The Billionaire's Defiant Acquisition

Conall took his hand away from her head, wondering why she had reacted in such a dull and predictable way and so comprehensively ruined the soft mood which had settled over him. Give a woman a little intimacy and she tried to take everything. But maybe this would be the ideal time to drive home his fundamental principles, despite the fact that he’d just enjoyed the most mind-blowing sex. He shook his head in slight disbelief. For someone who was so inexperienced, she was so hot. When he touched her he felt a fierce and elemental hunger he had trouble reining in. But Amber needn’t know that. He felt the beat of a pulse at his temple. Amber mustn’t know that.

‘I’m surprised that someone with your history should ask that,’ he drawled. ‘For me, it always seemed like backing a horse with an injured leg.’

‘So that’s the only reason? Because the odds are stacked against it?’

She was very persistent, he thought. ‘You ask too many questions, Amber,’ he said softly. ‘And a man doesn’t like to be interrogated straight after sex.’

She met his gaze and maybe she read something in his eyes which made her realise that his patience was wearing thin.

‘Okay. Shall we have some more sex, then?’ she questioned guilelessly.

Silently he applauded her lack of inhibition as he thought about some of the things he’d like to do to her. To put his head between her thighs and to taste her, just for starters. He’d like to see what she looked like on all fours, with that magnificent bottom pressed into him as he took her from behind. But he was still feeling exposed, from all the things he’d told her, and it was time to regain control. The sex, he decided, could wait.

‘Not right now, I’m afraid.’

She sounded disappointed. ‘Really?’

He pushed back the sheet and got out of bed, walking over to the wardrobe and rifling through for some of the clothes he’d unpacked before the ceremony. Pulling out a pair of jeans and a sweater, he shot her a regretful glance.

‘I have some work I need to do,’ he said. ‘And you should sleep for a while. It’s been a long day. I’ll wake you up for dinner later. Would you like to go out somewhere? Or I can have the hotel reserve us a table in one of the restaurants downstairs if you prefer?’

Her body tensing beneath the duvet, Amber stared at him in confusion. Dinner was the last thing on her mind. What she wanted was for him to get in beside her and to cradle her in his arms. She wanted to drift off to sleep with him beside her and wake up with his black head on the pillow next to hers, so that she could lean over and kiss him and have him make love to her again. But judging by his body language as he carried his clothes towards the adjoining dressing room—that was the last thing Conall wanted.

‘Can’t work wait?’ she questioned.

‘Sorry.’ He flicked her a cool look. ‘It may have slipped your memory but it’s my job which is paying for our stay here.’

It was a statement obviously designed to remind her that she was nothing but one of life’s freeloaders, and it didn’t miss its mark. Amber flinched as he turned his back on her.

She didn’t know how a naked man could walk across a room looking so unbelievably in command, but somehow Conall managed it. The pale jut of his buttocks and the powerful thrust of his thighs were like poetry in motion, she thought, silently willing him to turn around and look at her. Just once.

But he closed the door behind him without a second glance.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

IT WAS LIKE playing a game of cat and mouse. A game which had no rules. But despite Amber’s joking remark about boundaries, there were plenty of those.

Don’t ask.

Don’t expect.

And don’t feel. Especially that. Don’t feel anything for your enigmatic and gorgeous husband, other than desire, because he certainly won’t tolerate any outward

show of emotion.

But Amber was fast discovering she wasn’t a switch which could be flicked on and off. She couldn’t blow hot one minute and cold the next. Unlike Conall.

He had woken her up on that first evening with his hand lazily caressing her breast and, after a blissful hour between the sheets, they had gone downstairs to dine in the Granchester’s midnight room. Glowing lights on an indigo ceiling mimicked the night skies and the exotic flowers on every table were all fiery oranges and red. And although the hotel took their guests’ privacy seriously, someone in the restaurant managed to capture a photo on their cell phone, which found its way into one of the newspapers. It was funny to look at it. Or not, depending on your viewpoint. Conall was leaning in to listen to something Amber was saying and, for that frozen slice of time, it actually managed to look as if he cared. Which was a lie. A falsehood. All he cared about was projecting the right image. Of making what they had look real to the outside world. But how could it, when it wasn’t real?

After five days of relative confinement and wall-to-wall sex, the newlyweds moved into Conall’s Notting Hill house, and Amber found herself living in a brand-new neighbourhood. It was a tall, four-storeyed house, overlooking a central square with a beautiful, gated garden and in any other circumstances, she might have been overjoyed to spend time in such a glorious environment. But she felt displaced, surrounded by Conall’s things—with nothing of her own in situ except for her clothes. It was his territory and he had neither the need nor the desire to modify it in any way to accommodate her. And what was the point, when she would be moving out again in three months, when their short-lived marriage was over?

‘I don’t know if you’ve thought about how you’re going to spend your time while I’m at work?’ he’d said, eyebrows raised in mild question—after he’d finished showing her how the extremely complicated coffee machine worked.

Amber hadn’t really thought about it. The recreational shopping which used to consume her now held no appeal and she seemed to have outgrown the people she’d hung out with before. She guessed the truth was that there was only one person she wanted to spend time with and that was the man she’d married—but that was clearly a one-way street. Because Conall was an expert at compartmentalising his life—a skill which seemed beyond her. Or maybe it was because he simply didn’t have any feelings for her, beyond those of desire and responsibility.

After wake-up sex, he left the house for work and Amber found herself resenting the fact that Serena got to see him all day, while she had to be content with the few measly hours left by the time he finally made it home. At least the May weather was warm enough for her to sit outside and she bought herself a sketch pad and took a book to read in the garden square beneath one of the lilac bushes which scented the air with its heady fragrance.

She’d been there for a couple of weeks when she received a letter from her father, forwarded by Mary-Ellen, telling her how delighted he was to hear of her marriage to Conall.