Bound By A One-Night Vow

Izzy mentally rolled her eyes at the way the young female assistant was practically swooning behind the counter. Not at the size of Andrea’s tip—although it had been more than generous—but from the mega-charming smile he gave the young woman.

Was there a woman on the planet who could resist that bone-melting smile?

Izzy was conscious of him standing just behind her. He was so close she could feel the warmth of his body. Too close. So close she could feel electric energy fizzing along every knob of her backbone.

His energy.

His sexual energy.

She could smell his aftershave—a subtle blend of lemon and lime and something fresh and woodsy that made her think of a sun-warmed citrus orchard fringed by a dark, dangerously dense forest. She allowed herself a little moment of wondering what it would be like to lean back against him. To feel his muscled arms go around her, to feel his pelvis brush against the cheeks of her bottom. She imagined how it would feel to have his large hands settle on her hips and draw her nearer...to feel the surge of his hard, virile male flesh between her legs...

Oh, God. She had to stop this fantasy stuff or she would be doing a When Harry Met Sally scene right here and now. Meg Ryan would have nothing on her.

Andrea took Izzy by the elbow and ushered her out of the café into the watery spring sunshine. She decided to go with him without a fuss because people were already starting to point and stare. She didn’t want to be photographed with him. Associated with him. Linked to him. To be seen as yet another of his sexual conquests.

Andrea Vaccaro wasn’t just a press magnet—he was press superglue. Triple-strength superglue. He was an international playboy with a turnstile on his penthouse instead of a door—the protégé of the late high-flying businessman Benedict Byrne. An Italian kid from the wrong side of the tracks who had made good due to the largesse of his well-to-do English benefactor.

Izzy wasn’t so much a press magnet but a press target with a big red circle on her back marked Spoilt Trust Fund Kid. But while there was a time when she had deliberately courted their attention, and even found perverse enjoyment in its negativity, these days she preferred to be left alone. Gone were the days of stumbling out of nightclubs pretending to be drunk in order to shame her father. But unfortunately the paparazzi hadn’t got that particular memo. She was still seen as a wild child whose main goal in life was to party. She only had to walk past a balloon or a streamer these days and someone would post a shot with a crude caption about her.

Andrea slid his hand down from her elbow to brush his fingers against her ringless left hand. ‘Found yourself a husband yet?’

Izzy knew he was aware of every word and punctuation mark on her father’s will. He had probably helped her father write it. It galled her to think of Andrea being party to such personal information. He didn’t know the true context of her relationship with her father. Benedict Byrne had been too clever to reveal the darker side of his personality to those he championed or wanted to impress. Only Izzy’s mother knew and she was long dead, finally resting in peace beside Izzy’s older brother, Hamish. The adored son. The perfect son Izzy had been expected to emulate—but she had never quite managed to meet her father’s expectations. ‘I have no intention of discussing my personal life with you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to—’

‘I have a proposition for you.’ His expression was as inscrutable as a blank computer screen but she could sense the secret operating system of his thoughts. Wicked thoughts. Dangerous thoughts. Gulp. Sexual thoughts.

Izzy opened and closed her hand, trying to rid herself of the sensual energy he had evoked in her flesh. She tightened her stomach muscles, hoping it would quell the restless feeling deep in her pelvis, but all it did was make her even more aware of how he made her feel. ‘The answer is an emphatic I’m-only-going-to say-this-once no.’

He gave her a sleepy-eyed smile as if he found her refusal motivating. A stimulating challenge he couldn’t wait to overcome. ‘Don’t you want to know what I’m proposing before you say no?’

Izzy gritted her teeth, mentally apologising to her orthodontist. ‘I have no interest in anything you might say to me.’ Especially if it involves the word marriage. But would he offer to marry her? For what possible reason?

He held her gaze in a silent lock that made her heart skip a beat. Two beats. The air seemed to be tightening as if all the oxygen was being sucked out of the atmosphere, atom by atom. He was looking good. More than good. But then, he always did. Tanned and toned, with the sort of classic features you mostly only saw in men’s expensive aftershave ads. The bad boy made good. His not long, not short wavy black hair was styled in a casual manner that highlighted his intelligent forehead and the strong blade of his nose. The dark slash of his eyebrows—one of them interrupted by a zigzag scar—over eyes so dense and deep a brown it was hard to tell what was pupil and what was iris. Knowing, assessing eyes fringed by thick lashes that every now and again would lower just enough for her to think...

No. No. No.

She must not think about sex and Andrea in the same sentence.

