Billionaire Bachelors: Stone

by Anne Marie Winston

  A puppy!

  “It’s for you,” said a deep male voice, and she looked up to see Stone lounging against the door frame at the end of the hall.

  She dropped to her knees and gathered up the puppy, talking nonsense to the wriggly little black-and-tan bundle, giving herself time to collect her thoughts. He didn’t sound angry anymore. Cautiously she said, “What kind is it?” as she held the puppy up to her cheek. She laughed as the little tongue lapped at her cheek.

  “She’s a German Shepherd,” he said. “Do you like her?”

  “She’s adorable! She’s so tiny.”

  “She won’t be that size for long. I thought she would be a good companion when you’re walking around the park alone.” He walked forward as she got to her feet with the puppy in her arms and to her shock and pleasure, he drew her close. “I’m sorry about this morning.” He dropped his head and sought her mouth before she could speak, masterfully teasing her into a response that flared wildly between them. Then he tore his mouth away from hers. “Will you forgive me? It’s none of my business what you do with your time.”

  She was stunned. What had produced this sea change? “Of course,” she said, resting her head against his shoulder. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”

  “Well,” he said in a teasing tone, “I seem to recall that we were somewhat preoccupied…before.” Then he set her away from him. “What should we name her?” he asked, nodding at the puppy.

  “I don’t know! Have Mama and Clarice seen her yet?”

  He laughed. “Yes. They were bitten by the love bug at first sight. Or should I say first lick?”

  She giggled. Then she snapped her fingers. “That’s perfect. How about Lovebug?”

  “Lovebug?” He looked dubious. “You’d really make me stand on the streets of New York with a German Shepherd named Lovebug?”

  When he put it that way…“Oh, well,” she said. “Back to the drawing board.”

  “It’s got a certain cachet, though,” he said. “Lovebug.” He bent his knees so that he was eye level with the dog in her arms. “Are you a lovebug?”

  She smiled at him. “You sound just like a doting daddy.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  There was an instant of awkward silence as they both remembered the night before.

  “We’d better take her out,” he said at the same time that she said, “What will we do with her at night?”

  They both laughed, and the moment passed. He put a hand at her back and guided her to the back of the house, where they took Lovebug outside. Then he showed her a crate in the kitchen. “The breeder told me it would be a good idea to get her used to being crated,” he said. “For trips to the vet, or if we’re away, or if we have parties and we want to protect or confine her. Apparently a lot of dogs like them so much they voluntarily sleep in them if the door is left open.” He pointed to the table, where several books and a variety of leashes and toys lay. “I got a few things the breeder recommended.”

  She shook her head, amused. “You don’t do anything halfway, do you?”

  “Why don’t you let me show you?” His voice dropped intimately.

  A thrill of arousal shot through her. “What will we do with Lovebug?”

  “Try out the crate?” he suggested. So they did, and to her amazement, the puppy sniffed around her new domain, wrestled once or twice with a large stuffed parrot, and then circled three times and fell asleep on the fleecy dog bed Stone had purchased.

  “Hot damn!” he said. “Shall we try out the tub?” He took her hand and pulled her up the stairs into his room.

  “We haven’t even eaten dinner yet,” she protested.

  “Later.” His voice was a rough growl. He tugged her into his arms and wrapped them around her tightly, so that every inch of her was locked against every inch of him. “I want you,” he said. “I didn’t get a damn thing done today because all I could think about was you.”

  She was stunned. And so happy she thought she might just burst. He’d brought her a puppy. A puppy that wasn’t going to be anywhere near full-grown in less than a year, meaning…? She couldn’t even let herself hope.

  But now, now he was telling her things that she’d longed to hear, that she’d never imagined she would. He wanted her. He’d thought of her all day. “I thought of you, too,” she said. “I—” But she didn’t get a chance to tell him she loved him.

