The Billionaire's Bridal Bargain

Cesare gritted his teeth. ‘We’ll go and see him now, so that you can make your preparations.’

Lizzie left Archie asleep in the Land Rover. Esther opened the door and her look of dismay mortified Lizzie, although she had always been aware that Andrew’s last-minute exchange of would-be wives had caused Esther almost as much heartache and humiliation as it had caused Lizzie. People had condemned Esther for sleeping with a man who was engaged to another woman. They had judged her even harder for falling pregnant and thereby forcing the affair into the open and some locals had ignored Esther ever since.

Andrew sprang up from the kitchen table while Lizzie carried out introductions whereupon Cesare startled her by taking charge. ‘Lizzie and I are leaving for London tonight—we’re getting married,’ he explained. ‘Lizzie wants to know if you’ll take her sheep.’

Lizzie saw the surprise and relief darting across Esther’s face and looked away again, her own colour high. Esther would be glad to see her leave the neighbourhood and she didn’t feel she could really blame the other woman for that, not after the way people had treated her.

‘This is a surprise and it calls for a celebration,’ Andrew pronounced with genuine pleasure. ‘I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone, Lizzie.’

Home-made peach wine was produced. Cesare found it sickly sweet but he appreciated the sentiment while he watched and read his companions and made certain interesting deductions. Andrew Brook appeared fond of Lizzie but no more than that. Indeed his every look of warmth was for his wife, who was a rather plain, plump young woman who couldn’t hold a candle to Lizzie in the looks department. Lizzie, on the other hand, Cesare could not read at all. She chatted but was clearly eager to leave as soon as was polite.

‘Are you planning to enlighten me yet?’ Cesare drawled when they returned to the Land Rover, his Italian accent licking round the edges of every syllable in the sexiest way imaginable.

Lizzie was bitterly amused by that stray thought when she didn’t do sex or even know what sexy was. That had lain at the heart of her disastrous relationship with Andrew when she had learned that she was simply one of those women who did not like to be touched. She had assumed—wrongly—when she agreed to marry him that her own response would naturally change as time went on and they became closer. But that hadn’t happened and her feelings hadn’t changed.

‘Andrew had an affair with Esther while we were engaged and she got pregnant. We broke up six weeks before our wedding day and he married her the following month. They’re very happy together,’ Lizzie explained flatly. ‘That means I’ve got an unused wedding gown in my wardrobe, so I’ll bring that down to London.’

‘No!’ Cesare sliced in with innate distaste. ‘I will buy you another dress.’

‘But that’s silly and wasteful when there’s no need for it!’ Lizzie reasoned in bafflement.

‘If we are trying to persuade my family that this is a genuine marriage, you will need a designer gown with all the usual trimmings.’

‘But how could anyone possibly believe it was genuine? We’re chalk and cheese and we only just met.’

‘You’ll be enjoying a full makeover in London and only my father knows when we first met. By the time I’m finished with you, they will believe, cara,’ Cesare insisted.

‘And what if I don’t want a makeover?’

‘If you want to be convincing in the role you’re being paid to take, you don’t have a choice,’ Cesare told her softly. Of course she wanted a makeover, he thought grimly, unconvinced by her show of reluctance. She was willing to do just about anything for money. Hadn’t she already demonstrated the fact? She was prepared to become a mother simply to sell the island to him. But then to be fair, he acknowledged, he was willing to become a father to buy Lionos although, in his case, he had additional and far more presentable motives.

What was the use of working so hard when he had no heir to follow him? What easier way could he acquire a child to inherit his empire? He had seen too many marriages explode into the bitterness and division of divorce, heard too many stories about children traumatised by their parents splitting up. The will had given him a chance to avoid that kind of fallout and the imprisonment of taking ‘for ever after’ vows with one woman. A marriage that was a marriage only on paper and a child born prior to a low-key civilised divorce would suit Cesare’s needs very nicely indeed.

Out of Cesare’s response, only one phrase assailed Lizzie: you’re being paid. It was an unwelcome but timely reminder and she chewed at her full lower lip, restraining a tart response. Hopefully within a couple of months he would have no further use for her and she would get her life back and, even more hopefully, a life that would stretch to include the sheer joy of becoming a mother for the f

irst time. When that time came, maybe she would be able to find some sort of work training course and accommodation near Chrissie. Or maybe that was a bad idea, she reflected uneasily, suspecting that her sibling had the right to her independence without a big sister hovering protectively somewhere nearby.

‘A moment before we go inside...’ Cesare breathed, striding round the bonnet of the rusty farm vehicle.

A frown drew Lizzie’s brows together as she hovered by the back door. When he reached out and tugged her close, Lizzie was so taken aback that she simply froze. His hands came up to frame her cheekbones and she gazed up into glittering golden eyes that reflected the lights shining out from the farmhouse windows, her nostrils flaring on the faint fresh scent of his cologne and the underlying hint of clean, fresh man.

At that point while she was mulling over why he smelled so good to her, Cesare lowered his proud dark head and kissed her. Lizzie stopped breathing in shock, electrified by the sensation and taste of his firm sensual mouth on hers with her heart hammering and her pulse racing as if she were riding a Big Dipper at an amusement park. He nibbled her lower lip and thunder crashed in her ears, the earth literally moving when he swiped his tongue along her full lower lip in an erotic flick that made her quiver like a jelly.

Forbidden warmth burst into being inside her, swelling her breasts, tightening her nipples, spearing down between her legs in a twin assault on her senses. A hard urgency now laced the passionate pressure of his mouth on hers and her head fell back, lips parting by instinct to welcome the deeply sensual dart of his tongue. He pulled her closer, welding her to every powerful line of his lean, powerfully masculine body with a big hand splayed across her hips to hold her in place and in spite of their clothing she felt his arousal, the hard, unmistakeable ridge between them. With almost superhuman force of will because she was on the edge of panic, Lizzie pressed her hand against his shoulder to push him back from her and, to be fair to him, he freed her immediately.

‘That’s enough,’ she framed unevenly, her breath rasping in her tight throat as an ache of what she knew could only be dissatisfaction spread at the heart of her. ‘Why the heck did you do that?’

‘If we intend to fool people into crediting that we are a genuine couple, we have to be able to behave like a couple...at least, occasionally,’ Cesare delivered with an audibly ragged hitch in his breathing.

‘I don’t like being touched,’ Lizzie told him in a small flat voice.

You could’ve fooled me, Cesare thought in disbelief, still tasting the sweetness of her soft, lush lips and struggling to suppress the rush of hungry excitement that had lit him up like a burning torch.

She was out of bounds, he reminded himself stubbornly. He was not planning to bed her. She didn’t want it and he didn’t want it either. Regrettably his body was out of step with his brain, though, and somehow she exuded all the allure of a juicy hamburger to a very reluctant vegetarian. But, Cesare reminded himself stubbornly, he could get sex anywhere. He had Celine for uncommitted sexual satisfaction. He wasn’t about to risk screwing up his marital arrangement with Lizzie by flirting with that kind of intimacy. It would blur the boundaries and she might start behaving like a real wife and even start thinking that she could attach strings to him.

‘So, it was just a sort of test?’ Lizzie gathered in relief, assuming that it was an approach that was unlikely to be repeated very often.

‘You won the gold medal for excellence, bella mia,’ Cesare quipped, striving to will his libido back down to a manageable level but that was a challenge while all he could think about, all he could see in his head, was Lizzie spread across a bed, stark naked and not only willing but also wild. The imagery didn’t help, nor did it help that he knew he, who prided himself on his detachment in business situations, was indulging in a deeply improbable but very male fantasy.