The Italian Billionaire’s Christmas Bride

by Mollie Mathews

  *

  A hug.

  His family weren't huggers, a childhood of neglect had instilled that, Max thought grimly. Hugs made one weak, vulnerable, craving attachments that never lasted. No woman had ever hugged him.

  Not like that.

  Not a hug that was as warm, affectionate, and loving, as it was dangerously addictive.

  Max felt his shoulders tense as Issy coiled her arms around his waist, then felt a fiery haze of blind lust bolt through him as her warm, soft breasts pressed against his chest.

  His nostrils filled with the scent of the wild jasmine and frangipani scented toiletries he'd left in the guest bure as he took a ragged breath. On anyone else the perfume would be harmless but on Issy it was an aphrodisiac he felt powerless to fight.

  The night sky was awash with thousands of stars glinting off her rippling waves of hair, weaving a spell that for some impulsive reason made him kiss the top of her head.

  'That was so kind,' she stammered, dropping trembling hands. 'The painting, I mean.'

  She was such an innocent, so refreshingly unspoiled, so authentically real Max thought as she gazed up at him with those infinite eyes, now wide and starry. He should have stepped away and broken the trance but instead he lifted a whisper of hair tumbling over those long bewitching lashes, and tucked it behind her ear.

  If only she hadn't lifted her face to his. If only she hadn't parted those perfect lips. If only she was like all the other women he knew. Aloof, over-confident, sterile in their botoxed perfectness.

  But Issy was none of these, he thought, wrestling for control. Her hair smelled too good, her skin felt too soft and tasty. She was an elixir, an antidote, a cure to all that was fake, wrong and harsh in the world.

  Suddenly, unable to fight any longer, he wanted to taste all she had to offer. Greedily, with the hunger of a man with no restraint, no self-control, no thought of anyone but his desire to taste her forbidden fruit, his lips sought the softness of her neck, the smooth curves of her cheek, then plundered her sensuous lips.

  He heard a tiny gasp.

  Max felt her feeble resistance as she tried to draw away.

  'I can’t,’ Issy murmured. 'I shouldn’t.'

  He saw her eyes close against the radiance of the night sky, as though blocking out the world and surrendering to a fantasy she wished was real as he pulled her to his chest.

  ‘Max,’ she whispered, her voice a scratch that pierced the hardest part of him.

  She wanted this he told himself, not stopping to ask himself what he was doing.

  Her sinuous dress hugged every womanly curve, gliding over her breasts, inciting him to seek oblivion in the most primal way.

  All of this was wrong. The impossible desire. The urgent throbbing in his sex. The swelling desire to command her mouth and kiss her again and again under the infinite sky. Until nothing but the two of them existed. Until the unhappiness of his childhood was submerged by a flood of other sensations. What did he have to lose? Nothing else helped him forget the pain of the past.

  And then he remembered why the temptress was there. She wasn't on the island to help him forget, but to force him to remember.

  Max forced himself to pull away from her, steeling himself to the torrent of outraged words he knew would come from his cold rejection. Instead she apologized, only adding to his guilt.

  'I only meant to thank you,' she stammered, her voice a breathless whisper. 'It was my fault, I shouldn't have—'

  'Shouldn't have thrown yourself at me?' he gritted out, his voice forged with steel. He sounded cruel but what else could he do? Her guilt only intensified his own.

  'I'm a huggy sort of person. I'm not apologising for that,' her eyes clashed with his, and all the breath rushed from his lungs.

  'Che cavolo! You'd better leave me alone,' he growled, turning from her. 'Go back to New Zealand.'

  'I can't.'

  'Really, mia tentatrice?' he said, spinning around. She froze, wide-eyed like a doe, as he advanced toward her.

  The sea pulsed with a rhythmic roar as he raked his fingers through the soft ripples of her hair, the silkiness of her tresses flooded his palms, flowing over his hands. He threaded his fingers around the back of her head and pulled her to him, plundering her mouth with a rough, demanding kiss.

