Bound by a One-Night Vow

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Izzy’s expression looked like she had eaten something that had disagreed with her. ‘What a pity you didn’t think to pull a convenient wife out of a hat seven years ago when I made that pass at you.’

  ‘I knew what you were up to back then. You wanted to embarrass your father.’ He gave her hands another slow stroke with his thumbs. ‘It would have been wrong for me to get involved with you, not just because of my relationship with your father but because you were too young and headstrong to be in a proper adult relationship.’

  Her teeth pulled at her lower lip, her eyes lowered. ‘He always made me feel so inadequate...so stupid and useless.’ Her voice held a note of bitterness that underlined each word.

  Andrea frowned. Was she talking about the man he had known and admired for his business acumen and charitable work? ‘Your father?’

  She pulled out of his hold, her eyes glittering with the bitterness he’d heard in her voice. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. Not to you.’

  ‘Why not to me?’

  Her gaze shifted. ‘You wouldn’t believe me, that’s why.’

  Andrea had always been aware that there were facets to Benedict Byrne that were less honourable than others. It was why he had distanced himself from Benedict over the last couple of years. He knew Benedict had found being the father of a wilful daughter a complex and emotionally draining experience. But he realised he had only ever heard Benedict’s side. He had never asked Izzy directly what it was like for her being her father’s daughter. ‘I’d like you to tell me, Isabella,’ he said. ‘It’s important to me to know why you felt he didn’t value you.’

  Her gaze was wary. Guarded. ‘Important to you, why? So you can tell me what a screwed-up, selfish and spoilt brat I am for not appreciating all the sacrifices my father made? No, thanks. I’ll go and find a brick wall to talk to instead. I bet I’d feel more listened to.’

  Andrea could see it was going to take some time for Izzy to learn to trust him. Their relationship had always been a combative one so changing it would take time and careful handling on his part. But it concerned him he might have been too quick to judge her in the past, too quick to believe the things her father told him about her without speaking to her himself. He’d been so intent on avoiding her, of being alone with her, he had let himself be swayed by her father’s version of her behaviour.

  ‘I’m sorry you think I wouldn’t listen to you about something this important,’ he said. ‘Your father wasn’t perfect. I had to set limits with him at times because he could be a little overpowering in his enthusiasm for a project. I always felt a little sorry for him for the loss of your brother and your mother. I may have let that colour my judgement of him and, of course, you.’

  Izzy’s expression lost some of its wariness, her mouth softening from a tight white line of bitterness to release a jagged sigh. ‘He acted like Father of the Year when he was around everyone else, but when we were alone he was always berating me. Putting me down, telling me I wasn’t as smart as my brother, Hamish, or I was too fat or too thin or not confident enough—the list went on and on. I was never able to please him. Never.’

  Andrea knew Benedict Byrne had been a difficult man at times. He hadn’t suffered fools gladly and he had exacting standards that hadn’t always won him lasting friendships. Andrea tried to recall all the times he’d seen Izzy and her father together. All he could remember was Izzy acting out, being rude or belligerent, deliberately defying curfews and blatantly disregarding her father’s wishes. Benedict had always seemed so patient with her—far more patient than one would expect any parent to be. Andrea had always seen Izzy as a typical overindulged and ungrateful teenager who didn’t understand the sacrifices her father had made for her.

  But what if he had misread things?

  What if he had wanted to see her that way? What if Benedict had wanted him to see her that way?

  What if the man he’d admired and owed so much was not the decent and hardworking man Benedict Byrne wanted everyone to think he was? Andrea had personal experience of chameleon-like men. His stepfather could be utterly charming in company but could turn into an anger-crazed demon when no one was looking.

  ‘Isabella...’ Andrea said, not sure where to begin with an apology that was too little, too late. ‘You’re describing someone I barely recognise—’

  ‘So you’ll believe what my father wanted you to believe other than accept what I’m telling you.’ She didn’t say it as a question but as a given, as if it was a reality she had heard many times before.

  ‘No. I want to listen to your side. I want to understand why you found him so difficult to love.’

  Her eyes suddenly brimmed with unshed tears and he realised he had never seen her cry before. Not even at her father’s funeral. ‘He didn’t love me so why would I love him?’ Her tone was defiant but underneath there was a deep chord of sadness.

  He blotted one of her tears with his thumb. ‘But you did love him, sì?’

  She swallowed and blinked a few times, the tears drying up as if she regretted losing control. Her expression tightened as if all of her facial muscles were holding in her emotions and only just managing to contain them. ‘You knew him as Benedict Byrne the successful business developer. As your friend and mentor. The philanthropic businessman who gave generously to others. You didn’t know him as a father.’

  Andrea thought again of the times he’d seen Izzy and her father together. But this time it was like putting on a different pair of reading glasses, the images developing a startling new clarity. Images of Benedict’s calm expression when Izzy had made a cutting comment—he had almost been too calm.

  Deadly calm.

  Revenge-will-come-later calm.

