“So this man owned the first company you bought?” She prompted him with the only information she could recall.
He settled himself beside her. His hip brushed hers and she felt the surge of electric lust bolt through her.
“It was a small chain of boutique hotels. His dad had founded the first one in Naples, and bit by bit it had grown to include twelve exceptional little spots.”
The way he spoke of his successes with such casual disregard fascinated her. “I don’t understand how you did that.”
Her tone was rich with awe, but he didn’t notice it. Kyle was used to people speaking to him with that sort of hushed reverence.
“I signed a paper,” he grinned.
“No, but I mean ... to have the money to do that. How old were you?”
He laughed. “You know all this.”
“Twenty two?”
He dipped his head in acknowledgement.
“I’m twenty four and I can barely remember my internet banking logins.”
A quick frown flashed on his expression but he concealed it before she noticed. The ease with which she pointed out her perceived flaws was troubling, as always. “I financed the first purchase,” he said softly. “The figures were good and the market was great. The banks were less cautious then.”
“You’re not saying luck played a part.”
“No.” His eyes sparked with determination. “I would have found a way to buy them, no matter what it took. But the route I found was not difficult.”
“Still, I couldn’t have just walked into a bank and borrowed that amount of money.”
He grinned. “I don’t know. I think any loans officer who got one look at you would give you the world for a smile.” He padded his thumb over her lower lip then dropped his finger to her chin, lifting her face to meet his. “You look beautiful, Annie.”
“Thank you.” When he touched her, she felt the most spectacular power in her heart. But it was always over too fast. He dropped his hand away and leaned back in the seat a little.
To hide her enormous sense of loneliness, she pushed on with the line of questioning. “So you stayed friends with this man?”
“Ralph,” he nodded. “He desperately needed to sell. He knew he couldn’t do the chain justice. Several of the accommodations were in dire need of repairs and modernising. He couldn’t do it.”
“But you could.”
“Yeah.”
“And he didn’t mind?”
“I’m sure he was incredibly disappointed, but he was pleased that someone like me had bought them. I renamed the place in Naples after his father. It took three years to bring them all up to standard, but now they’re some of the most exclusive resorts you’ll come across.”
“And his daughter will be there tonight?”
“Amira.”
Annie was used to the swell of jealousy she felt whenever she imagined her husband with another woman. For she knew his past, before her, was loaded with a string of glamorous women. He had been a confirmed bachelor, and the google image searches showed just the kind of women he’d chosen to fill his life and bed with prior to meeting Annie.
“A lovely name,” she said softly.
“A lovely woman,” he concurred, with no idea that the précis was only fuelling Annie’s own fires of insecurity.
“And now you’re going into business with this guy?”
“Ralph,” he nodded.
“Why?”
“The sale was his find.” He shrugged. “And because I can.”
She turned a little in her seat. “You’re doing this to help him.”
“It makes good financial sense.”
“I’m sure it does.” Her heart flipped with love.
“Don’t look at me like that, Annie,” he murmured. “We definitely don’t have time for what I want to do to you.”
Annie smiled, but a strange heartbreak was numbing her. Sex. All roads led to sex with Kyle, and Annie was too desperately in love to address it. She blinked her eyes, fanning her long lashes against her cheek. When she spoke, her sultry words didn’t so much as hint at the sadness that was stealing over her.
“Dinner won’t take long, will it?”
He laughed. “Not if I have any control over things.”
His kiss was a passionate declaration; his tongue invaded her senses, driving all the insecurities deep back into her heart. Her hands lifted to his chest, clutching his sweater in her grip. “Let’s go back to the hotel,” she unclasped her seatbelt, uncaring in that moment for road rules. She needed to be closer to him. She moved nearer, lifting her legs onto his lap so that he could run a hand beneath her skirt and tease her underwear with his fingers.
“Kyle,” she pushed her hands under his shirt, feeling the ridges of his abdomen and slicking with moist heat. “Please.”
His laugh drove her wild. His fingers pushed the scrap of lace aside and danced at her most sensitive heart, reminding her that he owned her completely. Her eyes were hooded, her mind was blank.
“You are a vixen,” he said with mock condemnation, as he slid a finger inside her feminine core and she bucked her hips in response.
“You made me a vixen,” she reminded him throatily.
“Mmm, yes, my sweet virginal wife,” he teased her insides and his tongue plundered her mouth with the same desperate rhythm.
She had been. She had been completely innocent and unprepared for the type of pleasure Kyle would introduce her to. He had conquered her effortlessly. He had made her his.
The car pulled to a stop and he lifted his head, his eyes conflicted as he studied her. “You are alive in my arms,” he remarked cryptically, pulling his hands from her body and smoothing her dress in place in one movement.
“I’m alive out of them too,” she said, but her nerves were skittering in a billion different directions.
His smile was distracted now. “You’ll keep.”
And he was right.
Dinner had been a conflicting mess of sensations. The desire he’d aroused strummed her body all night, but there was an ache too that not even the biggest deluge of sexual satisfaction could ease.
