The sob that escaped her lips was one of euphoric rightness. “Tell me you’re still mine,” he groaned, dragging his mouth lower while his fingers took over, fondling her breasts until she felt like she might pass out. He slid his tongue down her stomach, kissing her as he went, until he reached her most intimate flesh.
She knew what was coming and anticipation set flames licking through her body. “I can’t bear it,” she moaned as his tongue began to wrap webs of lust through her.
“You are heaven,” he growled, his voice animalistic with desire.
“I’m in heaven,” she corrected, tangling her fingers in his thick dark hair. And briefly, she was. She knew that hurt and pain would be waiting to reclaim her soon enough but he was fighting them off and giving her everything she’d been seeking and missing.
“Not yet,” he promised seductively.
And she propped up on her elbows to see what he meant, but then it all became clear. He moved his hands to her, and began to stroke her in the way that he knew sent her wild. She dropped her hands to his shoulders and dug her nails into his flesh and the sensations became too much to bear. “Kyle!” She screamed as desire took her tumbling over the edge of a cliff, into a place where time, space, hate and history had no occupancy. There was only pleasure and there was only sensation and she was lost in a haze of both. Her breath was burning in her lungs, and she was almost intoxicated by the feeling, but Kyle brought his mouth back to her core and kissed her, reigniting the flames he’d just fanned to extinction.
He held her hips as yet again she climaxed, her body quivering with the force of pleasure.
It was a world-exploding intimacy. Her whole body was aching and feverish, and yet it wasn’t enough. She needed him; all of him.
“Where’s the nearest chemist?” She asked, only half-joking.
He grinned. “Not far.” His eyes were heavy with a question he couldn’t find the words for.
He stared at her and the sense of betrayal that had flooded into him when she’d left rushed back.
It was so damned good between them. Why had she walked out? She’d promised she’d be with him for the course of their lives and then she’d changed her mind.
He lay down on the bed beside her and studied her beautiful profile. The desire to bend her to his will was not something he was proud of. But until he knew why she’d disappeared, he could only feel anger and resentment and a need to tempt her to stay, no matter what it took.
“I will do this to you every day,” he promised seriously. “I will make it impossible for you to climb out of my bed. I will make you think only of sex and only of me, and I will make it so that you can’t fathom leaving me ever again.”
Her eyes lifted to his face, shock evident in the depths of her soul. “You know I can’t leave you again.”
“Do I?” He prompted, wondering at her meaning.
“You have my brother’s stupidity for collateral, remember?”
It was so far from the answer he’d been anticipating that a dark, angry emotion burst into his core. “Yeah.” He pushed up, his tone casual. “So we agree that you’re not going anywhere this time.”
Her heart fell. What had she been hoping for? “Kyle?” Her heart turned over in her chest. She was losing him already. The intimacy they’d shared counted for nothing once the moment passed; just like always.
“What is it, Annabelle?”
“Nothing.” She smiled distractedly. “I’ll be out in a minute.” She pushed up from the bed and walked into the en suite without a backwards glance.
She clicked the door shut with relief and leaned against it. Her heart was pounding, her legs were shaking.
Just like that she’d got back in bed with the beast.
Getting over Kyle Anderson had been almost impossible. Coping with the loss of her pregnancy without the love of her husband had almost sent her mad.
And now she was back.
It had all been for nothing.
She clamped her lips together and dug her fingers into her palms to stop from crying. She wouldn’t give in to weakness. After all, she wasn’t weak. She’d made a decision to come back to Kyle because she needed to help her brother. That made her strong. Didn’t it?
She groaned and walked towards the sink. The water was ice cold; she splashed it on her face with relief, then dabbed some soap onto her fingers and washed the last vestiges of her make up off. There was some hotel moisturiser in a little container. She opened it and rubbed it over her cheeks then straightened.
Her eyes clashed with her reflection in the mirror and she stared at the image she made. He was right to be shocked by her appearance. The change in her physical self since they’d parted ways was dramatic. Her fingers trembled as she ran her hands over her ribcage. She could feel bones and worse, she could see them easily. Her breasts were smaller than usual, too. Her hands dropped lower, to her abdomen. The place where life had –briefly – been cradled within her. The life she’d lost.
Guilt sent a fever into her blood. Had that been her fault? She should have taken better care of herself. She would have, if she’d known about the baby. But grief had eclipsed every other emotion and certainly any awareness of a life within her.
“Annabelle?”
She blinked to clear the dark thoughts. “What is it?” Her voice was croaked with emotion.
“Food’s up.”
“Oh. Right. Okay.” She wrapped one of the fluffy white robes around herself and took a bracing breath. She could do this.
She’d been married to him for eighteen months and for most of that time she’d felt that she was playing a part.
She simply had to remember how to do that.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Are we here again already?” He asked, pinning his gaze to hers in the mirror as he straightened his tie. She had spent an hour in the bathroom after lunch – a lunch she’d picked at under his watchful disapproval. Her hair shimmered; she’d styled it into loose waves that fell about her shoulders, and she’d artfully applied that mask of make up he’d come to associate with her.
