The Bride Who Wouldn't

by Carol Marinelli

  “You’re twenty-six.”

  “I know.” Kate yawned. “I’m honestly not trying to win her approval—I gave up on that long ago. I’m just saying to you that I don’t know what my style is.”

  “Then we find it today!” Isaak said as the door knocked and breakfast was wheeled in. “We’ll go shopping.”

  Kate sat up as the lights were turned on and then Isaak did the nicest thing, he pulled up the sheet and covered her and glancing down she saw that her breast had fallen out of the lacy nightdress.

  She sat in bed, and the butler asked if they wanted the table set up.

  “Non…” Isaak broke into fluent French and a tray was delivered to her lap and his.

  He gave more orders and with her rusty schoolgirl French, she recognized what he was saying about tidying the bathroom and picking up the pearls later and a few other things that she could not make out. Then they were alone.

  “We can eat at the table if you prefer,” Isaak said. “I thought it might look a bit strange if I said to him…”

  “Here’s fine,” Kate smiled.

  It actually was.

  That he had saved her from a blushing moment with the butler, that he didn’t seem angry in the least about last night, had her feeling safer. And the bed was sooo comfortable after a night spent on a sofa.

  “What’s this?” Kate asked as she went for her coffee and saw a thick creamy envelope addressed to her.

  “I booked a day in the spa for you,” Isaak said. “I thought it would be nice for you to relax after the wedding, but I just changed it to tomorrow so that we can go shopping.”

  “You didn’t have to change it,” Kate said looking through the brochure and seeing the treatments. Kate didn’t really like massages; she could never quite relax, though it was so thoughtful of him to have organised it for her that she chose not to say. “Today will be fine.”

  “Tomorrow rain is expected, so it works out better. We can enjoy the sunshine today.”

  *

  They did.

  Very possibly it was one of the nicest days of her life.

  She left the hotel in white linen capri pants with a lemon top and a knot of anticipation in her stomach wondering how she would return.

  Isaak, dressed in black jeans and a dark grey top looked effortlessly stunning and, as it turned out, was very good to shop with.

  He chatted with the gorgeous assistants and then sat there patiently as Kate was brought out dress after dress, top after top and he translated suggestion after suggestion.

  “When did you learn French?” Kate asked from the inside of a changing room as she pulled on a pale lilac dress.

  “After I learned English,” Isaak said from the other side of the curtain, “I started to do some business here.”

  “Any other languages?” Kate asked pulling the curtain back.

  “Du bist sehr sexy.” Isaak smiled, telling her in German how hot she looked and Kate started to laugh.

  “I do actually like this,” Kate admitted. It just fit so well, though it was a touch short perhaps.

  “Wear it now,” Isaak said.

  “It needs stockings.”

  “It so does not need stockings,” Isaak shook his head.

  “My legs have been tucked in boots all winter…”

  “Then they deserve a day out.”

  He gestured to the assistant to take off the security tabs.

  “Onward.”

  Boutique after boutique, they visited and slowly she honed in her style. Lilacs, purples and deep, deep reds. And then Isaak held up a little black dress.

  A very little black dress.

  “Try,” Isaak suggested.

  Crushed velvet, it felt like she was squeezing into a tube and it was so low at the back that she had to take off her bra to get the proper effect. When she did up the halter neck, Kate realised just how gorgeous the dress was. She had a bust, a waist, and it gave her curves, and it if wasn’t for the acres of white flesh on show, she might have adored it.

  Isaak did.

  “I don’t think it suits me.”

  “It does,” Isaak said, standing behind her as she looked in the mirror.

  “I thought we were looking for my style.”

  “You don’t like it?” Isaak checked. “Then don’t get it.”

  “I do like it,” Kate smiled at him in the mirror, not that Isaak noticed. He was shamelessly staring at her reflection, his eyes lingering on her breasts. Somehow, though he was looking at glass, his gaze warmed and made her terribly aware of them. She could feel the strain of her nipples and her breasts felt heavy with only the loose support of the dress.

