Page 32 of Bound By The Italian’s 'I Do'

His confession came from nowhere. ‘I know who you are.’

CHAPTER NINE

ISSYWASSOconsumed with the incredible feelings building on the tendrils of her climax and heightened anticipation for Gianni to take that final step and take possession of her that his words simply bounced like music through her head.

She wanted to experience everything, feel everything, lose herself in the hedonism of Gianni’s touch...

But he was no longer moving. The fusion that would take her to heaven had stopped before it had properly started.

‘Is something wrong?’ she whispered, brushing her lips over his, trying to discern why his eyes were squeezed so tightly shut and his jaw clenched.

He breathed heavily through his nose before his eyes opened. His throat moved before he hoarsely repeated, ‘I know who you are.’

Understanding seeped slowly into her dazed brain, and she had to blink a number of times to help clear it. ‘You know...?’

‘I know you’re Thomas Seymore’s daughter.’

But still her brain refused to fully comprehend. His words made no sense... Not until ice began to creep its way up her spine and through her chest, and the breaths she’d struggled to find in the throes of passion became lodged in her throat and lungs.

The dazedness in her head melted and swam, white lights flickering, the ice in her body spreading until comprehension hit her fully and the breath exploded out of her. Slamming her fists against his chest, Issy pulled her thighs up and together, then twisted to one side and dropped off the table. Her feet slammed onto the floor, but she’d forgotten she was still wearing the stupidly high sandals and her ankle buckled at the impact, making her fall.

In an instant he was at her side, concern written all over his face.

Frantically trying to cover her modesty with the dress that until moments ago had been bunched around her waist, she huddled into herself. ‘Get away from me.’

‘Issy...’

She wanted to spit in his face. ‘I said get away from me. Get out. Get out now.’

‘Issy, please...’

‘Get out!’ she screamed, losing all control of herself. ‘Get out, get out, getout!’

His broad shoulders rose and his chin lifted. Tension lined his face and made his body appear carved from stone.

She couldn’t bear to look at him a moment longer and buried her face in her knees. She thought she might be sick.

As much as she tried to tune him out, she was acutely aware of movement around her and stiffened when a breeze feathered over her bowed head and the slightest pressure brushed against her hair.

She sensed rather than heard Gianni leave the games room. The emptiness he left in his wake confirmed he’d gone.

Gianni splashed cold water on his face and tried to regulate his breathing. Guilt pulsed strongly inside him.

Gripping tightly to the sink, he dragged air into his lungs and tried to banish the image of Issy, humiliated and vulnerable, huddled on the floor.

The game they’d been playing had come to its conclusion but he’d been incapable of playing the final round.

He knew he’d done nothing wrong.Hewas the innocent party in all this. Issy had been playing him long before their first encounter, a meetingshe’dengineered. Everything that had followed had been by her design. Everything. She’d played herself off as a socialite party girl and seduced him with her eyes and words. She’d even blagged his own yacht as a prop for her game. All he’d done was play along. Even when he’d learned her true identity and discovered she’d set all this up as part of a plan to destroy him and his cousin, the worst he’d done was hide her phone.

Yes. He was the innocent party in all this so why he should have had that awful paralysis of guilt when they were finally acting on the desire that had sparked at their very first meeting was inexplicable. And why he should still feel that guilt lying so heavily inside him was doubly so.

Issy peeked out of her cabin’s curtains. The sun was rising, the last remaining stars twinkling before daylight extinguished them. ThePalazzo delle Festewas already cutting its way through the Caribbean Sea.

She took a deep breath and put an internal call—the only calls her cabin phone could make—through to the captain.

By the time the call ended, despair had her in its grip.

The marriage papers were already lodged with the ministry.

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