The Billionaire's Marriage Bargain (6 page)

Dominick nodded. ‘And?’

She shrugged. ‘He says he isn’t sixty yet, and he hasn’t earnt enough money to retire. But they won’t accept any help from me,’ she added with a sigh.

He could see how Nancy and Donald would baulk at accepting financial security from their eldest daughter. But what—

Damn it, he had no intention of being sucked into this warmly loving family!

It was against every principle of aloof self-containment he had lived his life by since he had been able to completely escape his parents’ influence twenty years ago.

Despite having the grades, he had chosen not to go to college, and instead had worked in a hotel, working his way up from lowly Porter to Assistant Manager, and then Manager by the age of only twenty-three. Then he had gone completely out on a limb to finance the buying of the hotel and had completely turned it around into a profit-making concern.

That first hotel had only been the start, and now he owned hotels and apartments all over the world, amongst other things.

Very shortly, when his four months of planning came to fruition, he intended owning a cosmetics company too…

Before, he had managed to achieve what he had because he had never allowed emotions to overrule his head.

Until he had met and married Kenzie…

A chink in his armour.

But a chink, once he’d had her safely installed in his life as his wife, that he had kept under perfect control.

Until she’d begun to question why he never told her he loved her.

Until she’d begun to talk about them having a baby together.

Kenzie had insisted that the child the two of them had together wouldn’t experience the emotionally battered upbringing he’d had. But Dominick had remained adamant against that argument, a development that had obviously caused Kenzie deep unhappiness.

As far as Dominick had been concerned though, there had been no reason for them to have children. They had been happy as they were, so why rock the boat?

Kenzie hadn’t seen it that way, and things had become incredibly strained between them, with their lovemaking no longer the pleasure it had once been, and a barrier seeming to come down between them.

When Carlton Cosmetics, in the guise of Jerome Carlton himself, had begun to spend a lot of time with her in an effort to persuade her into accepting a lucrative contract to be the face of their new product, that estrangement had deepened.

Quite to what extent Dominick hadn’t been made aware of until he’d spoken to Jerome Carlton some weeks later.

And by then it had been too late. Kenzie had made her choice, and it hadn’t been him or their marriage.

She had accepted the contract Jerome Carlton had offered on behalf of Carlton Cosmetics—and Carlton’s more personal offer that she move into his life!

Kenzie breathed a sigh, and stood up, the movement bringing Dominick’s attention away from his thoughts. ‘The bathroom is through there.’ She pointed to an adjoining door. ‘Take as long as you like. Don’t come down again at all, if you would rather not. I’m sure my family will accept that you’re tired after working all day and then having to drive here.’

‘I’m thirty-eight, Kenzie, not eighty-eight!’ he rasped impatiently. ‘And I seem to remember being perfectly capable of going in to work the next morning as usual after some of our more—strenuous sexual marathons,’ he added tauntingly.

Kenzie paused in the doorway, her expression pained. ‘And there you have the difference between us in stark reality, Dominick,’ she told him sadly. She knew that difference was everything, and that it always had been, only she had been too much in love with Dominick, too blind to see it, at the time. ‘You see, I thought the two of us were making love,’ she explained at his scowl, ‘not having a “sexual marathon”!’

His mouth twisted scathingly. ‘You always did like to pretty things up in rose-coloured glasses!’

‘Whereas you,’ she murmured softly, ‘have always worn blinkers and so see nothing at all except what’s directly in front of your nose, giving you an extremely narrow view of the world!’ She closed the door softly behind her as she left, knowing there was nothing more to be said, and that she couldn’t reach Dominick this way. She never had been able to.

She blinked back the tears as she moved hurriedly back down the stairs to rejoin her family, eager to be back amongst their warmth and love.

Dominick gazed after her with pitying derision.

Love!

That was for people like Kenzie, not him. It was for people who hadn’t had the notion of love kicked out of them by their own parents’ infidelities when they were a kid. Because loving someone, one person, for a lifetime, simply didn’t exist.

But what about Nancy and Donald? an annoying little voice asked inside his head.

An exception, not the rule, he told himself firmly. One successful marriage didn’t make up for the fact that almost one in two marriages ended in divorce nowadays.

Love wasn’t to be trusted, he had learnt at a very early age. It only made fools of everyone—and he had no intention of ever joining the ranks of the foolish!

‘WHAT did you and Dad talk about while you were out?’ Kenzie prompted curiously as she came back from preparing for bed in the adjoining bathroom.

The two men had disappeared together for over an hour earlier once Dominick had come back downstairs, and Kenzie had been unable to stop feeling anxious the whole time they’d been gone. She wondered what two such different men could possibly have found to discuss for that length of time, and her look of concern had earned her quite a lot of teasing from her sisters as they had mistaken that anxiety for missing Dominick.

Her family obviously had no idea, but she had got used to missing Dominick during their months of separation. She had never quite accepted it, but at the same time she knew there was no point in pulling herself to emotional shreds over something she, and her love, couldn’t change. Dominick couldn’t ever change.

So she had smiled good-naturedly through her sisters’ teasing, the pressure having eased off by the arrival of Colin and Neil, which had been quickly followed by her father and Dominick’s return. The nine of them—Kathy’s fiancé Derek had been banned from seeing his bride until the wedding tomorrow—had then all sat down to the meal the women had prepared in the men’s absence.

Now was the first opportunity this evening Kenzie had had to talk to Dominick privately.

She needed to talk, to cover the awkwardness she felt in coming back to the bedroom wearing only peach-coloured silk pyjamas. Dominick was sprawled out on one of the beds still fully dressed, his gaze hooded as he straightened up on the pillow to look at her.