  His mouth closed over hers as he bent and lifted her into his arms. He carried her up the steps and into the bathroom, where she discovered that he hadn’t been kidding about trying out the tub.

  Later, they ordered a pizza and ate it in front of the fire. Stone propped his back against the couch afterward and pulled her against his side, stretching his long legs out and sighing. “I’m still acclimating to the time change. I’m beat.”

  “Was your trip fruitful?” she asked, curling against him and laying her head on his shoulder. She kept her voice light, trying for an easy conversational tone as she stroked the puppy that lay in his lap.

  He rolled his head, stretching the taut muscles in his neck. “Yes. We’re going to begin the application process to open a plant in Beijing. With a little luck and a lot of greasing of official palms, we might be up and running in twelve more months or so.”

  He was talking about his work! She hid her elation and said, “Isn’t there an awful lot of corruption in China? How are you going to control your costs?”

  “I’ve factored in a certain amount of overhead simply because of that. And I’m using American managers, at least for the setup, until we get a true cost picture. Once things stabilize, we might hire local managers.”

  “But by then you’ll know the costs and if things changed drastically you’d know something funny was going on.”

  “Exactly.” He hesitated. “I’m going to have to go away again next week.”

  “Oh.” She let her disappointment show in her tone. “Where to this time?”

  “Dallas.”

  “I’ll miss you.”

  “And I’ll miss you.” He turned his head and kissed her temple, and her heart doubled its beat. Stone wasn’t just acting like a man who had the hots for a woman. He was acting as if he really cared for her. Then he spoke again. “I thought about asking you to go along, but I’ll be so busy you probably would see very little of me. I’ve managed to schedule five days of work into three, though, so it won’t be a long trip.”

  “Good.” She traced a pattern in the thick mat of hair that covered his chest, exposed by the shirt he’d thrown on and hadn’t bothered to button. “I can see I’m going to develop an aversion to your absences.”

  “Then I’ll just have to devote extra time to you while I’m here.” He lifted the puppy and surged to his feet, starting for the kitchen. “Let’s put her in her crate and go to bed.”

  “That would be nice,” she said demurely.

  He looked back as he straightened from the crate, catching the gleam in her eye, and laughed as he started toward her. “It’ll be a whole lot more than ‘nice,’ and you know it.”

  The following week raced by at the speed of light. He made love to Faith every chance he got, and if she could be more radiant, he couldn’t imagine how. She lit up whenever he came into the room, her pleasure in his presence clearly apparent. Stone decided that if all marriages were like his, no one would ever get divorced.

  The thought sobered him slightly. When they’d married, he’d planned a quiet annulment at the end of twelve months. Now there was no chance of that. He and Faith would have to divorce. The very word left a bad taste in his mouth.

  He was scheduled to leave for Dallas on an afternoon flight. That morning, he went in to the office for a few hours, then came home to pack. Faith sat on the bed and watched as he efficiently gathered his clothing and folded it into the suit bag he was taking.

  “You’re awfully good at that,” she said. “I guess you get a lot of practice.”

  “Practice make
s perfect,” he parroted. He looked at her, seated cross-legged on his bed—and suddenly, he knew he was going to have to have her one more time before he left. Her lovely face was woebegone at the prospect of separation; he knew just how she felt. The thought of sleeping without her was making him more than a little desperate.

  Setting aside the briefs he was stuffing into corners, he stepped toward her, his hands going to his belt, swiftly opening his pants.

  “Stone!” she said. “You’ve already had your send-off.”

  “Ah, but that was goodbye.” He put his hands on her thighs and slid them up beneath the skirt she wore, dragging down her pantyhose and the thong he’d watched her shimmy into that morning, throwing them across the room. “This,” he said, positioning himself and bracing his body over hers as he slowly pushed into the hot, welcoming depths of her body, “is my incentive to hurry home.”