What kind of marriage did they have if the only place she could feel wanted and relaxed was in bed?
Ralph was a kind, gentlemanly type of man, and Amira was very lovely. Beautiful to look at, but kind and intelligent. As the night progressed, Annie learned that Amira had studied International Relations in Paris and spoke four languages. And though she was stunning to look at, Amira seemed not to realise or care.
What must that kind of innate confidence be like?
As Amira made some joke and Kyle laughed in an easy response, barbed wire coated Annie’s insides.
For the last eighteen months she’d done everything she could to be the right kind of wife to him.
But she’d never be good enough. Not when there were women like Amira in the world.
Though it took her another month to finally steel herself to walk away from her greatest addiction, looking back Annie knew that night was the moment. The moment she realised how foolish their marriage was, and how much happier he’d be with someone else. Someone better.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was the same elegant suite. The rooms they’d stayed in seven months earlier, and also where they’d spent their honeymoon. Tiny hurricanes of memories swirled dangerously in pockets around the room. The sofa they’d curled up on and talked for hours and hours on their first visit had become, on the second trip, the sofa she’d sat on alone, reading book after book while he dealt with his business interests. The kitchen they’d stood in every morning and drunk coffee, naked, contemplating the day ahead, was the same kitchen she had sobbed in when they’d returned from dinner with Ralph and Amira and she’d realised how hopeless it was.
Annie masked her feelings now but they were rioting inside of her. It was like stepping back into the past. A chasm of uncertainty spread before her. Who was she?
Not the woman she’d as
sumed on her last visit. And not the woman she had turned herself into. She swallowed, turning slowly to take in the luxurious fittings and elegant artwork.
The last time they’d come it had been summer, and the view had been covered with greenery and wildflowers and endless blue skies.
Now, the vista was glowingly white. Snow. Sky. Everything shimmered with pale magic.
“Bring back memories?” He asked, watching her thoughtfully. She’d barely spoken since getting on board the flight. The engagement ring she refused to wear bore a heavy mark in his pocket.
Her smile was condescending. That was new. The acidity with which she regarded him seemed to have come out of nowhere.
“What do you think?”
He stalked through the room and lifted his jacket off. He gripped the back of a dining chair and stared out at the same vista she was. “You don’t want to know what I’m thinking right now.”
She nodded. “Probably not.”
He tilted his head and studied her without bothering to hide his speculation.
“Have you been sick?”
A frown tugged at her lips. “Sick? When? On the plane?”
“No.” He drawled with exasperation. “In the last six months.”
She deliberately pretended to misunderstand him. “I think I had a cold about two months ago. And I stubbed my toe sometime in September ...”
A muscle moved in his cheek. “I mean to look like this.” He waved a hand over her body. “Like skin and bone.”
“So you’ve said.” She ran her hands down her slender frame self-consciously.
“You were never one for dieting,” he wondered aloud.
“No.” She shrugged. And she wasn’t now. How could she explain to someone like Kyle that it had become impossible for her to think about food? That she’d been so miserable she’d gone days without so much as looking in the pantry. “Things change. People change.”
“So you did this to yourself on purpose?” He shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
She arched her brows in a perfect impersonation of hauteur. “Well, luckily for both of us how I look isn’t really something you can control.”
He stared at her for a long moment and then shrugged. “Sure, okay.” He kept his eyes on her as he lifted a phone from the wall. “Room service.” He spoke with the inevitable confidence of a man used to being in control.
“What would you like?” He spoke to her in a way that sent little bumps of desire licking through her. She knew then just what she’d like, and it had nothing to do with food.
She hated this man, but she loved him too, and she sure as hell still craved him on a physical level.
“I don’t know. I’m not really hungry.”
His eyes flashed a warning. “Two burgers,” he said into the phone. “A salad. Some fries. Send some oysters too. And ice cream – plain vanilla.” He disconnected the call abruptly and thrust his hands on his hips. Their eyes were locked in a silent battle of the wills. Tension zapped between them.
Annie felt perspiration running between her breasts though she was frozen to the core.
“We have a little time before lunch arrives.” He tilted his head then held out a hand. “Shall we?”
“Shall we what?” She asked, though of course she knew what he was suggesting. The tension that zipped between them would only be eased by one thing.
But Annie couldn’t do it. Oh, she wanted to. She wanted to so badly her insides were churning and her nipples were stretched taut against the fine lace of her bra. Hadn’t she worn that bra because she’d hoped he’d see it? She’d pushed her fingers past the utilitarian cotton underwear in her draw and lifted out some of the French bras he’d given her over the course of their marriage.
She wanted her husband so badly it hurt, but how could she give so much of herself again? She was so vulnerable to him. If she didn’t retain her power then she’d crumble into a heap at his feet and tell him she’d stay with him no matter how he made her feel.
“The way I see it, we have two choices.” His voice was a husky seduction. Unconsciously she took a step closer towards him. He did likewise, so that barely a step separated them. His eyes roamed her face, searching for answers. But to what questions, Annie couldn’t have said.