  Her lips were soft against his hard mouth, her taste sweet against his bitter sense of urgency. The quest to conquer her driven not just by lust but by a dangerous need to drive out the darkness. Like a black moth to an orb of light he was drawn to her warmth as though being near to her might thaw the wall of ice inside him.

  He took her mouth greedily selfishly, hungrily, spurred by a passion to possess her that was both liberating and frightening. For once he wasn't thinking. Not analyzing. Not controlling anything other than his desire to take her.

  He could feel the way her heart quivered, sense the way her pulse fluttered in her neck, taste the breathlessness of her desire as he thrust his tongue in her mouth. Not breaking for air he commanded her mouth in his as he inched her back along the torch-lined path toward her bure.

  Pressing Issy against the door, he slid the straps of her dress from her shoulders. Madness engulfed him as the dress slithered to the ground. The glow of the firelight bathed Issy's skin in gold as if she’d been lit from within by molten amber.

  'No, Max,’ she murmured, her voice barely audible. But there was no denying he hadn’t felt her desire as his hands cupped her breasts, feeling the tiny torturous mound of her hardened nipples responding to his touch. 'Oh, God,' she sighed, folding into him.

  Everything felt inevitable as he lifted her in his arms. He was taking things too fast, spiralling out of control but he no longer cared.

  They were two consenting adults. Male and female. Opposites in every way but in this one act they were together. United by desire, but alone. No one would ever know.

  A sexual need so urgent and shocking engulfed him in waves of need so powerful that it drowned out every rational emotion, flooding the chasm of need, filling the unrelenting void.

  Her sweet musky scent breathed arousal as she lay in his arms, the supple softness of her bare skin against his body drove him wild. He kicked the door to the bure open, and laid her on the bed.

  Tugging his shirt over his head, he unbuttoned his pants, noticing her wide eyes riveted to him, hearing a tiny gasp as her eyes fell upon his manhood.

  He wrenched his trousers down his legs and tore them from his feet. Clasping her ankles he slid her gently toward the edge of the bed.

  Standing over her, he spread her legs. With probing urgent fingers, he pushed aside her panties and felt for her womanhood, smiling with satisfaction as he felt the hot river of her desire. Aware of nothing but the sexual oblivion, the sheer pleasure of release, he penetrated her, his body emptying of everything he knew.

  Except her.

  Standing naked before her, his need assuaged, reality returned in a cold blast of self-disgust and realization. She had not run. She had not fled. She had driven him to the edge with sweet temptation. What driving madness had possessed him?

  Selfish, uncaring bastard. Losing control would come at a cost. The only unknown was what price would she extract?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  'Hit me with another,’ Max set the crystal tumbler down onto the granite bar harder than he should. The bartender turned at the sound, and glanced back at his supervisor. The older Fijian nodded slowly, his eyes signalling his understanding, as though sensing the conflict stabbing Max’s heart. No doubt they’d both seen their share of normally sober guests at Max’s resort drowning their conflicting emotions in a heady mix of alcohol.

  Fire and ice, Max mused clenching the tumbler as he stared at the rocks of ice submerged like the Titanic below the burnt orange hue of the whiskey. Like a nymph from a Waterhouse painting Issy’s face shimmered on the surface of the amber liquid—ethereal, desirous, seductive.

  If he wasn’t such a rational man he’d think she had cast
a spell over him. Why else would a plain Jane make him so reckless? Yet she wasn’t plain. Not in the way ordinary girls were. There was something unique about Issy and it was driving him crazy.

  Either that, he decided, or the surgeons that had operated on him meddled with a vital valve in his heart—joining it up with a circuit of feeling he would prefer remained defunct.

  ‘Quei bastardi. You sad, sorry fuck,’ he cursed, pushing the glass aside unwilling to block out what he knew he must face. He had acted irrationally and irresponsibly, dressing her like a siren and driving her to him, only to find he couldn’t stand the heat. Drinking wouldn’t obliterate his guilt. He’d already lost control once. It was a mistake he didn’t plan to repeat.

