But how could she dislike someone who made her feel such magical things?
Her body was still alive with the sensations he’d evoked. She had only to think of his powerful body entering her and her stomach would flip over and a hot rush of longing course through her. It was dangerous to let her guard down but how could she not? They were tied together for six months and now they had this new intimacy she couldn’t turn things back to the way they had been. A switch had been flicked. A force had been activated. A desire had been fed and fuelled and fostered.
Andrea came out to the terrace carrying a bottle of champagne. He too had recently showered, for his hair was still damp and curling around the collar of his casual shirt. Izzy hadn’t seen him since they had made love but his office door had remained closed every time she’d walked past as she’d helped Gianna set up dinner before the housekeeper left for the evening.
Andrea’s eyes ran over Izzy’s oyster silk dress, the only decent thing she’d had time to slip into her overnight bag. ‘You look beautiful. The rest of your things should be here by tomorrow. But we can shop for anything else you need.’
‘Thanks.’ Never good with compliments, Izzy feasted her eyes on him instead. The way his muscles bunched on his tanned forearms when he popped the champagne cork, the way his olive skin contrasted with the white of his shirt. Her gaze drifted to his mouth, remembering how it had felt on her own, how his tongue had mated with hers in such an erotic way. Something shivered deep and low in her belly when his eyes met hers. Was he remembering how it felt to be inside her? Was he thinking of how it had felt to be consumed by passion and want until nothing else mattered? She licked her suddenly dry lips and made a business out of straightening the perfectly straight tablecloth. ‘It’s a gorgeous night. So lovely and warm. I can’t remember the last time I ate al fresco.’
He placed a warm hand on her bare shoulder, his touch sending a wave of longing through her body. ‘You’re nervous.’ He said it with a note of surprise rather than as a question.
Izzy could feel her cheeks betraying her. ‘I’m just not used to relating to you like this...you know, without biting your head off. It’s kind of...weird. Weird but...nice.’
He gave a slow smile and leaned down to press a kiss to the sensitive flesh just below her ear. She could smell the fresh citrus of his aftershave, her senses intoxicated by lemon and lime and cleanly showered man. Even though he’d recently shaved she could still feel the slight prickle of his sexy stubble. His breath caressed her skin, then his tongue glided in a blistering pathway following the line of her jaw until he finally came to her mouth. His kiss was slow and sensual, lighting fires in her flesh that sent hot flames licking along her veins. Her mouth opened under the commanding pressure of his, her arms slipping around his neck, bringing her closer to the heat and hardness of his body. Her breasts were bare under her shoestring-strap dress and never had they felt more sensual than with the cool silk stretched over them as they were crushed against his muscular chest. His hands skimmed her from her shoulders to her hips, his hands settling there to bring her even closer against his pulsing need. She could feel her body preparing itself, excitement kicking up her heartbeat, making her intensely aware of every inch of her body where it was pressed against his.
His mouth continued its sensual exploration of hers, their tongues tangling in a sexy dance of one-upmanship that stirred her desire even more. His hands came back up to cradle her face as he changed position, his mouth softening against hers, his tongue no longer combative but cajoling.
Izzy had had no idea a kiss could be so mind-blowing, so thrilling that her whole body would be involved. Every nerve and cell throbbing with growing need—a need he activated and nurtured with each mesmerising movement of his mouth on hers. His hands splayed into her hair, electrifying her scalp with his touch.
He lifted his mouth off hers to look at her through sexily hooded eyes. ‘This is a much better way to relate to each other, sì?’
Izzy smiled against his mouth. ‘Much better.’
He kissed her again, deeply, holding her against his aroused body while the scent of the flickering candle and the flowers and the sea air worked their magic on her senses.
Izzy felt like she had stepped into a fairy tale, one she had never realised she’d wanted until now: a romantic setting, a warm fragrant night, champagne and delicious food and a man who had eyes only for her.
