LITMIR.BIZ

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      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 a few minutes late but she hadn’t replied. Her attitude towards him was exactly the reason he was going to offer her a temporary marriage. He needed a wife. A temporary wife who wouldn’t make a fuss when he called it quits. No love-you-for-ever promises. No happy-ever-after. What he wanted was a six-month contract that would conveniently solve two problems with one brief, impersonal ceremony.

      The teenage stepdaughter of an important business colleague was making things difficult for him by making no secret of her crush on him. The hotel merger he was working on would be jeopardised if he didn’t take preventative action. And because Andrea had been asked to be best man at the businessman’s upcoming wedding in a few weeks, he had to do something, and do it fast.

      If it had been any other business deal he would have walked away without a qualm. There were plenty of other hotels he could buy. But this one was the one he wanted the most. Buying the hotel he’d once hung outside of as a homeless teenager looking for scraps of food made it too important to walk away. Buying that hotel in Florence—more than any other he’d bought or would buy in the future—would signify he had moved on from his difficult past.

      Moved on and triumphed.

      A convenient wife was what he needed and Isabella Byrne was the perfect candidate.

      He figured he could help Isabella with her little dilemma while sorting out his own. Marriage was not something he had ever considered for himself. He had personally witnessed the human destruction when a match made in heaven turned into a hell on earth. He admired those who made it work and felt sorry for those for whom it failed. He enjoyed his freedom. He enjoyed the flexibility of moving from relationship to relationship without any lasting ties or responsibilities.

      But he was prepared to sacrifice six months of his freedom because he wanted to nail that deal. And, more importantly, to prove he could still resist Isabella Byrne. He didn’t want to want her. It annoyed him she still had that effect on him. It was a persistent ache he’d always tried his best to ignore. He had always kept his distance out of respect to his relationship with her father. Benedict Byrne had had his faults, but Andrea would never forget how Benedict’s early help had launched him in the hotel business, allowing him to put his disadvantaged past well and truly behind him. He had worked hard to build an empire even bigger than Benedict’s. An empire that more than made up for the miserable months he’d spent living as a street kid. No one looking at him now would ever associate him with that starving and shivering youth who had fought so hard to survive a childhood of poverty and neglect.

      But now his mentor was dead, Andrea figured a short-term marriage to settle the terms of Isabella’s father’s will would also give him the chance to prove once and for all he no longer suffered from the Isabella itch. The itch that had been driving him mad for the last seven years.

      For as long as he’d known her she’d been acting out, bringing shame to her long-suffering father. She’d been the typical trust fund kid—spoilt, overindulged, lazy and irresponsible. Not much had changed now she was an adult. She was still wilful and defiant, with a body made for sin.

      He couldn’t be in the same country as her without going hard. It irritated the hell out of him that she had that effect on him. He was no stranger to lust—he enjoyed a satisfying and active sex life. But something about the attraction he felt for Isabella unnerved him. Her feminine power over him was unlike any he’d felt before. He prided himself on his ability to control his primal urges. He had boundaries he skirted around but never crossed. It would be dangerous to compromise those boundaries by marrying her, but just this once he was prepared to risk it. He would insist on a paper marriage. A hands-off affair that would give them both what they wanted.

      She had less than twenty-four hours left to find a husband. He’d spent the last three months bracing himself for the announcement of her engagement to some man she’d somehow managed to convince to marry her.

      But she hadn’t found anyone.

      Or maybe she hadn’t wanted to.

      Not because she didn’t want the money. Andrea knew she wanted that money more than anything. How else was she going to fund her lifestyle? She had an appalling employment record. The longest she’d held down a job was a month. But as much as she wanted that money, she wanted him as her husband even less. Or so she said. She would have no choice but to marry him and she knew it, which was why he’d already sorted out the paperwork. They would be married by morning or she would lose every penny of her inheritance.

      And once his ring was on her finger, and hers on his, he would be off the market, so to speak, so his business deal would be safe.

      Andrea saw her as soon as he walked into the restaurant. His body had sensed her three blocks away. She was sitting in the bar area, looking like a teenage boy’s fantasy in a skin-tight silver lamé mini dress that showed the creamy length of her slim legs. She had big hair and more make-up and flashy jewellery than a drag queen. He couldn’t help a secret smile. She knew she would have to accept his proposal, but she was making

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