‘I said under the same roof, not in the same bed,’ Andrea said with measured cool. ‘But if you change your mind I’m more than willing to see to your needs.’ What are you doing? But he didn’t want to listen to the voice of his conscience. His conscience could get the hell out of his head. He wanted Izzy and she wanted him. He could feel her desire for him like a current in the air. The same current that was moving through his body in ripples and tingles that left no part of him unaffected.
Her cheeks were fire-engine red, her hands in tight fists by her sides. ‘I will not change my mind. I loathe you. You disgust me.’
‘That wasn’t the message I was getting when you were kissing me back at the celebrant’s office.’
Her eyes flashed with vivid blue venom. ‘You kissed me.’
‘You asked for it, remember? You practically begged me to—’
She picked up a scatter cushion and threw it at him but it missed and knocked over a photo frame instead. Andrea bent down to pick up the cushion and the frame, setting the frame on the lamp table and then placing the cushion back on the sofa with measured calm. ‘Rule number one. No violence. Ever. Not under any circumstances.’
Her expression was a road map of resentment. ‘You provoked me.’
‘Doesn’t matter. No amount of provocation makes it acceptable to throw something at someone, even if it’s just a cushion. You have the same assurance from me. You’re entitled to feel safe at all times with me. I give you that promise.’
She began to chew at her lower lip, glancing at him from beneath lowered lashes. ‘Okay...but I still don’t want to live with you.’
‘That is not negotiable, I’m afraid,’ Andrea said. ‘I’ll send packers to collect your things in the morning. We will spend the night in my hotel in Mayfair. Tomorrow we will fly to my villa in Positano in Italy.’
‘But what about my lease here?’ Her brow was troubled with a frown. ‘I’ll have to pay the rent even if I’m not here because my flatmate—’
‘I’ll settle it with your landlord and your flatmate.’
‘What about my job?’
‘You can hand in your notice tomorrow and concentrate on your studies instead. You’ll have no need to work unless you particularly want to. Your full inheritance won’t be available until the six months is up but, along with the sum your father stipulated you receive upon your marriage, I’ll pay you an allowance in the meantime, a generous one, so you’ll want for nothing.’
Her eyes flashed another round of fire at him. ‘Except my freedom.’
‘Isabella.’ Andrea released a long-suffering sigh. ‘Your future freedom depends on you abiding by the terms of your father’s will. I’m making that possible for you so the least you can do is be grateful.’
Her plump lips thinned to a sneer. ‘Would you like me to drop to my knees in front of you and demonstrate my gratitude right now?’
Andrea’s groin twitched at the sultry challenge in her eyes. He considered calling her bluff. He could think of nothing he wanted more than to have his lust for her satisfied by her lush mouth and hot little tongue. Had he ever wanted a woman more than this one? She stirred in him the most primal urges—urges he could only just control when he was around her. His desire for her was growing, swelling, expanding in his blood and rocketing through his body like a virulent virus. He was hot for her. There wasn’t a part of his body that didn’t want her to crawl all over it and suck and lick and stroke and, yes, even to bite.
‘Pack an overnight bag,’ he said, doing everything in his power to keep his gaze away from her mouth. ‘I’ll wait in the cab.’
* * *
Izzy stuffed a few things in a bag with such anger barrelling through her system she thought the top of her head would explode. How had she allowed herself to be so blindsided by Andrea? She’d foolishly assumed they would marry and that would be it. He would go one way and she would go the other.
But no.
He wanted a wife. It suited him to have a wife. But why her? She was the most unsuitable wife in London. You didn’t have to look too far back online to see some of the things that had been reported about her. Not all of them true, but ‘once a tart, always a tart’ as far as the press and the public were concerned.
Izzy hadn’t done herself any favours in that regard. Deliberately inciting negative press, making her nights out clubbing look far more incriminating than they were. She had relished the shame it had brought to her father’s door. She had enjoyed every cringeworthy second of her payback for all the disappointment and hurt and despair he’d inflicted.
