Kyle straightened and took a vital step away from her. “You want me to agree not to report him?”
His words were little bullets of gold dust. She stared at his back, wondering if she’d heard correctly. She hadn’t dared allow herself to cherish that hope. Of course it had flashed into her mind. But how could she ask it of Kyle?
“I want you to tell me I’m wrong,” her voice croaked into the enormous office. She cleared her throat, but her mouth was as dry as a sandstorm. “I don’t want to believe this. I want you to tell me that he got a huge bonus and the money’s his legitimately.”
Kyle angled his head to stare out of the windows and planted his hands on his hips. It drew attention to his leanly muscled waist, visible beneath the superb tailoring of the suit he wore.
“You and I both know what your brother is.”
“I can’t believe he’d do this again. Not after last time.”
Kyle’s expression was grave. “No. Nor could I.”
She toyed with a bit of leather on her shoe, her eyes saucer like in her face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He looked at her impatiently. “You want a divorce, remember? Your brother is no longer my problem. Why would I have called you?”
She blanched. “He’s still family.”
Family. Again, that mysterious shroud of inclusion that Kyle couldn’t fathom. “Not my family.”
“He’s my brother.”
“And you’re doing your darndest to become my ex-wife.” He held a hand up to silence the objection he could see she was about to frame. “Nonetheless, I didn’t call the police in. Yet.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “If you call the police, there’s a risk he may end up in prison.”
“It’s a felony offense.”
Her eyes clung to his, waiting for the axe to drop.
“If he’s convicted – which he would be – he’d face a mandatory period of incarceration.”
“Bloody hell.” She sounded her most British self when she swore, and it had always managed to bring a smile to Kyle’s face. Not now, not here. She stood up unsteadily and closed the distance between herself and her husband. She acted on autopilot. Her heart needed consoling. She needed him to say something to make it better. But that was no longer his responsibility in life. “I don’t know what to say,” she whispered dejectedly. “I just can’t believe this.”
“Can’t you?” He pondered, studying her beautiful, strained face for a long moment.
“I can’t believe he’d do it to you. You’re my husband.”
He arched a brow at her use of the term and she flushed to the roots of her hair. “So far as he knows.”
Now that was interesting. “You didn’t tell him you left me?”
She dropped her eyes, finding it impossible to answer the open speculation in his face. “No.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t want to answer any questions. It’s none of his business.”
“Fascinating.”
“Kyle, let’s stay on point, okay? This has nothing to do with you and me.”
“That you think so shows how naïve you are, honey.”
“Don’t.” She snapped, surprising him with the anger that was evident in the one small word. “Don’t belittle me. I don’t need it.”
“What you need is my help.” He shifted his weight slightly, bringing his body closer to hers. At another time, he might have apologised or asked her why she felt belittled. But the days of caring about Annie’s fickle feelings had walked out the door when she did.
She looked up at him with a heart loaded with hope and doubt. “I know.”
“You’re asking me to cover up a crime.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m asking. I don’t know what you can do. Kyle ... I would never ... I don’t want you to do anything illegal. I can’t stand the idea of you getting in trouble too.”
It was such an absurd assertion that he had to bite back on a laugh. “I’ll do my best to avoid it then.”
“My only hope in coming here today was to beg you to do anything you legally can to help him. That’s it. And ... to apologise.”
Something clenched in his gut. A feeling he couldn’t recognise, something sharp and awkward. “Apologise?” He prompted huskily, his deep voice showing scepticism.
“For my brother,” she clarified quickly. “You did a really good thing two years ago and this is how he repays you?”
Kyle let go of the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. She wasn’t apologising to him for her sudden disappearing act, nor the childish way she’d told him their marriage was over: by posting divorce papers to him. No, her apology was reserved for that idiotic brother of hers.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again, lifting a hand to the hard wall of his chest to show him how serious she was. “I truly didn’t believe he would stuff up again.”
“You don’t think the first time was a sign that he’s capable of this?”
“Did you?” She scanned is face in confusion. “Did you think he’d ...”
“It’s like you said,” Kyle shrugged. “It’s a compulsion with him. It’s not about the money so much as whether or not he can game the system.”
“Yes.” She let out a whoosh of air. “That’s exactly what it is.”
“So if I don’t get the police involved, he’s likely to do it again. And again. And again. And what will you do, dear Annie?” He lifted a finger to her cheek and traced it along her soft flesh, his eyes mesmerised by its progress. She startled at the contact, but didn’t step back. “Will you come to me every time? Will you come with your big eyes and your sad little sobs of despair and beg me to fix everything in your life, again and again and again? Is that really how you want to live?”
She shook her head, but grief was lancing through her. A year ago, she’d felt they were a team. That they’d face anything in life together, side by side. “He can’t go to prison.” She swallowed. The truth she’d been hoping not to have to reveal to her husband sat heavily on her chest. “Juanita’s pregnant.” Saying the words crashed a wave of panic over her, as it always did, but she’d become more adept at coping with it.
