The Bride Who Wouldn't (7 page)

“She’s very beautiful, she can be charming when she wants to get her own way, and…” Kate thought for a moment. “She’s very good at flicking the guilt switch.”

“Why
did
you leave the family business?”

“Because I couldn’t stand to see it going down. My father was successful because, for him, antiques were his passion. He taught me so much—he would spend a whole afternoon shining a cigar cutter or just pouring over books to find one image that matched his latest treasure.”

“You’re the same.”

“He got me addicted.” Kate smiled, thinking back to all those wonderful weekends when he’d taken her to auctions and they’d wander around for hours and always, always he would find a treasure when others wouldn’t.

She tried to explain it. “My father was patient. Acup is worth far more with the saucer and that same cup is worth far, far more if it completes a set. My father would wait years—
years!—
just to find the missing piece, whereas with my mother and brothers it’s all about a fast profit. The catalogues they presented for auctions were less and less impressive and they priced things ridiculously high in our store.” Kate shook her head. “They wouldn’t listen to me.”

“And so you walked away.”

“Not at first,” Kate said. “For a couple of years we had enough of a name and stock that things bumped along. I went to university and I guess around then it all started to unravel. A few bad purchases, too many rushed sales, that sort of thing. I tried to explain things but they wouldn’t really listen. My brothers came to a couple of antique fairs with me, but it’s not something you can just pick up over a few afternoons. I knew my stuff to a certain extent but not as much as my father and anyway, they simply refused to listen to me.”

“So you left?”

“I didn’t just walk away. It took years to come to the decision and I would still give advice if they asked but they don’t. It’s just falling apart around them.”

“Hence the guilt.”

“Yep,” Kate said. “It’s just gone from bad to worse. They owe money everywhere and keep insisting they’re just a day away from finding that one piece…” Kate looked over to him. “One piece isn’t going to support all of them. My father left my mother very wealthy but it’s gone to dust now.”

“Did your mother love your father?” Isaak asked.

“I don’t think so,” Kate admitted. “I’m quite sure she married him for his money and then spent the rest of their lives together making him miserable for her foolish choice.”

“You married me for my money.” Isaak winked and Kate actually laughed.

“I did.” They lay back on the grass and just stared up at the sky in amicable silence for a while, and then Isaak turned his face to her.

“Let’s try and not make each other miserable,” Isaak said. “Life’s too short.”

She looked at him smiling across at her, and he was really nothing like the man who had walked angry and accusing into her office that day.

“You’re nothing like I expected you to be.”

“Nor you.” Isaak’s smile was wry and then he looked back to the sky and decided that there was no way he was having a year off sex.

In fact, he’d rather not wait a week and given they’d already touched on the fact that no way would he ever force her, perhaps it was time for some seduction.

No, Isaak decided as he gazed at the woman dozing in the late afternoon sun, more relaxed with him than with her own family, more beautiful than she knew. Kate would not be leaving Paris a virgin.

“We have been spotted,” Isaak said and Kate opened her eyes to his face over hers. “There is a photographer trying to get a shot of us.”

“Where?”

“Don’t look,” Isaak said and he smiled down at her. “One kiss, for the camera…”

Kate nodded.

“One good kiss, then we go back to the hotel and you can read your book.”

“Okay.”

She waited but still his face hovered over hers.

“When?” Kate asked because she just wanted it over with, or rather she was starting to burn under his gaze.

“Soon,” Isaak said and he dropped a kiss on her nose.

“Isaak?”

“Very soon,” he said as Kate screwed her eyes closed, but feather light he kissed her eyelids.

“Isaak, can you just…”

“You’re doing good…” he said and then moved his mouth to her ear. “I’ll tell you a secret now…”

“Tell me.”

“Not really,” Isaak breathed to her ear. “This is for their shot.” He placed a soft kiss on her lobe, too soft because she was starting to ache for pressure and she had wanted to hear his secret.

She wanted his mouth on hers, his light kisses, now to her cheeks, were far from the kiss she had been expecting.

When he placed a hand on her stomach, Kate brought up her knees. “What are you doing?”

“I need to balance.”

“One kiss,” she reminded him.

“This is one kiss.” Isaak rained kisses down her neck as his hand on her stomach exerted slight pressure. “This,” Isaak said, between tiny kisses that moved up to her ear, “is how I would kiss my new bride if I were about to take her back to bed…”

Her panties were wet, her breasts felt too big for her bra, Isaak was making her dizzy and then suddenly he stopped and sat up.

“Let’s go.” He stood and offered his hand and helped her up.

Her lips were all achy for he had denied them his touch. Her sex felt twitchy and swollen, and her stomach nursed an injured grudge for it wanted the hand holding hers back there. As they started to walk, her mind was going to places it never had been before, and as he led her to the hotel, for a moment there she wanted his bed, wanted that to be where this was leading.

“I think they would have got their shot,” Isaak said, dropping her hand the moment they stepped into the elevator. “Well done.”

She hadn’t been acting though.

*

When she stepped
into the hotel room, there on the bed were her pearls.

“Oh.” It was beautiful, one long simple strand. “Thank you.”

She wondered if he might make a move, resume their kiss perhaps but Isaak was yawning from a mixture of sun and no sleep the previous night.

“I’m going to have a lie-down before dinner.” He kicked off his shoes. “What are you going to do?”

“I might read.”

“Enjoy,” Isaak said as he lay on the bed. “Can you put the don’t disturb sign on the door.”

The sign didn’t work.

Well, it might have kept the staff out and Isaak, who fell asleep in a matter of a moment, might not have been disturbed but Kate was.

Or was she just unsettled?