  “Isaak!” Kate scolded.

  “What?” In the mirror, he caught her eyes and smiled. “I wasn’t looking directly at them—I wouldn’t be that rude.”

  Kate looked at her reflection again, hopefully with a more open mind. It was actually very beautiful, or was it that Isaak made her look at herself in very different ways. “I think it’s a bit much, or rather it’s a bit little.”

  “What would your mother say?” Isaak asked and Kate let out a short rapid burst of laughter.

  “Oh, I can guess.”

  “Is she here now?”

  Kate shook her head. “No.”

  “Do you want the dress?” Isaak said and now he wagged a finger at her, though it made her smile. “It’s entirely up to you but a year from now, I swear you will be regretting the day you were in Paris and said no to the dress.”

  A year from now.

  Kate frowned because a year from now this would all be over and so she nodded.

  “Yes, then.”

  Apart from the lilac dress that she was wearing, the rest of her purchases were all to be delivered to the hotel and at lunchtime, they sat outside a café, the coffee turning to wine as her legs freckled in the sun.

  “It’s been fun,” Kate smiled.

  “It has,” Isaak agreed. “It has been a very long time since I have had any time off.”

  “And me,” Kate said. “It’s completely my own fault—I love my work, and I choose to work through my lunch breaks and stay late, it’s just nice to…” She didn’t really know what to say. Was it that she was outside on a beautiful day? Was it that she was in the present rather than delving into history? She stopped and thought for a moment, took in the gorgeous aromas from the bistro, the sounds of children laughing and lovers chatting and then she looked over at Isaak, relaxed and enjoying their long lunch, relaxed and seemingly enjoying her company and it was a moment she would never forget. “It’s just nice to be here,” she said finally.

  It was.

  “Are you happier today than you were yesterday?”

  “Yes,” Kate admitted. “I never expected to be enjoying myself especially after last night. I truly am sor—”

  “Kate, can we not go there again,” Isaak interrupted. “I was very angry last night but when I thought about it, I can understand why you may think like that. If you know anything of my family history, then you will know that my father and his father before him were not the kindest of men.”

  He watched the colour suffuse her cheeks and misinterpreted it for embarrassment at the subject matter. “Come on,” he said, draining the last of his drink, “let’s wander.”

  There was nowhere more beautiful than Paris in springtime and Kate wasn’t sure if it was for show when he took her hand, but whatever it was, she liked the feel of his hand there, the way he guided her through the streets and how, when she spoke, he would squeeze her fingers, or lift her hand higher if something she said made him laugh.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Kate said as they wandered around the Garden of Palais Royal, and as they sat down on the grass near the fountain, Kate just took it all in. “It’s far more beautiful than I remember.”

  “How many times have you been?”

  “I came here with school,” Kate said, “and then with my mother just after my father died, I was sixteen…” she wrinkle
d up her nose at the memory of that time. “I went for a walk and got lost and I ended up in Pigalle…”

  Isaak raised his eyebrows, because Paris’s red-light district would be a very seedy place to find yourself at sixteen, especially a sixteen-year-old Kate.

  “What did you do?”

  “Panicked!” Kate said and she closed her eyes as she returned to the wretched memory of that time. All the near-naked women in windows and the XXX clubs and bouncers inviting her to come in for free wine. Somehow she had got back to the hotel shaken and crying, and her mother had asked just where the hell she’d been and Kate had been too scared to admit she’d simply got lost.

  “It wasn’t the best time,” Kate admitted. “I probably overreacted, but I was so upset over my father and so confused about—” She certainly wasn’t going to tell him what she was confused about. “Other things.”

  “You still miss your father?” Isaak asked, sensing that she wanted the subject changed.

  “I do,” Kate said. “He really was the kindest, sweetest man.”

  “So, what did he see in your mother?” Isaak asked with a slight roll of his tongue in his cheek, for at the wedding he had not taken to Kate’s mother in the least.

  “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.

  Chapter 7

  “The 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.