Page 14 of Bound by a One-Night Vow

There was going to be no such moment.

Izzy straightened her spine as if she were the star student at deportment school. ‘If you think I’m going to get in that bed with you and allow you to touch me, think again. If you so much as lay one finger on me I will scream so loud your staff will have to replace all the chandeliers. And the windows. In the entire hotel.’

Andrea gave a low deep chuckle. ‘I have no problem with a little screaming coming from my bedroom. The louder the better.’

Izzy spun away to stand stiffly in front of one of the windows. She couldn’t allow him to do this to her—reduce her to a tantrum-throwing termagant. She had to act cool and unmoved by his attempt to unsettle her. She had to call his bluff. He was doing this to needle her. He knew how much she hated him. He was trying to get the upper hand in their relationship. And she was handing him free points every time she reacted like a spoilt child.

She had to think of another tactic—another way to outsmart him. Think. Think. Think.

Izzy took a calming breath and turned around to face him. ‘All right. You win. We share the bed. But I should warn you I’m a terribly restless sleeper.’

His expression showed no apparent satisfaction that she’d changed her mind, but she couldn’t help wondering what was going on behind the screen of his impenetrable gaze. ‘Perhaps I can find a way to relax you, sì?’

Izzy turned away before he saw the longing she was trying to suppress. Why was he the only man who could do this to her? Make her angry and aroused in equal measure. ‘I’m going to have a shower.’ She turned for the master bedroom and its en suite bathroom.

‘What about dinner?’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘You might change your mind after your shower,’ Andrea said. ‘I’ll order something for you.’

Izzy closed the bedroom door by way of answer. She leaned back against it with a heavy sigh, wondering how she was going to get through a whole night sleeping beside Andrea. It was like asking a chocolate addict to spend the night in a chocolate factory. How would she stop herself from touching him? And what if he touched her? He only had to look at her to get her hot and bothered.

What had happened to her defences?

To her resolve?

She moved away from the bedroom door and went to the luxurious en suite. The bathroom was decked out in marble with the same blue-grey tones of the bedroom, teamed with a white freestanding bath and twin basins with stunning ornate silver-trimmed mirrors. Soft fluffy towels as big as blankets were on the silver towel rails and more were rolled stylishly on a glass shelf. The shower was so big it could have housed an entire football team, and it had a large square rainwater showerhead. The bathroom smelt of exotic essential oils and there were bottles of the Vaccaro signature toiletries positioned on the marble counter near the basin and more in the shower and next to the bath. Two blue-grey bathrobes hung on silver hooks on the back of the door, and Izzy couldn’t help wondering who had been the last woman to spend the night with Andrea here.

Izzy stripped off her clothes and stepped under the shower, tilting her head back so the water could wash over her as if she were standing in a waterfall in a rainforest. She was no stranger to luxury. While she was growing up, her father had always insisted on staying at the best hotels because he believed a businessman of his status deserved the best. But something about Andrea’s hotel had more than just over-the-top luxury. It had class. Sophistication. Understated glamour. The simplicity of design and detail hinted at a man who liked and appreciated the good things in life but was not one to flash his wealth around in a status-seeking manner.

Once she’d finished showering, Izzy dried off and dressed in her nightgown and slipped on one of the bathrobes. She roughly dried her hair using the hairdryer she found in one of the bathroom drawers and then scooped it loosely on top of her head in a makeshift ponytail. She looked at her make-up-free face and wondered if she should put on some cosmetic armour, but then decided against it. She wasn’t out to impress him. What did it matter if she didn’t look anything like his gorgeous and sophisticated bed buddies?

She. Did. Not. Care.

Izzy came out of the bathroom to find the suite empty apart from a dinner trolley that was set up next to the dining table off the sitting room. She did a quick search of the rest of the suite but there was no sign of Andrea. She went back to the dinner trolley and lifted the silver domes off to see if he had eaten anything but the delicious-looking food was untouched. There wasn’t a note left anywhere and when she checked her phone there was no text message either. If he was so keen to keep up appearances, then why wasn’t he in the suite with her?

Izzy leaned down to smell the food and momentarily closed her eyes in bliss. There was a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket, desserts under another lid, fresh fruit and a cheese plate under another. There were little savoury pastries and tartlets and some crab cakes and fresh oysters. A seafood dish that was fragrant with lemongrass and lime and chilli and coconut milk was in another dish with a bowl of fluffy jasmine rice flecked with coriander. It was a feast of her fantasies and she was suddenly so hungry she felt faint. She looked at her phone, wondering if she should call or text Andrea to see where he was but decided against it. She didn’t want to start acting like a suspicious wife, checking up on his whereabouts.

Why should she care where he was?

There was a message on her phone from her flatmate, Jess, who had apparently seen something on Twitter about Izzy and Andrea’s surprise marriage. It was a little shocking to realise how quickly the news had travelled. Izzy texted back to say she would be moving out but not to worry about the rent because Andrea had promised to pay out the lease. Even as she typed the words, she realised how much control she had handed to him. He was paying her bills, sorting out everything for her like she had no mind of her own.

Izzy put down her phone and sighed. She would have to suck it up because the only way she could get her grandparents’ house back was to abide by the terms of her father’s will. The allowance Andrea had offered to pay her would help, so too would the money her father had stipulated would be paid to her upfront upon her marriage, but the full balance would not be in her hands until the six months was up. She had already spoken to the current owners and they had graciously agreed to hold back from putting the house on the market until December. She’d had to make them an offer they couldn’t refuse to get them to hold off selling but she didn’t care how much it cost her.

Buying back her grandparents’ house was a way to right the wrongs of the past—a way to honour her mother and her brother by bringing back what should never have been taken away.

* * *

Andrea sat in his office on the first floor of the hotel and sorted out a couple of issues his manager had brought to his attention. He knew he could have just as easily seen to them in the morning, but he felt the need to clear his head. Izzy’s response to him in the elevator had made him realise the electric heat that fired between them. He became like a horny teenager when he was with her. She excited him like no other woman. There was a dangerous element to what he felt about her. The raw desire that pumped in his blood pushed him into a place he had never allowed himself to go before now.

He wanted her so badly it was all he could think about. How much he wanted to drive himself into her moist heat. How he wanted to hear her scream his name. How he wanted to feel her come apart around him.

He’d contained his lust for her for years. For years he’d thrown himself into work, pummelled the forbidden desire out of him by long punishing hours, driven himself to achieve what others only dreamed about. He had everything money could buy. He had achieved more than he had set out to achieve.

He wasn’t after the happy-ever-after package. And Izzy was certainly not the woman to give it to him. Her negative attitude to marriage was his safety hatch—the escape route so that when the six months was up he could walk away without a qualm. It was a means-to-an-end marriage. A mutually satisfying arrangement that would give them both what they wanted. He’d been rethinking his paper marriage stance. Why shouldn’t he indulge his desire for her and hers for him? It was clear they wanted each other. The way she’d responded to him in the elevator proved that she wasn’t immune to him any more than he was to her.

She would get her inheritance and he would get her.

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