Page 48 of Bound By The Italian’s 'I Do'

‘I can’t wait to unwrap it on my birthday.

‘I’ll need to use a whole tree’s worth of wrapping paper,’ she said, and used all her strength to chuck the ball at him and laughed with glee when her aim finally came good and the ball bounced off his head.

‘You did that on purpose!’ he accused, scooping the ball up and tucking it under his arm.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

He strode through the water towards her. ‘You have an evil streak in you.’

Giggling, she waded backwards, trying to escape him. ‘Only when it comes to beach balls.’

He held the ball above his head, eyes gleaming as he loomed down on her. Having such long legs and only being thigh-high in the water meant he’d closed the gap far quicker than she’d been able to flee. But instead of dropping the ball on her head, he threw it aside and then, with a speed and grace that had no place on a man of his size, lifted her by the waist and threw her in the air.

She landed backside first with a squeal, kicking feet and flailing arms submerging at the same time as her face went under. Rising back to the surface, trying her hardest not to laugh, a task made harder by the throaty, uproarious sounds coming out of Gianni’s mouth, she half crawled to him and grabbed his calves.

‘You think you can knock me over?’ he mocked, and in a flash he had her by the waist again and for the second time in less than two minutes, Issy was flying in the air and landing with a splash. When she resurfaced, the ball was in reach. Grabbing it, she threw it at him and got him on the forehead.

‘Oh, that does it,’ he said with a shake of his head, now wading towards her like a panther on the prowl.

By now breast height in the water, Issy, cackling with laughter, tried to swim away from him. She’d barely managed three strokes when he captured an ankle and pulled her under. She came up for air with a splutter, only to be bodily lifted from the sea by a single arm wrapped around her waist and carried to the beach.

Laughing too hard to scream or pretend any form of protest, the most she could do was slap feebly at his shoulders when he laid her down on the sand.

‘I just saved your life!’ he admonished sternly, which only made the absurdity of it all funnier. ‘Now stop laughing so I can give you the kiss of life.’

Clamping her lips together so stop any more giggles coming out, Issy immediately played dead.

The expected kiss took much longer to press against her expectant lips than she’d anticipated. She peered through one eye to see what the hold-up was and found Gianni gazing down at her with an expression in his eyes that made her heart clench. Breaking character, she pressed a hand to his cheek and rubbed her palm against his beard. He captured the hand and kissed it reverently. ‘You’re beautiful, did you know that?’

Her chest filled with an emotion she didn’t understand but which was thick enough to cramp her lungs. ‘You make me feel beautiful,’ she whispered.

‘You are beautiful, Isabelle, and I want you to promise me you will never starve yourself again.’

She thought of the meals they’d shared these last six days, how happiness and wonderful sex had increased her appetite, how her bikinis—literally the only clothing she’d worn since they’d become lovers—were already feeling tight at the hips. The emotions filling her swelled even more. ‘I starved myself to entrap you.’

He kissed her hand again. ‘I’d already guessed that. And I can guess why you felt you needed to do that and to dye your beautiful hair.’ He shook his head tightly. ‘None of those women were real to me, Issy.’

‘What do you mean?’

Gianni took a breath and tried to collate his thoughts. ‘They were status symbols, like my penthouses, the watches I wear, the cars I drive or have driven for me. A way for me to flaunt the man I’d become to my father.’

She just stared at him.

‘I’ve not seen him since we left Umbria,’ he explained quietly. ‘I never want to see him again.’

She threaded her fingers into his and squeezed.

‘We knew, Alessandro and I, that changing our surname from theirs would hit them where it hurt the hardest.’

‘Their egos?’ she guessed.

He smiled at her astuteness. ‘I know it must kill my father to see my success and know his place in my history has been severed. I wanted him to see me with the best of everything the world has to offer and not even be able to take credit for my name.’

‘And the best of everything included women?’

‘Yes,’ he agreed unflinchingly. It was only now, speaking it aloud, that Gianni understood how shallow and, yes, misogynistic his attitude to the women in his personal life had been. ‘If I had passed you as you were two years ago in a street I would never have looked twice at you. I wanted what I believed was the male dream; the killer supermodel on my arm and in my bed.’

He deserved the hurt and distaste curling Issy’s mouth, and gently tightened his hold on her hand to stop her pulling it away.

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