  Images of Benedict’s arm around Izzy’s waist and her rigid body posture, which Andrea had always put down to her surly and intractable nature. But what if Benedict’s hold had a touch of cruelty about it? Benedict had spoken at length to Andrea about his hurt and disappointment over Izzy’s behaviour, but what if those cosy little man-to-man confessions had been nothing but a cover-up? An emotional alibi to hide the ugly truth?

  ‘You’re right,’ Andrea said. ‘And no father is the same for every child within a family. I know the loss of Hamish devastated him, as it would any parent.’

  ‘I’m not saying he didn’t love my brother,’ Izzy said. ‘He did. But that was part of the problem. He didn’t have enough love left over for me. I was just a girl and I didn’t have the skills and abilities Hamish had. I was a failure in my father’s eyes. A big, fat disappointing failure.’

  Andrea gently placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘Did he say that to you?’

  Her lips pulled tight as if she wasn’t sure if she should say any more. Then she let out a long breath. ‘Many times. But never within anyone’s hearing. My only chance to get back at him was to act out in public. I know it was stupid of me. It only made him look all the more wonderful because he was always so long-suffering and patient when anyone was watching.’

  Andrea’s scalp began to prickle, his stomach pinching, his conscience grimacing in shame. He had been fooled by Benedict. Shockingly, shamefully fooled. It was even more painful for him to admit it, given he had suffered under his stepfather’s tyrannical rule, while everyone thought it was Izzy’s fault for being defiant. ‘What happened when everyone left?’

  ‘He was too smart to shout at me because of the household staff who might overhear. He would tell me what he thought of me behind closed doors in this really hushed and angry voice and his eyes would get all bulgy and mad-looking.’ Pain flickered over her face. ‘He’d tell me how he wished I’d been the one to die instead of Hamish.’

  Izzy was painting a picture Andrea didn’t want to look at in too close detail but he knew he must. He couldn’t allow himself to be blinded by his own personal bias. He had always prided himself on being a good judge of character but now he fel
t as if he had been duped. Duped by someone he had admired. He had benefited so much from her father. He would not be the success he was today without the older man’s help. But he knew even the best men could have bad sides.

  But how bad had Benedict Byrne’s been?

  ‘Was he ever...violent?’ He stumbled over the word and all its ugliness.

  ‘Only once.’ Her eyes flashed with bitterness. ‘He slapped me across the face when I was fourteen, soon after my mother died of cancer. The irony is that I told him much the same he told me. I told him I wished he’d been the one to die instead of my mother. He never hit me after that but the threat he might do so again was always there.’

  Andrea was shocked and ashamed he hadn’t picked up earlier on the Byrne family dynamics. He’d met her father in Italy twenty years ago, not long after the tragedy of Hamish’s diagnosis of terminal bone cancer. When Benedict found Andrea begging for food on the streets, he’d been exactly the same age as the son and heir Benedict had just buried. Fourteen. There was a part of Andrea that had always wondered if Benedict would have given him the leg up he had if it hadn’t been for the loss of his son. But he had been so grateful for the help he never questioned the motives behind it.

  ‘I’m sorry you went through such treatment at the hands of someone who was supposed to love and protect you,’ Andrea said. ‘I only knew your father as a generous man who liked making a difference in people’s lives. But I realise all people have shadow sides. But he kept his hidden far better than most.’

  ‘So you...believe me?’ The note of uncertainty in her voice made him realise what little hope she must have held that he would believe the version she had shared of her father. Had she tried to tell others and not been believed? Or hadn’t she even bothered trying, knowing how hard it would be to dispel the good father image Benedict had exhibited so convincingly?

  Andrea slid his hands down from her shoulders to take her hands again. ‘I believe you. I thought I knew your father pretty well. But I once lived with a man who had two faces, the one he showed in public and the one he revealed in private. No one would have believed him capable of the things he did in private. I’m sorry I didn’t cotton on to Benedict earlier. I would have spoken to him. Called him out on his behaviour.’

  She looked down at their joined hands, releasing a little shuddery breath. Then her gaze climbed back to his. ‘He was awful to Mum as well. She had no hope of standing up to him. She’d bought into the belief that wives should always obey their husbands. She took all his insults and put-downs, which made me so angry and all the more determined to stand up to him to show him he couldn’t push me around the same way. But I’m not sure it worked the way I intended. I ended up wrecking my own life...’

  Andrea could see why Izzy had railed against his insistence they marry. He’d hardly given her a choice. He’d acted like an overbearing army sergeant issuing commands and orders. No wonder she’d pushed back and fought him at every opportunity. ‘Isabella...I don’t know what to say, other than I’m sorry things have turned out like this. Your father had no right to treat you and your mother like that. I’m shocked and deeply ashamed I didn’t suspect it earlier. I guess the only consolation is he’s left you well provided for, even if the conditions attached to his will are not what you would have chosen.’

  Her expression became brooding and resentful. ‘But that’s the point—he didn’t expect me to fulfil the conditions of his will. He knew how much I hated the thought of marriage, of giving up my freedom. He made his feelings for me perfectly clear. He would rather give all of his wealth—a large proportion of which originally belonged to my mother—to a distant relative with a gambling problem than give it outright to me, his only remaining heir.’

