‘Stop it, Josie; you’re becoming hysterical, and it can’t be good for the baby.’

She stared up at him with anguished eyes. What did he care? It wasn’t his baby, she thought bitterly, and opened her mouth to tell him so, but never got the chance.

‘I know regaining your memory must be traumatic for you, and I am prepared to make some allowances, but let’s get one thing straight. You are not going anywhere. Is that clear?’ he demanded hardily.

My, how magnanimous of him! He would make allowances for her. The gall of the man was unbelievable! Anger, ice-cold anger, surged through Josie. He was talking to her as if she were a six-year-old child, but then he had been doing that for months.

‘As crystal, but you can’t stop me, not any more,’ she declared with as much force as she could muster—which wasn’t a lot, she realised furiously, when she tried to sit up and ended up flat on her back on the bed with Conan lying half over her.

‘Get off me, you great brute! I can’t bear you to touch me!’ she yelled.

‘I don’t remember you objecting to my touching you for the past few months—in fact quite the opposite. On more than one occasion you couldn’t wait to get my clothes off.’

Her face burned at his mocking reminder, and she closed her eyes against the amusement she could see lurking in his. She was furious with herself at how easily he affected her, while he took her for a fool.

‘Look at me, Josie,’ he commanded.

She felt the warmth of his breath against her cheek and slowly opened her eyes. He was no longer amused; his handsome face was inches from her own and she shivered beneath the intensity of his gaze.

‘You’re pregnant, you’re not thinking clearly, but if you will listen to me for a moment I can explain everything.’

But she did not want to. Bitterly, Josie realised Conan would have no trouble persuading her into his arms, lying beneath him, with his naked chest barely touching her breasts, his long leg hard against her side. Already she could feel the familiar weakness flooding through her, and she was never going down that route again. Calling up all her self-control, she forced herself to remain calm. ‘Don’t waste your time. We have nothing to say to each other. You tricked me, used me—’

‘I never used you,’ he cut in tautly. ‘We are man and wife, and what we’ve shared for the past few weeks was a mutual passion. I’m not about to let you turn your back on everything—on us—for some stubborn misplaced pride.’

‘Stubborn pride!’ she spluttered. ‘You have a nerve. I wasn’t your wife. Ours was a marriage of convenience! Something you omitted to tell me when you were oh, so solicitous in the hospital!’ she sneered. Did he take her for a complete idiot? He did not like her comment; she could tell by the tension in his long body. But he refused to be riled.

‘I am not going to argue over the past, Josie. It has no relevance now. The important point is you are my wife in the fullest sense of the word, and when you have time to think about it you’ll realise nothing has changed.’

‘But everything has changed. You lied to me.’

‘I never lied to you, my one sin, if you could call it that, was I omitted to tell you about your past, but only because I didn’t want you to worry, in your delicate condition,’ he said, his dark eyes shadowed with concern.

‘Worry me!’ she cried. His concern was not for her, she thought grimly. It was probably because his deviousness had been discovered. ‘My God! Don’t you think I’m worried now?’ She couldn’t stop herself. ‘I lay on this bed with you. We made...’ No, it had not been love, and that was where the real hurt lay, Josie recognised bitterly.

‘Go on, say it,’ Conan prompted. ‘We made love.’

‘It was only sex,’ she spat out

‘If it was only sex, it was very good sex, and I have no intention of giving it up,’ he drawled mockingly. His dark head lowered and his lips sought hers, and she turned her head away—anything to avoid his traitorous mouth.

‘Come on, Josie.’ he cajoled against her ear. ‘If you were honest, you would admit you really don’t want to leave me. You love how I make you feel. You know you do,’ he declared, his thigh pressing into her as he slid his hands down her arms and back up in a seductive caress.

‘No.’ She pushed him, catching him unawares, and shot off the other side of the bed. Coldly, she turned to stare down at him sprawled on his back across the bed. His arrogance was only exceeded by his masculine conceit in his own powers of persuasion, she thought furiously.

‘It’s no good, Conan; I’m wise to you now, and I will never allow myself to be used by you again. Charles...’ She got no further.

Conan leapt off the bed, his dark eyes shooting flames. ‘I wondered when you’d get around to him,’ he bit out, all pretence of caring gone. ‘In that crazy head of yours you probably imagine you’ve been unfaithful to his memory.’

For a split second Josie thought she saw pain in his eyes. Then he hauled her into his arms. Ruthlessly his mouth ground down on hers, filled with rage and frustration. She was powerless to push him away; her hands were trapped between their bodies. She squirmed frantically in his iron grip, keeping her mouth firmly closed. Her fear of betraying her love for him and a burning sense of injustice gave her the strength to resist him. He lifted his head.

‘That ploy won’t work, Josie. You want me, not a dead man. I know you—two minutes on that bed and you’ll be begging me for it,’ he snarled.

Something snapped in Josie at his words. ‘You don’t know me at all!’ she cried. ‘You Zarcourt men are all the same—users and takers—and I wish I’d never set eyes on any of you.’ Conan’s hands dropped to his sides. The stunned expression on his face would have surprised Josie if she had noticed it, but she was too lost in her own hell, and everything she had kept bottled up for months came pouring out.

‘First Charles got me drunk, or I would never have gone to bed with him. Then I found out I was pregnant.’ Her eyes darkened with anguish as she relived the moment in her mind. ‘Then you and your father used my condition for your own ends—the old man hoping to replace the son he had lost and you... You were worse. A plot of earth and bricks was your obsession.’

‘No, Josie.’ He reached out for her, and she slapped his hand away.

Tags: Jacqueline Baird Billionaire Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net