Bound By A One-Night Vow

He wasn’t immune to her.

The realisation was strangely thrilling. He might not like her. He might not respect her. But he sure as hell wanted her. He had resisted her seven years ago. Resisted her easily. Made her feel foolish for trying to seduce him. He’d called her a silly spoilt child playing at grown-ups.

But now he wanted her.

Izzy tucked that knowledge away and gave herself a mental high five. It gave her an edge, a bit of power in a relationship that had always been tipped in his favour in the power stakes. She gave him a look through her half-lowered lashes. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’

His eyes darkened until they were black bottomless pools of male mystery. ‘I’ll make it my business to find out.’ His voice was smooth with a base note so deep every nerve in her body trembled like a shivering leaf.

Izzy knew she was being reckless in flirting with him. Reckless and foolish. But something about the way he interacted with her always made her feel like challenging him. Pushing him. Needling him. Peeling back the carefully constructed layers of civilised man-about-town to reveal the primal man she sensed was simmering just under the surface. ‘Where shall we have dinner?’

‘I’ve booked a table at Henri’s. Eight thirty tonight.’

Izzy was annoyed she hadn’t put up more of a fight. She didn’t like thinking of herself as predictable. She had made a lifetime’s work of being anything but. How had he known she would give in? Had he been so sure of her?

Maybe because there’s less than twenty-four hours left on the deadline?

Argh. Don’t remind me.

‘Your arrogance never ceases to amaze me,’ Izzy said. ‘Does anyone ever say no to you and mean it?’

A smile flirted with the edges of his mouth. ‘Not often.’

Izzy could well believe it. She had to get her willpower back into shape. Send it to boot camp. Pump it full of steroids or something. She couldn’t allow him to manipulate her into doing what he wanted. She had to stand up to him. To show him she wasn’t like the droves of women who paraded in and out of his life. She might have slipped once, but she was older and wiser now. Older and wiser and wary of allowing him any hold over her. Of allowing any man any hold over her. She adjusted the strap of her tote bag over her shoulder and turned to leave. ‘See you later, then.’

‘Isabella?’

Izzy turned back to face him, carefully keeping her features in neutral. ‘Yes?’

His gaze drifted to her mouth and back to her eyes, holding them like a steely vice. ‘Don’t even think about not showing up.’

Izzy wondered how he could read her mind. She’d planned to leave him waiting in that restaurant to show him she wasn’t going to play whatever game he had in mind. He had probably never been stood up before. It was time he was taught a lesson and she would enjoy every second of teaching him it.

But now she had to think of another plan. She couldn’t show up at that restaurant and meekly agree to his ‘proposal’. Couldn’t. Couldn’t. Couldn’t. He was the last man she would ever consider marrying. For it was marriage he wanted, of that she was sure. She could see the ruthless determination in his eyes.

She was desperate, but not that desperate.

‘Oh, I’ll show up.’ She gave him a smile so sugar-sweet it would have made any decent dentist reach for fluoride. ‘I quite fancy a free dinner. You did say just dinner, right?’

His eyes smouldered with incendiary heat, making her insides coil and twist and tighten with need. A need she didn’t want to feel. A need she had strictly forbidden herself to feel. ‘Just dinner.’

Izzy turned and walked back along the street towards the antiques shop where she worked. She was conscious of Andrea’s gaze following her but didn’t turn back to look at him. She was quite proud of her willpower—it had made a remarkable recovery, although it had been touch and go there for a minute. But when she got to the front door of her workplace and glanced back, Andrea’s tall figure had disappeared into the crowd. Why she should be feeling disappointed she didn’t know. And nor should she care.

But somehow—annoyingly—she did.

CHAPTER TWO

‘GOSH. DO YOU need a bodyguard with you when you’re wearing that dress?’ Izzy’s flatmate, Jess, asked later that evening when she poked her head around Izzy’s bedroom door.

Izzy smoothed her hands down the front of her shimmery silver mini dress that sparkled like Christmas tinsel. ‘How do I look?’

‘Seriously, Izzy, you have amazing legs. You should give up your job selling those dusty old antiques and be a model instead.’ Jess tilted her head to one side. ‘So who’s your date? Anyone I know?’

‘Just an acquaintance.’

Jess’s eyebrows rose. ‘That’s a pretty impressive show of thigh for a mere acquaintance.’

Izzy picked up a tube of blood-red lipstick and smeared it over her lips and pressed them together to set it in place. She knew she would be risking press attention by being seen with Andrea dressed in such a way but this time she didn’t care. It would be worth it to show him she wasn’t playing by his rules. He was known for dating elegant and sophisticated women. She would be the antithesis of elegant and sophisticated dressed in this get-up. This outfit screamed party girl out for a wild time. ‘I’m teaching my...date a lesson.’