  Her eyes were dazed, her expression so sensually intent that it set fire to his already raging need for her. He lifted her thighs and draped them over his shoulders, beginning a quick, hard rhythm. She bit down on her lip and moaned, then her eyes flared wide and she arched up to meet him. It was a fast, frantic coupling. He was driven by a need he didn’t fully understand, some primitive urge to stamp her as his, and he hammered himself into her receptive body until she convulsed in his arms. Immediately he followed her, feeling himself spilling forcefully into her until he lay over her, panting.

  Faith lifted her arms, which had fallen limp to her sides, and clasped his head in her palms. She gave him her mouth in a sweet, deep kiss that he returned in full measure. When she tore her lips from his, she gasped, “I hate it when you’re gone.”

  “I know, baby.” He grinned at the pouty expression on her face, kissing her again. Faith wasn’t generally moody; she must really be minding this. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to cut down on my traveling from now on.”

  “I’d like that,” she said. “I had visions of spending the next couple of decades watching you pack a couple of times a month.”

  “Faith—” Her words were entirely too seductive, slipping into his mind and twining around the need for her that he couldn’t admit, even to himself. With an effort, he recalled his original proposition. One year. That was all he’d ever promised her.

  “I love you,” she said. He closed his eyes against the stark emotion pooling in hers, defensive anger rippling through him. Hadn’t she understood anything he’d said that first night they’d made love? But she continued. “I know you think you don’t want children now, but you might change your mind one of these days, and I’d hate for our child to grow up wondering where Daddy is half the time. As it is, Lovebug is going to be devastated. She worships you. I thought in a couple of years maybe we could get her a companion—”

  “Faith!”

  She finally stopped, and her shock at his tone was evident.

  Fighting himself as well as her, he said, “I told you before that I don’t want children. And does the phrase ‘temporary marriage’ ring any bells with you?” The words were harsh with frustration.

  Immediately he regretted the question. She recoiled from the words as if he’d struck her. Slowly, she said, “We’ve been talking—sharing—everything, which I assumed meant we were growing closer. You got the dog, which I assumed meant we’d be sharing her in our future. You’ve made love to me every chance we got, which I assumed meant more than simply sex. Did I assume wrong?”

  He was sweating. Pure fear took over. What if he let himself believe her? He wasn’t sure he’d survive if she left him one day. “You knew from the very beginning that this arrangement had a definite end in sight.” Forget the fact that he’d been wondering if there was any need to end it. Ever.

  Her whole body stiffened. She immediately pushed at his shoulders, trying to free herself. He held her down with implacable force, their bodies still joined, but she turned her head to the side, shutting him out. Tears trickled from beneath her eyelids and ran across the bridge of her nose to disappear into the hair at her temple. He swore, dragging himself back away from her and shoving his clothing roughly into place.

  Faith scrambled backward away from him, off the far side of the bed, where she bent her head and ignored him while she pulled her skirt into place, ignoring the fact that she was wearing nothing beneath it. Finally she took an audible breath and raised her head. Her gaze was so tortured and filled with pain that it struck him like a blow.

  “I asked you a question earlier. You haven’t answered it.” Her voice was steady but her eyes were swimming with tears. “I assumed our lovemaking was more than sex. Was I wrong?”

  No! Admitting anything would make him vulnerable. He hesitated.

  And in that fatal second, he saw that whatever he said wasn’t going to be enough.

  “Never mind,” she said. She turned toward the door.

  “I told you before that it was easy to confuse love and lust,” he threw at her back, furious at her for forcing this confrontation. “You’re too young to know the difference.”

  She stopped. Turned. And shot him a look of such fury that he was shocked. Then the fury drained away, right before his eyes, leaving her face a stark study in anguish. “You’re wrong,” she said, her voice breaking. “But if all this is to you is a case of lust, don’t expect sex when you come home again. Because I’ll be looking for someone to love.”