What more could she want?
Andrea pulled back from her with a smile. ‘We won’t do the dinner Gianna has prepared for us service if we get distracted. Some champagne, cara? To celebrate our truce.’
‘Yes, please.’ Izzy held out her hand for the glass of sparkling bubbles he poured. He held out her chair and she sat and gazed at the view below. ‘This is the most beautiful place. How long have you had it?’
He took his seat opposite. ‘I bought it five years ago. I got sick of living in my hotels. I wanted a base, a place to separate me from work.’ His lips moved in a rueful movement. ‘Not that it always works that way. Gianna is always telling me off for spending way too much time in my office here.’
Izzy sipped her champagne and studied him for a moment over the rim of her glass. He looked far more relaxed than she had ever seen him. His shirt was undone to midway down his chest and the sleeves rolled up past his forearms. She wondered now why she’d found him so intimidating and gruff in the past. ‘How did you get into hotels? Why not some other business?’
He handed her a crisp bread roll from the basket on the table between them. ‘When I left home when I was fourteen—’
‘Fourteen?’ Izzy looked at him in alarm. ‘You were fourteen when you left home?’
He gave her a grim smile that wasn’t really a smile. ‘Not by choice, although it was proving to be impossible to live with my stepfather.’
Izzy glanced at the scar on his left eyebrow, her stomach feeling queasy at what he might have been exposed to as a young boy. ‘Is that how you got that scar? From your stepfather?’
He touched the scar as if to see if it was still there, a shadow passing over his expression as if the memories of that time in his life were unpleasant. ‘He was a bastard of a man—a coward who used his fists instead of his intellect. Not that he had much of an intellect.’ His tone was flat and bitter, the line of his mouth tight.
Izzy swallowed, remembering all too well how terrifying it was to live with a man with a hair trigger temper. ‘Was he violent towards your mother?’
Andrea’s dark eyes glittered and his jaw clenched. ‘He was clever how he went about it. He didn’t leave her with bruises you could see. I intervened whenever I could but in the end she chose to stay with him.’ His mouth thinned into a white line. ‘That’s what hurt me the most. I came back the next day after he kicked me out and begged her to leave with me. I promised I’d keep her safe—find a shelter or something for us. But she told me she never wanted to see me again. She wanted to stay with my stepfather. Go figure.’
Izzy frowned, her heart squeezing at the thought of Andrea as a young teenager, thrown out of home and rejected by his mother. ‘Oh, Andrea. How awful that must have been. You must have been so distraught. What did you do? Where did you go?’
He took a sip of his champagne, and then another sip, each time swallowing deeply. ‘I lived on the streets for a couple of months until I met your father. He found me looking for food at the back of a hotel in Florence. The kitchen hand used to watch out for me and give me some leftovers.’ Andrea’s smile became crooked. ‘Your father might not have been an angel, but if it hadn’t been for him taking a chance on me, who knows where I might have ended up?’
It was certainly a side to her father Izzy had been aware of but the various charities and people he’d championed didn’t make up for how he’d made her feel. ‘How did he help you?’
‘He found a place for me to stay and then offered me a job. It
was menial work at first, just cleaning and stuff, but he said later my work ethic had impressed him.’ He reached across and refilled her glass but she noticed he didn’t refill his own. ‘I went back to school and studied for a business degree after that. When I was living on the streets I made a promise to myself that one day I would own a hotel where the homeless would be welcome to find shelter and food.’ He put the bottle back in the ice bucket and sat back in his chair. ‘Enough about me. Tell me about Hamish. What was he like?’
