Page 9 of Bound by a One-Night Vow

His expression showed no tension but she could sense it all the same. He was a master at cloaking his feelings, but something about the way he was holding his body suggested he wasn’t quite as in control as he would like. ‘The kiss, you mean?’ His eyes drifted to her mouth as if he were remembering every pulse-racing second of when it had been crushed beneath his. His eyes came back to hers but they now had a hard sheen as if an internal screen had come up. His top lip curled over a slow but cynical smile. ‘I thought we agreed our marriage was a paper one. Or are you keen to shift the goalposts?’

Izzy affected a laugh but even to her ears it didn’t sound convincing—kind of like a mortician trying to be a clown. She handed him back his phone, careful not to touch him in the process. ‘In your dreams, Vaccaro.’

‘You will address me by my Christian name or a term of endearment when we’re in public.’ His voice had a note of stern authority that made her bristle like a cornered cat. ‘I will not have you imply to anyone that our relationship is not a normal one. Do you understand?’

Izzy glanced at the driver, who was behind a glass soundproof screen. She turned back to look at Andrea, anger a bubbling, blistering brew in her belly. ‘You think you can make me do what you want? Think again. You didn’t marry a doormat.’

‘No. I married a spoilt brat who doesn’t know how to behave like a grown woman of twenty-five.’ His smile had gone and in its place was a white line of tension. ‘We can fight all we like in private, but in public we will behave as any other married couple who love and are committed to each other.’

Izzy folded her arms to stop herself from slapping that stern schoolmasterly expression off his face. ‘And what if I don’t?’

He held her gaze for a long beat. ‘If either of us walks out of this marriage before the six months is up, you will be the one to lose. It’s in your interests to keep me invested in this. I have much less at stake.’

Izzy frowned so hard she would have frightened off a dose of Botox. ‘What exactly do you get out of this marriage? You’ve never actually told me your motivations.’ It shamed her that she hadn’t asked before now. Not that there had been much time to do so, but still. It made her look foolish and naïve. And the last thing she wanted to appear in front of him was foolish and naïve.

He slipped his phone into the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘My reasons are quite simple. It suits my ends to be married for a few months.’ He gave her a tight no-teeth smile that wasn’t quite a smile. ‘Your situation was timely. We both needed to be temporarily married and here we are.’

‘But...but why me?’

He shrugged one broad shoulder. ‘Better the devil you know.’

You don’t know me. Izzy swallowed back the words. She didn’t want him to know her... Did she? She shook off the thought and refocused. ‘What do you think people are going to think of us being married? The press and so on? It’s not like we’ve been seen together other than at some of my father’s functions. And his funeral hardly counts. You barely spoke a word to me.’

‘I’ve already informed the press.’ He patted his phone in his pocket. ‘They’ll be waiting for us when we get back to the restaurant.’

Izzy’s mouth dropped open, panic gouging a hole in her chest. ‘But I can’t face them dressed like this! What will everyone think?’

His smile had a hint of malice. ‘You should have thought of that before.’

She sat forward on her seat and tapped at the glass separating the driver from the back. ‘Pull over, please.’

The uniformed driver looked to Andrea for verification. ‘Sir?’

‘Drive on,’ Andrea said, leaning forward to close the panel.

‘No. You will not drive on.’ Izzy reached for the panel again but Andrea caught her arm. ‘Let go of me. I want to get out. This is kidnap. This is abduction. This is—’

‘This is the bed you made and now you’ll lie on it.’ His fingers were like a steel bracelet around her wrist, but his thumb found her pulse and moved over it in mesmerising little circles that made it hard for her to think. His eyes were dark—impossibly, impenetrably dark.

Izzy wet her bone-dry lips, her heart thumping as if she were having some sort of medical event. Even her legs felt woolly and useless. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t allow him to make a fool of her. She would have to try another tactic. She pulled out of his hold and put a hand to her head, rubbing at her tight temples. ‘Please, Andrea. Could I go home and change first? Henri’s is such an upmarket restaurant. I didn’t realise tonight would end like this. It’s all happened so quickly and I—’

‘You’ve had three months to find yourself a husband.’

She steepled her hands against her nose and mouth, taking a deep calming breath. She didn’t want to disgrace herself in front of him. To show how vulnerable she really was. She had to be strong. Strong and invincible, otherwise she would break and she wouldn’t be able to put herself together again.

She had skated too close to the abyss before.

Terrifyingly close.

She had worked hard to get herself strong again.

Must not cry. Must not cry. Must not cry.

‘I know...but I kept putting it off,’ Izzy said. ‘I was frightened of making a mistake...marrying the wrong man or something, one who wouldn’t agree to the six-month time limit and make things even more impossible than they already are.’ She lowered her hands and looked at him again. ‘I mean, it’s not exactly a normal situation, is it? How many fathers would do this to their only daughter? Their only remaining child?’

He studied her for a moment. ‘Your father loved you but you constantly disappointed him. It grieved him terribly that you didn’t make more of an effort with all the opportunities he gave you.’

Izzy closed her eyes in a slow blink and sat back heavily against her seat. ‘That’s me all right. One big disgusting disappointment.’ She released a shuddering sigh. ‘Go me.’

---