“We either go to the bedroom, or we stay here and talk. You can guess what my preference is.”
She swallowed. He was her husband. She’d agreed to come back to their marriage. So was she really surprised by his suggestion.
“We just got here,” she said weakly. Her body was covered in goosebumps.
“And?” He took the final step and wrapped his arms around her waist.
Annie bit down on her lip. “And... don’t you think we can wait a while?”
“Wait?” His lips twisted in a sardonic grimace. “I’ve been waiting for this for six months.”
“Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes but didn’t attempt to break free of his grip. It felt too good to be held by him again.
He lifted one brow enquiringly and she shook her head, focussing on a point just over his shoulder. “You don’t need to lie to me. I left you. I could hardly resent you for sleeping with someone else.”
He frowned. “That’s what you think?”
“Of course.” She knew for herself how many women would have been vying to take her place. She shrugged as though those thoughts hadn’t kept her awake at night. “I know what your appetite’s like, remember?”
He nodded slowly. “It was frustrating as hell, I’ll give you that.”
“Don’t.” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “I don’t care. What happened in those six months doesn’t matter. I chose to end our marriage.”
He heard her words and understood the deeper implication. “I would care if you’d been with someone else.”
Her eyes lifted to his. “Would you?”
“Yeah.” He dropped his lips to hers. “You will always be mine. You know that.”
“I’m not a possession, and I’m definitely not yours.”
His eyes flashed with a silent warning. “You were mine the minute I met you.”
She shook her head in denial but she couldn’t say the words. She had been, he was absolutely right. The moment she’d walked into his office, timid as a mouse, needing to beg him to help her, she’d been his.
He relaxed his grip around her waist for the briefest moment so that he could scoop her up and hold her to his chest. “You are mine.” He walked swiftly through the luxurious suite towards the bedroom they’d shared on previous trips. He dumped her unceremoniously into the middle of the bed. “You are mine,” he repeated huskily, “And I will not stop until you admit it.”
She gasped as his hands pulled at her shirt, ripping several buttons off as he opened it to reveal her flat stomach and delicate bra.
His hands ran over her body as his mouth took possession of hers once more, and now he straddled her so that, through the layers of their clothes, she could feel the strength of his arousal.
Instantly her body responded. She made a guttural sound of urgency and reached for him. Her fingers pushed at his suit jacket, stripping it from him as their arms became a tangle of flesh and cotton. He pushed at his own shirt, impatient to feel her skin against his.
“Please,” she moaned, undoing his belt and ripping it from his trousers with satisfaction. She threw it to the ground and then unbuckled his pants and slid her hands inside so that her fingers could curl around his length.
He shook his head. “I want you to tell me that you’re mine.” He straightened and stepped out of his pants impatiently. “I want you to scream it to me.”
She shivered. “Please.”
He brought his body back on top of hers and ran his hands through her hair. “You have always been mine.”
“Like you were mine?” She demanded breathily, lifting her legs and silently begging him to take her.
He lowered his head and kissed her with more gentleness than before. But Annie did
n’t want him to be gentle. She wanted him to obliterate all of her pain and hurt. “Do you have protection?”
He furrowed his brow. “A condom? We’re married. Why the hell would we need that?”
She let her hands explore his back, delighting in his smooth warmth. “I’m not on the pill,” she reminded him.
“So?”
Her stomach swirled. “Protection. Or this can’t happen.”
He pushed away from her. “You have to be kidding.”
She shook her head. “Why? Why is that surprising to you?”
“Because you’re my wife. We’re both safe. It would never have occurred to me to bring condoms with me.”
“Well, I’m not going to risk getting pregnant.” The words made her heart turn to ice. “So if you think we’re going to be sleeping together, you’re going to have to organise something.”
A dark emotion crossed his face. “You said you wanted children.”
Annie blanched. “That was then. I don’t now.”
“You don’t?”
“And nor do you.” She bit down hard on her lip, relishing in the discomfort her teeth caused. “It would be the worst thing that could happen to us.”
Her insistence on that score was something he would analyse later. It required a cool head, and there was nothing cool about his emotions.
He swore softly between his teeth and took in a deep breath. Not since his teenage adolescence had he found it so difficult to control his impulses. In that moment he was a burning torrent of need that was threatening to overtake all his common sense.
But comprehension of the situation dawned quickly enough. He turned back to his beautiful runaway wife and lowered his mouth to her breasts. He took one of her nipples in his mouth, flicking the sensitive nipple with his tongue.
“Kyle,” she moaned, lifting her hands above her head as fireworks of pleasure began to explode inside of her. “I can’t do this.”
“You don’t have to do anything except feel,” he promised her. His fingers teased her flesh, drawing imaginary circles over her pale skin. “I want to taste you all over,” he muttered, dragging his lips to her other breast. He worshipped her with his lips. “I was made to do this to you.”
The Billionaire's Ruthless Revenge Page 5