But no, he had left things as a reminder of what happened when he let his guard down. What they’d had together was not something he’d had with anyone else and he’d expected it to continue. He’d had great sex before, yes. He’d even enjoyed some great relationships, and had even thought one or two might go the distance, but it wasn’t until he’d met Ailsa that he’d realised what he’d been missing. She was feisty and opinionated and while it annoyed him at times, it also thrilled him. Because of his wealth and influence, he was used to people dancing around him—people-pleasers and sycophants all wanting to get on his good side.
But Ailsa wasn’t afraid to stand up to him. She seemed to relish the opportunity to not just lock horns with him but to rip his horns off and stomp on them and smile sweetly while she was doing it. He’d always liked that about her. Her drive and determination rivalled his and it secretly impressed him as few others impressed him.
But she had left him and it still rankled. It rankled like the very devil. He couldn’t countenance failure. Failure was for people who didn’t try hard enough, who didn’t work hard enough, who didn’t want hard enough.
He hated surprises. He was a planner, an organiser, a goal-setter. Things didn’t just happen—he made them happen. Success didn’t come about by pure chance. Opportunity knocked on the door of preparation, and that was why, when Ailsa’s younger brother had asked him for sponsorship, Vinn realised he had a chance to turn things around so he was back on the winner’s podium.
Blackmail wasn’t a word he was comfortable using but he would use it if he had to. He wanted Ailsa back for three months. Back in his house. Back in his life.
And, even more importantly, back in his bed.
He wouldn’t have made an issue out of it if he hadn’t seen the raw desire on her face, felt it in her body, felt it in her mouth as it was fused to his. She might baulk at signing the agreement but he had other ways to get her to change her mind. Much more satisfying ways.
He smiled and silently congratulated himself. You’ve got this nailed.
* * *
Ailsa waited for Vinn to come back that evening but he simply sent a text to say he had an urgent matter to see to and not to wait up. She hadn’t realised how much she had been looking forward to another showdown with him until the opportunity for it was taken away. Wasn’t he concerned she might leave and fly back to London? She hadn’t signed his agreement. Yet. She couldn’t get that ten million out of her mind.
She had never been the sort of person motivated by money. She enjoyed the good living she earned and was grateful she hadn’t grown up in abject poverty. But the thought of all that money and the good she could do with it was tempting. Not just to build and expand her business but to help others. There must be other children born of rape out in the community. Perhaps she could set up a counselling service or a safe place where they could talk about their issues. She could even offer to pay for her mother to have counselling, something her mother had always shied away from. But if the prohibitive cost of long-term therapy were taken away, perhaps it would help her mother finally heal?
But signing the agreement would mean she would be back in Vinn’s life for three months. He thought he had her cornered. Wasn’t that why he’d left her here unaccompanied tonight? He was confident she wouldn’t leave. And if it hadn’t been for his grandfather still undergoing surgery, she would have left.
Ailsa barely slept that night, not just because she was in one of the spare rooms instead of the bed she used to share with Vinn, but also because she was listening for his return. Every time there was a sound in the house she sprang upright, but each time it was just the villa creaking or a noise outside on the street. She kept glancing at her watch, her anger at him escalating as each hour passed. One o’clock. Two o’clock. Three. Four. Five. Why would he be at work at this hour? Or wasn’t he at work? Was he with someone? Someone he had on standby to assuage his needs?
Needs Ailsa used to satisfy.
Her anger turned to hurt. Deep scoring hurt like someone had taken a blistering-hot blade to her belly. She curled up in a ball and rocked against the pain. Why had she allowed herself to get into this situation? Exposing herself to Vinn’s power to hurt her like no one else had hurt her?
Somehow she must have slept but when she finally woke up around nine the next morning there was still no sign of Vinn. He texted her at about ten to let her know he was at the hospital with his grandfather. Had he been there all night? She wanted to believe he had been sitting by his grandfather’s bed but would that be allowed? Wouldn’t it be more likely he’d gone to spend the night with someone? Someone female?
It was later that following night when Ailsa realised she wasn’t alone in the villa. She’d been listening out for the return of Vinn’s car or the sound of the front door opening and closing, annoyed with herself for being on such tenterhooks. She had lost so much sleep over him and tied herself into such big choking emotional knots, she felt rattled to the core of her being. She was supposed to be over him. He wasn’t supposed to have this sort of power over her now.
But when she heard sounds coming from within his study she realised he must have come back without telling her. It infuriated her that he was treating her as if she were a houseguest he had no desire to interact with unless it was absolutely necessary.
Ailsa didn’t knock on Vinn’s study door but barged right in and stalked over to his desk, where he was sitting. ‘How long have you been back? I’ve been waiting for you since yesterday. Did you not think it would be polite to tell me you’d come back? I thought we had a burglar.’
He leaned back in his chair with a squeaking protest of expensive leather, his expression as inscrutable as a MI5 spy’s. ‘And what were you going to do if there had been a burglar in my office just now?’