Izzy wondered if anyone else knew the darker secrets of his past and felt touched he’d shared as much as he had with her. She could tell from his expression that he was not used to talking about his background at length. There was a shuttered look in his eyes as if he had cordoned off the memories and would not be revisiting them any time soon. ‘Hamish was a lot older than me, as you know—my mother had a few miscarriages in between having him and me. But he was wonderful. Funny and smart—all the things a big brother should be. I idolised him and he spoilt me rotten. But then he got sarcoma and everything in our family changed. The much-adored son and heir couldn’t be saved, no matter how much the doctors and my parents tried.’ She let out a ragged sigh. ‘It was a terrible time. As the years went on, my father expected me to step up and do all the things Hamish would have done if he’d lived. But I wasn’t strong academically. I wasn’t able to cope with the pressure and I rebelled.’ She frowned at the memory of that difficult period in her life. ‘I wish I’d had someone to talk to about it, but the sad irony was Hamish was the only person I would have shared something like that with but he was gone and so I floundered.’
‘What about your mother? Were you close to her?’
Izzy always felt sad when she thought of her mother. Talking about her made her realise how much she still missed her. Missed what they’d once had before tragedy struck. ‘I was close to her before Hamish got sick. We had a happy family until then, or so it felt from my young, childish perspective. It was happiest when my father wasn’t around, though. That’s why I loved going to my grandparents’ house so much because Dad never came with us. He didn’t get on with his in-laws. But then Hamish got sick and Mum was understandably devastated. She felt she’d failed as a mother, as a wife. Then my grandparents got killed in a car crash a couple of years later and Mum retreated further into herself and soon after she got liver cancer. It was like our family was cursed.’
Andrea’s expression was full of concern and compassion. ‘How did your father handle it all?’
Izzy puffed out her cheeks on another sigh. ‘He worked. He went away a lot, which suited me because we only ever argued when he was around. He couldn’t see me without making some cutting comment about how I was dressed or how badly I’d done in my latest test or how much I disappointed him with my behaviour. I used to dread him coming home, and yet often I would deliberately set him off because it was a way to get his attention. Immature, now that I think about it.’
‘So you were never close to him? Even as a younger child?’
Izzy gave him a pained movement of her lips that was not quite a smile. ‘He wasn’t comfortable around little kids. He didn’t understand their needs, or perhaps didn’t want to. Mum let slip once that he was the same with Hamish until Hamish grew up a bit. But then, even when I got a bit older, I realised I would never be good enough because I wasn’t a boy. It was all my father had ever wanted. A son to carry on the family line. I was close to my mother’s parents, though. They were lovely to me and, of course, to Hamish.’ She met his gaze. ‘That’s why I want my inheritance. I want to buy back their home. My father insisted it be sold after they were killed. My mother didn’t want to sell it but he talked her into it.’
‘Where is it?’
‘In Wiltshire,’ Izzy said. ‘A few kilometres out from a quaint tiny village no one’s ever heard of but to me it’s like paradise. Some of my earliest and best memories are of being at my grandparents’ house with Hamish and Mum. It was the happiest time of our lives. I won’t rest until I get it back. The current owner has promised me they won’t sell for another six months.’
‘What will you do with it once you buy it? Will you live there?’
‘That’s the plan,’ Izzy said. ‘I have to iron out a few more details but I’d like to open it up as a short-term holiday place for families going through difficult times. Maybe even kids with cancer. There’s a lovely little gardener’s cottage that could be done up to house guests as well as the main house.’ She picked up her bread roll and tore off a piece. ‘I suppose it all sounds a little hare-brained to a hotshot hotel owner like you. It’s not like I’ve got a business plan or anything. I haven’t even been down to see the place in years.’
He reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘I started small and built up gradually. You’ve got passion about the project, which is far more important than anything else.’
Izzy glanced at their joined hands, her wedding and engagement rings winking up at her as if to remind her of the terms of their marriage. She pulled her hand away and went back to buttering her bread roll. ‘Do you ever see your mother?’ He was silent for so long she looked back up at him. ‘Andrea?’
He blinked as if bringing himself back to the present. ‘No.’
‘Have you ever tried to make contact?’