It was perfect. Long lashes curled like a cat’s, cheekbones highlighted by a perfect amount of bronzer. Her complexion was flawless and yet she’d put some kind of foundation over her entire face, concealing the smudge of freckles he adored. She was so heart-breakingly beautiful that his breath burned in his chest.
“Where’s that?” She kept her expression neutral with great care.
His sigh was laced with pure exasperation. “With you hedging any event I’ve got on in preference of a damned book.”
Her cheeks flushed at the accusation because it was true. “You have a problem with how much I read?” She had begun to read because of him. Because of her desire to keep up with him. The gulf in their intelligence had kept her permanently mired in a sense of unworthiness.
“I have a problem with you not having time for me.”
Her jaw dropped. “With me not having time for you?” She demanded with genuine shock. “My God, Kyle, I spent almost the entirety of our marriage alone and you dare say I didn’t make time for you?”
“That’s absolute crap. I made a point of being with you whenever I could.” He flicked his cufflink with idle curiosity. “Is that why you left me? You felt neglected?”
She resisted a strong inclination to roll her eyes. “Don’t infantilise my words. You didn’t make me a priority. That’s a point of fact.” She was looking at him with a blankness in her face yet her eyes were devouring him.
“Are you joking? What more could I have done?”
“How long do you have?” She posed the rhetorical question and then shook her head. “Let’s not do this.” Grief at the futility of these conversations passed through her. “It’s in the past.”
“No. It’s right here in the room with us.” He slammed his palm against the vanity and a loud noise ricocheted around the palatial suite. “Damn it, Annabelle. Talk to me. Talk to me now like you should have talked to me then.�
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Her mouth worked overtime as she tried to moisten her dry throat. “I tried!” She shouted, her cheeks bright red. “I tried! You never listened!”
He spun around, his face a mask of disbelief. “I can’t believe you’re trying to pin this on me. For months I have wondered where you went and why. I have analysed those last few days and tried to understand what it was that made you think we didn’t have something worth saving.” He planted his hands onto his tapered waist, his face impatient. “So? What was it, Annabelle?”
She opened her mouth but there were too many words to find the right ones. She was a jumble of thoughts and doubts. He spoke first.
“Do you know what I came to realise these last six months?”
She shook her head, her eyes enormous.
He walked towards her like a panther hunting his prey. “Yesterday you accused me of not loving you. And I thought it was ironic because I realised how little you must have cared for me.” His smile was an angry twist. “You said you loved me and yet your actions spoke so much louder than those meaningless, hollow words. What is love if it’s so easy to shed when it’s no longer convenient?”
“Easy to shed?” She blinked up at him. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably. “Walking out on our marriage was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”
His laugh was a bark of derision. “Which speaks volumes of the kind of sheltered life you’ve lived and nothing more.” He studied her face and she felt a wall of such anger emanating from him that her heart turned over with guilt. Guilt for leaving him!
“I told you we needed to talk. I told you I needed more from you! And you made me feel like some childish inconvenience as always.”
His grunt was a noise of guttural frustration. “You came to my office when I was in the middle of negotiating one of the biggest deals of my career and expected me to pack everything up to go on holiday with you.”
A sob formed in her chest but she clamped her lips together to contain it. “I needed you.”
“You needed a dose of reality,” he rejected angrily. “I didn’t say I couldn’t spend time with you. I said I couldn’t, in that moment, leave what I was doing to go away with you.”
“Even though I begged you ...”
“You turned our whole marriage into some stupid black and white test of my commitment that you knew I could never pass! You know what my company means to me ...”
“More than I did, apparently,” she interjected bitterly.
“Jesus Christ, you are unbelievable.” His eyes narrowed. “I came home that night prepared to discuss ...”
“It was too late.” She shook her head mutinously. “That day in your office,” she closed her eyes and the past was playing before her like a film. “I knew it was already over.” The sadness saturated her voice. “I think there was probably only a tiny, tiny chance that you could have said or done the right thing to fix it anyway.”
“To fix what?” He roared before making a visible effort to calm himself. “We were married. You were my wife. I was faithful to you. I gave you everything: Money. Clothes. Freedom. I let your brother keep his job even though I knew he would likely steal from me again. What more did you want from me?”
“It wasn’t enough.” She placed her hand on the back of a chair for support. It was vital. Her body felt weak.
“So what would have been? What did you need from me?”
“Just you!” She shouted.
“You had me.”
“No, I didn’t. And I never will. Don’t you get it, Kyle? You had all of me. I was yours, utterly.”
“As I was yours.”
“Come on,” she groaned. “That’s so patently untrue.”
A muscle flexed in his cheek as our eyes clashed with forceful anger. And then, as always with Kyle, something shifted and suddenly he was no longer in the argument, but above it. “I’m tired of going over this.” He dug his hands into his pockets, perfectly embodying nonchalance. “Get dressed, Annabelle.”
“I am dressed,” she responded mutinously, her eyes sparking with his.
He dragged his eyes over the black yoga pants and skimpy singlet. “Fine. You’ll freeze to death but I don’t know if I give a rat’s ass. Get your bag or whatever and let’s go.”
