The Billionaire's Secretly Fake Bride (MANHATTAN BACHELORS Book 3)

by Susan Westwood

  “Isn’t the water cold?” she asked thinly, keeping her back to it as she heard the waves washing close by.

  She felt his hands on her hips and his breath on her neck and her ear as he stepped up close behind her. His sudden touch made her draw in her breath sharply, and her eyes widened. “It’s warm,” he said quietly in her ear. “Come in with me. Don’t miss this incredible place and this rare opportunity. I know you’ve never experienced anything like this in your life. Come with me. It’s safe. You’ll love it, I promise.”

  His lips were barely more than a breath from her ear and her neck, and she closed her eyes as she felt her belly tighten and warm at the silken sound of his voice and the closeness of his body to hers. She felt his fingertips squeeze just a little, into the flesh on her hips and she tried to push herself away, but he held her firmly and pulled her against the front of his body. “You’re safe. Don’t be afraid, come with me… please. It’s been a day without equal, and we have the chance to make it a night just as amazing and beautiful.”

  “I’m not dressed for swimming.” She managed to say, though not with much strength.

  “You’re right.” He reached up to the shoulders of her sundress. She’d put it on after she had unpacked, before she came out to dinner. There were only thin straps and they slipped off easily. Before she could even take in another breath, he gave her sundress a little tug over her curves, and a moment later it was puddled in the sand at her feet. She crossed her arms over herself and gasped in agitation and he wrapped his arms around her, closing his hands over hers as he embraced her.

  “Don’t worry, Regina, it’s dark out here. I can’t really see you. Besides, you still have your bra and panties on, and I’d be willing to bet that somewhere amongst your belongings, you have a bikini that covers less than what you’re wearing right now. Am I right?” The calmness in his voice soothed her somewhat, though she was still stiff with shock.

  “I can’t believe you did that.” She snapped at him in irritation. His arms were still around her and the feel of his skin against hers was warming her from the inside out.

  “I don’t want you to miss this, and your inhibitions would have kept you from doing it. Now the hard part is over. All we have to do is go into the water. It’s warm, it’s clear, and it’s safe. It’s going to feel so good on your skin. The most refreshing thing you’ve ever felt. I promise.” His velvet voice in her ear was somewhat comforting.

  “Come on. Come with me.” He took her hands in his, slowly moving her arms away from her body. She let him.

  “Don’t peek at me,” she insisted, hoping that it would be some help.

  “Oh, I’m going to look. I’m not a saint and you’re my wife now, not to mention you’re an incredibly beautiful woman. I’m going to look, but the sooner you’re in the water, the less I’ll see. It is dark out here.” She could hear the grin in his voice.

  She knew that he was right. She did have a swimsuit that covered less than what she was wearing, though she had only worn it once. Sighing in annoyance, she turned and only caught his eyes for a moment. They were locked on hers, and she felt her cheeks warm as she blushed and turned her face away from his. “Okay fine, let’s go.”

  He led her into the water, and from the moment it touched her feet, she could feel what he had been talking about. It was just as he had said that it was. Warm, refreshing, and it felt beyond good to her muscles and skin as the pull of the waves seemed to draw away the soreness from their travel and her long day, and all of the stress that had been building up in her over the weeks.

  They went in up to their chests, and he watched her, checking to see that she grew comfortable in the water. She did, after a few minutes, and he let go of her hand and let her begin to swim and tread water a little.

  “This is incredible.” A smile formed over her face.

  “Yes, it is. I couldn’t let you miss it, and I couldn’t let you miss that.” He pointed over to the horizon, and she saw a great yellow moon begin to rise up over the palm trees, spilling moonlight all over the ocean and the beach. They were awash in its brightness and she was spellbound by it.

  “That’s…” she began, and stopped, unable to find a word to describe the moment. She stood transfixed in the water as it moved around her, staring at the moon as it rose higher in the sky, and Ryder swam near her.

  “It is perfect, especially with you here. There’s no one else I would rather be here with,” he told her, and he meant it. She heard it in his words and she felt an unease begin to bubble up in her. She turned her eyes from the moon and looked into his, and the expression on his face caught her off guard.

  There was a seriousness about him; a hunger in his eyes, and she felt embers deep in her begin to spark and leap into small undulating flames. Panic gripped the back of her mind and she blinked and shook her head. “Ryder, we can’t confuse things…” she began, but he didn’t seem to hear any of her words.

  “Lose yourself in this moment, Regina. It’s perfect… lose yourself in this place, and let me lose myself in you,” he said in a low voice, and he reached for her beneath the water, pulling her close to him. Before she could utter another word, his lips pressed firmly against hers and his hand went to the back of her head, holding her to him.

  She protested for a moment, willing herself not to give in to the moment and the place and the beautiful man who was kissing her, trying to remember that she was being paid to be there, trying to remember that she was going to leave, but as his mouth moved over hers and he held her close against him, her reasons began to slip away, one by one.

