An Heir for the Millionaire
Page 15
Details of their marriage?
She had mentioned something about those details earlier, too, hadn’t she…?
And, if that determined look in her face was any indication, Xander didn’t think he was going to particularly like them!
CHAPTER SEVEN
CASEY had her emotions, and herself, firmly under control by the time Xander returned to the dining room ten minutes later.
It had just been a kiss, she tried to persuade herself. A kiss that shouldn’t have happened, and must never be repeated, but nevertheless still just a kiss. And once she and Xander had discussed the terms of their marriage she need never worry—fear?—that it would happen again!
Xander seemed to have put the incident behind him too, as he moved once again to hold a chair for her to sit down at the dining table. ‘I think we should start to eat some of this delicious meal my cook has prepared for us, don’t you?’ he suggested, before taking his own seat opposite hers at the twelve-foot-long table.
It would certainly be easier with Xander seated so far away for her to gather her chaotic thoughts together. To start the discussion that had been interrupted twice already.
But she took a sip of the white wine the butler poured to go with their smoked salmon and waited for the man to leave before attempting to do so. ‘I think it might be better if there were some sort of formal contract drawn up between us before we marry,’ she told Xander, her long lashes fanning over her cheeks as she looked down at her food, rather than down the table at him.
‘A formal contract…?’ Xander repeated guardedly.
‘Yes.’ She chanced a glance at him, and as quickly looked away again as she met the hard glitter of his gaze. ‘I think that would be best,’ she added nervously. ‘So that we both know where we stand and what—what to expect of each other.’
A silence heavy with tension stretched out between them. She really wasn’t going to be able to eat any of this lovely food at all if Xander continued to look at her so fiercely, his mouth unsmiling, his jaw clenched.
‘A prenuptial agreement, you mean?’ he finally bit out.
‘Something like that, yes.’ Casey nodded, relieved that he was the one who had actually given it that label. For her to have done so would have sounded—well, rather materialistic, perhaps.
But it wasn’t just her future she was talking about, was it? She had Josh to consider, too. In fact, if it weren’t for her young son she would never have considered Xander’s businesslike offer of marriage in the first place.
Besides, she had no idea why he was so obviously displeased by this conversation when the marriage of convenience had been his idea. After all, there had to be guidelines, didn’t there? For both of them. Otherwise the whole thing would just be a mess.
And so it began, Xander acknowledged with weary cynicism as he leant his elbow on the table and took a swallow of his wine. He somehow hadn’t seen Casey Bridges as mercenary, but he really should have known better. He hadn’t met a woman yet who wasn’t.
‘And what exactly do you have in mind for the contents of this prenuptial agreement?’ he asked, almost pinning her to her chair with the force of his piercing gaze.
She made a fluttering movement with her hands. ‘I don’t know—Well, I would obviously like something in writing concerning the security of Josh’s future,’ she amended quickly, as Xander raised dark, mocking brows at her prevarication.
He showed his teeth in a humourless smile. ‘And of course your own?’
Casey really wished he would stop looking at her like that. Almost as if she were a specimen he had placed under a microscope!
She shook her head. ‘I’m more interested in securing Josh’s future than my own.’
‘Oh, come, Casey—let’s not be coy about this,’ he drawled, ignoring the food in front of him but continuing to drink his wine. ‘Once your house is sold, and you move here, I will obviously pay all household bills, school fees, and so on, but I appreciate you will need access to money of your own for other—expenses,’ he rasped. ‘In return you will be expected to give up both the jobs you have been working at in order to become a full-time mother to Lauren and Josh.’
Well…yes. She had already worked that out. It wouldn’t be too much of a hardship when being a full-time mother was exactly what she had always been—until Sam’s desertion a year ago had forced her to juggle motherhood with two jobs in order to support them both. She accepted that it might not be every woman’s ideal to be a full-time mother, but she had always enjoyed the role, and had no doubt she would enjoy being stepmother to Lauren, too.
Although she wasn’t so sure about selling her family home…
What if Xander changed his mind and this arrangement only lasted a few months? Brad Henderson might calm down more quickly than Xander expected, and so remove the threat of a court battle over Lauren, in which case he wouldn’t need a wife any more.
Whereas she would still need a home for Josh and herself…
These were exactly the sort of details that needed to be worked out before they were married, so she had no idea why Xander should continue to look at her in that sceptical way.
‘Is that all?’ he snapped.
‘Er—no. There’s also the matter of the—the intimacy, or lack of it, in our relationship,’ she added uncomfortably. ‘Of course I accept that you’re only in your thirties,’ she rushed on, before she lost all her courage under Xander’s steely gaze, ‘that you will want—er—have needs… But as long as your—relationships are kept discreet, I see no reason why they should interfere with our arrangement in the slightest,’ she concluded awkwardly.
Xander continued to look at her for several long seconds without speaking, his hooded blue gaze unreadable. ‘You don’t think,’ he finally said softly, ‘that after our earlier—exploration of the possibility, perhaps it might be easier—less complicated—if we were to have that sort of relationship ourselves, in order to satisfy those needs?’