Ailsa hated how he always criticised her impetuosity. So she was a little impulsive? He’d liked that about her in the bedroom. He’d been delighted and dazzled by it. Stop thinking about you and him in bed. She decided it was time for a change of subject. ‘Why are my clothes still in your wardrobe?’
‘I’ve been waiting for you to come back and collect them.’
She sucked in a breath, trying to contain her temper but it was like trying to stop a pot from boiling over while someone else was deliberately turning up the heat underneath. ‘How long were you prepared to keep them?’
He picked up a gold ballpoint pen off his desk and clicked it on and off in a carefully measured sequence of clicks. On. Off. On. Off. ‘As long as it took.’
Ailsa refused to back down from the challenge in his dark-as-night gaze. ‘I might never have come back.’
Something glinted in the back of his eyes and his pen clicked again, acting as a punctuation mark. ‘But you did.’
Ailsa ground her teeth so hard she was sure she would be on liquids for the rest of her life. ‘You had no right to keep my things.’
‘You didn’t ask for them back.’
‘That’s beside the point.’
His gaze was unwavering on hers. ‘Why didn’t you?’
‘I think you know why.’
‘I don’t.’ Another click-click of the pen. ‘Enlighten me.’
Ailsa compressed her lips. ‘You bought me all that stuff. They were clothes to fit the role of trophy wife.’
‘Are you saying you didn’t like them?’
She had liked them too damn much. ‘I’m not saying you haven’t got good taste, I’m just saying you wanted me to act a role I was no longer prepared to play.’
He dropped the pen and pushed back his chair and stood, coming around to sit on the corner of his desk right near where she was standing. She was conscious of his long strong legs within touching distance of hers and the way his eyes were almost level with hers because he was seated. She considered moving but didn’t want to betray how vulnerable she felt around him. She put her game f
ace on and stared back into his quietly assessing gaze.
‘When did you change your mind?’
Ailsa tried to keep her expression under tight control but she could feel her left eyelid flickering. ‘About what?’
‘About not wanting to be a trophy wife, as you call it.’
She tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear for something to do with her hands. How could she tell him she had never been happy in the first place? That their marriage was not the fairy tale she had longed for since she was a little girl. That she had only accepted his offer of marriage because it made her feel marginally normal. The white dress and veil, the congregation-packed church, the vows, the hymns, the traditions that made her—for a short time at least—forget she was the daughter of a faceless monster. That for the first time in her life she had felt wanted and needed by someone. Someone who could have had anyone but had somehow chosen her. ‘We should never have got married. We should have had a fling and left it at that. At least then we could have parted as friends.’
His eyes held hers for a long heart-chugging beat before his gaze went to her mouth. Then he lifted his hand and drew a line from the top of her cheekbone to the centre of her chin, not touching her mouth but close enough for the sensitive nerves in her lips to get all excited in case he did. ‘You don’t think we could one day be friends, cara?’
Ailsa pressed her lips together to stop them from tingling. Her heart was thudding like a couch potato at a fun run and her resolve was nowhere to be seen. ‘We’ve never been friends, Vinn. We were just two people who had sex and got married in a hurry and had more sex.’
His mouth shifted in a rueful manner and he slowly underscored her lower lip with his fingertip, just brushing along her vermillion border, creating a storm of longing in her flesh. His hand fell away from her face and his gaze met hers. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ He released a short sigh. ‘But it was great sex, sì?’
Ailsa wished they weren’t talking about sex. Talking about sex with Vinn was almost as good as doing it with him. Almost. The way he looked at her with those dark, sexily hooded eyes, the way his body was so close but not close enough, the way his hands kept touching her as if he couldn’t help himself. Talking about sex—about their lovemaking—made her want him so badly it was like an unbearable itch taking over her entire body. ‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean I want it now. Or ever. From you, I mean. We’re practically divorced and—’
His hands captured both of hers and drew her so close to him she was standing between his muscular thighs. Everything that was female in her started cheering like cheerleaders at a grand final. Her hands were flat against his chest, her breasts pushed so tightly against him she could feel the ridges of his muscles against her nipples. ‘You do want it. You want me. That’s why you haven’t had anyone since me.’
Ailsa made a vain effort to pull away. Well, maybe it was more of a token effort if she were to be perfectly honest. She didn’t want to pull away. She wanted to smack her lips on his and rip off all his clothes and get down to business to assuage this treacherous need spiralling through her body. But some small vestige of her pride refused to allow her to capitulate so easily. ‘I’m sure you’ve had dozens since me. How soon did you replace me? A week? Two? Or are we talking days or maybe even hours?’
His hands released her and he set her from him and stood from where he had perched on the corner of the desk. He went back around the other side of the desk as if he were putting a barricade between them. His expression was just as barricaded. ‘Until our divorce is finalised, I consider myself still legally married.’
Ailsa looked at him in shock. ‘What are you saying? That you haven’t had anyone since me? No one at all? But I saw pictures of you in the press with...’ She stopped before she betrayed her almost obsessional perusal of the press for any mention of him. She had even gone as far as buying Italian gossip magazines. Ridiculous. And expensive and practically useless since she couldn’t read Italian.
