Page 2 of His Innocent Unwrapped In Iceland

Orion took a step towards her and held the bouquet out to her. ‘I just told you why he isn’t here. He’s on his way to Rome. And I paid him to go away because he should never have asked you to marry him in the first place.’

Shock was creeping through her and she had to fight to force it down. She didn’t know what was happening, but going to pieces wouldn’t help. Her father had always said that staying calm in a crisis was a valuable skill and one she needed to learn before she took over Kendricks’ as CEO. In fact, there were many skills she needed to learn before she took over, and while some of them had been easy, others were more difficult. She had to detach, David had told her. She was too much at the mercy of her emotions.

Isla already knew that—there was a reason her first adoption had fallen through—and so when David had adopted her at twelve, she’d resolved to make sure her temper stayed leashed and she’d be the perfect daughter.

Except keeping her emotions locked down with shock coursing through her veins and a man she didn’t like standing in front of her telling her that he’d paid her fiancé to jilt her, her brittle, cool authority was in danger of cracking entirely.

‘Why on earth shouldn’t he have asked me to marry him?’ she demanded.

‘Because he doesn’t love you,’ Orion said without hesitation. ‘And you don’t love him.’

Isla stared at him in astonishment. This made no sense, none of it. His presence, Gianni’s absence, what he was saying to her...

‘That...’ she said stupidly. ‘That’s none of your business.’

‘It’s true, though.’ There was a note of certainty in his voice. As if he knew her feelings better than she did herself. ‘You’re marrying him because David wanted you to.’

Anger stirred inside her, threatening her grip on her detachment. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You know nothing about me or Gianni.’ She snatched her bouquet from him and straightened, trying to inject some steel into her spine, projecting ‘future CEO’ and not ‘angry orphan’. ‘I don’t care what you paid him or why. You need to bring him back this instant.’

Orion simply looked at her, the glitter of the wolf in his eyes. ‘No,’ he said in the same calm tone. ‘I will not.’

Her fingers felt cold, and she could hear the buzz of conversation from the assembled guests. It was louder now.

It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be happening. Surely Gianni was already at the altar, waiting for her. Surely he was.

He would have sent someone to see what the delay was about by now.

True. Yet no one had come except that employee of Orion’s.

Ice crept through her as reality began to assert itself. Gianni didn’t appear and neither did her father, and all she could hear was the conversation of the guests, getting even louder.

While Orion merely stood there looking at her, dressed in his exquisite grey morning suit.

The roaring was back in her ears, the floor feeling as if it had shifted beneath her feet and then unexpectedly, a large, warm hand was beneath her elbow.

Orion. His grip was firm and strong, the solidity of mountains keeping her upright, and for a split second, she almost leaned into his hold, because her knees felt weak.

‘I know this is a shock,’ he continued in that same steady, implacable tone. ‘But I’m not here to hurt you.’

‘I don’t understand.’ She hated how uncertain and weak she sounded. ‘Why are you here then?’

His palm beneath her elbow was warm, in stark contrast to the cool of his voice. Yet his amber eyes gleamed with a sudden, dark fire. ‘Why do you think? I’m here to marry you instead, Isla.’

Orion watched Isla’s pretty blue eyes widen in shock.

He wasn’t surprised. It was, after all, a very shocking proposal.

Yet that had been the plan he’d been formulating for the past month, ever since he’d found out that Isla Kendrick was going to marry one of her father’s protégés. Orion simply couldn’t allow that to happen.

He’d been playing the long game for months now, deciding initially that he’d take the slow, careful approach with her. Then her engagement had been announced, which he hadn’t been expecting, and he’d had to rethink his plans.

He wasn’t in love with her—love wasn’t possible for him these days—but he’d admit to being in the grip of a singular...fascination with her.

It had all started at a business gala held at the National Gallery, where he’d found her standing in a small gallery away from the crowd, in front of a painting, and there had been a rapt look on her face.

He hadn’t known who she was, but she’d seemed illuminated, lit from within by something he didn’t understand and his interest had been caught. He’d checked the painting to see what it was that held her attention so completely. But it was only Van Gogh’s painting of a night sky.

Orion didn’t like it when he didn’t understand something. His instinct was always to make sense of it, so he’d gone over and asked her what was so interesting about the painting.

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