No, she didn’t!
She didn’t care about his previous claim that there were thousands of couples who had a sexual relationship but didn’t love each other. She had already had that with Sam, and she had no intention of repeating the experience with Xander Fraser!
‘No, I don’t,’ she told him firmly.
Xander’s fingers clenched so tightly around his wine glass that he was in danger of breaking it. Damn it, that earlier kiss might have been a little—unwise on his part, and the timing absolutely lousy, but couldn’t this woman see that there was a sexual attraction between the two of them that they would be foolish to ignore?
That it could be dangerous to ignore!
Did she seriously expect them to live together in close proximity, as husband and wife, and not explore the possibilities of the desire they obviously felt for each other?
He could see that she did. That green gaze was clear and determined as she looked down the table at him so intently.
‘We will, of course, have separate bedrooms,’ she added briskly.
That would be no hardship—he and Chloe had occupied separate bedrooms for years, by his choice!
He raised a mocking eyebrow. ‘And what of your own—needs? Do you intend to satisfy them discreetly too?’ His voice hardened. He was not at all happy with the thought.
The blush that he found so intriguing once again brightened her cheeks. ‘Certainly not!’ she denied indignantly.
Xander frowned, but something inside him eased a little, and he loosened his death-grip on the wine glass before he shattered it. ‘Then what do you intend doing about them?’
She shook her head, the candlelight bringing out the gold highlights in her hair. ‘I don’t intend doing anything about them!’ she assured him tartly. ‘The—physical side of marriage is not something that interests me in the slightest.’
She really thought she meant that, Xander realised as he took in the set of her mouth and the determined tilt of her chin.
For a woman who had been married fo
r seven years, who had a six-year-old son, Casey was surprisingly naïve if she didn’t realise exactly how sexually responsive she was—of how she had melted against him minutes ago, her mouth as hungry as his own.
Xander’s gaze narrowed as he wondered again about her marriage to Sam Bridges.
He had despised the other man almost as much as he had despised Chloe—had thought them two of a kind, considering only their own interests of importance. But had that selfishness also permeated Bridges’ physical relationship with his own wife?
What business was it of his? Xander instantly rebuked himself; Casey was very firmly setting down the terms of their marriage, making it perfectly clear that the financial security he offered was all that interested her. That he would have to look elsewhere if he wanted to satisfy his physical ‘needs’!
‘Fine.’ He gave a sharp inclination of his head. ‘Is there anything else you want written into the contract besides what we’ve already discussed?’
Casey looked at him uncertainly, knowing she had displeased him in some way, but completely at a loss to understand how. She was being reasonable, wasn’t she? More than reasonable, she would have thought.
‘No, there’s nothing else,’ she confirmed.
‘Then I’ll go ahead and make the necessary arrangements.’
The arrangements for their wedding.
The arrangements for her and Josh to move into this house.
The arrangements for her to be Xander Fraser’s wife. In name only…!
CHAPTER EIGHT
FOR Xander, the three weeks leading up to their wedding day were some of the most puzzling—and frustrating—he had ever known.
Used to making decisions, to controlling his multimillion-pound production company both here and in America, he found dealing with the complexity of the woman who had agreed to become his wife—in name only!—more challenging than anything or anyone else he had ever encountered.
In response to that telephone call from David James he’d initially had to go to New York for five days. While there he had received a telephone call from Brad Henderson, and the older man had made it clear that he didn’t believe any marriage between Xander and the widow of Sam Bridges would ever take place.
Which had been enough of a spur—if Xander had needed one!—to set the marriage plans in motion.
Which was when his troubles with Casey had really begun!
Telling the two children of their plans had gone smoothly enough—although Xander had been a little thrown when Josh, with his mother’s candour, had innocently asked if he was going to be his new daddy.
Casey had been the one to smooth over that awkwardness by stating that she thought it better if Josh called him Xander for the moment, and Lauren called her Casey.
But following that Casey had flatly refused to comply with his suggestion that she immediately give up her two jobs at the café and the hotel restaurant, claiming that she still had to live and pay the bills until after they were married.
When he had asked why she hadn’t put her house on the market yet, he’d been given the same answer.
His question as to whether or not she had any guests she wished to invite to the wedding had also been met with a negative. Well, he didn’t, either.
And she had absolutely refused to even consider his suggestion that she make any changes—either to Fraser House, or the running of it—she deemed fit for the comfort of herself and Josh. She had assured him there would be plenty of time for that later, if she deemed it necessary.
This had given him some insight into the reasoning behind Casey not doing any of the things he had asked of her—she wasn’t sure that he was going through with the wedding, either!
As a way of showing her he was completely serious about the marriage, he’d had his lawyer draw up the contract Casey had asked for—only to have her request that it be sent on to her own lawyer for perusal.
The bundle of fury that arrived at the house that evening, only two days before the wedding, wasn’t what he had been expecting!