But she hadn’t been mature enough back then to realise the shame would stick like mud on her door far longer than it would on his. She couldn’t apply for a job these days without someone finding an oftentimes ambiguous but no less damning shot of her on social media.
Once that stuff was online it was always online.
Why had Andrea waited until now to force her hand? Why not approach her three months ago? Why leave it until the midnight hour when all her other options were gone?
Not that she’d had any other options. And, truth be told, she hadn’t looked as hard as she should have to find a husband. She’d only just enrolled in her course and juggling work and study had been more than enough to handle. She’d been so angry at the way her father had engineered things that she’d wasted two months seething. And then the sick, sinking feeling every time she thought about finding a man to marry her had made it impossible to do much other than search through the list of contacts on her phone and break out into a prickly sweat because no one was suitable or, even if they had been, they would never have been agreeable.
But, strangely, Andrea Vaccaro was agreeable. More than agreeable. He’d made it all but impossible for her to say no. He’d made sure she wouldn’t be able to say no. He’d covered all the bases, tied up all the loose ends, ensnaring her so cleverly in his web like a spider did an unsuspecting fly. That self-congratulatory glint in his eyes at the ceremony proved how much he was enjoying having her in his power. Grrr. Under his command.
Izzy had never considered him as a temporary husband. Never. She’d skipped past his name in her phone as if she were avoiding contamination. Just seeing his name there had been enough to make her heart stutter and her breath stick in the walls of her throat.
But now she was wearing his ring on her finger and the only way she would be free of him was when the six-month period was up. Six months! Six months living with Andrea, pretending to be his wife in public.
How would she survive the torture?
Even more worrying...how would she survive the temptation?
* * *
Izzy remained silent in the cab until it pulled into the forecourt of Andrea’s luxury hotel in Mayfair. The paparazzi had gathered and were waiting under the crimson and gold awning that sheltered the drive-through area in front of the grand old building. Had he given the press the heads-up? Or had they automatically assumed he would bring her here for their...gulp...wedding night? It was, after all, his home when he came to London. He mostly lived between his two homes in Positano and Florence. She glanced at Andrea with a frown. ‘I thought we were going back to Henri’s for dinner?’
‘It’s been a big day.’ That self-satisfied gleam was back in his eyes. ‘We both need an early night, sì?’
Izzy couldn’t control the shimmery little tremor that went through her body. It was as if champagne had been injected into her bloodstream—little bubbles of forbidden excitement that made her breath hitch and her heart hammer. She couldn’t be alone with him until she got herself back under control. She had no defence against the pull of attraction. It was like trying to fight a bloody battle with a paper sword. ‘But I was looking forward to eating at Henri’s. It’s one of my favourite places. I’m hungry and—’
‘I’m sure I’ll find something in my hotel to satisfy that appe
tite of yours.’ Something about his tone made her suspect he might not be talking about food. ‘I’ll handle the press,’ he added. ‘And remember, we’re madly in love and are now on our honeymoon.’
A hotel porter came to collect Izzy’s overnight bag from the cab. Andrea led Izzy past the paparazzi, stopping long enough to say they would like some privacy to celebrate their marriage. The congratulations were hearty and enthusiastic, and some of the comments he made back to the press made it sound like Izzy had been waiting for this moment for most of her life. Sickening. Just sickening. She had never felt more furious. How dare he tell the world she’d had a crush on him since she was a teenager?
She hadn’t.
She didn’t.
She never would.
The cameras continued to flash and click like rapid gunfire, the recording devices thrust in front of their faces to such a degree Andrea put his arm up to shield Izzy’s from them. ‘Thank you, everyone,’ he said. ‘It’s time for us to be left alone now to enjoy our first night together.’
Their first night together...
How those words made her insides shiver and her pulse race. His arm around her waist was a steel cord of strength but, strangely, she felt protected by it. She hadn’t felt as threatened as she normally would when the press surged at her. He had made sure no one bumped her or came too close. It was nothing but an act—a charade of Loving Husband for the cameras. But, even so, it made her solid dislike of him soften a little around the edges.
