Page 34 of Bound By The Italian’s 'I Do'

Issy’s cabin phone rang. She glared at it. She’d spent the last hour locked away in here glaring at it, hating it for its refusal to dial out of the yacht. It was taking everything she had to maintain her fury because she knew the minute it started leaching out of her, terror for her sister was going to grab her.

Scrambling across the bed she’d been glaring at the phone from, she lifted the receiver and snapped, ‘Yes?’

‘Miss Seymore?’

Recognising the captain’s voice, she closed her eyes and strove for a gentler tone. Much as she wanted to scream and shout at him, the captain had only been obeying orders from his real boss. ‘Yes, Captain Caville. What can I do for you?’

‘I thought you should know we’ll be docking in twenty minutes.’

‘Where?’

‘St Lovells.’

‘Is that an island?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve never heard of it...but thank you for letting me know.’

‘You’re welcome.’ He hesitated before adding, ‘My apologies again for the confusion about the wedding papers.’

But no apology for leading her on and letting her believe she’d chartered thePalazzo delle Festefor real when all the time he was working under Gianni’s orders.

The entire crew worked for Gianni. The yacht belonged to Gianni. He’d played her like a puppet-master with sole control of the strings.

Oh, why hadn’t she listened to her gut when David had shown her thePalazzo delle Feste? On some basic level that went beyond fear of not being able to pull off Silicon Valley or oligarch rich, she’d known the yacht was too much for what she needed. She’d known the charter was worth far too much for David to hand it over for free.

Desperation had made her ignore her gut. The window for her and Amelia to enact their revenge would only stay open for a strictly limited time and, once closed, the opportunity would likely never come again.

She’d ruined everything.

Putting the receiver back in its cradle, Issy covered her face. She mustn’t cry. Not yet. Just as she wouldn’t allow herself to think of how deeply wounded...broken... Gianni had left her last night. The tears would have to wait. The only thing she could allow herself to focus on was escaping Gianni. Once she’d accomplished that, she’d find a way to contact Amelia, not to warn her—she knew in her heart it was too late for that—but to make sure she was okay. That she was safe.

Both Rossi cousins were ruthless but it was Alessandro Issy found the most frightening. Unlike his cousin who the press adored, Alessandro stayed firmly out of the spotlight and so there were very few pictures of him online. Those there were showed a handsome but darkly menacing-looking man, the kind you crossed at your peril. His face perfectly matched the image Issy had conjured for him all those years ago when he and Gianni had walked out of their family home with all the swagger of a couple of gangsters who’d put a bullet in their mortal enemy. As far as Issy was concerned, they might as well have done. At least it would have spared her father a year of torment.

When she’d first seen a picture of Gianni, it had taken her a while to compute that the handsome man smiling so gregariously at the camera could be the same man who’d done and said such cruel things to her father. She’d had no such issue with Alessandro.

For all that, she’d thought Amelia was safe working for the Rossi cousins. Rossi Industries employed a hundred thousand people. Of course, only a fraction of them worked at The Ruby, the moniker given due to the pink tinge of the magnificent skyscraper the Rossi cousins had created in the heart of London as their head office, but there was safety in numbers.

Issy’s negligence had put her sister in danger. She must have been negligent and overlooked something, or how could Gianni have got the measure of her so quickly?

Peering out of her cabin window, her spirits lifted the tiniest of fractions to see the small island they were sailing to. Very small. Too small for an airport but if it was big enough to dock a yacht of this size then that had to be a good thing. Her spirits lifted a fraction more to catch glimpses of pretty dwellings amongst the thick palms and verdant topography. Human life. Hopefully there would be an airfield with small charter planes. If not, there would be boats. She had emergency cash for this exact purpose. She’d known from the start that when her job was done, she’d need to make a quick escape.

It killed her to know the job would never be done. She’d blown it.

She waited until the yacht docked before slipping her feet into her rose-pink flips-flops—she would never wear heels again—and unlocked her cabin door. Satisfied the corridor was empty, she wheeled her suitcase down it. If she could make it to the metal stairs that would be unfolded for them onto the jetty without bumping into Gianni, there was a good chance she’d be able to reach safety without any further interaction with him.

The sun was high when she stepped out onto the deck, a warm breeze immediately blowing her hair around her face. She wished she’d kept her hair tied back in the ponytail, wished too that hadn’t chucked her shades in her suitcase. She didn’t want to waste time searching for them, not when escape was so close.

Members of the crew stood at the top of the stairs. Part of her wanted to snarl at them like a wounded cat, but she knew that impulse was unfair. Not only was Gianni their boss but his magnetism was such that even she’d come close to falling under his spell, so she fixed a smile to her face and thanked them for taking such good care of her.

About to take the first step on the stairs, a shift in the atmosphere made her hesitate. Despite the promise she’d made to herself to just leave and not look back, she turned her head before she could stop herself.

Gianni had appeared.

The punch to her heart was even stronger than the punch that had come close to flooring her when he’d joined her for breakfast.

In three long strides he was at her side and enveloping her in a fresh cloud of his gorgeous cologne. ‘Let me take that for you,’ he said. Before she had time to react he’d lifted the suitcase from her hand and set off down the steps and onto the jetty.

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