by Betsy Swann
Maledizione! Enzo turned towards the stage. He had no choice but to deliver that speech now, followed by a dance with the teenager - and all the while Izzy was having a secret rendezvous with her lover. He was fuming inside, but there was no way out of this, no matter how much he’d have loved to storm outside and twist her neck.
Dio, what a fool he had been to fall in love with her all over again. All this time she had just played him and had, after sharing his bed, probably whispered sweet promises into Hetherington’s ears over the phone.
Through the whole of his speech Izzy and Hetherington didn’t turn up again, Enzo registered angrily. It was only while he was dancing with Ruby to the slow, romantic tune provided by the orchestra that he noticed the pair of them slipping back into the ballroom through the open terrace doors. Twenty minutes! What the hell had they been doing out there in the garden, if not kissing and canoodling?
Out of the corner of his eyes Enzo saw Izzy kindly smile at one of the waitresses, who clearly struggled with the load on her tray, and give her a hand. The warm welcome they had received at the Doria came back to his mind. This hadn’t been mere politeness or respect of the staff. He had seen it in their eyes that, without reservation, they really liked Izzy. And it was true. She could be so kind-hearted, friendly, loveable… How come a woman could have two so very different sides? One ruthless and scheming, the other one warm and gentle…
With a gallant bow he thanked Ruby for the dance and led the delighted teenager back to her family. In her blue silk dress with the glittery sprinkle of rhinestone she looked just like a fairy tale Cinderella. Somehow her dress reminded him of something, as if he’d seen it before, but he couldn’t quite fathom why it seemed so familiar. Probably it was just a similar design to all these Alice in Wonderland dresses the waiting staff had been wearing at the charity event in London.
When his phone vibrated, he excused himself and stepped outside to take the call.
‘I’ve finally got hold of the information about that penthouse flat,’ his cousin’s private investigator informed him. ‘The property is part of the Hetherington estate. Originally it had belonged to Hetherington’s mother, but two years ago ownership was transferred to Izzy Jones. She’s been living there ever since.’
Furious, Enzo slid the phone back into his jacket. He had known it. She had lied to him. Again, and again and again, right to his face.
Trust me. Please Enzo, trust me.
He shook with contempt. He had enough. This was more than he could stand. No way could he listen to her constant lies any longer. No way could he allow another fake ‘I love you’ come his way. No matter how good a designer or PA she might be, Izzy had overstayed her welcome, and this time it was for good.
***
After helping the struggling waitress with the dishes, Izzy used the opportunity to return to the penthouse suite and disappear. With the guests dancing and having a good time, nobody would notice that she had left the ball.
Slowly she took off her evening gown and put it back into the wardrobe. She had promised her brother to meet him at the Doria tomorrow morning to sign the papers that sold her hotels to Enzo Vallorini. She still had to find an excuse to steal herself away for a little while, but probably Enzo wouldn’t even care if she was there or not. The way he had behaved tonight, completely ignoring her and not even bothering to come up with an explanation, didn’t exactly raise her hopes for the future. Well, the ball was over and so was her fortnight with him in Italy, at least almost. Just a few days to go and then…
She flinched, when the door swung open.
Enzo stood in the door frame, his expression furious. ‘So that’s where you are,’ he snarled. ‘The woman, who loves me. I hope you had a nice time with your lover in the garden.’
Izzy swallowed hard. He must have seen Nick follow her onto the terrace.
‘Nick and I just went outside to have a quiet word,’ she started. ‘We really are not…’
‘Spare me your explanations and start packing,’ Enzo hissed pulling her suitcase off the rack. Boldly he lifted it onto the bed and opened the lid. ‘I’ve had enough of you and your lies, once and for all. Tonight was the last straw.’
‘Please Enzo, you must believe me…’
‘Like I must believe that Hetherington has not paid for your penthouse, when in truth it had belonged to his mother before ownership was transferred to you?’
Shivering all over with shock, Izzy watched him rip open her wardrobe and haphazardly stuff items of clothing into her suitcase.