‘I have a social life, but I’ve refrained from getting involved with anyone until our divorce is done and dusted. I didn’t think it would be fair to bring a new partner into such a complicated situation. Why are you looking so shocked?’
Ailsa tried to rearrange her features into blank impassivity. Tried but failed. ‘I just thought you’d...you know...move on quickly.’
He straightened some papers on his desk that, as far as Ailsa could tell, didn’t need straightening. His eyes met hers across the desk—dark and glinting and dangerously sexy. ‘You mean for a man with my appetite for sex?’
The less she thought about his appetite for sex, the better. It was her appetite for sex that was the problem right now. She couldn’t get it out of her mind. She couldn’t get the ache out of her body. ‘I never took you to be a man who’d be celibate for two days let alone almost two years.’
He gave a shrug. ‘I’ve eased the tension in other ways. If nothing else, it’s been good for business. All that redirected drive has paid off big time.’
Ailsa couldn’t get her head around the fact he hadn’t replaced her. Not with anyone. She’d spent the last two years torturing herself with images of him making love with other women, doing all the things he had done with her, saying all the things he had said to her, and yet...he hadn’t.
He’d been celibate the whole time.
But why? What did it mean? He had more opportunity than most men to attract another lover. Many other lovers. And since they were officially separated and in the process of divorcing, then why wouldn’t he have replaced her with someone else? Few people these days waited until the ink was dry on the divorce papers.
She had been celibate because having sex with someone else had never even crossed her mind. She’d looked at men in passing but mentally compared them to Vinn and found them lacking. No one came even close. No one stirred her senses the way he did. No one made her feel more like a woman than he did.
Ailsa slowly brought her gaze back to his, but somehow the knowledge that he had been celibate for so long only intensified the sexual energy that pulsated between them. She’d been aware of it before. Well aware. But now it was crackling in the air like static electricity. She ran her tongue over her suddenly dry lips, her chest fluttering as if there were a hummingbird trapped in one of her heart valves. Two hummingbirds. Possibly three. ‘So...that explains why our kiss in the hallway got a little...heated...’
Vinn came back around from behind his desk and, standing right in front of her, slowly tucked a loose strand of her hair back behind her ear, just as she had done moments earlier. But her fingers brushing against her skin hadn’t set her nerves abuzz like his did. Ailsa could feel her body drawn towards him as if he were an industrial-strength magnet and she was a tiny iron filing. ‘Three months, cara. That’s all I want. After that you can have your divorce.’
Ailsa watched his mouth as he spoke, her mind and her body seesawing over whether to accept his terms. If she didn’t and left right now she would be divorced from him within weeks and free to move on with her life, leaving him free to move on with his. Isaac would miss out on his chance at a golfing career, but she could only hope that he would find another career. He was young, and who didn’t change career a couple of times these days anyway?
But if she accepted the three months arrangement she would be back in Vinn’s life.
And even more tempting...back in his bed.
Could she do it? Could she risk three months with him just to get him out of her system once and for all? It wasn’t as if she was committing to for ever. He didn’t want for ever...or so he said.
Just three months.
She could have all the sex she wanted with him. She could indulge in a red-hot affair that had a time limit on it so she didn’t have to feel trapped or worried he would suddenly start talking about making babies. It was risky. It was dangerous. But it was so tempting—especially since she�
�d found out he hadn’t replaced her.
What did that mean?
Ailsa slowly brought her gaze back up to his. ‘Why are you doing this?’
He slid a hand under the back of her hair, his fingers splaying through the strands, making her shiver in sensory delight. ‘I told you—I want my grandfather to have a stress-free recovery.’
She swallowed back a whimper of pleasure as his fingers started a gentle massage at the nape of her tense-as-a-knotted-rope neck. ‘This isn’t just about your grandfather. It’s about us. About this...this chemistry we have.’
He brought his mouth down to the side of hers, nudging against her lips without taking it further. ‘So you feel it too, hmm?’
Ailsa couldn’t deny it. Her body was betraying her second by second. She angled her head to give him greater access to her neck, where he was now leaving a blazing trail of fire as his lips moved over her skin, the slight graze of his stubble stirring her senses into a frenzy. Desire slithered in quicksilver streaks to all her secret places. ‘I want it to go away.’ Her voice was too soft and whispery but she couldn’t seem to help it. ‘It has to go away.’
His mouth came back to just above hers, his breath mingling with hers and making every reason to resist him slink away in defeat. ‘Maybe three months together will burn it out of our systems.’ He nudged her lips—an invitation to nudge him back.
Ailsa shuddered and slid her arms around his waist and placed her mouth on his, giving herself up to the flame of lust that threatened to consume them both. The heat of his mouth engulfed her, sending her senses spinning out of control. His tongue found hers in an erotic collision that made her inner core instantly contract with need. His lips moved on hers with an almost desperate hunger, as if he had been waiting for years for the chance to feed off her lips. She kissed him back with the same greedy fervour, her tongue darting and dancing with his, her body on fire, her blood racing, her heart giving a good impression of trying to pump its way out of her chest.
Blackmailed into the Marriage Bed Page 7