Yet it was harder than he’d imagined to keep his distance from the woman he’d married, or to keep thoughts of her at bay during his working day. Hard not to remember how it felt when she was in his arms at night. The growing sense that he was in danger of losing control. His mouth twisted. Because he would never lose control. Never again.
‘No, of course it didn’t occur to you,’ she continued, her voice shaking. ‘Because I’m of no consequence to you, am I? None at all!’
Conall leaned back in his chair, his narrowed eyes wary. This marriage of theirs wasn’t real, so why the hell was she making out as if it were? ‘You sound a little hysterical, Amber.’
Amber went very still, feeling like a small child who had been reprimanded by a very severe teacher. And suddenly all her words were coming out in a haphazard rush. Words she’d thought often enough but never planned to say, in her determination to be the cool and casual Amber she knew she was supposed to be. ‘I’m fed up with being allocated a few hours in the morning before you go to work and then just sandwiched in at night, when you can be bothered to tear yourself away from the office and your beloved Serena. Weekends are better—but you still manage to spend a great deal of time working.’
‘Will you please lower your voice?’ he demanded.
‘No. I will not lower my voice.’ She sucked in a breath, aware that two worried-looking waiters were now hovering at the edge of the room and some of the lovey-dovey couples had gone completely quiet and were staring at them with mounting looks of horror on their faces as if registering that a full-blown row was escalating. This is what it’s like for me, thought Amber miserably, trying not to envy all those couples their closeness and unity, but failing to do so. This is what it’s like for me. This is the reality of my marriage.
And suddenly she realised how stupid she’d been. What was it they said? That you couldn’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Just as you couldn’t make a real marriage out of something which had only ever been a coldly executed contract. Why even try?
Had she really thought she could endure three months of this? Of trying to just enjoy sex when all the time her heart was becoming more and more involved with this stubborn man and would continue to do so with every second which passed? She was a woman, for heaven’s sake—not a machine! She might try but she couldn’t keep her emotions locked away, even if her husband had managed to do so with such flair. Because he doesn’t have any emotions!
She leapt to her feet and some of Conall’s champagne slopped over the side of the glass as the cutlery on the table clattered. She saw the dark look of warning in his eyes but she ignored it with a sudden carelessness which felt almost heady.
‘I’m sick of being married to a man who treats me as if I’m part of the furniture!’ she flared. ‘Who always puts his damned work first. Who doesn’t ever want to talk about stuff. Real stuff. The stuff which matters. So maybe I ought to admit what’s been staring me in the face right from the start. It’s over, Conall. Got that? Over for good!’
She tried to tug the gold band from her finger but, stubbornly, it refused to budge. Picking up her handbag, she rushed straight out of the restaurant, aware of Conall saying something to the waiters as he followed, hot on her heels. She’d planned to hail a cab but she didn’t have time because Conall had reached her with a few long strides and was propelling her towards his waiting car—holding her by the elbow, the way she’d sometimes seen police do in films when they were arresting someone.
‘Get in the car,’ he said grimly and as soon as the door was closed behind him he turned on her, his face a mask of dark fury. ‘And start explaining if you would—what the hell was that all about?’
‘What’s the point in repeating it? It’s the truth. You don’t make enough time for me.’
‘Of course I don’t. Because this isn’t real, Amber.’ The bewilderment in his tight voice sounded genuine. ‘Remember?’
‘Well, if it isn’t real, then we need to show the watching world that there’s discord between us. We can’t just break up after our supposedly romantic whirlwind marriage without some kind of warning. We need to show that cracks have already begun to appear in our relationship and tonight should have helped.’
There were a few seconds of disbelieving silence.
‘You mean,’ he said, clearly holding onto his temper only by a shred. ‘You mean that the undignified little scene you created back there was all just part of some charade? That you disturbed those people’s dinner in order to manufacture a spat between us?’
Wasn’t it better to let him think that, rather than reveal the humiliating truth that she’d wanted to search for something deeper? That her stupid aching heart was craving the love he could never give her.
‘But it’s true, isn’t it?’ she questioned, biting her lip to stop tears spilling from her eyes. ‘There are cracks. It’s been cracked right from the get-go. All that stuff you said about me realising some of my talents was completely meaningless. You could have done the courtesy of having me sit in on the conference call with Prince Luciano about the Wheeler painting, but you didn’t. You didn’t even bother to mention the negotiations. To you I’m nothing but an invisible socialite who happens very inconveniently to turn you on.’
‘Well, at least you’re right about something, Amber, because you certainly turn me on,’ he said grimly. ‘And yes, I often find myself wishing that you didn’t.’
Something dark and heavy had entered the atmosphere—like the claustrophobic feeling you got just before a thunderstorm. But he didn’t say another word until the front door had slammed behind them and Amber thought he might slam his way into his study or take a drink out into the garden, or even shut himself in the spare room, but she was wrong. His gaze raked over her and she saw a flicker of something dark and unknown in the depths of his sapphire eyes.
