The Deal--A Sexy Billionaire Romance

by Clare Connelly

  I scoop up my bag and walk to the door with as much dignity as I can muster. I pull it open, holding my breath, wondering if he’ll stop me, wondering if he’ll say anything else. I’m still holding my breath at the elevator. The doors slide open and I step inside. The doors begin to slide shut and right as they’re about to latch shut in the middle, his hand slides between them.

  ‘Don’t fucking go like this,’ he groans, pulling me towards him, and, damn it, the tears I’ve been fighting are sliding down my cheeks. He pushes his hands into my hair, holding my face steady so he can look at me. ‘Please don’t cry.’

  He is shocked. He didn’t expect any of this.

  So much of this is hard to understand, impossible to fathom, but there’s one thing that always, without fail, makes sense. He kisses me and everything slides into place. Our kiss tastes of my tears. My body, my treacherous, traitorous, opportunistic body, melds to his, my hands lifting to encircle his neck, and he lifts me off the ground for a moment, holding me tight to him.

  This is so perfect. I love him.

  But he doesn’t love me and there’s no fix to that. This kiss is just delaying the inevitable.

  A sob forms in my mouth and I break the kiss, pushing at his chest and wriggling to the floor.

  ‘Don’t.’ The word is tremulous and soft, but it holds a mighty warning. ‘Don’t mess with me. You know how I feel and what I want. Don’t look at me as though this is hard for you when it’s all because of you.’

  He takes a step back, his mouth open, shock on his features, and I take advantage of his response to reach across and press the button to close the elevator doors.

  This time, he doesn’t stop me.

  * * *

  ‘Lara Postlethwaite graduated with a first in philosophy. Did I tell you that?’

  I look at my mother through a fog of Scotch and disbelief. The early evening light catches the books that line my parents’ ancient library, making them appear to shimmer in gold, and all I can think of is Imogen and the joy she took in my Manhattan library. The way she devoured book after book after book.

  ‘I happen to know she thinks you’re fascinating.’ My mother’s smile beams with maternal pride. A vulnerable ache forms in my chest.

  My mother is growing older. I don’t know why I haven’t noticed before, but sitting by her and looking at her, I see not just a meddling society matron, but a woman who’ll soon be seventy, who wants to know her son is married, that grandchildren are on their way. It’s been easy to put all this matchmaking and expectation down to their concern for the title and the lineage. But what if there’s more to it?

  What if this is largely a case of a mother simply wanting to know her son is happy? Wanting to see that Saffy didn’t ruin me for all other women?

  ‘And I presume she’ll be at the New Year’s Eve ball?’ my father chips in from across the room, his eyes meeting mine over the top of the broadsheet newspaper he’s been reading for the better part of an hour.

  ‘Oh, yes, m’dear.’

  Perhaps my mother senses my lack of interest. Undeterred, she shifts in a slightly modified direction. ‘Of course, Cynthia MacDougall is flying in and so looking forward to catching up with you.’

  Cynthia I like. We have had a low-key flirtation going on for years. She’s pretty and smart and doesn’t really go in for all the aristocratic bullshit. She’s personally wealthy enough that I know she’s not a gold-digger, and I know she wants kids.

  She’d be a good match for me; she definitely ticks the boxes of what I’m looking for.

  So why does that very idea make me feel as though I’m being buried beneath a tennis court’s worth of just-poured cement?

  I recline in the seat, closing my eyes a moment, wishing it were so easy to drone out my mother’s wittering about potential brides.

  ‘I think a June wedding would be perfect, if you can make that timing work, darling.’

  My gut is being squeezed in a vice.

  I’ve been back in England three days and I feel as if I’m withering away into nothing. I stand abruptly and move to the windows, which perfectly frame a view over the east lawn towards the Kyoto garden and then the nearby stables.

  I love this place. I have always felt at home here.

  But not now. Right at this minute, I would do almost anything to be back in Manhattan, in the penthouse that was my bolthole when things turned bad with Saffy.