Andrea took her to a private elevator that only senior hotel staff used, the doors closing off the rest of the world with a gentle swish. Izzy immediately sprang to the other side of the elevator and folded her arms across her body, shooting him a glare that was multiplied by the mirrored walls.
He leaned with indolent grace against the side wall. ‘It seems we have created quite a storm of interest, cara.’ His lazy smile came at her from every wall of the elevator. ‘The heiress enfant terrible and the billionaire hotelier has quite a ring to it, does it not?’
Izzy ground her teeth until her molars threatened mutiny. ‘Did you have to make up such absolute rubbish about me? I have not, did not and will not ever have a crush on you.’
His gaze swept over her body as if he was removing every stitch of her clothing. Heat flared between her thighs when his gaze came back to hers. Smouldering eyes. Eyes that burned holes into her resolve like laser pointers. ‘You have always wanted me, cara. I feel it every time you look at me.’
‘Right back at you, buddy.’ Izzy raised her chin. ‘I’ve seen the way you look at me. And for God’s sake stop calling me cara.’
He pressed the emergency stop button on the elevator and it came to a gliding halt. So did Izzy’s breathing. ‘W-what are you doing?’
He came to where she was standing against the back wall of the elevator, stopping so close to her she felt his muscled thighs brush hers. He put one hand on either side of her head, caging her between his arms. His chocolate-brown eyes meshed with hers in a lock that made the floor of her belly shiver like tinsel in a breeze. ‘I’m not denying I want you, tesoro mio. I want you very much. But I think you want me more, sì?’ One of his thighs gently nudged her legs apart and she gasped when the hard ridge of his muscle-packed leg came in contact with her mound.
Izzy couldn’t breathe. Her heart was beating so fast and so erratically she thought it might pop right out of her chest. Every pore of her body was aware of him—acutely, thrillingly aware. She couldn’t stop staring at his mouth—the sexy masculine contours that had felt so magical against her own. She moistened her lips and he followed every millimetre of its journey with his hooded gaze. ‘Other people might need to use the elevator.’ Her voice was so croaky it sounded like she’d been hanging around a frog pond and got too friendly with the natives.
His smile tilted a little further, making his eyes darken even further. ‘It’s my hotel. My elevator. And you are my wife.’
Izzy intended to push him away but somehow her hands fisted in his shirt instead. The toned muscles of his chest were like plates of steel against her knuckles, the citrus and woodsy fragrance of him making her dizzy with longing. ‘In name only.’
‘So far.’ He lowered his head to brush his stubbly jaw against the side of her face, sending her senses into frenzy. ‘But how long will that last?’
Desire flooded her being. Giant, thumping, pumping waves of it moving through her with such force she had trouble standing. Had she ever felt lust so powerful? So overwhelming? It was like a fever in her blood, a racing, raging red-hot fever that made it impossible for her to think of anything but how he made her feel. ‘I’m not going to sleep with you, Andrea.’ But I want to. I want to so badly.
He moved his mouth to just an inch above hers, his warm breath mingling intimately with hers. His thigh moved against her, teasing the heart of her with slow rubs and nudges that made her knees wobble and her spine melt like honey in a heatwave. ‘We’ll be good together, cara. Better than good.’
Izzy’s fingers gripped his shirt even tighter but still she didn’t push him away. Why aren’t you pushing him away? The alarm bell of her conscience was too faint for her to take notice. It was like trying to hear someone’s whisper at a heavy metal concert. Her need of him was too strong, too powerful. She closed the distance between their mouths, pressing her lips to his, delighting in the tantalising feel of him responding.