  He parted her lips and she tasted him; the rum and the salt from the sea. His powerful arms were wrapped around her, and as she began to kiss him back, tentatively at first, she began to realize that there wasn’t anywhere else that she wanted to be.

  His tongue twisted with hers as their kiss began to grow more passionate, and she felt his hand at the back of her head; he pulled the comb from her hair and the red locks spilled down the back of her neck and shoulders and soaked up the sea water behind her. He turned his fingers in the curls gently and pulled slightly as he kissed her deeper.

  “This is better than I ever imagined that it would be. I couldn’t dream this.” He began to kiss her down the side of her neck.

  She moaned softly and ran her hands over the solid bulk of his muscles, holding on to his shoulders as his hands moved to her back, and a moment later her bra was undone and a rush of water swirled around her breasts.

  The shock of the feel of it made her draw in her breath and somehow it seemed to wake her from the romantic moment that she was drowning in. She gasped and reached her hands to the bra, pressing it against her breasts.

  “We can’t do this!” She shook her head and moved backward, pushing herself away from him.

  He stopped short and stared at her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “We talked about his, Ryder. We were going to keep it just business! We can’t do this! We agreed to that!” She moved toward the shore and felt the sand beneath her feet as she began to walk backward out of the water, clinging the bra to her bare chest.

  He followed her and reached for her, trying to stop her. “Wait! We can change our plan… we can do anything we want, and it’s clear that we both want this! Don’t you want this?” he asked worriedly. He was certain that she did. He had been so sure, from their kiss at the wedding to the way he could see that he had affected her when he stood close to her and touched her, he knew that he was getting to her, and she had to want him.

  She shook her head. “No, you’re wrong. I know it was a… a passionate moment, and I’m so sorry. I let the rum get to me, I let the moonlight and the beach, and you… I let you get to me, but think about this. This is business, and that’s all that it is. You hired me… I’m your employee. We can’t let emotions get in the way! We have to keep this simple. This cannot happen.”

  He continued to follow her as she left the water and grabbed her dress up o
ut of the sand on the beach. She shook her head at him and held her dress to her body. “I’m sorry. I never should have let you kiss me. I never should have kissed you back. This cannot happen.”

  Regina looked at him with a miserable frown on her face. She wished that it could happen, she hadn’t felt so good in longer than she could remember, but it was the worst thing they could do to ruin their plan.

  “It’s our honeymoon night!” He frowned at her and reached his hand out to her. She turned away from him and almost ran to the house where her room was.

  “It’s just business, Ryder! We have to remember that! Only business!” She called back over her shoulder. She left him on the beach in the moonlight, and she went to her room and locked the door and went straight to the shower. She needed to think and the best place to do that was in the hot water, the steam, and the silence.

  She pushed back all of the heated emotion she was feeling, all of the desire and passion, and she reminded herself yet again that she was going to get a million dollars out of it, and that it would be over soon. She just needed to play his wife in front of his family. They could be friends on their own turf, but that was all that she could afford to allow between them. She was sure that if anything else developed between them, it would only lead to trouble, and the last thing that she wanted was trouble.

  Regina stepped out of the shower, exhausted and calm. She was determined. She might be his wife on paper, but she wasn’t going to be his wife in his bed. They were in business together, and that was all that it was going to be. It was the best decision for them both, she was going to make sure that it stayed that way.

  She slipped into her nightgown and nestled down into the bed, reaching to switch off the lamp on the bedside table next to her. With a sigh, she let the worries of the day go, and she promised herself that she would not let anything like it happen again. They would be friends, just as they had been, and it would be fine. Their business would go smoothly, and nothing would interfere with it.

  Outside on the beach, Ryder stood in the sand where she had left him. The moon had climbed higher and had lit the beach up with an almost daylight quality. He stared at the glass doors of her room, seeing her shadow pass back and forth behind the thin curtain, seeing her shadow form change into her nightgown, and finally, seeing her light go out.

  He cursed himself for pushing it too far and too fast with her, trusting on the romantic environment of the island to do all of his work for him in wooing her. It was good, but it was not good enough. He thought long and hard about her, about what had happened between them, and about what he wanted with her. He knew somewhere at the back of his thoughts that she was probably right, that they should probably keep it simple and just leave it as business, but that was swiftly becoming a problem for him.

  He wanted her. He was beginning to want her more than he had ever wanted any woman. He felt her getting under his skin, creeping over the edges of his heart, and into the walled off places of his mind. He felt her coming into places in him that no woman had ever been, and he knew that if he stopped pursuing her right then, he would be completely free of her, and there would be no repercussions.

  He also knew that if he let her saturate him any further, he might not have such an easy time walking away from her at the end, and he knew that he could not afford to lose himself to her. There was far too much at stake in his future to allow a dalliance like her to affect him the way that she was.