He was working on some papers in his study when Hilton announced Casey’s arrival. The fact that she was here at all was surprising enough, but the angry glitter in her eyes and the flush to her cheeks were even more so as she stormed into his study seconds later and threw the contract down on his desk in front of him.
‘I can’t sign this!’ She scowled.
Xander frowned darkly. ‘Why can’t you?’
‘Because I can’t!’ she snapped. ‘Because it’s wrong! Because it’s—it’s damned insulting!’ she finished furiously, her hands bunched into fists at her sides as she confronted him across the wide width of the leather-topped desk.
She really was beautiful when she was angry, Xander thought abstractedly, even as he wondered exactly which part of the contract she found insulting.
Her face was less strained than it had been a couple of weeks ago—those dark circles beneath her eyes having disappeared, and the hollows of her cheeks having filled out a little.
But as for what was wrong with the contract, he had no idea. He had given her what she’d asked for, hadn’t he? Financial security for herself and Josh. So what the hell was the problem?
Casey stood her ground when Xander stood up to move round and rest his hips against the front of the desk. But the movement brought him dangerously close to her in the process, making her totally aware of him—of his warmth, of the air of sensuality that he held in control but which was never far beneath the surface whenever the two of them met.
Not that she showed by the flickering of an eyelid that she was in the least disconcerted by his close proximity. Xander Fraser was a man used to having his own way. She had quickly learnt that this last few weeks. But, as a woman who had become used to running her own life, and Josh’s, this last year, she wasn’t about to cede any of her independence without a fight.
‘Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll have my lawyer change it,’ he promised.
If he had returned her anger, or even if he had spoken to her in that coldly distant tone he sometimes adopted, Casey knew she would have found it easier to maintain her own fury on reading the contract he’d had drawn up.
As it was, she felt a little like a deflated balloon at his reasonable response. ‘I—It’s just—That paragraph is complete nonsense!’ She moved to jab a finger at the offending paragraph in the contract.
She was now even closer to Xander, her arm brushing against his before she moved back abruptly to look at him from beneath lowered lashes.
There was a dark shadow to the squareness of his jaw where he was in need of a shave, and his overlong hair was slightly dishevelled where he’d been running his fingers through it as he’d worked at his desk. Dark hair, that shone with ebony lights… The sort of hair that made Casey long to reach out and touch it, to run her own fingers through its silky length as Xander’s mouth once again plundered hers—
Casey gave an inward groan. She’d had a lot of fantasies like this these last couple of weeks—moments when she had found herself thinking of Xander, of the way he had kissed her, caressed her…
Imagining what would have happened if Hilton hadn’t interrupted them that evening…
After all her talk of a marriage of convenience between them, her insistence that she wouldn’t object to him having other relationships as long as he was discreet, Casey now knew that she found the very idea of Xander being intimately involved with another woman completely abhorrent.
Which was pretty ridiculous when she had absolutely refused to even contemplate the two of them having an intimate relationship.
But there was a good reason for that.
A very good reason.
She didn’t want Xander to know—for him to discover, just how inept she was at lovemaking. ‘Frigid’ was one of the words that Sam had used, along with ‘unresponsive’ and ‘cold’.
Sam had not been amused by her inexperience on their wedding night—had been slightly put out that he’d had to be t
he one to initiate her into lovemaking—and the whole thing had been painful and awkward for Casey. The fact that she had found herself pregnant only three months later had been something of a relief because Sam had claimed to find the whole idea of making love to a pregnant woman repugnant.
Their lovemaking had resumed after Josh’s birth, of course, but it had never been something that Casey had enjoyed—more something to be endured.
But she had been attracted to Sam before their marriage—had thought herself in love with him—and look how disastrously that had turned out!
No—no matter how attractive she found Xander, she did not want to repeat the experience with him, to see the same impatience in his face when he found out what a disappointment she was in bed.
Luckily he wasn’t looking at her, but at the contract he had picked up, a slight frown between those deep blue eyes as he finally looked up to shake his head. ‘I can’t see what the problem is—’
‘There!’ Casey moved forward to point to the appropriate paragraph, drawing in a sharp breath as once again she found herself standing so close to him she could smell the musky tang of his cologne, could see the dark hair that grew lightly on his bared arms beneath the black tee shirt he wore, see the quiet strength of his hands, his fingers long, the nails kept short.
Hands that last night she had actually dreamt of—touching her, caressing her—
‘I still don’t see it,’ Xander protested. ‘All it says is “the amount of one million pounds is to be paid into the bank account of Casey Bridges, then to be Casey Fraser, on the day of the marriage”—’
‘All it says?’ Casey repeated incredulously, stepping back slightly. ‘A million pounds, Xander?’
Xander found himself very aware of the woman standing so close to him. In fact, he acknowledged with self-derision, he had often found himself thinking of Casey lately, when he should have been concentrating on other things.
Apart from Lauren, who was something else entirely, work had always come first with him these last seven years—had been the constant that kept his life with Chloe bearable.