The Italian Billionaire's Disgraced Fiancée (5 page)

Among a myriad of claps and cheers the guests cleared the dance floor, and the first notes of a waltz filled the air, instantly creating a romantic ambience that Enzo neither enjoyed nor wanted. His stomach clenched at the thought of the bridal waltz they had never come to dance, and Izzy standing in front of him now in that glittering white gown didn’t help. Apart from her mask she looked like a bride. The bride she’d never be, at least not to him.

Hiding his feelings he gave her a mocking smile. ‘Shall we dance?’

She put her hand into his, and a slight shadow of emotion crossed her eyes. Something almost like hurt, but it disappeared so quickly that he couldn’t be sure, if it had even been there. Anyway, she had been the one dishing out the pain, not the other way round. So why would she feel hurt now?

‘You won the bid,’ she said fixing her eyes on his shoulder. ‘So let’s get over with it.’

Enzo was aware that they were the centre of the attention after his outrageous bid, and he was not surprised when camera flashes came down on them. Tomorrow’s papers would be full of his half-a-million-pound bid, the White Rabbit twirling across the dance floor in his arms and all these greatest wishes his generous contribution would help fulfil.  He didn’t mind being photographed by the press, but Izzy didn’t seem to feel comfortable judging by the steep crease between her brows and the way she suddenly pressed her delightfully soft lips together.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said in a low voice. Holding her slender waist with his right hand and guiding her hand with his left, he skilfully waltzed her towards one of the opened French windows leading onto the terrace.

Dancing to the romantic tune under a glittering canopy of stars, Enzo realised his mistake. This was too hurtful, too much like the starry night way back on the Suffolk beach when he had proposed to her, when they had promised each other everlasting love. He had been so sure that they belonged together. He gritted his teeth. All
she
had been sure of was dangling the gift of her virginity in front of his nose like a carrot, and he had fallen for it hook, line and sinker. And God help him, Enzo realised, he was falling again. All it had taken was the warmth of Izzy’s slender body waltzing in his arms, the delicious scent of her hair inveigling his senses and the perfect porcelain texture of her skin. How he had missed her. He closed his eyes for a short moment, allowing himself to dream about touching her, getting lost in her and her loving response. It was nothing but a dream, the same one he always dreamt, he told himself. Nothing that would ever come true, but he couldn’t help himself and he hated her for that. Hated himself for lusting after her, still longing for her after all this time, while she didn’t even deserve a mere thought.

‘What are you doing?’ she hissed, waking him from his reveries. ‘I have no desire to be outside with you, under the stars. We’ve danced long enough now anyway. The deal was…’

‘The deal was to dance with me,’ he replied with a sardonic smile. ‘Just so we understand each other. No word was said about where or how long, and for half a million pounds you bloody well stay in my arms for as long as I desire.’

‘Bastard!’
She shot him a glance aimed to kill. ‘If it hadn’t been for your money you wouldn’t have been allowed to touch me again. Not ever.’

That did it. Enzo saw red, a terrible mist of heated jealousy clouding his brain.
Money
. That was all she was after. The thought of Carson being allowed to touch her for money and glittering diamond earrings drove him wild. Furiously he pressed his mouth on Izzy’s as if driven by the devil, his hot arousal pulsing against her belly. Any moment now she would slap him, he knew, but he was too much out of control to let this impair his actions. All he could think about was how perfect his mouth felt on her soft lips and how well their bodies fitted together. As if they’d been made for each other. His tongue tasted the delectable fullness of her lips until she finally opened them to let him ravish the moist pleasure of her mouth.

Heaven
.

Their kiss felt like heaven, just perfect. As if they’d never been apart, as if nothing could ever come between them.
As if…

‘I don’t think kissing the rabbit was part of the agreement,’ Nick Hetherington’s deep voice broke the moment. ‘Not that I wish to interfere with your love life,
Vallorini, but I am responsible for the wellbeing of my waiting staff, and Miss Jones is still on duty.’

Reluctantly Enzo raised his head. What the hell…

‘Oh my God,’ he heard Izzy whisper. She stared at him in some kind of frozen shock like an animal confronted with the headlights of a speeding car, then she pushed away from him. ‘This should never have happened.’