The sofa held about as much appeal as her book and the feel of him in the room, the beautiful sight of him relaxed in sleep had Kate on tender edge.

She wanted to go over there, to climb up on the high bed and join him, to curl into that lithe body, to lower her lips and get the kiss he had just denied.

She sat quietly with her own revelation.

Kate didn’t want to be The Last English Virgin anymore.

“T
he black one!”

Kate, wrapped in a bathrobe, having just had a shower, was looking through her purchases and deciding what to wear for dinner when Isaak awoke.

Unseen by Kate he watched her holding the black velvet dress up against her and looking in the mirror and then she put it back before taking out a rather more demure grey dress.

“The black one’s a bit much for dinner!” Kate said but Isaak disagreed.

“Not when you’re eating here. If I have to wear a suit and tie, the least you can do is wear that dress with pearls.”

“I’ve had my shower,” Kate said instead of agreeing. “If you want the bathroom.”

“Sosed,”
Isaak said as he stepped into the shower, for they were like flatmates sharing the facilities while dodging around the other. God, but he wanted her in here with him.

Isaak decided to take care of the rather obvious need as he soaped up his hardening cock, but for a man who was usually shameless, her revulsion last night at his crude suggestion put a dampener on things and instead he showered quickly and stepped out.

Christ, was he growing a conscience?

Tomorrow she had her spa day, Isaak thought, and decided to leave things till then.

“What time’s the booking?” Kate asked, trying not to notice how gorgeous he looked as he stepped out in fresh black underwear.

Last night she had been so distressed that she had paid no attention to his body.

She was trying not to pay attention to it now.

He was incredibly lithe, his skin pale, accentuating the dark red of his nipples. There was just a smattering of chest hair, but it was a much lower snake of glossy black hair that had her eyes fight not to look down.

His legs as he dried them were muscular and lean and the scent of him, fresh from the shower and doused in cologne, had her forget her own question as he answered.

“Seven.”

“Sorry?”

“The booking is for seven.”

Kate had been very busy since he’d been in the shower, she was dressed in the stunning black dress and had put her make up on, as well as pinning up her hair.

“What,” Isaak said as he looked down, “is your obsession with stockings?”

“I can’t go to dinner with bare legs.”

“Please do,” Isaak said. “From the waist up, amazing, from the waist down…” He shook his head. “They’re horrible.”

“You don’t dictate what I wear.”

“I’m not dictating,” Isaak said. “I’m strongly suggesting.” He rolled his eyes and came over. “Fine, at least they’ll be tucked under the table.” He watched as she put on her pearls, which fell low, low on her stomach.

“There weren’t enough pearls….” Kate stared down as he tied them in a low knot.

“I had a few added,” Isaak admitted. “Better than a choker?”

“It is.”

“You have only one knot, Kate…” He looked down to where it lay and in a very subtle way, he made reference to last night. “You can untie it.”

“I can’t,” Kate admitted and then he looked right into her eyes and asked a very direct question.

“Who hurt you?”

“No one.”

“So why are you so scared of something so nice?”

“I’m not scared.”

“Again you look me in the eye and lie.”

He saw the haze of tears and fear there, and he knew he was right. Someone had hurt her and badly.

“I am scared,” Kate admitted. “Especially because I
have
tried to get over it. I’ve seen many doctors and counsellors and I had a really nice boyfriend called Basil, and he was really patient, at first, but in the end—”

“Hey,” Isaak interrupted, “I can tell you now what the problem was there.”

“His name?” She smiled and Isaak laughed for he was glad to see she had her humour.

“Two problems then,” Isaak said, “Basil and
nice
.” He screwed up his nose. “I would be really offended if a woman described me as a nice boyfriend.”

“Really, how would you like to be described?”

“I
can
be nice, but that is not the first thing I would want to be described as by my lover. You did not need nice, you needed amazing, you needed sensational, someone so hot for you and you hot for them, someone deeply into you…” He looked down at her mouth and the burn on her cheeks. “You’re so far from frigid Kate.”

“Perhaps…” She took a deep breath, could not quite believe she was discussing this with anyone and especially
him
, but he was just so laid-back about the whole thing. “It’s not just a question of not wanting to, it’s that I can’t. I spasm…”

Isaak just stared.

“I get scared,” she explained further.

“I know,” Isaak said and kissed the tip of her nose. “I intend to unscare you. Come on, enough talk about sex. I’m hard…”

“Isaak.”

“But I am.”

He was holding her hand, and she almost wanted him to press it there, to feel him but he did not.

“Get your lipstick on,” Isaak said. “And those stockings off. If we can’t fuck, then we need to eat.”

Somehow he made her smile.

And yes, she took her stockings off.

T
hey took the
elevator with a porter who stood with a crib that he must be delivering to one of the suites.

“
Bonsoir
,” the porter said but Isaak did not answer, and it was Kate who responded as Isaak frowned at the crib.

“It’s beautiful,” Kate commented for it was. In antique silver, she guessed it to be from around the early 1900s. The hotel was filled with the most stunning pieces and finally Kate was starting to relax enough to enjoy.

“I love it here,” she said as they stepped out of the lift. “Even the baby cribs are fascinating.”

“Well it didn’t look particularly safe if you ask me,” Isaak quipped.

“Oh I’m sure it’s been thoroughly adapted,” Kate said and Isaak gave a nod but she could tell he was suddenly distracted.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course,” Isaak said as they were led through the lavish dining room and to their seats, tucked away to allow for an intimate meal, which, for a couple on a real honeymoon, would be sublime.

It was sublime anyway, Kate thought as they sat at a small table and Isaak took her hand. “You look amazing,” he said.