  But I don’t want to be there alone.

  I press my hand to the glass, then drop my head forward, the cooling glass against my forehead bringing some kind of sharp sanity.

  I want Imogen.

  My insides groan.

  I want her but I can’t have her. I tried. I tried to extend what we were and she didn’t want that. I will never forget the sight of her face when she pushed me out of the elevator. Her tears—because of me.

  Oh, God. I’d do anything to have her not cry. I’d do anything to fix this.

  ‘I’m sorry to deprive you of a week of sex, but I have no doubt you can find someone else to fill your bed until you leave.’

  As though what we were could be boiled down to a simple equation. Sex.

  It was so much more than that. Because she was right, I could easily have found someone else to seduce for a night, if I’d just wanted to fuck some warm, willing body.

  But I haven’t wanted that. Not since Sydney. Not since I met Miss Anonymous and lost a part of myself to her.

  I spent over a week on tenterhooks, as though my very survival depended on my ability to find her once more. I found her, and I held on as tight as I could for as long as I could. Even at the end, on that last morning, I offered what I could to prolong our farewell, because I wasn’t ready to walk away from her.

  Would I have been ready a week later? Would New Year’s Eve have rolled around, and might I have hopped onto my jet and come here to England, to my parents’ party, to meet the potential brides my parents had yet again selected?

  ‘The Greenville on Strand could host it,’ my mother continues, a little hopefully, as though booking a suitable venue is of more concern than finding someone to marry. ‘The ballroom there has been redecorated and is quite perfect.’

  Fuck. Fuckety-fuckety-fuck. The idea is anathema to me.

  Sleeping with someone else. Marrying someone else. I only want Imogen.

  I want her in a way that is filling me with boiling lava; I need her. I need her and I need her to know that.

  * * *

  My face hurts from stretching this smile across it. I look out on the sea of kids eating their Christmas lunches, their faces happy, the mood ebullient. I alone am suffering. I stand in the background, watching the festivity as it overtakes the hall, knowing that there are eighty-seven of these lunches being held around the country for all the kids we support, that Christmas is alive for the Chance community.

  And usually this is my favourite day of the year. I feel as if this is what Christmas is truly about—the ability to give and make better the lives of those who owe you nothing.

  I know how important this day is but my heart is too heavy to appreciate it. I find it almost impossible to enter into the spirit, so I keep my head down, busying myself with the logistics I don’t really need to worry about. I clear tables and disappear into the kitchen, filling the sink with warm sudsy water and losing myself in the anonymity and pure, physical labour of washing dishes.

  I take my time, the feeling of warm water on my gloved hands at least a little soothing. Staff move around me, chatting amongst themselves. I keep my back turned. I try to cheer myself, thinking about the incredible donation of gifts we received this year, gifts that made sure every child was spoiled with something truly lovely.

  Ordinarily, I’d be walking on the clouds. But not today.

  Not since he left.

  I pause in my dishwashing
, my eyes filling with tears once more. I’m such an idiot. What did I think? That I’d tell him I’d fallen in love and he’d leap into the air and exclaim, Me too, darling! Nicholas Rothsmore wasn’t the ‘fall in love’ type—he showed me that again and again. All the love was coming from me, and it just proved what a fool I am.

  ‘Bins are overflowing, Amy!’ one of the wait staff calls to another.

  ‘I’ll do it.’ I shuck the rubber gloves off and walk away from the sink, keeping my head dipped so no one speaks to me. I have to get it together. I have no interest in causing people to speculate on what’s going on in my life.

  I grab one of the bags out of the bin and tie it, carrying it carefully through the kitchen and banging out of the doors and onto the street. It’s Christmas Day and it’s deserted out here. Everyone’s at home with their families, enjoying this perfect snowy Christmas.

  I open the lid on the bin and drop the bag in it, then lift my head when I hear the closing of a car door.

  And everything comes into a strange kind of focus, too bright, shaky, weirdly discordant. As though I’m looking through those old-fashioned 3D movie glasses.

