LITMIR.BIZ

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were promising something else. She could feel that erotic promise thrumming in her own body. If she married him she would never have to worry about money again. She could pursue her dream of buying back her mother’s childhood home and turning it into a happy place for other people, a place where families could go on holiday together during tough times, just as she and Hamish had done before he’d got cancer.

      She could set herself up for life. She would no longer have to work in underpaid jobs just because she hadn’t focused enough in school. Once the six months was up she would be totally free. At no one’s mercy. Under no one’s command.

      But if she married Andrea she would be thrown into his company. Sharing his life. And yes, in spite of what he said to the contrary, sharing his bed. She could see the desire in his eyes. She could sense it in his body. She could feel it in the air when he was near her.

      Could she agree to such a plan? Six months married to a man she hated and wanted in equal measure? His touch had evoked a fire in her blood that sizzled even now. He only had to look at her with those pitch-black eyes and her insides contracted and coiled and cried out loud with lust.

      Izzy met his gaze and knew she couldn’t possibly say no. She would have to trust him. More to the point...she would have to trust herself. He had her cornered. Trapped. She could not refuse him at this late hour and he knew it. He had it all organised. He had been so sure of her. So damn sure of her.

      Why hadn’t she tried harder to find someone? Why had she let it get to this? Why had she wasted her one last chance to get away from him?

       Maybe you didn’t want to.

      Izzy refused to listen to the prod of her conscience. She had wanted to get away from him. She hated him. She hated that he had received her father’s love and attention, not her. He was a rich self-made man who thought he could have anyone he wanted.

      Well, he was in for a big surprise because she would hold him to this paper marriage. She blew out a long breath and sat back on the stool and held out her hand. ‘Okay. Give me the ring.’

      His eyes held hers in a steely tussle. ‘Come and get it.’

      A shiver coursed down her spine at the thought of touching him again. His abs had felt like coils of concrete. And she didn’t want to think about the hardness that lay just beneath them.

      It was always this way between them—this tug of war of wills. She hated letting him win. It went against everything in her to allow him that much power over her. But the only way to handle him was to stand up to his challenges. Show him she was immune to him even if she wasn’t and never had been. She had acted her way out of situations in the past, especially with men. Pretending to feel things she didn’t. Faking it. She was an expert at fooling those she wanted to fool.

      Izzy decided to brazen it out. She would prove she wasn’t his for the asking. She would marry him but it would be a hands-off affair... Well, it would be once she got that wretched ring out of his shirt. She took a steadying breath and stepped between his thighs, every cell of her body intensely aware of his arrant maleness. She took the end of his tie and flipped it over his left shoulder. She undid the middle button of his shirt just above his belly button, 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

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