Page 17 of Bound by a One-Night Vow

‘Was he ever...violent?’ He stumbled over the word and all its ugliness.

‘Only once.’ Her eyes flashed with bitterness. ‘He slapped me across the face when I was fourteen, soon after my mother died of cancer. The irony is that I told him much the same he told me. I told him I wished he’d been the one to die instead of my mother. He never hit me after that but the threat he might do so again was always there.’

Andrea was shocked and ashamed he hadn’t picked up earlier on the Byrne family dynamics. He’d met her father in Italy twenty years ago, not long after the tragedy of Hamish’s diagnosis of terminal bone cancer. When Benedict found Andrea begging for food on the streets, he’d been exactly the same age as the son and heir Benedict had just buried. Fourteen. There was a part of Andrea that had always wondered if Benedict would have given him the leg up he had if it hadn’t been for the loss of his son. But he had been so grateful for the help he never questioned the motives behind it.

‘I’m sorry you went through such treatment at the hands of someone who was supposed to love and protect you,’ Andrea said. ‘I only knew your father as a generous man who liked making a difference in people’s lives. But I realise all people have shadow sides. But he kept his hidden far better than most.’

‘So you...believe me?’ The note of uncertainty in her voice made him realise what little hope she must have held that he would believe the version she had shared of her father. Had she tried to tell others and not been believed? Or hadn’t she even bothered trying, knowing how hard it would be to dispel the good father image Benedict had exhibited so convincingly?

Andrea slid his hands down from her shoulders to take her hands again. ‘I believe you. I thought I knew your father pretty well. But I once lived with a man who had two faces, the one he showed in public and the one he revealed in private. No one would have believed him capable of the things he did in private. I’m sorry I didn’t cotton on to Benedict earlier. I would have spoken to him. Called him out on his behaviour.’

She looked down at their joined hands, releasing a little shuddery breath. Then her gaze climbed back to his. ‘He was awful to Mum as well. She had no hope of standing up to him. She’d bought into the belief that wives should always obey their husbands. She took all his insults and put-downs, which made me so angry and all the more determined to stand up to him to show him he couldn’t push me around the same way. But I’m not sure it worked the way I intended. I ended up wrecking my own life...’

Andrea could see why Izzy had railed against his insistence they marry. He’d hardly given her a choice. He’d acted like an overbearing army sergeant issuing commands and orders. No wonder she’d pushed back and fought him at every opportunity. ‘Isabella...I don’t know what to say, other than I’m sorry things have turned out like this. Your father had no right to treat you and your mother like that. I’m shocked and deeply ashamed I didn’t suspect it earlier. I guess the only consolation is he’s left you well provided for, even if the conditions attached to his will are not what you would have chosen.’

Her expression became brooding and resentful. ‘But that’s the point—he didn’t expect me to fulfil the conditions of his will. He knew how much I hated the thought of marriage, of giving up my freedom. He made his feelings for me perfectly clear. He would rather give all of his wealth—a large proportion of which originally belonged to my mother—to a distant relative with a gambling problem than give it outright to me, his only remaining heir.’

Andrea could see so clearly now there were things about Izzy’s father he had ignored the whole time he’d known him. Ignored or dismissed or excused. Why hadn’t he taken the time to look a little more closely? He’d made allowances for Izzy’s father because he felt sorry for all Benedict had suffered in losing a son and having to deal with a difficult daughter and a grief-stricken wife, and then the subsequent loss of his wife to liver cancer. Andrea had been too ready to lay the blame at Izzy’s door, believing her to be the problem. He’d taken the view that Benedict was doing all he could to keep what was left of his family together, throwing himself into work and charitable causes to compensate for his terrible loss. Izzy’s mother had struggled both physically and mentally since Hamish’s death, as any mother would, but Benedict had always given Andrea the impression he was a loving husband and father, endlessly, tirelessly patient and hardworking.

Andrea felt sick to his gut he hadn’t realised the truth earlier. Shame ran through his body like a fetid tide. He’d married Izzy with the intention of ‘taming’ her. He’d been intent on schooling her like a flighty filly, but how crass and boorish that seemed now.

It made one thing clear to him, though. How could he consummate the marriage now he knew the history of her relationship with her father? How could he cross that boundary, knowing what he knew now? But it wasn’t the physical boundary he was most worried about. Getting close to her would mean crossing an emotional boundary he never crossed with anyone. Although it would just about kill him to keep his hands off her he would do the right thing by her—see the six months out so she received her inheritance—but it would be a paper marriage.

He let out a long breath. ‘I wasn’t comfortable with the way your father wrote his will, but I didn’t consider it my place to interfere with his wishes.’

A frown pulled at her smooth brow. ‘Why weren’t you comfortable?’

‘I was concerned you might marry someone in haste who would do the wrong thing by you.’

‘So you volunteered your...erm, services?’

Andrea released her and put a little distance between them. He had to get himself out of the habit of touching her. Hands off. Hands off. Hands off. It was a mantra inside his head but the rest of his body wasn’t listening.

If he were truly honest with himself, he wasn’t exactly sure why he’d stepped into the breach and offered to marry her. Forced, not offered. He cringed at how he’d made it virtually impossible for her to refuse. But a part of his reasoning had been that he hadn’t liked the thought of her marrying some creep who would take half her inheritance in a subsequent divorce. He hadn’t liked the thought of her marrying anyone...other than him. ‘Here’s the thing. I’d been rethinking our paper marriage deal, offering you a six-month affair that would suit both our ends. But, knowing what I know now, well, that’s not going to happen.’

Shock flashed over her features. ‘You’re not thinking of walking out on our—?’

‘No. Of course not.’ He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘We will stay in the marriage for six months, as the will states, but, as agreed, it will be a marriage in name only.’

CHAPTER SIX

IN NAME ONLY... Izzy was shocked at how disappointed she felt at those three little words. A crushing, stomach-hollowing disappointment. She should be feeling relieved...but ever since that interlude in the elevator, privately all she had wanted was to have Andrea make love to her.

Properly. Naked. Skin to skin.

But in the midst of her shock and disappointment was relief that he had listened to her and believed her about her father’s behaviour. She’d expected him to shut her down or to say there was no way her father could have been so unkind.

But he hadn’t.

He’d listened and soothed and comforted her when her emotions had threatened to overspill. It softened some—not all—of the antagonism she felt towards Andrea. He was still her arch-enemy; she had seen him as such for too long for that to change in a hurry. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t make the most of the time they had together, did it?

But now he was refusing to consummate their marriage. What was she supposed to feel about that? Why wasn’t she happy? She should be happy. She should be ecstatic. She would get her inheritance and her freedom when the six months was up.

But she wouldn’t get Andrea.

She wouldn’t experience the passion and fire of his lovemaking, the searing possession of his kisses and caresses. She would never know what it was like to spend the night in his arms. Never know what it was like to feel his body move within hers. Never know what her body was capable of when being pleasured by his.

Izzy drew the edges of her bathrobe around her body, unsure of what to do with her hands. She wanted to reach for him. To tell him not to be so silly, not to be so damn honourable. To beg him to make love to her. But she had already shown too much vulnerability this evening, far more than she’d ever shown to anyone. ‘It sounds like you’ve given this some thought...’ She couldn’t remove the note of disappointment from her voice.

---