  Striding towards me dressed in jeans and a leather jacket is Nicholas Rothsmore, and damn if my heart doesn’t rejoice even as I know I have to protect myself somehow.

  Confusion sears me. Did he stay in New York? Is he here till New Year’s, just as he said? Is this some Hail Mary, ‘one last night’ kind of booty call?

  Nicholas Rothsmore is the love of my life but I swore I’d never see him again. So what the hell is he doing here now?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘HI.’

  He has this incredibly sexy, raspy quality to his voice, like a radio commentator or something. It makes my blood pound even as my stomach is dropping to my feet.

  I find it hard to meet his eyes. ‘What are you doing here?’

  My throat is so dry. I swallow but it barely helps.

  It’s some consolation that he looks uncertain. Nervous? Apprehensive?

  My stomach loops some more.

  ‘I came to see you.’

  I turn back to the building. Things are slowing down in there. I don’t have to rush back—I’m superfluous now, here because I have nowhere else to be, no one else I want to spend this day with.

  ‘What for?’ The words are soft, showing my hurt, and I hate that. I hate how much he’s hurt me. I hate that I let him.

  He moves closer and I startle a little, wariness at war with a deep-seated physical need. I shoot him what I hope passes for a warning glare.

  His expression shifts.

  ‘What do you want, Nicholas?’

  A muscle jerks low at the base of his jaw. ‘I have spent the last ten hours working out what the hell I would say to you and now I find I have no fucking idea where to start.’

  ‘Tell me why you’re here, on Christmas Day,’ I demand, looking inside again.

  ‘I came to see you,’ he says, as if it’s simple.

  ‘Yeah, but why?’

  ‘That’s harder to explain.’

  I grab hold of my anger, glad to feel it, glad to have some line of defence against the desire and wants that are ruining me from the inside out.

  ‘Forget about it.’ I spin away from him. ‘It doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t have come.’

  No. His response, when I told him I loved him, is burned into my consciousness. I will never forget it. I will never forget how that felt.

  ‘Wait a moment.’ He catches me, turns me around to face him, and my body jerks with recognition of this, of what he means to me. I wrench my hand free, glaring at him, wishing he could understand how much he’s hurting me. ‘Just let me get this out.’

  But I’m done waiting. ‘I don’t think there’s anything left to say, Nicholas. Unless you’ve had some kind of miraculous heart transplant?’

  His jaw shifts, and I glare at him, waiting, but he says nothing for so long that I actually wonder if he’s just here to hit me up for one last night before he leaves. My skin crawls. What started out as ‘just sex’ is now so much more that it would be an insult to even pretend we’re not. Except that’s what he did. It’s galling and frustrating and hurtful and enraging, all at the same time.

  ‘Please.’ The single word brings me to a stop. I look at him with a growing sense of desperation. Doesn’t he realise how hard this is for me? Doesn’t he realise how much I hate this?

  He must take my silence for consent, because a moment later he speaks, his voice thickened with concentration.

  ‘My mother is in full planning mode, first for a New Year’s Eve ball, which I gather is going to be a little more like the casting room of The Bachelor, with me as the prize.’ He winces self-consciously. ‘She’s already got the wedding planned, now we just need to find someone for me to marry.’

  Does he have any idea it’s like being scratched all over? His words are vile. I hate them. I hate that he is here telling me this.

  ‘We’ve discussed your obligations.’ My voice simmers with contempt.

  His own is gently placating. ‘And six weeks ago, I was happy to go along with them. What did I care who I ended up married to? My only criterion was that it be someone I could stand spending time with. In many ways, the less I had in common with her, the better. This was to be a straightforward arrangement. No muss, no fuss. Simple, right?’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’ I can’t do this. I spin away from him again, needing to be alone, or at least away from him, breathing in frigid, ice-filled air. My lungs stutter.

  He reaches for my elbow, spinning me around gently, insistently.

  ‘And then I met you and, somehow, everything changed.’

