Bound As His Business-Deal Bride

‘You can’t get it while you wear my ring on your finger. Anyhow, you don’t want it anywhere, you want it from me.’

She tugged the gleaming sapphire from her hand. He gritted his teeth as she walked to a feminine-looking dressing table and gently placed it on the pale wood.

‘Every man thinks they’re special. You’re not. Please leave, I have things to do.’

He needed to go. She wasn’t giving up her quest for an argument, and he still wasn’t in control enough not to risk uttering hurtful things that couldn’t be unsaid. In his darker moments when he’d thought back to that night she’d cast him aside, he’d imagined her gloating at the pain she’d caused. She didn’t look like she was gloating now. Her face was pale, her eyes tight as she chewed on her lower lip. At this moment Eve did not look like a woman who enjoyed hurting him. She looked like the young woman he’d thought he’d known and had believed he’d spend his whole life with. One who’d been kind, protective of her mom and sister. Loving.

‘Then I’ll leave you to wrestle with your feelings for me,’ he said, and walked from the room. What had happened to her between the time he’d left with only their kisses under the sound of the rain as memories, and the day she’d ended it all?

Hugo Chevalier had happened, and Gage was determined to find out what that man had done. There were any number of ways he could go about getting that information but she’d tell him in the end because he had a weapon she couldn’t fight.

She still wanted him.

CHAPTER SIX

EVE SNATCHED UP her evening bag and headed for the door of her room then stopped, looking around. There was a needling sensation, like her world was not quite right. Like she’d forgotten something. She turned and her gaze lingered on the dressing-table, where her engagement ring glittered in the low lights.

She looked down at her left hand and the sense that something was missing increased. Eve turned back, tossing her clutch onto the bed as she passed. Grabbing the ring, she slid the extravagant cluster of gemstones onto her finger. They lay cool against her skin, easing the burn of her overheated flesh.

Eve tried not to think about how comforting the weight of the engagement ring was whenever she wore it. She hadn’t realised properly how any of this would be, having believed she could cope with her feelings. Sadly, she’d underestimated how crushing unrequited desire could really be. How the cruel words she’d forced herself to say would chip away at her soul and blacken it for ever.

It had been one thing as a desperate, besotted twenty-year-old. When her father had found her in that rundown hotel, she’d been fuelled by fear and exhaustion, and in the horrible weeks that had followed she’d agreed to anything to protect Gage, her choices horrible yet clear. She’d also had the advantage of not seeing him. That distance had made the terrible choices seem easier. No one had witnessed her weeping into her pillow every night.

Soon she’d been a continent away from him after their last, terrible call when she’d destroyed his love for her and succeeded in turning it into blind hatred. But nothing had prepared her for the wearying exhaustion of the act she continued to play.

Eve smoothed her hands over her blue dress, perfect for travel because it was soft and body-hugging and had once made her feel beautiful. It also now made her feel exposed, the fabric the same vibrant colour as Gage’s eyes, matching her engagement ring to perfection. It clung to her body and reminded her with each movement she made of Gage’s hands softly stroking her.

She tried to ignore that sensation as she walked from her room down the stairs to travel to dinner with Greta Bonitz, blinking back the threatening tears. Kissing Gage, touching him. Making love, because it had been far more than sex. They had all been a critical error. Once their lips had touched it had been like her body had come home. The soul-deep sigh of relief.

But now she was left with lonely nights in a bed in a house where he lay just down the hall, because as much as her body wanted him again and again, she couldn’t let him have her. That realisation crippled her. If she let him touch her again, she might never let him go, and where would that leave them?

He wanted her, that was clear. They still burned brightly when they were together. While she had nothing to compare it with, their bodies didn’t lie like their minds did. They knew how to work together in perfect synchronicity. She shivered. Closed her eyes and let herself indulge in the guilty pleasure of recalling the feel of him inside her again. A flood of warmth washed over her.

And now she was simply avoiding him. She took a deep breath to steel herself and walked down the hall to the lounge. Gage waited there, staring out the doors that showcased the view of her fields of flowers. Night had fallen now and everything was in darkness, but the breeze still blew in perfumes of roses and lavender. He had his hands in his pockets, coat slung over the arms of a chair. His shoulders were broad and strong. Once they’d carried so many of her burdens. Now she only had herself. She let herself indulge in the look of him, surveying the darkness outside as though overseeing his domain.

‘The car will be here soon.’

She didn’t know how he knew she was there but, then, she’d always known when he’d walked into a room so perhaps he had the same sixth sense about her too. It comforted her and distressed her all the same, with the what-ifs. What if she’d ignored her father’s threats? What if she’d still run back to Gage? Would they still be together? Would their baby...?

No. There was no use to these thoughts. She’d punished herself enough for the last one. She didn’t need any more.

He was such a beautiful, masculine picture framed in the doorway, glowing in the low ligh

ts of the room. The golden boy indeed. Gage turned and raised a tumbler a quarter full of golden liquid.

‘Drink?’

Not unless it was straight bourbon. That might be the only thing that would get her through this. But she needed her wits about her, especially tonight when everything felt so ragged and raw. ‘No, I prefer not to drink before an important business deal. The celebration can come afterwards.’

‘Looking forward to getting rid of me that quickly?’

The smirk on his face told her exactly what he thought she might say, and exactly what her answer really would be if she told the truth. And that was a worry in and of itself.

‘You know we both want to move on, sugar.’

The corners of his beautiful mouth curled in a sensual smile.

‘So certain of that, are you?’