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?’
‘I’ve booked a table at Henri’s. Eight thirty tonight.’
Izzy was annoyed she hadn’t put up more of a fight. She didn’t like thinking of herself as predictable. She had made a lifetime’s work of being anything but. How had he known she would give in? Had he been so sure of her?
Maybe because there’s less than twenty-four hours left on the deadline?
Argh. Don’t remind me.
‘Your arrogance never ceases to amaze me,’ Izzy said. ‘Does anyone ever say no to you and mean it?’
A smile flirted with the edges of his mouth. ‘Not often.’
Izzy could well believe it. She had to get her willpower back into shape. Send it to boot camp. Pump it full of steroids or something. She couldn’t allow him to manipulate her into doing what he wanted. She had to stand up to him. To show him she wasn’t like the droves of women who paraded in and out of his life. She might have slipped once, but she was older and wiser now. Older and wiser and wary of allowing him any hold over her. Of allowing any man any hold over her. She adjusted the strap of her tote bag over her shoulder and turned to leave. ‘See you later, then.’
‘Isabella?’
Izzy turned back to face him, carefully keeping her features in neutral. ‘Yes?’
His gaze drifted to her mouth and back to her eyes, holding them like a steely vice. ‘Don’t even think about not showing up.’
Izzy wondered how he could read her mind. She’d planned to leave him waiting in that restaurant to show him she wasn’t going to play