‘Tell me, Izzy. Is that the trust you had in mind when you asked me to believe you?’ Furiously he threw a pair of sandals onto the bed spread, followed by the next.
She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘No, that’s not what I meant, but you won’t believe my explanations anyway, and you’re clearly too agitated to listen now.’
‘Quite right, I won’t listen,’ he said. ‘I should never have listened to you. Not now and not two years ago. You’re a gold-digger and a liar, Izzy, and trust me I’ll move heaven and earth to prevent Luca from committing the worst mistake of his life and marry you.’
‘Everything I told you was the truth, every word of it,’ she said, now just as angry as Enzo. ‘I do love you, no matter whether you believe it or not. There’s no need to prevent me from marrying your brother, because I told you already that I have no intention to marry him. Or Nick. Or Carson. Or anyone but you, actually. And now, if you please stop messing with my clothes and let me pack and get out of here.’
She breathed a sigh of relief when he stilled and turned towards the door. His head held high and his angry lips tightly pressed together, he left without sparing her a further glance.
So this was it, then.
Izzy wept a single tear off her cheek, blinking the other ones away that had amassed in her eyes. As if in a trance, she removed her crumpled clothes from the suitcase and almost automatically folded them neatly before putting them back into the case. A few minutes later she was done. She threw a final look around the room. Toiletries, shoes, clothes...
She was ready to go. Slowly she took her phone from her bag and dialled Nick’s number.
‘It seems like I’ve lost my job. Do you mind me joining you at the Doria tonight?’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Fuming with rage Enzo stormed out of Izzy’s room and into the lift. It had been the right move to throw her out. The only sensible thing he had done in a long while where Izzy was concerned and yet…
Hell, he needed a drink. No way could he return to the ball and mingle with the guests right now, but there was no escape. As soon as he stepped out of the lift, his personal assistant grabbed his arm and guided him straight back into the ballroom.
‘I understand a man’s desire for a drink from time to time,’ Flavia said sternly when he attempted to wriggle out of her grasp and head towards the bar. ‘But you are needed here tonight. The drink has to wait.’
Flavia was right, he ruefully admitted. As tonight’s host he had to show his face until the orchestra stopped playing. His personal problems or preferences were irrelevant.
It was hours after midnight and many a drink at the hotel bar later, when Enzo finally crossed the foyer again to go up to his suite.
‘I call it a day,’ he said to the receptionist. ‘By the way, has Miss Jones left?’
The man nodded. ‘Signorina Jones took a taxi to the Doria a few hours ago in the company of Mr Hetherington.’ He smiled. ‘What an exceptionally nice lady, always helpful and polite. Today she even treated each receptionist to a food hamper, just because the team on duty had organised something for her this morning.’
Enzo furrowed his brow. ‘What was that?’
‘I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know, but I could find out, if you’d like me to.’
‘No thank you,’ Enzo replied. ‘It’s not important.’
Nothing about Izzy was important to him anymore, he told himself as he stepped into the lift. Annoyed that
he’d asked the receptionist about her in the first place, he stabbed his finger on the top button. The only thing he had wanted to achieve with that simple question was the safe knowledge that Izzy had left, but what had he achieved instead? Agitated, he raked his hand through his hair. The insight that she had not left alone but with her lover, that’s what had come out of it, and he didn’t like it one little bit.
The total quietness that greeted him when he unlocked the door with his key card hit him like a brick. Through the open door to Izzy’s room he noticed her unused bed, and the suitcase had gone.
His mouth went dry. She had done what he’d asked. She had left, really left, and she wouldn’t be back. A feeling of utter despair caught hold of him, so black and terrible that it almost tore him apart. Weakly he leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. Nothing had ever felt as hard as this; letting go of the love of his life because there was just no hope for the future.
‘Oh Izzy, what are you doing to me?’ he whispered. ‘Why are you tormenting my like that?’