She shook her head belligerently. “I’m not coming with you.”
“Yeah you are. And do you want to know why?” At her silence he continued coldly. “Because you are in no position to refuse. It’s the first rule of business. Learn what cards you have to play and play them wisely.” His smile was one of impatient derision. “You, Mrs Anderson, don’t have any cards to play. Not a one.” He brought his head closer to hers, so that she could see the dramatic flecks of colour in his eyes.
His words were made of shrapnel and they were puncturing her heart and soul. “How can you speak to me like that?”
He spun away from her, his chest lifting with the force of his ragged breaths. How could he make her understand how devastated he’d been? How a man who’d grown up as a boy shunned and unloved had been made to feel all of those things again?
“You agreed to this. If you don’t like the state of affairs then you can leave me again,” he said with a shrug, as though he wasn’t walking in a constant fear of her doing just that.
“My God.” She walked to him unsteadily. He didn’t look at her so she stepped around his frame to face him. He dropped his eyes to hers and she barely recognised him, so loaded with hatred was his expression. “Kyle, what’s happened to you?”
His voice was low. “I met you.”
She swallowed; the lump in her throat was painful. “Don’t say that.”
“You reminded me that marriage is just like business. It’s a negotiation. A constant power-struggle. You proved the ultimate power you have is to walk away.” He ran a finger down her cheek, looking at her as though for the first time. “I’m not going to live with that threat hanging over my head.”
She stared at him aghast. It took her a moment to corral her thoughts. “And so you want to keep me here by force?”
“Not by force,” he disputed. “By agreement.” He shrugged. “You can go any time.”
“And if I do?”
His eyes were dark. “And if you do?” He prompted, wondering at the turn of this conversation. There was a part of him that was shouting at him to stop, to shut the hell up and put the spade down, but the greater part of him seemed determined to keep digging the hole, deeper and deeper.
“You’ll what? You’ll actually turn my brother in?”
He shifted his weight almost imperceptibly. “I won’t stand in the way of his idiocy being discovered,” he promised.
She was shaking. She spun away from him, wrapping her arms around her waist and staring out at the glorious snow that glowed in the moonlight. “I’m trapped.”
The words brought a wave of hopelessness crashing down around him.
There could be no forgiveness. Not by either of them.
And yet Kyle could never let her go. His love for her was darkly obsessive. Even he was surprised by it.
“Do you need a coat?” His words had any emotion flattened out of them.
She blinked back tears. “I’ll get changed.” She walked silently to the bedroom and clicked the door shut behind herself. He heard the lock slide into place and felt an answering finality inside of him.
Annie had packed clothes from her Old Life. A collection of fashionable couture hung in the wardrobe. She ran her fingers over the dresses with a growing sense of loss. None of these things were right for who she really was. They were expensive and designer and Annie was a girl who’d been known for her ability to climb trees and run as fast as the leaves tumbling in the autumnal breeze. She lifted a black Vera Wang from the hanger and pulled it on quickly.
The effect was instantaneous. Bit by bit, she was morphing back into Mrs Kyle Anderson. What a lonely life that was!
The thought of him waiting outside for her was far more
satisfying than it should have been. She sat down at the dressing table with the appearance of calm and lifted a black chanel nail polish from her make up bag. With painstaking care she painted her nails a glossy black and then sat patiently while they dried completely. Her fingers shook a little, but that was the only sign that she wasn’t as heartless as she looked.
Her makeup had been flawless before but now, with a night ahead of her spending time with heaven only knew which of his friends, she laboured over her appearance slavishly. False lashes, a little more bronzer and a thicker coat of cherry red lips completed the look.
Annie studied herself dispassionately once she was finished. Yes, she looked perfect. She was the proverbial poison apple, she realised, as she pushed her feet into a pair of pumps and wrapped a Burberry trench around her shoulders. She was the epitome of glamorous health and wealth to look at, but her soul had withered to a disastrous extent.
She unlocked the door, sucked in a breath of courage and stepped out into the lounge. He had been staring at the door, as though with the force of his gaze he could force it to open, and so his eyes locked to hers instantly.
Annie’s footing faltered and she paused as his dark gaze slowly travelled the length of her body. His look was so intense that she almost felt like he was touching her. “Take off the coat,” he muttered, and like a deer in the headlights, she did so without speaking.
She saw the way his Adam’s Apple bobbed in his throat as he stared at her in the dress. “You look like ...”
She arched a brow, waiting for him to finish his sentence.
“You look ... immaculate,” he said finally, spinning away from her and grabbing his keys from the bench.
That was it.
Immaculate.
It was a strange word. Neither praise, nor an insult; it was just an observation, but Annie rolled it around in her mind.
The small elevator with its elegant William Morris print wallpaper brought them into close confines and she felt the immediate shortening of breath that spoke of his nearness. Her skin began to tingle and suddenly she was self-conscious, as though he must be able to feel the slick of emotions that were sending her sanity haywire.
The Billionaire's Ruthless Revenge Page 6