‘A lesson in what? How to look but not touch?’

Izzy recalled the firm press of Andrea’s hand with a delicate shiver. She was still trying not to think about him pinning her to a bed with his body doing all sorts of wicked things to her. ‘I’m teaching him not to be so arrogant.’ She pulled out the large Velcro rollers she’d put in her hair to give it extra volume, and finger-combed it into a cloud of curling tresses around her shoulders.

Jess sat on the edge of Izzy’s bed. ‘So, who is this guy?’

Izzy glanced at her flatmate in her dressing table mirror. She had only known Jess a few months and didn’t want to go into the details of her complicated relationship with Andrea. She picked up a pair of cheap dangly earrings and inserted them into her earlobes, then adjusted the front of her dress to boost her cleavage. ‘Just someone my father used to know.’

Jess got off the bed and came to stand next to the dressing table mirror so she could face her. ‘But isn’t this the last day before the deadline on your father’s will?’

Izzy wished she hadn’t let slip about the will in an unguarded moment a couple of nights ago over a takeout curry and a bottle of wine. It was a little lowering to admit to her friend and flatmate that her father had wanted to punish her from the grave. Her father had known how against the institution of marriage she was. She had witnessed him over-controlling her mother like a bullying tyrant until her mother hadn’t been able to decide what clothes to wear without asking him first. No way was Izzy going to allow any man that sort of power over her and especially not Andrea Vaccaro. ‘Yes, but he’s not a candidate.’

‘Are you going to forfeit your inheritance, then?’

Izzy slipped on a collection of jangling bracelets. ‘I don’t want to, but what else can I do? I can’t just walk out on the street and pick up someone to be my husband.’

Jess’s gaze drifted over Izzy’s outfit again. ‘You probably could wearing that get-up.’ She frowned again. ‘But this guy you’re meeting tonight. Why isn’t he a candidate? Has he actually said no?’

Izzy picked up a slimline evening purse and popped the lipstick tube inside and snapped it shut. ‘I haven’t asked him. And I never will. I know what I’m doing, Jess. I know how to handle men like Andrea Vaccaro.’

Jess’s eyes went as wide as the make-up compact on the dressing table. ‘You’re going on a date with Andrea Vaccaro? The hotel king Andrea Vaccaro? And you think he’s not a candidate? Are you out of your mind? That man is the world’s most eligible bachelor.’

Izzy scooped up a leather biker jacket from the bed and fed her arms through the sleeves, pulling her hair out of the back of the collar and settling it back around her shoulders. ‘He might be considered a prize catch but I don’t want him. I would rather rummage through rubbish bins and sleep under cardboard for the rest of my life than marry that arrogant, up-himself jerk.’

Jess’s brows disappeared under her fringe. ‘Wow. I’ve never seen so you...so worked up. Did something happen between you two in the past?’

Izzy did a final adjustment of her outfit. ‘He thinks he can have anyone he wants but he can’t have me.’ She smiled a confident smile. ‘Don’t worry. I know exactly how to handle him.’

* * *

Andrea hadn’t planned on being late for his dinner date with Isabella but he got caught up in traffic after a minor accident in central London. He’d sent her a text to tell her he would be a few minutes late but she hadn’t replied. Her attitude towards him was exactly the reason he was going to offer her a temporary marriage. He needed a wife. A temporary wife who wouldn’t make a fuss when he called it quits. No love-you-for-ever promises. No happy-ever-after. What he wanted was a six-month contract that would conveniently solve two problems with one brief, impersonal ceremony.

The teenage stepdaughter of an important business colleague was making things difficult for him by making no secret of her crush on him. The hotel merger he was working on would be jeopardised if he didn’t take preventative action. And because Andrea had been asked to be best man at the businessman’s upcoming wedding in a few weeks, he had to do something, and do it fast.

If it had been any other business deal he would have walked away without a qualm. There were plenty of other hotels he could buy. But this one was the one he wanted the most. Buying the hotel he’d once hung outside of as a homeless teenager looking for scraps of food made it too important to walk away. Buying that hotel in Florence—more than any other he’d bought or would buy in the future—would signify he had moved on from his difficult past.

Moved on and triumphed.

A convenient wife was what he needed and Isabella Byrne was the perfect candidate.

He figured he could help Isabella with her little dilemma while sorting out his own. Marriage was not something he had ever considered for himself. He had personally witnessed the human destruction when a match made in heaven turned into a hell on earth. He admired those who made it work and felt sorry for those for whom it failed. He enjoyed his freedom. He enjoyed the flexibility of moving from relationship to relationship without any lasting ties or responsibilities.