He felt tears streaming down his face, but didn’t bother to wipe them away. Dio, when had been the last time that he had cried, if ever? Tired he pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose. He shouldn’t have drunk so much. It was never a good idea to drown one’s sorrows in alcohol.
Slowly he opened his eyes again and, with a last glance at the unmade bed that was now just a watery shape behind the moisture swimming in his eyes, he staggered into his bedroom. Maybe a cold shower would help him get out of his misery.
Like every night, he was dreaming about Izzy. The cold shower had done absolutely nothing for his state of mind or his libido, and now he found himself caught in an erotic dream where Izzy played the starring role. Sleepily, Enzo blinked his eyes and pushed the sheets off his hot body, trying to focus. There she was again, looking at him from the end of his bed and, Dio, was she beautiful.
He shuddered when the lemony scent of her shampoo hit his nostrils. This dream was so real that he could even smell her hair. His gaze drowned in the blue depth of her eyes and the tempting curve of her lips. When she pushed a silvery strand of hair behind her ear, the alluring twinkle of her diamond earrings caught his glance in the semi-darkness, and Enzo was hit by the urge to touch her. Longing to feel the sweet softness of her skin once again, he stretched out his hand.
Instantly the vision retreated and turned towards the door.
‘Don’t leave, Izzy,’ he begged. ‘Please stay with me.’
She turned to face him again, her blue eyes huge in the moonlight shining through the window.
‘Please touch me,’ he whispered. ‘Come and kiss me one last time.’
Slowly, hesitantly she came closer and stopped next to him by the edge of the bed.
‘Kiss me, Izzy,’ he repeated taking her hand. ‘Please, Izzy, I need you so.’
Her fingers felt warm and soft, and lovingly he pulled her closer, into his arms.
‘Enzo…,’ he heard her soft whisper. ‘Enzo…’
Their lips met, and he had never felt more love, more desire, more everything in one single kiss. Caught in the blissful feeling of the moment, he closed his eyes again. It was the half bottle of whisky he had enjoyed that made this dream feel so real, he knew, but what a beautiful dream this was!
Greedily he let his tongue slide into the soft moisture of her mouth, and instantly she kissed him back with sweet passion as if she couldn’t help herself as well. As if she were just as caught up in this love for all eternity as he was.
‘Oh Enzo, I love you so much,’ the vision whispered, her hands stroking his hair. ‘Why can’t you love me back?’
His mouth breezed a hundred tiny kisses over her face, her neck, her collarbone until it finally found the soft swell of her breasts under her wrap dress. Swiftly he opened the bow tie that held the front panels together and pushed the gown over her shoulders so that it fell on the floor in a silky puddle.
Adoringly he caressed her breasts through the delicate lace fabric of her bra. Giving a soft moan, she let her hands glide to the clasp and let the garment slide onto the bed. Her lips trembling with need, she arched against him and offered him the pale pink tips of her nipples.
‘You’re so beautiful, the most beautiful woman in the world,’ he groaned against the silky skin of her breasts and hungrily started to suckle first one quivering tip, then the other. ‘I love the way your breasts fit into my hands, the way they swell under my caresses…’
She let her fingers move across the broad expanse of his chest, each sweet touch followed by a lingering kiss with her full soft lips. When her mouth found his nipples, suckling them softly and teasing them with her pearly white teeth, Enzo felt all blood drain from his brain.
‘Dio,’ he uttered. ‘You’re killing me.’
With a soft sexy laugh she let her hand glide further down his strong lean body and between his legs to encircle his hot throbbing erection. With agonisingly slow movements her fingers slid up and down his engorged shaft, enthralling him more and more in the hungry desire to be one with her.
‘So tell me,’ she whispered while straddling him between her legs and positioning herself on top of his aching hardness. ‘Do you really hate me so much?’
Dreamily he looked at the vision. Her lips were slightly parted and shone moist and tempting in the moonlight as if they were holding some eternal promise. Her skin was soft, so soft, with this special glow about it that he had noticed so often before, and her eyes… Enzo couldn’t even begin to rave about their beauty. Their blue colouring was exquisite and their expression so warm and innocent and so truly misleading.