Kyle was fascinated by the clinical statement, as though the very idea was somehow incomprehensible to her. Her concern was understandable though. With Adam in prison, and a child to raise, Juanita would have it tough. He liked Adam’s wife. She was smart and kind, and far too good for the man.
“And you don’t want her to raise the kid on her own.”
“Of course I don’t,” Annie hissed, shaking her head at the very idea. “And nor does he.”
Kyle stepped away from her, hating that his blood was pounding through his body with the same need she always managed to evoke in him. “That’s something he should have thought about before he skimmed a small fortune off his colleagues’ pay cheques.”
“Oh my God. Is that what he did?” She shook her head in shock. “It’s so much worse than I’d thought. What the hell was he thinking?”
“Who knows? But I can’t see that it’s your problem. Or mine.”
“Then you’re even more of a heartless bastard than I’d realised,” she muttered without thinking.
He turned to face her, his expression scathing. “If you want my help you might want to reconsider your approach.”
“Oh? You won’t help me unless I flatter and suck-up to you?” She retorted, her nerves shaken by the very idea of what her brother had done.
“On the contrary, I’m not sure I’ll help you under any circumstances, flattery or not.”
Her face blanched. “Please, Kyle. I’m desperate. Just tell me what I can do.”
His laugh was lacking amusement and it sent little frissons of warning down her spine.
“What you can do?”
“Yes. I’ll do anything. I’m begging you... I need you to help me.”
He slammed his palm against the wall, and when he spoke it was with a raised
voice. “For God’s sake, you walked out on our marriage, Annabelle. You walked out on me. And now you come here and expect me to wave some kind of damned wand and fix your brother’s mess?”
She jumped at his anger. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologising,” he cut, his mood not improved. “I don’t need your apologies.”
“I shouldn’t have come to you,” she said with a sinking feeling. “I don’t know what I thought you’d say or do.” She blinked. “It’s like I forgot who you really are.”
“And who am I?” He asked with dangerous silkiness in his words.
“A narcissist. If you don’t benefit then you don’t lift a finger. Everything’s about you.”
“That is an incredibly baseless accusation,” he murmured, his appearance of calm nonchalance at odds with the tornado of feeling that was humming around them.
“Is it? You married me, someone who basically acted like your groupie. God, I loved you so much. I was a pathetic, needy, stupid idiot to think you’d love me back.”
“I loved you,” he responded sharply, not knowing why but instinctively understanding it was vitally important that she didn’t doubt that.
“You loved how I made you feel,” she corrected vehemently. “You loved the way I loved you. Anyway,” she shook her head. “I came here to talk about Adam. If you’re not going to be reasonable then I might as well just go.”
“Reasonable?” He refuted loudly. “You’re asking me to cover a felony. You’re asking me to dig your brother out of a hole – of his own making – yet again. You’re not just asking me to let him have an extra week’s annual leave, or to get him a better company car. Jesus, Annabelle, do you have even the slightest idea how the real world works?”
She flinched and spun away from him. Her handbag was on a chair across the room. She walked to it quickly and slipped it under her arm. “No.” She didn’t meet his eyes. “That was always our problem, wasn’t it?”
Her cryptic remark only served to fuel his frustrations. “If you walk out of here now the next call I make will be to the police.”
She gasped. “You’re a bastard.”
“Yeah. Guilty as charged.” His smile was arrogant.
“What do you want from me?”
“It’s what you want from me,” he replied, stalking to her like an animal of prey hunting its dinner. “And what you have to trade in return.”
“Trade?”
He reached out and took her handbag from her, placing it deliberately on the chair. “Trade,” he confirmed with a lazy nod.
“I don’t have anything. Except gratitude, and you know you’d have that.”
“I want your gratitude as much as I want your apologies.”
“What then?” She fidgeted with her fingers and his eyes slowly watched the nervous gesture. Her fingers were bare. No jewellery. Not the big clunky costume jewellery she’d always adored. And not the twelve carat diamond he’d proposed to her with either.
A blade of cold finality sliced through him. “I want you.”
She frowned. “You want me to what?”
He shook his head, his lips lifting in apparent amusement at her misunderstanding. “I want you to move back in.”
The silence was suffocating. Only Annie’s rushed breaths punctuated it. “You must be kidding?”
“Must I be?” He shrugged with sardonic boredom. “Why?”
“Because we’re getting divorced.”
“No, we’re not,” he clarified. “I have no intention of signing those papers, Annabelle. You are my wife.”
A shiver ran down her spine. “You say that in the same way you might say I’m your prisoner.”
He shrugged. “If that’s how you’d prefer to think of yourself.”
Her jaw slackened. “How dare you?”
He laughed. “There was a time when marriage to me was the pinnacle of your desires in life.”
She rolled her eyes but her words were halting. “That was a lifetime ago.”
“Two years,” he corrected, putting his hands on her hips and drawing her closer to his body. She suppressed the moan at the intimate closeness. How could her body still cleave to his as though it was her home?
“I can’t do it,” she said shakily. “It took every bit of my strength to leave you. I can’t come back.” She lifted her hands to his chest, meaning to push him away, but her fingers splayed against the wall of muscles. “If you cared for me at all you wouldn’t ask it of me.”