But he was prepared to sacrifice six months of his freedom because he wanted to nail that deal. And, more importantly, to prove he could still resist Isabella Byrne. He didn’t want to want her. It annoyed him she still had that effect on him. It was a persistent ache he’d always tried his best to ignore. He had always kept his distance out of respect to his relationship with her father. Benedict Byrne had had his faults, but Andrea would never forget how Benedict’s early help had launched him in the hotel business, allowing him to put his disadvantaged past well and truly behind him. He had worked hard to build an empire even bigger than Benedict’s. An empire that more than made up for the miserable months he’d spent living as a street kid. No one looking at him now would ever associate him with that starving and shivering youth who had fought so hard to survive a childhood of poverty and neglect.

But now his mentor was dead, Andrea figured a short-term marriage to settle the terms of Isabella’s father’s will would also give him the chance to prove once and for all he no longer suffered from the Isabella itch. The itch that had been driving him mad for the last seven years.

For as long as he’d known her she’d been acting out, bringing shame to her long-suffering father. She’d been the typical trust fund kid—spoilt, overindulged, lazy and irresponsible. Not much had changed now she was an adult. She was still wilful and defiant, with a body made for sin.

He couldn’t be in the same country as her without going hard. It irritated the hell out of him that she had that effect on him. He was no stranger to lust—he enjoyed a satisfying and active sex life. But something about the attraction he felt for Isabella unnerved him. Her feminine power over him was unlike any he’d felt before. He prided himself on his ability to control his primal urges. He had boundaries he skirted around but never crossed. It would be dangerous to compromise those boundaries by marrying her, but just this once he was prepared to risk it. He would insist on a paper marriage. A hands-off affair that would give them both what they wanted.

She had less than twenty-four hours left to find a husband. He’d spent the last three months bracing himself for the announcement of her engagement to some man she’d somehow managed to convince to marry her.

But she hadn’t found anyone.

Or maybe she hadn’t wanted to.

Not because she didn’t want the money. Andrea knew she wanted that money more than anything. How else was she going to fund her lifestyle? She had an appalling employment record. The longest she’d held down a job was a month. But as much as she wanted that money, she wanted him as her husband even less. Or so she said. She would have no choice but to marry him and she knew it, which was why he’d already sorted out the paperwork. They would be married by morning or she would lose every penny of her inheritance.

And once his ring was on her finger, and hers on his, he would be off the market, so to speak, so his business deal would be safe.

Andrea saw her as soon as he walked into the restaurant. His body had sensed her three blocks away. She was sitting in the bar area, looking like a teenage boy’s fantasy in a skin-tight silver lamé mini dress that showed the creamy length of her slim legs. She had big hair and more make-up and flashy jewellery than a drag queen. He couldn’t help a secret smile. She knew she would have to accept his proposal, but she was making it as uncomfortable as possible for him. Did she think her wild child party girl outfit was going to put him off?

She was twirling the little colourful umbrella in her cocktail but she turned on her stool as if she had sensed his arrival. Or his arousal. Or both.

Her eyes sparkled with her usual defiance. ‘You’re late.’

He perched on the stool next to her, fighting the urge to stroke a hand down the slim curve of her thigh. ‘I sent you a text.’

Her chin came up and something about the tight set of her mouth made him want to loosen it with a slow, sensual stroke of his tongue. ‘I don’t like to be kept waiting.’ The words came out as cold and hard as ice cubes.

‘Understandable since you’ve so little time left in which to find yourself a husband.’ He hooked one eyebrow upwards. ‘Unless you’ve been lucky enough to find one in the last couple of hours?’

Her glare was as arctic as her voice, making him wonder if he was going to get out of this without serious frostbite. ‘Not yet, but I haven’t given up hope.’

Andrea picked up a loose curl of her hair and twirled it around his finger, holding her gaze with his. She didn’t pull away but her throat moved up and down over a small swallow and her pupils widened like spreading pools of ink. He could smell the exotic notes of her perfume—frangipani and musk and something that was unique to her. He carefully tucked the tendril of hair behind her ear and smiled. ‘So, here we are on our first date.’

Her eyes flashed as if something exploded behind her irises. ‘First and last.’ She turned on her stool and picked up her cocktail glass and took a large sip. She put it down on the bar with a little clatter. ‘You’d better say what you came here to say and be done with it.’

‘I like your outfit.’ Andrea dipped his gaze to the delicious shadow of her cleavage. ‘I haven’t seen this much of you in years.’