He took control of the kiss with a bold stroke of his tongue across her lips, entering her mouth and calling her tongue into a sexy tango that made every knob of her vertebrae tingle like fairy dust was being trickled down her spine. She pressed herself closer, linking her arms around his neck, her fingers delving into the thickness of his hair. She stretched up on tiptoe so she could feel every delicious hard ridge of him against her body, the friction revving up her desire like bellows in front of a fire. Her breasts were crushed against his chest and she was suddenly aware of their sensitivity, as if they were already anticipating the stroke of his hands, the glide of his tongue, the gentle scrape of his teeth.
She whimpered against his mouth, wanting more, needing more, aching for more. His mouth was still crushed to hers, his tongue playing with hers in a kiss that mimicked the erotic caress of his thigh against her. Sensations sparked and fizzed like fireworks in her body. Sensations she had not felt with a partner before. She could do this alone but never with a partner. She’d always had to fake it rather than admit her failure.
But Andrea had unlocked her sensuality in a way no other man had. The tension in her core grew and grew, the sensitive nerves tight and tingling. Her legs, her thighs, deep in her body the tingles ran up and down and around and around until she was unable to process thought. He increased the friction of his thigh as if he was reading every nuance of her body. She couldn’t possibly be feeling like this...how could it happen so easily? How could he have so much sensual power over her to reduce her to a quivering, whimpering wanton? She gasped as the wave rose and rose inside her, the little ripples growing, swelling, burgeoning until they broke over her in a massive rush, shattering her senses into thousands of pieces like confetti fluttering through her blood.
Izzy opened her eyes and then closed them, squeezing them tight against the smug expression on Andrea’s face. Oh, God, why had she allowed him to reduce her to this? To a reckless, shameless wanton who hadn’t enough self-control to withstand the temptation of his touch. Why hadn’t she resisted him? Where was her willpower? Damn it. Where was her pride? Why had she allowed him to prove his point with such embarrassing, devastating accuracy?
He wasn’t the one who couldn’t control himself.
She was. And he had proven it.
Izzy hadn’t thought it possible to hate someone so much for bringing her such amazing pleasure. If this was what his hard thigh could do to her, what on earth would making love with him be like?
Andrea lif
ted her chin, his eyes gleaming with triumph. ‘What did I tell you? Dynamite.’
Izzy summoned what was left of her pride. She pushed him away and schooled her features into a mask of cool indifference. ‘How do you know I wasn’t faking it?’
He studied her for a beat or two. ‘You don’t have to feel ashamed of how you respond to me. It will make our marriage much more satisfying.’ He pressed the button to get the elevator going again. ‘For both of us.’
The doors opened on his floor and he ushered her out of the elevator with a hand at her elbow. Izzy knew she should move away from the warm, gentle cup of his hand but somehow couldn’t bring herself to do it. He opened his penthouse suite with his key card and turned to her. ‘Shall I carry you over the threshold?’
Izzy shot him a glare so lethal it could have blacked out the lights. ‘Don’t even think about it.’
CHAPTER FIVE
IZZY STEPPED INTO the suite, the sound of the door clicking shut as Andrea came in behind her making her heart give a little stumble and her legs tremble.
She was his wife.
He was her husband.
They were alone.
Inside his hotel suite.
Her body was still tingling from the shocking intimacy he had subjected her to. Intimacy she should have put a stop to but somehow hadn’t. Why not? Why had she allowed him to prove how much more she needed him than he needed her? The power balance was all out of kilter.
Izzy drew in a shaky breath and glanced around the suite. The décor of the suite was stunning but not in an over-the-top way. The crystal chandeliers, ankle-deep dove-grey carpet and grey-blue velvet-covered sofas with stylish scatter cushions gave the room a welcoming, restful feel. Lamps were turned down low to give a muted glow that highlighted the private, sanctuary-like atmosphere of the suite. It was a masculine suite and yet it had softer touches such as vases of fresh flowers and cashmere throw rugs draped elegantly on each of the sofas. The curtains were the same blue-grey as the sofas and were drawn back from the windows to showcase the view.
Bound by a One-Night Vow Page 5