Before he could stop her, she ran along the terrace and down the steps at the far end. Enzo turned round to face tonight’s host.

‘I guess she’ll find her way to the kitchen?’ he asked frowning.

‘She certainly will.’ Hetherington threw him a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘Sorry, if I have interrupted anything. I wanted to thank you for your most generous donation. ‘My Greatest Wish’ will greatly benefit from the money.’

‘That’s what I was hoping,’ Enzo replied truthfully. ‘So tell me, what gave you the idea to found this remarkable charity?’

‘To be honest, it was Clarissa’s idea,’ the other man admitted.

‘Your designer?’

Hetherington nodded. ‘She is my designer, but she is also…’ He hesitated. ‘In the two years she’s been working for me, Clarissa has swiftly become the life and soul of the Hetherington hotel group. Her ideas have brought the hotels into the new millennium, and her
Clarissima
collection is just to die for. I’m sure you’ve noticed the stunning evening gowns the waitresses are wearing tonight. Each and every gown is one of her creations.’

‘I’ve guessed as much.’ Enzo smiled. ‘But please tell me what your designer has to do with ‘My Greatest Wish’.’

‘It’s not that easy to explain,’ Hetherington replied. ‘Let’s just say that Clarissa’s greatest wish – in fact, everything she truly wished for – could not be fulfilled when I met her two years ago. At the same time she realised that so many wishes of other people are different. They
can
be fulfilled. In most cases all that’s missing is the necessary amount of goodwill, loving help or money.’

‘So Clarissa convinced you to found the charity and become some kind of fairy godmother?’

‘She did.’ This time Hetherington’s smile did reach his eyes. ‘And she spends most of her free time helping to fulfil other people’s wishes.’

‘She sounds like a truly remarkable woman. Is she here tonight? I’d very much like to meet her.’

Hetherington curled his lips. ‘That won’t be possible, I’m afraid. Clarissa has come and gone. She is a very… elusive woman. Most people think she doesn’t even exist.’

‘So she’s some kind of wallflower fading into the background?’ Enzo guessed. The mysterious designer started to intrigue him.

‘A wallflower…’ Hetherington’s gentle laughter wafted across the softly lit garden below. ‘Sorry to disappoint, but Clarissa is one of the most beautiful women walking this planet. Inside and out.’

Long after his host had returned to join his other
guests, Enzo stood brooding on the terrace, his thoughts torn between two completely different women. One the beautiful temptress with the periwinkle-blue eyes and the mercenary heart, who was almost impossible to forget. The other one the kind-hearted designer, who devoted her life to creating beauty and hope in the hearts of others by fulfilling their dearest wish.

Once he had believed Izzy to be a woman like that.
Kind, warm-hearted and truly lovable. It had turned out to be a misconception. Izzy was never like Clarissa, not for one minute, and she would never be. She had sunk too deep after selling herself to Carson and probably other men after him. Enzo gritted his teeth. It was lust he still felt for her, not love. There was no way back for her into his heart, even if she tried to convince him that she had changed. Which she wouldn’t.
Dio
, she had run away from his embrace as if he was the devil. Acting the innocent victim again, especially with Hetherington watching. But she couldn’t fool him. Judging by the way she had kissed him back, she had wanted that kiss just as badly as he had. So why had she run?

Enzo shrugged his shoulders. Actually he didn’t care. He’d manage to get Izzy out of his system and forget about her. There were other women in the world to pursue in earnest and the most fascinating of them being the elusive Clarissa, who preferred to stay invisible. Enzo smiled. He had always liked a challenge.

***

The following morning Enzo stood up early, had breakfast in the privacy of his spacious luxury suite on the top floor of the ‘
Vallorini’ hotel and strolled down the corridor to reach his office. Carla, the redhead who had been his personal assistant for the last five years was already sitting behind her desk.

‘Welcome back,’ she greeted him with a warm smile. ‘It’s nice to see you in the flesh after all these video conference calls in the past couple of years.’

He grinned. ‘It’s nice to see you too, and quite unexpected if I may say so. I thought you’d gone on your dream holiday to the Caribbean.’