Her cheeks darkened into twin pools of pink and her mouth tightened until her full lips all but disappeared. ‘I thought it’d be appropriate, given what I suspect you’re going to say to me.’

He stroked a finger along the back of her hand, the base of his spine tingling when he saw his darker skin against her creamy whiteness. He could resist her. Sure he could. But he couldn’t stop imagining her silky-smooth legs wrapped around his, her soft mouth beneath his own. His aching need driving into her warm, wet womanhood and taking them both to oblivion. ‘You need me, Isabella. Go on. Admit it. You need me so bad.’

She snatched her hand away and used her index finger to poke him in the chest, each word like a heavy punctuation mark. ‘I. Do. Not. Need. You.’

Andrea captured her hand and brought it up close to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the back of her knuckles. ‘Marry me.’

Green and blue chips of ice glittered in her gaze and the muscles in her hand contracted as if his touch burned. ‘Go fry in hell.’

He tightened his hold on her hand. ‘You’ll lose everything if you don’t find a husband by morning. Think about it, Isabella. That’s a heck of a lot of money to forfeit for the sake of six months living as my wife.’

He could see the indecision on her face—the doubts, the fears, the calculations. She had grown up surrounded by wealth. She had wanted for nothing but seemingly had been grateful for nothing. She had wasted the education her father had paid for by getting expelled numerous times for rebellious behaviour and poor academic performance. She had frittered away or sabotaged all the opportunities her father had provided. She acted like a selfish and sulky spoilt brat who had expected to inherit her father’s entire estate without doing anything to earn it. It was no wonder she hadn’t been able to find a husband willing to marry her. Her reputation was of a hell-raiser who deliberately drew negative attention to herself.

But lately Andrea had often wondered if there was more to Izzy than met the press’s eye. It was like she wanted people to think the worst of her. She took no steps to counter the negative opinions written about her in the media. It was like she was playing a role, just as she had done this evening, dressing in an eye-popping outfit that made her look like a wild child out on the town. But in spite of her garish look-at-me clothes and make-up, he could see tiny glimpses of insecurity in the way she carried herself when she thought he wasn’t looking.

Andrea knew most people wouldn’t consider her ideal wife material, but he figured any wife would be better than no wife given the urgency of his situation with his business merger and the man’s upcoming wedding. Besides, he was confident he could cope with Izzy. She was like a flighty thoroughbred in need of skilful handling.

And when it came to handling women, no one could say he wasn’t skilful.

Her eyes suddenly hardened as if her resolve had shown back up for duty. Her hand pulled out of his and she began rubbing it as if it was tingling. ‘I can think of no worse torture than to be tied to you in marriage.’

‘It will be a paper marriage.’

Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. ‘A...a paper marriage?’

‘That’s what I said.’

She blinked and then blinked again, slowly, as if her eyelids were weighted. ‘Do I have your word on that?’

He held her look. ‘Do I have yours?’

Her mouth thinned again to a flat white line. ‘You’re assuming I’m going to say yes to your proposal.’

Andrea picked up her left hand and stroked her empty ring finger. Her body trembled as if his touch triggered a tiny earthquake in her flesh. Touching her triggered the same in his. He could feel himself tightening, swelling, his blood heating with want and need. A need he would continue to ignore because when he said it was to be a paper marriage, that was exactly what it would be. Even if he had to put his desire for her in chains. And a straitjacket. ‘You don’t have any choice but to accept and you know it.’ He let her hand go and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. He handed her a velvet ring box. ‘If you don’t like it you can change it.’

Her eyes flew from the ring box to his, narrowing to slits so only her hatred shone through. ‘You were so sure I was going to accept?’

‘I’m your only chance to get your hands on that money. Even if, by some chance, you found someone at this late stage, you wouldn’t be able to marry without the necessary paperwork. I’ve seen to it. I have a lawyer and a marriage celebrant on standby. Marry me or lose everything.’

She opened the ring box and took out the diamond and sapphire ring. She spent time eyeing it, turning it this way and that. Her gaze came back to his and she gave him a tight little smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘You want me to wear this?’

‘That’s the general idea.’

She slipped off the stool, standing so close to him he could smell the fresh flowery fragrance of her hair. Her mouth was still set and her eyes as hard and blue as the diamonds and sapphires glittering in the ring. She picked up the tail of his silk tie and tugged him even closer, posting the ring down the loosened collar of his shirt. It bumped and tumbled down his chest until it lodged coldly and sharply against his stomach.

‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ She gave his stomach a little pat as if to emphasise her point.

Andrea captured her hand and held it against his abdomen, every one of his muscles contracting under her touch. ‘I’ll give you two minutes to make up your mind and then the deal is off the table. Permanently. Understood?’

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