  “Wait,” he said, but she was already gone, the slam of the door echoing around his bedroom. He sank onto the bed, putting his head in his hands. What in hell had just happened? Guilt tore through him. He’d broken her heart. Deliberately. Using words like weapons to hurt her.

  And he was afraid she was never going to forgive him.

  Why? Why had he done that? He could have made his point in a gentler way. But she’d rattled him so badly that he hadn’t been able to think for the panic clouding his brain.

  He rose, intending to find her and demand that they talk this out, to apologize and grovel if it would keep her from looking at him as if he were lower than an earthworm. She would forgive him. She’d been the epitome of patience and understanding since they’d married; it was only to be expected that she would get frustrated and lose it occasionally. But she’d forgiven him before, each time he’d hurt her by reminding her that the marriage was temporary, that her feelings were transient. Once she calmed down, she’d forgive him again. She had to.

  Why? asked the smug little voice in his head. You didn’t want her emotions.

  But he did. He took a breath so deep that his shirt seams strained. Oh, God, he did. He wanted her love, her understanding, her happiness, every emotion she felt.

  Then the unmistakable sound of the back door closing caught his attention. He rushed to the window in time to see her slide into the smaller of his two cars and disappear down the street.

  He was astounded. His gaze shot to the intimate apparel she’d left discarded on the floor. Unless she had underwear stashed in her purse or something, Faith had just left without even bothering to get fresh underwear.

  Knowing her as he did, that realization alarmed him more than anything. Faith was the most ladylike of ladies outside their bedroom door. She would never do something so risqué without extreme provocation.

  And that seemingly small action told him far more effectively than any words that she considered their marriage to be over.

  The panic he’d been trying to subdue punched him full in the chest. Too late, he saw what had been within his reach all this time: a long happy life with the woman he loved at his side. But he’d driven her away with his selfish, self-protective actions…

  And now he had nothing.

  He canceled the Dallas trip, clinging to a dwindling hope that she would come home and forgive him.

  But Faith never came home that night. He called her former roommates, the only friends he knew she had, but they professed not to have seen her.

  He went to work the next day because the alternative was answering unanswerable q
uestions from Clarice and Naomi. He had a lot of time to think while he sat in his office trying unsuccessfully to work. He’d tried to call Faith at home several times, but every time the machine had picked up. He’d known, in his heart, that she wouldn’t answer even if she were there, but he’d had to try.

  More than once, he picked up the phone to call a private investigator to track her down. But each time, he’d set the phone back in its cradle unused. Lunch was as unappealing as breakfast had been and he barely touched his meal.

  That night, he explained to Naomi and Clarice that he and Faith had had a misunderstanding and that she’d gone away for a few days. Her mother was clearly alarmed, saying over and over again that Faith would never just go off without telling her. Stone spent an hour reassuring her, telling her that he was the messenger Faith had chosen, that she would be back.

  And he’d see that she did return. Even if it meant him moving out.

  Five days passed, with the weekend sandwiched in between. On the morning of the fifth day, Faith finally acknowledged that Stone wasn’t coming after her. She knew what kind of determination and drive he had. If he’d wanted to find her, he’d have made it happen within hours of her leaving.

  He didn’t want her.

  She lay in the spare bedroom of the apartment that Eliza Smythe’s receptionist had offered to share with her when she’d learned of Faith’s dilemma and sobbed silently into her pillow. She should be dealing with this better. Hadn’t she already cried enough to fill a bathtub?

  It was time to contact him, she decided. To let him know she would return and honor her commitment. The very thought brought fresh tears. But she’d made a promise and she intended to keep it. The only change would be that she planned to move into the set of rooms her mother and Clarice shared. That way, she could avoid Stone altogether, except for times when they had to appear publicly.

  She couldn’t imagine how she was going to get through the rest of the year.

  Still, people didn’t die from broken hearts. She’d be starting school in another month, and since she had nothing else to think of, she could double the class load she’d intended to take. That would keep her from simply giving up. She hoped.