  The desires and the common sense of it all waged a battle in his mind, and pushed and pulled like the tides around his ankles and legs, back and forth. He wasn’t certain that he could go after her, do all that it might take to win her and convince her to let him have her in every way he wanted., and then let her go, but as the night wore slowly on and he stared at her darkened bedroom window, thinking of the fires that had ignited in him as he had held her in the waters around him, as he had finally kissed her mouth and tasted her, touched her and held her close to him, he felt true to his nature.

  Recklessness was practically his creed. Rash action, heedless abandon; a slave to his pleasures and desires, and there was no one he desired more than her. He clenched his jaw and his hands as he made up his mind in sheer determination. It didn’t matter what it cost him, short of his inheritance, he could handle going after her and wearing her down until she let her guard drop, until she could no longer resist him, until she wanted him with just as much ache and need as he wanted her.

  He could work for that, and when he finally had her, had her all that he wanted until he was totally sated and had his fill of her, then he would let her go and give her the divorce and her million dollars, and then it would be easy to let her go. He would be done with her, and she would have gotten what she came for and a whole lot more.

  They would both be happy, both be satisfied, and then they would part ways. Then there would be no pain for him, no emotional tie to her that might hurt him. He’d have had all he wanted of her and he would be done with her. The need and desire would be gone; those fires would be quenched.

  He smiled. She was going to be his, and he wasn’t going to stop until he had his fill of her, and then when she didn’t plague his mind, when he could look at another woman and feel desire, when he wasn’t quite so hungry for her anymore, she could go and it would be over. Their business would be done.

  *

  Regina rested deeply, soothed by the quietness of the remote location, the darkness around the house with no city lights to shine in through windows, and the sounds of the ocean so close by. She woke when the morning sun began to glow all around her, lighting the room up as if it was the very first day of the world; the first day of life, of everything.

  She blinked and looked around, forgetting only for a moment where she was and why, but then she ran her hands over the white sheets and bedclothes and turned her head a little in the deep fluffy pillow, and smiled. She was in paradise, and even if things had gotten too hot too fast with Ryder the night before, she knew that it would be okay, that they could let it go and focus on business, and just have a fun vacation together at his family’s home on the island.

  Pushing herself from the bed, she stretched and stepped onto the cool tile floor. In minutes, she had the bed made and the nearly sheer white curtains pulled back. She opened the glass doors that led out onto the tiled patio, and breathed in the fresh ocean air that swept over her. It smelled and tasted delicious. It felt delicious.

  A short while later she walked into the kitchen and indoor dining area, and was surprised to see that Ryder was up and looked as if he had been for a while. Coffee was made, breakfast was nearly done being cooked, and he was dressed in a black tank top and cream-colored cotton shorts that reached almost to his knees. He was barefoot and whistling to some island music that was playing on a radio not far from him.

  He smiled when he saw her, giving her a friendly look. He knew that he was going to have to play it cool until the right moments came up to get closer to her. He knew she would never go for him if he kept pushing. He had to take it easy and let her come to him, to a point.

  “Good morning. Did you sleep alright?” he asked, his dark hair tousled and his blue eyes steady on her.

  She nodded and gave him a smile in return. She could see that they were going to be okay. Things between them were going to be okay. “Yeah, actually, I slept better than I have in ages. It was amazing.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. Also,” he said, handing her a glass of pink tropical fruit juice, which she took and eyed curiously, “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry about last night. I mean… I don’t regret it at all and if you were interested, I’d absolutely do it again, but I do understand what you said and I’m sorry it wasn’t right for us last night.”

  She gave him a nod as she sipped her juice. It was the best juice she’d ever had, and it felt inside her like the morning sun had looked in her room; completely refreshing and enlivening. “Okay. Well, we’ll leave it at that, then. Let’s have some fun w
hile we’re here and enjoy ourselves.”

  Ryder gave her a wink. “I’m already on top of that. First, we start with breakfast, I made banana pancakes for you, and a fresh fruit smoothie. Also, there’s coffee and juice. When we’re done with breakfast, we’ll go explore the island. There’s so much to show you!”

  Happiness bubbled up in her at the idea of it. It sounded like the most fun she might ever have had, and she had only just sat down at the breakfast table. She looked at the food that he set down in front of her and blinked as she gazed back up at him with a grin.

  “Thank you! This looks amazing! I had no idea that you were such a good cook!” She wouldn’t have thought that anyone with his kind of wealth would ever have to cook a meal for themselves, and it impressed her that not only did he know how to cook, he knew how to cook well. “These are the best pancakes I’ve ever had.”

  She chewed on a bite and closed her eyes as she enjoyed them. He beamed proudly. “I love cooking. I love doing anything with my hands, and cooking is a great artistic expression. I just don’t indulge in it often enough.