  Andrea could see so clearly now there were things about Izzy’s father he had ignored the whole time he’d known him. Ignored or dismissed or excused. Why hadn’t he taken the time to look a little more closely? He’d made allowances for Izzy’s father because he felt sorry for all Benedict had suffered in losing a son and having to deal with a difficult daughter and a grief-stricken wife, and then the subsequent loss of his wife to liver cancer. Andrea had been too ready to lay the blame at Izzy’s door, believing her to be the problem. He’d taken the view that Benedict was doing all he could to keep what was left of his family together, throwing himself into work and charitable causes to compensate for his terrible loss. Izzy’s mother had struggled both physically and mentally since Hamish’s death, as any mother would, but Benedict had always given Andrea the impression he was a loving husband and father, endlessly, tirelessly patient and hardworking.

  Andrea felt sick to his gut he hadn’t realised the truth earlier. Shame ran through his body like a fetid tide. He’d married Izzy with the intention of ‘taming’ her. He’d been intent on schooling her like a flighty filly, but how crass and boorish that seemed now.

  It made one thing clear to him, though. How could he consummate the marriage now he knew the history of her relationship with her father? How could he cross that boundary, knowing what he knew now? But it wasn’t the physical boundary he was most worried about. Getting close to her would mean crossing an emotional boundary he never crossed with anyone. Although it would just about kill him to keep his hands off her he would do the right thing by her—see the six months out so she received her inheritance—but it would be a paper marriage.

  He let out a long breath. ‘I wasn’t comfortable with the way your father wrote his will, but I didn’t consider it my place to interfere with his wishes.’

  A frown pulled at her smooth brow. ‘Why weren’t you comfortable?’

  ‘I was concerned you might marry someone in haste who would do the wrong thing by you.’

  ‘So you volunteered your...erm, services?’

  Andrea released her and put a little distance between them. He had to get himself out of the habit of touching her. Hands off. Hands off. Hands off. It was a mantra inside his head but the rest of his body wasn’t listening.

  If he were truly honest with himself, he wasn’t exactly sure why he’d stepped into the breach and offered to marry her. Forced, not offered. He cringed at how he’d made it virtually impossible for her to refuse. But a part of his reasoning had been that he hadn’t liked the thought of her marrying some creep who would take half her inheritance in a subsequent divorce. He hadn’t liked the thought of her marrying anyone...other than him. ‘Here’s the thing. I’d been rethinking our paper marriage deal, offering you a six-month affair that would suit both our ends. But, knowing what I know now, well, that’s not going to happen.’

  Shock flashed over her features. ‘You’re not thinking of walking out on our—?’

  ‘No. Of course not.’ He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘We will stay in the marriage for six months, as the will states, but, as agreed, it will be a marriage in name only.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  IN NAME ONLY... Izzy was shocked at how disappointed she felt at those three little words. A crushing, stomach-hollowing disappointment. She should be feeling relieved...but ever since that interlude in the elevator, privately all she had wanted was to have Andrea make love to her.

  Properly. Naked. Skin to skin.

  But in the midst of her shock and disappointment was relief that he had listened to her and believed her about her father’s behaviour. She’d expected him to shut her down or to say there was no way her father could have been so unkind.

  But he hadn’t.

  He’d listened and soothed and comforted her when her emotions had threatened to overspill. It softened some—not all—of the antagonism she felt towards Andrea. He was still her arch-enemy; she had seen him as such for too long for that to change in a hurry. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t make the most of the time they had together, did it?

  But now he was refusing to consummate their marriage. What was she supposed to feel about that? Why wasn’t she
happy? She should be happy. She should be ecstatic. She would get her inheritance and her freedom when the six months was up.

  But she wouldn’t get Andrea.

  She wouldn’t experience the passion and fire of his lovemaking, the searing possession of his kisses and caresses. She would never know what it was like to spend the night in his arms. Never know what it was like to feel his body move within hers. Never know what her body was capable of when being pleasured by his.

  Izzy drew the edges of her bathrobe around her body, unsure of what to do with her hands. She wanted to reach for him. To tell him not to be so silly, not to be so damn honourable. To beg him to make love to her. But she had already shown too much vulnerability this evening, far more than she’d ever shown to anyone. ‘It sounds like you’ve given this some thought...’ She couldn’t remove the note of disappointment from her voice.

  ‘I have and I believe it’s the best way forward. The only way forward.’ His tone had an edge of finality that precluded further discussion on the topic.

  Izzy picked up her abandoned champagne glass and took a sip. ‘If I’d told you earlier about my father would you still have married me?’

  Andrea took his glass as if he too needed something to do with his hands. He swirled the contents for a moment, watching as the bubbles danced in a little whirlpool. ‘I considered offering three months ago but decided it was better to wait.’

  ‘Until I was desperate.’ Izzy didn’t ask it as a question, more as a wry statement of fact.

  He gave a brief smile. ‘I can’t imagine what is wrong with all the young men in London. You should have been snatched up years ago.’