revealing tanned muscled flesh sprinkled with jet-black hair that tickled the backs of her fingers. She undid another two buttons, breathing in the warm musky scent of him, her senses reeling like stoned bees in an opium field.
She chanced a glance at his face, her breath locking in her throat when she saw the dark satirical gleam in his eyes. His lean jaw was liberally dusted with stubble, making her want to trail her fingertips across its sexy prickliness. His hands settled on her waist and something in her stomach fell from a shelf and landed with a soft little thud that sent a shivering shockwave to her core.
‘You’re getting warm.’ His voice was husky and low. ‘Warmer.’
Izzy had to remind herself to breathe. His thighs moved closer together, brushing against the outside of hers like the slowly closing doors of a cage. She undid another button on his shirt and dipped her hand into the opening to search for the ring. He sucked in a breath and gave a slight shiver as if her touch electrified him. She knew the feeling. The feel of his hard warm body against her hand was enough to send her ovaries into spasm. The press of his hands on her hips were melting her bones. Sending tongues of fire to her secret places. She located the ring and drew it out of his shirt and stepped back but his powerful thighs gripped her tighter.
‘What are you doing?’ Her voice was breathless. Too breathless. I’m-not-immune-to-you breathless.
He held out his hand for the ring, his eyes tethering hers. ‘I believe it’s the man’s job to put the ring on his future bride’s finger.’
Izzy dropped the ring into his palm before she dropped it on the floor. He slid it over her ring finger, gently but firmly pushing it into place, and gave her a smile that made something dark and dangerous glint at the back of his eyes. ‘Will you marry me, Isabella?’
Izzy had never hated him more than at that moment. He was making a mockery of one of the most important questions a man could ever ask a woman. He was grinding her pride to powder. Pummelling it. Pulverising it. Relishing in the chance to overpower her.
To control her.
‘Yes. I will marry you.’ The words tasted like bile and Izzy wanted to wash her mouth out with soap. Buckets and buckets of soap.
He relaxed his thighs and she was suddenly free. Well, apart from his ring on her finger. The ring was as effective as a noose. He had her where he wanted her and there wasn’t a thing she could do to stop it.
He rose from the bar stool and offered her his hand. ‘We have a date with a lawyer and a marriage celebrant in fifteen minutes. Once that’s done we can come back and have dinner to celebrate our marriage.’
Izzy glanced towards the restaurant, desperate to stall the inevitable for as long as she could. ‘Don’t you have to let the maître d’ know to hold the table?’
Andrea’s smile made something prickle across her scalp like millions of miniature marching feet. ‘I’ve already told him.’
* * *
Izzy stood like an ice sculpture beside Andrea as the female marriage celebrant took them through the short ceremony. Five minutes before she had signed a prenuptial agreement in front of Andrea’s lawyer. She hadn’t minded signing...not really. Did he really think she would come after his money once their marriage was over?
She didn’t want his money. She wanted hers.
Izzy tried not to think of the importance of the words they were saying to each other—the vows that were meant to be sacred and meaningful. And the fact she was dressed like a party girl while saying them. Why had she been so headstrong and stupid? She should’ve known he wouldn’t let a silly look-at-me outfit get in the way of his plans. Anyway, why should she care she was mouthing words she didn’t mean? Andrea didn’t mean them either.
She tried to think of the money instead. Heaps of money that would help her finally buy back her grandparents’ house and turn it into something special, something healing and special so that her mother’s and Hamish’s death weren’t in vain. Izzy’s grandparents’ house had been sold after their death in a car crash not long after Hamish had died, because her father insisted on using the money to prop up his business, even though he knew Izzy’s mother didn’t want to sell it. Even when they were first married, her father had used her mother’s wealth to build his empire and then told everyone he had done it on his own. Her mother hadn’t had the strength to stand up to him. She had handed over everything—her money, her pride and her self-esteem.
But Izzy was not going to be that sort of wife—the sort of wife who said yes when she meant no. She would not bend to Andrea’s will the way her mother had to her father.
She would remain strong and defiant to the bitter, inevitable end.
Andrea slipped the white-gold wedding band on her ring finger. His dark gaze seeming to say, Mission accomplished.
Izzy was surprised he’d been prepared to wear one himself. She placed it over his finger as instructed by the celebrant and repeated the vows in a voice that didn’t sound like hers. It was too husky and whispery so she made sure her gaze counteracted it.
‘I now pronounce you man and wife.’ The celebrant smiled at Andrea. ‘You may kiss the bride.’
Andrea dropped his hold of Izzy’s hands. ‘That won’t be necessary.’
Izzy stared at him, desperately trying to conceal her shock. Or was it relief? No. It wasn’t relief—it was rage. Red-hot rage. Why wasn’t he going to kiss her? They might not have meant the vows, but surely for the sake of appearances he would have kissed her? She glanced at the celebrant but the older woman seemed unsurprised. Perhaps the celebrant had witnessed dozens of impersonal marriages and thought nothing untoward of a groom who refused to kiss his bride.
Anger curdled cold and hard and heavy in Izzy’s belly—a festering, simmering stew of wrath. How dare he make a fool of her in front of the celebrant and witnesses? Damn it. She would make him kiss her. She softened her expression to that of a dewy-eyed bride. ‘But, darling, I was so looking forward to that part of the ceremony. I know you’re stuffy and uptight about public displays of affection, but surely just this once will be okay? You don’t want everyone to think you don’t love me, do you?’
His gaze held hers for a beat then went to her mouth and his eyes darkened to coal. His hands took hers, bringing her closer so their bodies were touching from chest to thigh. His fingers interlocked with hers in a way that contained a hint of spine-tingling eroticism. She tried to ignore the reaction in her body—the contraction of her core, the increase of her heart rate, the wings flapping sensation in her stomach. His eyes became hooded, his head bending down so his mouth was within reach of hers. She felt the warm breeze of his mint-scented breath against her lips, every nerve in her lips tingling in anticipation of his touchdown. She suddenly felt as if she would die if he didn’t kiss her. Not from any sense of loss of pride, but because she needed to feel his mouth like she needed air to breathe.
His mouth connected with hers with a brush as soft as a floating feather. He lifted off but his lips were dry against her lipstick and clung to hers for an infinitesimal moment. He came back down and pressed a little harder, sealing her mouth and drawing her closer with a hand at the small of her back, the other moving up to cradle the side of her face.
Izzy had enjoyed and, yes, even endured many kisses. But nothing had ever felt like Andrea’s mouth. It was electric. Exhilarating. Erotic. His lips moved against hers in a soft, exploratory way, as if he were
