wearing of them bearable.
Conversation resumed at the table, and Isobella feigned interest. Reg was beside her, talking about the presentation, and she nodded and replied and made some suggestions on automatic pilot, while at the same time taking absolutely none of the discussion in.
She was aware of Alex’s too frequent gaze on her. It felt heavy against her skin, and she wanted to look him straight in the eye and tell him to stop. What did he want from her? She was here, wasn’t she?
His presence was just too disturbing by far. Every husky word and gravelly chuckle coming from his perfectly sculptured mouth vibrated the air currents around her, causing a feather-light friction all over her body that was as erotic as it was distracting. He was hitting a big ten on her McHusky scale, which only ramped up her nervousness several more notches.
It didn’t help that he looked amazing tonight. He was wearing a shirt the exact shade of his cerulean blue eyes, which somehow managed to magnify his utter maleness tenfold. He hadn’t shaved before coming out, and the light growth of stubble at his jaw drew her gaze like a helplessly addicted moth craved light.
When he laughed his face creased into irresistible dimples, and the skin around his eyes crinkled into little lines that she just wanted to reach out and touch. Smooth. Kiss.