Bound By A One-Night Vow. Melanie Milburne

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       CHAPTER TWO

      ‘GOSH. DO YOU need a bodyguard with you when you’re wearing that dress?’ Izzy’s flatmate, Jess, asked later that evening when she poked her head around Izzy’s bedroom door.

      Izzy smoothed her hands down the front of her shimmery silver mini dress that sparkled like Christmas tinsel. ‘How do I look?’

      ‘Seriously, Izzy, you have amazing legs. You should give up your job selling those dusty old antiques and be a model instead.’ Jess tilted her head to one side. ‘So who’s your date? Anyone I know?’

      ‘Just an acquaintance.’

      Jess’s eyebrows rose. ‘That’s a pretty impressive show of thigh for a mere acquaintance.’

      Izzy picked up a tube of blood-red lipstick and smeared it over her lips and pressed them together to set it in place. She knew she would be risking press attention by being seen with Andrea dressed in such a way but this time she didn’t care. It would be worth it to show him she wasn’t playing by his rules. He was known for dating elegant and sophisticated women. She would be the antithesis of elegant and sophisticated dressed in this get-up. This outfit screamed party girl out for a wild time. ‘I’m teaching my...date a lesson.’

      ‘A lesson in what? How to look but not touch?’

      Izzy recalled the firm press of Andrea’s hand with a delicate shiver. She was still trying not to think about him pinning her to a bed with his body doing all sorts of wicked things to her. ‘I’m teaching him not to be so arrogant.’ She pulled out the large Velcro rollers she’d put in her hair to give it extra volume, and finger-combed it into a cloud of curling tresses around her shoulders.

      Jess sat on the edge of Izzy’s bed. ‘So, who is this guy?’

      Izzy glanced at her flatmate in her dressing table mirror. She had only known Jess a few months and didn’t want to go into the details of her complicated relationship with Andrea. She picked up a pair of cheap dangly earrings and inserted them into her earlobes, then adjusted the front of her dress to boost her cleavage. ‘Just someone my father used to know.’

      Jess got off the bed and came to stand next to the dressing table mirror so she could face her. ‘But isn’t this the last day before the deadline on your father’s will?’

      Izzy wished she hadn’t let slip about the will in an unguarded moment a couple of nights ago over a takeout curry and a bottle of wine. It was a little lowering to admit to her friend and flatmate that her father had wanted to punish her from the grave. Her father had known how against the institution of marriage she was. She had witnessed him over-controlling her mother like a bullying tyrant until her mother hadn’t been able to decide what clothes to wear without asking him first. No way was Izzy going to allow any man that sort of power over her and especially not Andrea Vaccaro. ‘Yes, but he’s not a candidate.’

      ‘Are you going to forfeit your inheritance, then?’

      Izzy slipped on a collection of jangling bracelets. ‘I don’t want to, but what else can I do? I can’t just walk out on the street and pick up someone to be my husband.’

      Jess’s gaze drifted over Izzy’s outfit again. ‘You probably could wearing that get-up.’ She frowned again. ‘But this guy you’re meeting tonight. Why isn’t he a candidate? Has he actually said no?’

      Izzy picked up a slimline evening purse and popped the lipstick tube inside and snapped it shut. ‘I haven’t asked him. And I never will. I know what I’m doing, Jess. I know how to handle men like Andrea Vaccaro.’

      Jess’s eyes went as wide as the make-up compact on the dressing table. ‘You’re going on a date with Andrea Vaccaro? The hotel king Andrea Vaccaro? And you think he’s not a candidate? Are you out of your mind? That man is the world’s most eligible bachelor.’

      Izzy scooped up a leather biker jacket from the bed and fed her arms through the sleeves, pulling her hair out of the back of the collar and settling it back around her shoulders. ‘He might be considered a prize catch but I don’t want him. I would rather rummage through rubbish bins and sleep under cardboard for the rest of my life than marry that arrogant, up-himself jerk.’

      Jess’s brows disappeared under her fringe. ‘Wow. I’ve never seen so you...so worked up. Did something happen between you two in the past?’

      Izzy did a final adjustment of her outfit. ‘He thinks he can have anyone he wants but he can’t have me.’ She smiled a confident smile. ‘Don’t worry. I know exactly how to handle him.’

      * * *

      Andrea hadn’t planned on being late for his dinner date with Isabella but he got caught up in traffic after a minor accident in central London. He’d sent her a text to tell her he would be СКАЧАТЬ