  I draw in a sharp breath.

  ‘I don’t know when it happened, but what I wanted when we started this has shifted and now I need so much more. From you, from my life, from my marriage. Everything’s different, Imogen. Everything.’

  The world stops spinning. This doesn’t make sense.

  ‘What?’ I blink, wishing I didn’t sound so completely non-comprehending. ‘Wait.’ I hold a hand up. ‘This doesn’t make sense. You left three days ago. After telling me you didn’t love me, that you’d never love me.’

  ‘I know that.’ He runs a hand through his hair, his frustration and confusion barrelling towards me.

  ‘I...’ He draws in a breath, his eyes scanning my face, then he shakes his head, as if it’s not quite what he meant, and starts again. ‘When I was twelve, I came off my bike and I never rode again. I refused. I didn’t like the way it felt to fall, so I gave up the pleasure of riding, which I had, up until then, loved very much.’ He closes the distance and cups my face.

  ‘You’ve told me that.’

  His eyes gaze into mine. ‘I hated the way Saffy made me feel. I hated being let down, hurt, burned, stripped raw in front of so many people. I felt worthless, Imogen. Worthless and unwanted. So I promised myself I would never fall in love again. That I would never be so gullible as to believe in love—what a stupid construct! But, Imogen, I left New York and I nearly turned my back on a whole lifetime of experiences and joy—a lifetime with you—because I was too scared to get hurt again.’

  I can’t get enough air in. His eyes drop to my lips, and there’s a frown on his face, as if he has no idea where he stands with me.

  ‘I fell in love with you, anyway, and I have been fighting it the whole time we’ve been together. I have not been able to put you out of my head for even a day. Not one single day, not an hour, in fact, since we met. I love you. I am obsessed with you, and I should have known that when you told me how you felt. I should have understood, but I have spent five years running from even the idea of love and I didn’t know how to turn my back on that.’

  His thumb pad brushes over my lips and I shudder. In a good way, I think. Or maybe just in an emotionally
drained way because, despite the fact it’s only been three days, I feel as if I have been strapped over a pile of burning coal and I’m so spent.

  ‘It has been an agony and a form of torture to think of you going home to marry someone else,’ I mutter, my heart still so sore, so hurt, that I find forgiveness and understanding hard to muster, even in the face of what he’s just said.

  ‘I know.’ He drops his forehead to mine, his warm breath fanning my face. ‘I hate that. I am so sorry. The sight of you in the elevator, pushing me away, has replayed on my mind like some godawful ten-second clip since I left.’

  ‘Left? You went home?’

  He nods.

  ‘And now you’re back?’

  ‘I couldn’t stay there. I had to see you. I needed you to know, as soon as I realised, that I am head over heels in love with you. And not in a way I’ve ever felt before. This is so different. I feel as though if I don’t spend the rest of my life with you, a part of me will die. I can’t explain it. You’re in my blood and my breath; you’re a part of me.’

  And for the first time in days, I exhale slowly and I smile. I smile in a natural way because I feel the first flicker of true happiness. In a very, very long time.

  He drops a hand and laces his fingers through mine.

  ‘I’m sorry I was so stupid.’

  I laugh then, and shake my head. ‘You were stupid.’

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘But you’re done?’

  ‘Being stupid? I can’t promise that.’ He grins and my heart stitches together a bit. ‘But I will never hurt you again, Imogen. You are everything to me, and I plan on spending the rest of my life showing you that. If you’ll let me.’

  Stars shift in my field of vision. ‘I...don’t...’ I frown, and lick my lower lip. ‘Are you...?’

  ‘Asking you to become Lady Rothsmore and all that entails? Yes. Though not very well, evidently.’

  I don’t know what to say. I never thought I’d get married and not to someone with more money than Croesus, but here I am, head over heels in love with this man, and nothing matters beyond that. Not his title, his wealth, nothing. There is an imperative in me to agree to this—an imperative of my own making. My happiness is built on this conversation.