He studied her for so long that she wondered if he was actually listening to her. She didn’t speak, wary of saying anything that might undo whatever argument she’d launched that had caused him to understand her position.
“I will think about helping Angus because he is my brother-in-law. As you say, family is everything.” He dropped his head so that his breath fanned her temple. “But he is only my family if you are my wife.”
“I don’t understand why you’d want this?” She pleaded after almost a full minute had passed.
“Because, Annabelle, we made a commitment and I don’t intend to shirk that.”
“I can’t do it,” she said weakly. The six months she’d spent away from him hounded her. She groaned. Memories of the grief she’d endured on her own, the loneliness and desperation, the worry and agony, it was all there. It was a wound that he was provoking anew.
“Then don’t,” he shrugged. “The choice is yours.”
She paced to the windows and stared down at the beautiful twinkling lights of Manhattan. “You’re saying that if I move back into your home you’ll fix everything with Adam?”
His lips lifted in a sneer but mercifully she didn’t see it. “I personally think your brother is beyond fixing, but yes. I’ll do my best to smooth out this present situation.”
Annie swept her eyes shut on the wave of emotions. It wasn’t a choice at all then, was it?
“Fine.” She turned around, her expression so haunted that he felt a barb of responsibility flex in his heart. “But you should know that this is all kinds of wrong, Kyle. I ... will never forgive you for this.”
CHAPTER THREE
“I can live with that,” he said finally. “As long as you’re still able to play the part of my wife, I don’t much care if you hate me.”
“The part of your wife?” She repeated, sitting down in one of the leather couches that fronted the windows. She curled her legs beneath her again and Kyle suppressed that same burst of familiar affection.
“Yes. My wife. In every way.”
Her stomach rolled. Their sex life had been the only good thing about their marriage in the end. It had been beyond good. It had been mind-blowing. Every single time they’d been together, which was often, Annie had wondered if she were falling apart at the seams. Desire flushed her system now, and her treacherous body began to quiver with the hope that relief was finally at hand; that the Kyle-drought might be about to come to an end.
“You really want a woman in your bed you had to blackmail there?” Surely he had many viable alternatives to the wife who didn’t want him? Her heart hammered as she thought of the women she’d seen him with. The women he’d been with in the past who were unashamedly still a part of his inner-circle. It was just the society he was a party of – sex was as meaningless as sharing a bottle of wine. If he dropped all of the women he’d slept with he’d have no friends.
His laugh was soft; it sent a tingle of unwanted desire to the tips of her toes.
“Oh, I don’t think you’ll feel blackmailed,” he promised sinfully. “Come here.”
“Why?” She asked, her heart thumping as she unfurled her legs and walked across the room. He was the moon to her earth; she revolved around him and always would.
His lips lifted in a small smile. “Because I’ve missed you,” he said simply, and his hands moved with slow determination over her dress.
Kyle had to refrain from making yet another appalled comment about her figure. As his fingers ran over her back he felt ridge
s of bone and it gnawed at his chest. But when her lips lifted to his, he forgot about his guilt and his worry and his anger, and he felt only need.
“I hate that you make me feel like this,” she condemned, as he crashed his mouth to hers. He took the words. He took them into his mouth and he kissed them back to her. He hated her too. He hated her for promising to be with him for the rest of their lives and then leaving when her mind changed. He hated her for making him trust and believe in happy families after all he’d been through and then ripping it away from him. She’d betrayed him, and Kyle Anderson didn’t have forgiveness in the face of that betrayal
But God, did he want her.
His hands fumbled for the zip of her dress and then eased it down her back impatiently. When the dress opened, he let his fingers run over her flesh, right down to the curve of her butt. He pulled her close so that she could feel the force of his erection.
“You will move in tonight,” he said, breaking the kiss with effort.
“Tonight?” She blanched. “I can’t tonight.” She needed time – just a little – to process this development and arm herself for what he was suggesting.
He was about to deliver a withering remark but something in her expression silenced him. “Tomorrow,” she promised with such sadness in the single word that it took his breath away.
“Fine,” he muttered, as though it barely mattered to him. “Though I have a trip tomorrow.” The idea was perfect. He slid the zip back upwards, covering her slim body with regret. “You’ll come with me.”
“A trip?” She frowned. “Where to?”
“Aspen.”
Her eyes flashed with doubt. “No.”
“No?”
“No.” She swallowed. She couldn’t go back there. The place they’d spent their honeymoon had seemed like heaven on earth. Until their second trip. By then, she understood the fatal flaws in their marriage, and the ritzy paradise only served to underscore them.
“You know, you’re really not in a position to argue with me over something so trivial.”
Her eyes were awash with emotion. “Aren’t I?”
“You are depending on my goodwill to save your brother from a lengthy prison sentence and possible deportation. Not to mention a criminal record that will make him unemployable in his field. I think the smartest thing you can do, Annabelle Anderson, is to say yes to me as often as you can.”
The Billionaire's Ruthless Revenge Page 3