  Anger slapped inside his stomach as the sky rumbled with the threat of rain. Two sets of parents had repeatedly taught him how easily vows could be broken. "You’re just like your father," his mother threw at him every time she was displeased. Her relentless attacks were like one giant affirmation. But maybe she was right. He was just like his father.

  A heartless philanderer.

  Wasn’t that the reason he threw himself into his work? It certainly beat having his creative energies devoured by a loveless marriage. What was it Leonardo da Vinci had once said, he wondered, staring into the black void of the stormy sky. "Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.”

  Max’s thoughts coiled around the first time he laid eyes on the enchantress. The memory of Issy standing by the waters edge, wide-eyed and enraptured when he’d gone to the sea snake’s rescue made this loins throb with dangerous need. Need that rapidly accelerated when his thoughts slithered toward the enraptured passion they’d shared. The memory of Issy’s scent of arousal, the sinuous silky feel of her soft tousled hair burying into his chest, the flaming heat of her breath, hot and elicit against his neck as he took her again and again bit through his thoughts.

  He would have to atone for his sins, he would have to face his demons, he would have to confront his past. Someday. But not today. Nor tomorrow. Nor any of the four days he was stuck on this wretched Pacific atoll with a woman that made his passions flare.

  Passion.

  That dangerously, disastrous flame-coloured word. Passion—uncontrollable, untameable emotion which like a poison, unless he took care, would have no antidote, binding her to him for eternal hell. What the hell had he been thinking?

  That was just the problem he wasn’t thinking. Max stared into the void of the bruised and moody sky. His darker side had won, the side that retreated from the light into an insatiable quest for lust and seduction. The side that like Adam tempting Eve to mortal sin had thrown Issy an apple then fled from her bed, abdicating responsibility. He had corrupted her. Then he had run.

  But why? He raked his fingers through his hair, then gripped his head in his hands. He had spent his life moving from conquest to conquest. He had never cared that his sexual affairs were devoid of feeling? He had preferred it that way.

  And why couldn’t he shake the sense that Issy would no more bite his head off than she would impede his success? Why despite everything his rational mind stormed and shouted, did he feel with such clarity that she had come to his rescue?

  Reaching for his iPhone Max swiped the screen with an impatient flourish. He couldn’t block out the annoying woman who was creating mayhem with his emotions, but he could absorb himself in his work. He scrolled through the hundreds of emails clogging his inbox since he’d last logged on. A pang of pride coursed through his torso as he registered the responses Sophia had copied him into.

  He forced his mind from Issy and focused on the formidable job Sophia was doing when, as if she’d read his thoughts, a text message illuminated his screen.

  “r u playing nicely?”

  Max pressed his lips into a grim line. It was as though his sister had sixth sense, but then didn’t all women.

  No he hadn’t played nicely. Not at all. He wouldn’t lie. Pressing his thumb firmly on the off button he watched the screen flicker and then die, noticing with surprise how liberating it felt to hand over the reins and disconnect from the world of unrelenting responsibilities.

  From the flurry of replies Sophia was not only excelling but also thriving. Max gave a wry smile. Why hadn’t he ceded control to her earlier? A whoosh of air escaped from his lungs, relaxing the normally granite-hard tightness in his chest as it did so.

  He lifted his head and gazed around his estate. Sophia was right. What was it all for? What would be his legacy? Who would remember him when he was gone? Who would love him when he was alive? Was closing himself off as he had all these years living his best life?

  Max pulled out a sketchbook and picked up his pen. The blank page glared at him. Taunting him with its infinite possibilities. Usually he rose to the challenge, but as his pen hovered over the page nothing came.

  Perhaps Issy was right. How could he create when he felt no joy? Felt no love? He was surrounded by beauty, but felt nothing. Life to her seemed like a paint box of color. He envied her spontaneity, her curiosity and fascination with her surroundings. She was everything he no longer was.

  With her sunny optimism, her blind faith in humanity, her misplaced belief in the power of the heart, she was a painful reminder that for some life is lived with color and joy, spontaneity and surprise—not a grey wasteland of endless work demands, neutrality, control and predictability. Where Issy saw a rainbow, Max only saw unrelenting rain.