He moved like a predator, striking without warning—reaching out for her dress and hooking both hands into the bodice. He ripped it open, the delicate material tearing as easily as if it had been made of cotton wool. Amber shivered because cold air was suddenly washing over her skin and because the expression in his eyes was making her feel...excited and he nodded as he looked into her face, as if he had seen in it something he recognised, something he didn’t like.
‘And your desire for me is just as inconvenient, isn’t it, Amber?’ he taunted. ‘You wish you didn’t want me, but you just can’t help it. You want me now. You’re aching for me. Wet for me.’
Her lips were parched as they made a little sound, though she didn’t know what she was trying to say. She could scarcely breathe, let alone think. Excitement fizzed over her skin even though she told herself she should have been appalled when her panties suffered the same fate as her dress and fluttered redundantly to the hall floor. Appalled when he started to unfasten his trousers, struggling to ease the zip down over his straining hardness.
But she wasn’t appalled.
She was relieved—for surely that was a moan of relief she gave as he eased his moist tip up against her and then thrust deep inside her. She gasped. Was it anger which made this feel so raw and so incredible as she ripped open his shirt to bare his magnificent torso? Or simply the frustration that this was the only way she could express her growing feelings for him? She could bury her teeth into the hair-roughened skin of his chest and nip at him like a small animal. And although he was giving a soft laugh of pleasure in response, she knew he wouldn’t be laughing when it was over.
He didn’t even kiss her and she knew better than to reach her mouth blindly towards his in silent plea. And anyway, there wasn’t really time for kissing. There wasn’t time for anything but a few hard and frantic thrusts. It was so wild and explosive that she gave a broken cry as her orgasm took her right under and his own cry sounded like some kind of feral moan—as if something dark had been dragged up from the depths of his soul. It was
only when he withdrew from her, seconds later—quickly turning his back so she couldn’t see his face—that she realised he had forgotten to use a condom.
He was breathing very heavily and it was several seconds before he had composed himself enough to turn around and stare at her and his eyes looked dark and tortured. He was shaking his head from side to side.
‘That should never have happened.’ His bitter words sounded as if they had been dipped in acid.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Oh, but it does, Amber. It really does.’ His lips twisted. ‘I can’t believe I just did that. That we just did that. It was...it was out of control. I don’t want to live my life like that, and I won’t. This marriage was a mistake and I don’t know why I fooled myself into thinking it could be anything else.’
Amber stared into his eyes and saw the contempt written there, along with a whole lot of other things she would rather not have seen. Once before he had looked at her as if she were something which had been dragged in from the dark, and it was the same kind of look he was giving her now. But back then he hadn’t known her and now he did. It was rejection in its purest form and it hurt more than anything had ever hurt.
Biting back the sob which was spiralling up inside her throat, she bent down to grab her tattered panties, before rushing upstairs towards the bedroom and slamming the door behind her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE END OF the marriage was played out in the papers, just as the beginning had been, and Amber found herself reading the headlines with a sense of being outside herself. As if she were some random little dot high up on the wall, looking down at the mess she’d made of her life.
And it was a mess, all right. She stared down at the photo taken of them at the Granchester on their wedding night—that false and misrepresentative photo snatched by a fellow diner—while she read the accompanying text.
Whirlwind marriage over. Golden couple split.
But it turned out to be surprisingly easy to dismantle their short-lived union. Or maybe not so surprising. Because a marriage undertaken to settle a long-term debt could never be anything other than doomed, no matter how strong the sexual chemistry between them was.
During their last conversation together, Conall had told Amber he intended being ‘generous’ in his settlement—but she had shaken her head.
‘I don’t want your charity,’ she’d said, trying desperately to hold on to her equilibrium when all she’d wanted was for him to put his arms around her, and to love her.
‘An admirable attitude, if a little misguided,’ he’d responded coolly. ‘And a waste of everyone’s time if you don’t accept your side of the deal.’
A waste of everyone’s time? She had glared at him then, because glaring helped keep the ever-threatening tears at bay.
‘I’m offering you the apartment and a monthly maintenance payment,’ he’d said. ‘You won’t have to move.’
She told herself it was pointless to deliberately make herself homeless and so, even though she rejected his offer of monthly maintenance, she accepted the deeds of the apartment and immediately put it up for sale. She couldn’t bear the thought of living in a block owned by Conall and the nightmare prospect of running into him. She would buy somewhere smaller, in a less dazzling and expensive area, and use the profit she made to support herself. She would start living within her means and take no maintenance from him. And she intended to get a job.
She sold her diamond watch—slightly taken aback by how much it was worth—and with the money raised she booked onto a short degree course in translation and interpretation at the University of Bath. It was a beautiful city and far enough away from London to know that there would be no risk of running into Conall. By a fortuitous chance there was a course starting almost immediately and Amber leapt at it eagerly. It gave her something to do. Something to replace the miserable thoughts which were whirling round in her head. She didn’t want to do some boring job involving grain quotas, but surely there would be other opportunities open to her? Some which might even involve travel. But first she needed a bona fide qualification and so she moved into a rented room in a house on the outskirts of the city and began to work harder than she’d ever worked in her life.