‘What would be the point?’ There was a line of hardness around his mouth that hinted at the bitterness he still carried about his childhood.
Izzy chewed her lip, wondering if she’d strayed into dangerous territory. ‘I don’t know... I just thought it might help you understand why she did what she did.’
‘She made her choice. That’s the end of it as far as I’m concerned.’
‘But what if it hadn’t been her choice?’ Izzy met his black-as-pitch gaze. ‘What if she was frightened of your stepfather? Of what he would do to her, to both of you, if she left with you? Maybe he forced her to tell you to go away and never come back.’
Something flickered over his face like ice cracking on the surface of a frozen lake. ‘She’s had plenty of time to find me if she was so inclined. I’ve not exactly been hiding under a rock.’
‘But would you agree to see her if she did come looking?’
A cynical glint appeared in his eyes. ‘And what do you think she’d want from me all these years on? Money?’
‘I can understand why you’d feel so cynical about her motives but surely—’
‘Isabella. Please, can we change the subject?’ His matter-of-fact tone brooked no resistance. ‘You have your father issues. I have my mother ones. Let’s leave it at that.’
‘But your mother might still be alive,’ Izzy said, trying to ignore the jab of pain just below her heart. The pain of guilt and regret that it was now too late for her to make her peace with her father.
Andrea’s eyes lost their glaze of hardness and he reached for her hand again. ‘Cara...’ His voice was softer now, almost tender, his touch a soothing press of fingers against her hand that made her feel understood and supported. ‘Forgive me. My stuff happened a long time ago. So long ago it feels like it happened to someone else, not me. But your grief is still fresh. Raw. Your father was wrong to make you jump through hoops. But he had his own issues. Unhappy people hurt others because it’s a way of controlling them.’
Izzy forced a stiff little smile. ‘I wonder what he’d think of you marrying me. Do you think he envisaged it might happen?’
He stroked his thumb over the back of her hand. ‘Who knows? But the main thing is you get your inheritance once the six months is up.’ He gave her hand a little Mexican wave-like tap with his fingers and withdrew his hand. ‘Which reminds me—I have my business colleague’s wedding coming up in two weeks. It’s being held in Venice. It will be a glamorous affair so let me know if you’d like help choosing an outfit. I’ll pay, of course.’
‘You don’t have to buy me clothes.
’
He shrugged and reached for his champagne. ‘Think of it as one of the perks of the deal. Any amount of money is worth spending when it gets you what you want.’
‘Why do you want this business merger so much?’ Izzy asked. ‘You have lots of hotels now. What’s so special about the one you’re trying to buy?’
‘The hotel in Florence is the one where your father found me begging for food. For years I’ve wanted that hotel and when I set my sights on something I don’t give up until I achieve it.’ The determined set to his mouth reminded her of his iron will and take-no-prisoners attitude. ‘Patrizio Montelli’s hotel is small by industry standards but I won’t rest until I own it. But first I have to solve the issue of his stepdaughter.’
‘I hope his stepdaughter buys our marriage as the real deal and not a sham,’ Izzy said. ‘I mean, for a man of your wealth and position, you did marry me rather quickly and with little or no fanfare.’
His eyes smouldered like coal as they held hers. ‘Alexis will only have to take one look at us together to know what we have is real. You can’t fake chemistry like ours.’
Izzy picked up her glass in case she was tempted to give in to that crackling chemistry right here and now. ‘Are we going to do justice to this dinner Gianna made for us? It’s probably getting cold.’
He gave a lazy smile. ‘Dinner first and then a swim.’
‘I haven’t got a swimming costume with me.’
His eyes glinted. ‘Trust me. You won’t need one.’
CHAPTER NINE
AFTER THEY CLEARED away the remains of dinner Izzy followed Andrea back out to the pool. He turned off most of the garden lights for added privacy and the pool became bathed in moonlight, the surface perfectly still in the balmy evening air.
Bound by a One-Night Vow Page 11