‘My flight is leaving later today,’ she replied. ‘I’m here because the temp who will cover for me is likely to need a little help on her first day.’

‘A temp?’ He frowned. ‘Actually, I had planned to use Luca’s personal assistant during his absence.’ Suddenly a strong suspicion caught him by surprise. Was it possible that the scheming gold-digger had already left for Las Vegas in chase of his brother? ‘She is due to come to the office today, isn’t she?’

Carla glanced at her watch. ‘No doubt she is already sitting behind her desk,’ she replied matter-of-factly. ‘Isabella would be my perfect replacement, of course, but your brother will certainly need her in the American office any time soon. The temp on the other hand…’

Isabella.
An icy feeling crept up his spine. It couldn’t be Izzy, could it?

‘You assumed wrongly,’ he interrupted. ‘Our Las Vegas office has a perfectly capable PA to assist Luca, and as you’ve already pointed out this Isabella would be the perfect replacement while you’re away. What did you say was her surname?’

‘Jones,’ Carla said, her elegant eyebrows slightly raised. ‘Isabella Jones. Would you like to see her personal file before making a final decision?’

Minutes later Enzo stared at the information in front of him, his lips tightly pressed together. So he hadn’t been mistaken. Izzy was the two-timing temptress who had tried to lure his brother into marriage. How dare she try her luck with Luca after all she had done and, even worse, dare to attempt to land the part of his sister-in-law? The mere thought of having to suffer her presence at every family get-together for the rest of all times made him sick.

A bitter smile curled Enzo’s lips. No wonder Izzy had run from him yesterday night playing the innocent victim. With Luca gone she couldn’t have been happy about the way Hetherington had found them kissing on the terrace. Undoubtedly the man was the other fish dangling on her angle, reconfirmed by that little episode in the box room. Too bad Izzy had spoiled it all for herself now by returning his kiss in front of her lover’s eyes.

Frowning he turned the pages and read her CV, the references, everything. Luca would never allow a woman to charm him into giving her a job. So how come someone who had studied art and design had managed to bag a position like this? Enzo was surprised to find that Izzy had worked
closely with Hetherington’s fabulous designer Clarissa since leaving university. The reference provided by Hetherington himself stated that Isabella had been Clarissa’s most trusted team member, and that Clarissa was most reluctant to let her go. Isabella wished to put the business degree she had acquired at evening college into practice and had decided to leave the Hetherington hotel group to broaden her horizons. The reference finished with Hetherington’s statement that he’d take her back with open arms, should she ever want to work for him again.

With open arms
. No doubt Hetherington had already been Izzy’s lover when he wrote this gleaming report. If any of this were true Clarissa herself would have written the reference, wouldn’t she?
She
was the one who had witnessed Izzy work on a daily basis.
She
was the one who’d been in a team with her. There was no obvious reason why Clarissa should have passed the task of writing a reference for a lowly member of her design team to the big boss. No reason for Hetherington to accept that request either. The simple solution was that Izzy had used her obvious bedroom talents to persuade him to write a reference her next employer couldn’t resist. And Luca had not only fallen for the sham but also in love with the fraudster.

Enzo buried his face in his hands. He needed to decide on his next step and do it fast. The vision of Izzy’s face lit up behind his closed lids. These beautiful periwinkle-blue eyes, her soft pink lips… Yesterday’s kiss had been sweet and hot and sexy, utterly unforgettable. He tried to shake off the memory, just as he had tried throughout the night. He’d been tossing and turning between his sheets until he had finally given up and left his bed at the crack of dawn to have a cold shower.
Damn her
. He hated the knowledge that the little witch could still do this to him. And now that he had found out that
she
was Luca’s PA he hated her even more. Enzo cursed himself for never telling his brother about his short engagement to Izzy. As a consequence Luca hadn’t recognised her name when she applied for the job and had innocently fallen into her trap. The sheer cheek of her to try her luck with his brother after everything she had put him through.
Dio
, if Luca hadn’t caught Izzy up close and personal with Hetherington in that box room the ugly truth might never have come to light, and Enzo would probably have found himself being best man at their wedding.