She’d never shared a flat or lived on a reduced budget before and she soon became used to running out of milk, or eating cornflakes for lunch. She discovered that a cheap meal of pasta could taste fantastic when you shared it with three other people and a bottle of cheap wine. And if at night she found sleep eluding her and tears edging out from between her tightly closed eyes, she would hug her arms around her chest and tell herself that soon Conall Devlin would be nothing but a distant memory.
Would he?
Would she ever forget that rare smile which sometimes dazzled her? That lazy way he had of stroking her hair just after they’d made love?
Had sex, she corrected herself as she tossed and turned in the narrow bed. He’d only married her because of the debt he’d felt he owed her father. Other than that, it had really only ever been about the sex. It must have been—because when she’d told him not to bother contacting her again just before she’d left London, Conall had taken her at her word. To Amber’s initial fury and then through the dull pain of acceptance, she realised he was doing exactly as she had asked him to do. He hadn’t called. Not once. Not a single text or a solitary email had popped into her inbox to check how she was doing in her new life. All negotiations had been dealt with through his lawyers. And she was just going to have to learn to live with that.
June bled into July and a monumental heatwave brought the country almost to a standstill. Sales of ice cream and electric fans soared. Riverbeds dried and the grass turned a dark sepia colour. There was even talk of water rationing. One evening Amber was sitting in the dusty garden after college, when she heard the doorbell ringing loudly through the silent house. It was so hot she didn’t want to move and as a rivulet of sweat trickled down her back she hoped someone else would answer it.
She could hear the distant sound of voices. A deep voice which she didn’t really register because she was holding her face up, trying to find the whisper of breeze she thought she had detected on the air. And then she heard footsteps behind her and a deep voice that sent shivers racing down her spine— shivers which should have been welcome in the extreme heat, if they hadn’t been underpinned by emotions far too complex to analyse.
She lifted her head slowly, telling herself not to react—but how could she possibly not react when she’d spent weeks thinking of him and dreaming of him? Hadn’t it been an integral part of some of her wildest fantasies that he should suddenly appear in this house, like this? Greedily, her gaze ran over him. His eyes were as shuttered as they had ever been and his jaw was still shadowed blue-black. His concession to the warmer weather meant he was wearing a T-shirt with his jeans, which immediately made her start wishing it were the dead of winter, because then she wouldn’t have to stare at that hard, broad torso. She wouldn’t have to remember when those rippling biceps had wrapped themselves so tightly around her before carrying her off to bed.
‘Conall!’ Her throat felt dry and constricted. Her head felt light. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘No ideas?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Even though there’s a question we both know needs answering?’
She licked her lips. ‘What question is that?’ she said hoarsely.
There was a pause. ‘Are you carrying my baby?’
The pause which followed was even longer. ‘No.’
Conall was taken aback by the shaft of regret which speared through his body and embedded itself deep in his heart. He was briefly aware of the fact that somewhere inside him a dim light had been snuffed out. He wondered how it was possible to want something more than you’d ever wanted anything, and only discover
that once the possibility was gone.
He stared into Amber’s pale face. At the tremble of her lips. He thought how different she looked from the woman he’d found fast asleep on that white leather sofa. Calmer. With an air of serenity about her which gave him a brief punch of pleasure. But he could see anger flickering in her grass-green eyes as she drew her shoulders back and brushed a lock of ebony hair away from her face with an impatient hand.
‘Okay, you’ve had the answer you presumably wanted, so now you can go.’
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘What I don’t understand, Conall, is why you’ve come all this way in order to ask a question which didn’t need to have been asked in person. You could have texted or emailed me. Even phoned. But you didn’t.’
‘It isn’t about the question.’
‘No? Then what is it about?’
Conall met her gaze and let her fury wash over him like a fierce tide. He had tried to stay away from her—telling himself that it was for her own good, as well as his. But something just kept drawing him back to her—and now that he was here, he felt curiously exposed. He knew she deserved nothing less than the truth, but that still didn’t guarantee him the outcome he longed for. It was fork-in-the-road time, he realised. It was time to stop hiding behind the past. To reject the emotional rules he’d lived by for so long. ‘I don’t know if you can ever forgive me for the way I behaved on our last evening together,’ he said, in a low voice.
She frowned. ‘You mean...what happened in the hall?’
‘Yes,’ he said roughly. ‘That’s exactly what I mean.’
She shrugged with the expression of someone who planned to say exactly what was on their mind—and to hell with the consequences. ‘We had some pretty raw and basic sex, which I thought you’d enjoyed—I certainly did, even if you completely ruined my dress and some perfectly good underwear.’
The Billionaire's Defiant Acquisition Page 14