Page 14 of Bound By The Italian’s 'I Do'

He blinked, then blinked again, certain he must be seeing things.

The image of two young women, faces pressed together, smiling for the camera, remained.

The pulse at the side of his jaw throbbing, head pounding as he tried to make sense of something that absolutely did not make sense, he went into her messages.

The last of his euphoria died at the exact same moment his screen faded into nothing. Cloning Issy’s phone had drained his battery.

But he’d seen enough.

This was no hustle.

This was a deliberate, targeted attack.

CHAPTER FOUR

ISSYTOUCHEDUPher lip gloss with a shaking hand. She needed to touch up her eyeliner but was too scared of stabbing herself in the eye to dare.

The lip gloss dropped from her hand and clattered in the sink. She clutched her flushed cheeks and gazed at her reflection. Her eyes had a fevered brightness to them. It was nothing to what was going on inside her.

Her heart was a pulsating mess, her limbs weak, her stomach as tight a knot as she’d ever known it. Between her legs...

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to fill her lungs.

Okay, so she wasn’t immune to Gianni’s animal magnetism. No point in denying it. The main thing to remember was that she’d come to her senses before the situation had got even close to getting out of hand.

The situation that entailed Gianni turning her into flames.

What did flames do? They burned the object into ashes.

She’d kept control of the situation. She’d dealt with it.

But, heaven help her, her body still felt scorched in all the places they’d bound themselves so tightly together.

She could still feel his mouth devouring hers.

As part of all her preparation for this, she should have found some men to practice kissing with. Maybe then she’d have developed some immunity to the act and wouldn’t have turned into a molten flame for him.

A careful swipe of bronzer against her cheeks and a fresh sarong around her, and she was ready to face him again. As ready as she’d ever be.

She found Gianni at the dining table, leaned back in his seat, casually drinking lager from a bottle so cold rivulets of condensation dripped down it. Not until he rose to his feet did she realise he had a towel wrapped around his waist. A quick dart of her eyes to where they’d been sitting found his swim shorts drying on the back of a chair. His canvas shorts were where he’d left them earlier.

A pulse throbbed between her legs. Beneath that towel, Gianni was naked.

‘Everything okay?’ he asked.

She nodded and smiled brightly. ‘Just needed to freshen up. I hope you’re hungry—Chef’s made us a feast.’

His gaze held hers then drifted slowly down her bikini-clad body. ‘I’m ravenous.’

Their first course was a fire roasted tomato soup Issy had loved since she was a little girl but had never been able to re-create for herself. The French chef must have sought an authentic Italian recipe for it because it was even better than she’d tasted as a child.

‘Don’t you eat bread?’ Gianni asked, nodding at the freshly made bread roll she’d left on her side plate.

She shook her head and offered it to him, then tried not to salivate when he ripped it in two and slathered each piece with butter.

Not long, she consoled herself. Not long until she could bury her face in an ocean of carbs and not care that they all landed straight on her hips. She could heap a spoonful of sugar into her coffeeanda dollop of cream if she wanted. She could buy herself a huge bar of hazelnut chocolate and eat it all in one sitting.

She’d been hungry for two whole years. She could wait a few days more. She would celebrate Gianni and his equally abhorrent cousin’s destruction by indulging herself in all the delicious foods and treats she’d had to deny herself to maintain the stick insect look.

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