‘Very sexy,’ he murmured as he scrutinized her slowly up and down. ‘As I recall you always slept naked; how long have you been wearing those passion killers?’

Her eyes glittered angrily. ‘Since I knew I had to share a bedroom for the night with my ex-husband!’ She had slept naked during their marriage because there had been little point in her wearing anything—Dominick had always thrown it off within minutes of their getting into bed.

‘Almost ex-husband,’ Dominick corrected grimly, straightening to get a better look at her. ‘I haven’t decided whether or not to sign the papers yet,’ he added distractedly, revising his initial impression of the pyjamas now that he could see the way the silky material fell smoothly over the pertness of Kenzie’s breasts. He noticed that her nipples hardened under his gaze.

In arousal.

So she wasn’t as sexually immune to him as she wanted him to believe, after all…

Kenzie avoided meeting his eyes. ‘You didn’t answer my question about what you and my father talked about while you were out,’ she reminded him, determined to stay clear of any conversation that might cause an argument.

He shrugged, slowly sitting up. ‘This and that,’ he dismissed, his gaze unwavering on her. ‘Nothing of importance.’

Unless you counted Donald’s satisfaction in knowing that, after tomorrow, all of his girls would be happily married and settled.

It was a sentiment that gave Dominick an insight into the difficulty Kenzie must have felt in breaking the news of their separation to her family—he hadn’t felt in a position to disappoint the older man either!

‘You never did tell me how Jerome Carlton rates as a lover?’ he looked up as he challenged her.

Dominick had realized the last few days that he still couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else touching her silken curves, and all those secret, erotic places only he had known. He still hated the idea of someone else hearing her little cries of pleasure as she reached the pinnacle of her sensual enjoyment. And the thought of Kenzie kissing and caressing any other man in the way she had him still had the effect of making his stomach clench into knots!

Kenzie studied Dominick for several seconds, wondering if he actually cared if she’d had another lover, and whether it had been jealousy all along that had caused him to cut her out of his life with so much finality.

But the glittering of his dark eyes and the tightness of his jaw were evidence of cold anger rather than the jealousy she had been hoping for. By bringing Jerome back into the conversation at all he was just spoiling for another fight.

She raised her chin defiantly. ‘As it isn’t gentlemanly of a man to tell tales out of the bedroom, I’m sure it isn’t ladylike for a woman to do so, either—Dominick, what are you doing?’ she demanded incredulously as he sprang up off the bed to grasp her by the tops of her arms. ‘Let me go!’ she instructed impatiently, glaring up at him. ‘You don’t really care whether or not Jerome and I have been lovers—’

‘Don’t I?’ he grated.

She shook her head, her hair silky about her shoulders. ‘You have to feel love to care, Dominick!’

He became suddenly still, maintaining a firm hold of her arms, his face only inches from her own. ‘Perhaps I’m just wondering how your parents would feel if they knew their little Kenzie had been sleeping around.’

She glared at him. ‘I thought what we were discussing had nothing to do with sleeping!’

‘You little—’ He broke off abruptly, drawing in deep, controlling breaths as he continued to scowl down at her.

Kenzie was tall and usually found herself on a level with most men, but Dominick had always been four or five inches taller than her, and that impression of height, along with the powerful width of his shoulders, became even more apparent as he strove to regain control of the anger she had deliberately incited.

‘But you don’t care, Dominick,’ she taunted coolly, determined to meet the furious glitter of his eyes. ‘You never did. Because you don’t believe in love, remember?’ she mocked, recalling the painful disillusionment the moment she had realized that.

No, he didn’t believe in love, Dominick acknowledged, and he had no idea what he felt for Kenzie at that moment, only that the thought of her in Jerome Carlton’s arms was once again driving him crazy.

There hadn’t been any other women in his life during the four months of their separation. Having Kenzie walk out on him in that way, leaving him for another man, seemed to have killed all desire for sex in him.

Until the second he had seen Kenzie on Wednesday evening…

Since then he had been filled with nothing but a desire for sex. But only with Kenzie.

But not here. And not now. That would happen on his terms. For his pleasure.

His hands dropped abruptly to his sides as he released her. ‘I don’t believe in love,’ he said abruptly. ‘I’ll go and use the bathroom myself now. And I didn’t make provision for sharing a bedroom for the night with my ex-wife, so, if you don’t want to be shocked out of your romantic little mind, I should turn over and go to sleep before I get back!’ he strode over to the adjoining room and pulled the door shut firmly behind him.

Kenzie stared at the closed door, blinking back the tears that threatened to fall. She knew there was no hope for her and Dominick, no common ground of conversation even. There was just anger and misunderstanding on Dominick’s part, and love, still love, on hers…

‘For God’s sake settle down and go to sleep, will you?’ Dominick snapped softly in the darkness of the bedroom.

Kenzie became still in the adjoining bed. ‘Sorry. I didn’t think you were awake,’ she muttered, having had no idea he had been aware of her restless movements for the last hour as sleep had eluded her.

He gave a heavy sigh. ‘You may think I lack a certain—insight where emotions are concerned, Kenzie, but I can assure you there is absolutely nothing wrong with my memory!’

And what was that supposed to mean?

That he was still thinking about her with Jerome Carlton?

Or something else…?

‘I can’t sleep,’ she sighed.

‘I think that’s pretty damned obvious!’ he bit out tersely. ‘Unfortunately, now neither can I!’

‘Sorry,’ she muttered again.

Dominick sat up in the bed, swinging his legs to the floor as he pushed the duvet aside.

He could see very little of Kenzie in the moonlight shining in through the window, only the paleness of her face and the dark cloud of her hair spread out on the pillow beside her.