Izzy could outstare most men. She could put them in their place with a cutting look or a sharp word.

But not Andrea Vaccaro.

He was her nemesis. And, damn him to hell, he knew it.

‘Have dinner with me.’ It wasn’t an invitation. It was a command.

Izzy raised her eyebrows like a haughty schoolmarm. ‘I’d rather eat a fistful of fur balls.’

His gaze moved over every inch of her face, from her eyes to her mouth, lingering there for so long she became aware of her lips in a way she had never been before. They started tingling as if his mouth had brushed them. Heated them. Tempted them. Whenever he looked at her she thought of sex. Hot bed-wrecking, pulse-racing sex. The sort of sex she hadn’t been having.

Had never had.

Izzy wasn’t a virgin but neither had she had as much sex as the press had made out. She didn’t even like sex. She was hopeless at it. Embarrassingly, pathetically hopeless. And the only way she could tolerate it was to get tipsy so she didn’t have to think about how much she wasn’t enjoying it.

Andrea’s obsidian-black gaze came back to hers. ‘We can discuss this out here on the street where anyone can hear or we can do it in private.’

Do it in private.

The double entendre of his words sent a shiver rolling down her spine. Images popped into her head of him doing it with her. His hands on her breasts, his mouth on hers, his body pumping and rocking and—

Izzy pulled away from her thoughts like someone springing back from a sudden flame. She hoped she wasn’t showing any sign of how flustered she felt, but she suspected there was little Andrea Vaccaro missed. It was why he was so successful in business. He could read people. He could read situations. He was clever and calculating and tactical.

She hated how he made her feel. Hated how easily he could trigger anger or desire in her. Or both. She had no interest in repeating her foolish behaviour of the past. She was no longer that brash attention-seeking flirt. She was no longer the spoilt little rich girl acting out her inner pain and shame.

She had reinvented herself.

‘I’m not doing anything with you in private, Andrea.’ Izzy only realised her vocal slip when she saw the way his dark eyes gleamed. Got you.

‘Scared of what I might say?’

Scared of what I might do. Izzy raised her chin and eyeballed him. ‘Nothing you say is of the remotest interest to me.’

Something moved at the back of his eyes. A camera shutter movement before the screen came back up. ‘Just dinner, Isabella.’ His Italian accent caressed the four syllables of her name. He was the only person who called her by her full name. She wasn’t sure if she liked it or not.

Just dinner. Could she go and see what he had to say? He had intrigued her interest, and with the clock ticking like a nuclear bomb on the deadline she would be crazy not to hear him out. But being anywhere near him unsettled her. His energy collided with hers and created something in her she wasn’t sure she could control.

Wasn’t sure she wanted to control, which was even more disturbing.

Izzy folded her arms and sent him one of her trademark bored teenager looks. ‘Tell me the time and the place and I’ll meet you there.’

He gave a sudden laugh that made something at the back of her knees fizz. ‘Nice try.’

‘I mean it, Andrea. I will only have dinner with you if I come by myself.’

The satirical gleam was back in his eyes. ‘Do you usually prefer to come by yourself?’

Izzy could feel her cheeks pulsating with heat. But they weren’t the only part of her body pulsating. Her feminine core gave off little pulses of lust that reverberated through her entire body. She put on her game face—the face she’d perfected during her wilful teens, the wild child seductress face. The I-don’t-give-a-fig-what-you-think-about-me face. Driven by an urge she couldn’t quite explain, she moistened her lips with a slow sweep of her tongue, secretly delighted by the way his eyes followed the movement.

He wasn’t immune to her.

The realisation was strangely thrilling. He might not like her. He might not respect her. But he sure as hell wanted her. He had resisted her seven years ago. Resisted her easily. Made her feel foolish for trying to seduce him. He’d called her a silly spoilt child playing at grown-ups.

But now he wanted her.

Izzy tucked that knowledge away and gave herself a mental high five. It gave her an edge, a bit of power in a relationship that had always been tipped in his favour in the power stakes. She gave him a look through her half-lowered lashes. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’

His eyes darkened until they were black bottomless pools of male mystery. ‘I’ll make it my business to find out.’ His voice was smooth with a base note so deep every nerve in her body trembled like a shivering leaf.

Izzy knew she was being reckless in flirting with him. Reckless and foolish. But something about the way he interacted with her always made her feel like challenging him. Pushing him. Needling him. Peeling back the carefully constructed layers of civilised man-about-town to reveal the primal man she sensed was simmering just under the surface. ‘Where shall we have dinner?’