  Issy, he reluctantly conceded was a painfully sharp reminder of all that he had lost. Maybe his sister and Issy were right. How could he move forward if he wouldn’t face the past?

  A bolt of lightning illuminated the sky. The raw, ragged crack exploded in the air, as it struck a coconut tree beyond the bar splitting it open. At the same time something in his own consciousness ripped apart, as though the effort of sustaining the facade of a workaholic egomaniac had caught up with him. His chest surged and swelled.

  For the first time in his life he felt something. For the first time in his life he had touched someone who felt real.

  Real.

  Issy was so refreshingly real. Those great transparent, guileless eyes, vibrantly green like the rare sapphires he imported from Madagascar, as scarce as they were valuable. Priceless. To his surprise he found himself smiling as he recalled all the ways she tried to camouflage her true essence.

  The pink, crazy hair. The chaotic blaze of colors she wore. The “I don’t-care-what-people-think-attitude.” But she did care, just as he cared. And he saw her, like she saw him. And it frightened him.

  She had surrendered to him hoping like all women, that his kiss held a promise he was incapable of keeping. A heady rumble cracked the sky as if the natural world was expressing its frustration, tearing its hair out in a giant roar, shouting, "What are you running from?"

  He didn’t know. All he knew was he’d promised her nothing. Pledged nothing. Committed nothing. But even the knowledge that only his work possessed his heart did nothing to drown his nagging disquiet. Max felt the ache in his temples, the pressure in his head and the force coursing through his body as he fought to suppress the truth.

  She had got to him.

  She had made him feel.

  Max suddenly felt light-headed and breathless. A surge of adrenaline lapped his body. It was back! His inspiration was back! He pushed back from the bar and shot to his feet. He needed to channel it. Now. Before it disappeared.

  He said goodnight to his staff and headed along the torch-lit path to his clifftop studio. He felt like his limbs were filled with nitrous oxide, like he could walk on the ocean and bench-press two airliners.

  Perhaps this woman who’d exploded into his world had entered his life for a reason.

  There was no time to waste. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so inspired. So certain. So liberated from constraint. What did every woman want? They wanted the confidence to be themselves. They wanted adventure. They wanted passion
. They wanted color—not a grey wasteland of neutrality.

  They wanted what Issy oozed so effortlessly.

  He rushed into his studio and stood at his drawing board on the terrace overlooking the lagoon, glancing momentarily at the crashing waves below. How ironic that the woman inspiring his creativity didn’t even know what she had. He swept his hands across the page in a drawing frenzy, abandoning all precision, all caution, all correctness—just as Issy did.

  Tearing sheets of paper off as he filled them with designs, he laughed. Instead of feeling tense, he found himself smiling as he flourished his pen across the page.

  Where once his designs had been inspired by inanimate architecture, ruled by precision and structure and rhythm—now they were inspired by the soul of a woman. He roughly sketched in uncharacteristically crazy lines. Fast. Furious—dare he admit it, fun? Each rapidly etched stroke more frenzied than the previous.

  A vivid image of Issy’s body, draped in his arms, gold shimmers sparkling across her voluptuous body, her creamy skin warmed by the moonlight rose from the page, encircling his imagination.

  He was in no doubt she was sent as a test. A test just like a recovering alcoholic on a deserted island given two precarious options—sip from her natural juices or suckle Satan’s alcoholic elixir. Yes, he sighed feeling suddenly clear sighted. She was his passion test, just as Eve was to Adam.

  His challenge was not to exploit, nor to succumb, nor would he treat her with disproportionate reverence. Whatever path their relationship took in the future, one thing was certain—he would channel everything into his work.

  The knowledge was as disconcerting as it was liberating. Disconcerting because it meant letting go of everything he’d clung to. Liberating because perhaps he could finally free himself of the past and embrace the future. To survive he must adapt. If that meant experiencing all that Issy had to give, all she had to share, all that she offered, he would accept. She would be his muse.