‘I love you more than anything,’ he whispered. ‘But I hate you, because you’re a liar.’
Silently she led herself sink onto his straining shaft until the soft wet heat of her womanly centre fully encompassed him and started to rock her hips up and down, matching his fluid movements.
He closed his eyes in sheer bliss, and together they travelled closer and closer to paradise. He was lost. Lost in this vision of the woman he loved. Lost in the touch of her hands, the scent of her skin, the softness of her mouth and the sweet moist warmth of her excitement.
Plunging hard into her tight wet womanhood, he felt her muscles clench and heard her breathing accelerate until she finally convulsed around him in wonderful waves of sheer ecstasy. Only then did he allow himself to explode within her and spill his hot seed into her pulsating core with a harsh groan of masculine satisfaction.
His cheeks were wet again, he realised, but there she was kissing his tears away.
‘Please, Enzo,’ she begged, her hands stroking a wet lock from his forehead. ‘If you find it in you, please, please believe me. I will never marry Luca, and I have never loved or looked at anyone but you.’ Her soft lips breezed across his own, their touch as light as a feather. ‘Please, Enzo. Please trust your heart…’
He kept his eyes shut, feeling thoroughly sated and savouring the moment of being here with her, in his bed. And then it hit him that she didn’t need to worry. That he loved her, truly genuinely loved her with all his heart. So much that he couldn’t help himself but believe her.
He opened his eyes to tell her, but he found himself alone in his bedroom. The vision had gone.
***
This had been a mistake. Breathing heavily Izzy leaned her forehead against the cool mirrored glass wall of the lift. A stupid, stupid mistake but then again, since when was it a mistake to make love to the man you love?
Thankfully the night porter had been busy with a late night phone enquiry, when she had returned to the ‘Vallorini’, so she had been able to quietly slip past him unnoticed. When she had left the hotel a few hours earlier, the same porter had been sitting there, kindly thanking her for the food hampers she’d sent down to reception. It had just been a small token of appreciation. After all, one of the team had organised the professional sewing machine she had required to make Ruby’s ball gown. The receptionist h
ad exchanged a few kind words with her when she checked out and had even ordered a taxi for Nick and her to bring them to the Doria, so that she had forgotten to hand in her key card. Which was a lucky coincidence given that a few hours later, after she had booked her return flight to London for the following morning, she had realised that her passport must still be in the bedside table in her bedroom at the ‘Vallorini’.
There was nothing she could do but return to Enzo’s penthouse suite and retrieve the document. She had entered the hall and not dared to switch on the light, because there was no beam of light shining from under Enzo’s bedroom door. He must already be asleep, she had assumed, and had tiptoed towards her room in the hope not to wake him – but then, when she had just retrieved the passport from the bedside table, she heard the lift arrive with a loud ‘ping’.
Enzo!
Izzy had been too shocked to think about the best course of action. Instinctively she had dived under the bed and prayed that Enzo wouldn’t discover her there. At their last encounter he had made it clear enough that he didn’t want to see her again. Never and under no circumstances, and this certainly included break-ins way past midnight, even for a more than harmless reason. Izzy felt her heartbeat accelerate when Enzo stepped into the entrance hall and stayed rooted to the spot in front of the open door to her room. What if he saw her? He wouldn’t take it well to find her hidden under the bed. She could spare herself the explanations in case she got discovered, her gut feeling told her. There was no reason to beat about the bush. He wouldn’t believe her passport story anyway.
And then she noticed the tears.
Izzy sighed. When she had seen the state he was in, she hadn’t been able to leave him like that. She just had to quietly slip into his room a good while after he’d switched off his bedroom lights to check on him. And to glance at him one last time before she never saw him again. She’d been treading extra carefully and had held her breath as not to disturb his sleep, but for some cruel twist of fate he had opened his eyes anyway and looked right into hers.