The Billionaire's Marriage Bargain

‘Letting your overactive imagination run away with you again, Dominick?’ she bit out tartly, firmly pushing away her awareness of him as she tossed the long length of her hair back over her bare shoulders to meet his gaze firmly.

She had dressed carefully for their meeting this evening, choosing to wear her hair down the way she knew Dominick preferred it, and a clinging green dress that showed off the perfection of her figure.

She was going to need every weapon she could find to withstand the scorn Dominick now felt for her, and she had decided that she wouldn’t try to detract from the beauty of the face and figure with which she had made her fortune, but emphasize them instead. If only to show Dominick what he had given up when he had chosen to let her walk away rather than sitting down with her and sorting out their differences.

But the coldness of his dark gaze, as it moved slowly from the top of her head to the slenderness of her waist, didn’t show any regret for that loss!

Twenty-seven and a successful model for the last eight years, she never had been able to withstand the coldly analytical gaze that gave away none of Dominick’s thoughts or emotions.

If he had any emotions.

Besides physical desire, that was.

She had certainly never seen love shining in those dark depths, not for her or anyone else.

‘I prefer not to imagine anything where you and Jerome Carlton are concerned,’ he snapped now as he picked up his glass to take a sip of his white wine. ‘I was merely stating that the demise of our marriage doesn’t seem to have affected your beauty!’

‘Oh, let’s be precise,’ Kenzie muttered with inward resentment for his cool control. If Dominick had seen her a month ago as she had sat for hours by her father’s bedside at the hospital, just willing him to live, then he would have seen that she didn’t always look beautiful, that sometimes she just looked emotionally distraught.

‘Fine,’ she dismissed tersely. ‘If I could just explain to you why I need to talk to you—’

‘I would like to order my food first, if that’s okay?’ he cut in with smooth determination, his tone of voice telling her it wasn’t a question at all but a statement of intent.

He might have left her with no choice but to agree to meet him here at the restaurant, but she really didn’t think she could actually eat anything. Seeing him again, realizing she still loved him as much as she ever had, and knowing there was no return of love for her in his cold, unemotional gaze, was tearing her apart.

She swallowed hard. ‘Go ahead. I won’t, if you don’t mind.’ She closed the menu she had been given without even looking at it, her dark lashes sweeping low over the paleness of her cheeks.

Dominick studied her silently for several seconds, knowing Kenzie had never been one of those models that had to starve herself to stay thin, that her slenderness was as natural as her beauty.

He reached out to cup her chin in his hand and lift her face so that, unless she actually closed her lids completely, her gaze had to meet his.

She had become more adept at hiding her emotions in the last four months, he realized as she easily withstood his searching look.

Yet as he continued to study her he could see very slight changes in her. There was a strain in her green eyes, her face seemed pale beneath her make-up, and her slenderness, now that he had the time to look more closely, bordered on fragile.

‘What’s happened, Kenzie?’ he demanded as he released her chin to sit back in his seat. ‘Surely Jerome Carlton hasn’t failed to live up to your exacting expectations, too?’ he scorned.

She gave a weary sigh. ‘Why haven’t you ever believed me when I tell you I have never been involved with Jerome on a personal level?’ She shook her head.

Why? Because Dominick knew exactly how the other man had pursued her five months ago, desperate to get Kenzie as the ‘face’ for his company’s new line in beauty products.

And with the chasm that had recently developed in their marriage, Dominick knew it had been all too easy for Jerome Carlton to seduce Kenzie, and to persuade her into being a part of his life as well as contracted to his company.

He knew all these things because Jerome Carlton had personally taken delight in relating them to him!

‘Where does Jerome think you are this evening?’ he challenged. ‘Not out to dinner with me, I’m sure?’ he taunted.

She drew in a sharp breath before releasing it in a sigh. ‘I haven’t come here to discuss Jerome with you. I—actually I haven’t seen him for several weeks. My father has been ill, you see, and—’

‘Donald has?’ Dominick echoed sharply, waving away the waiter who came to take their food order, too interested in what Kenzie was saying to even think about food. Especially the part where she said she hadn’t seen Jerome for several weeks…

He also wanted to hear more about Donald. He had only found the time to meet the older man three times during his marriage to Kenzie, but he had liked him and had to admire the easy way he had survived being the only male member of a household dominated by his wife and four daughters.

Kenzie swallowed hard. ‘He wasn’t feeling well for some months, and then a month ago he had a heart attack—’

‘Why the hell didn’t you let me know?’ Dominick questioned immediately.

She blinked across at him in surprise. As she had learnt to her cost, Dominick didn’t ‘do’ family. Coming from a family that had been split apart when he was only eight, and then presented with a series of stepmothers and stepfathers, he could perhaps have welcomed the close-knit family Kenzie had brought into their marriage. But he hadn’t, he didn’t trust or want a family, and had kept his emotional as well as physical distance from all of them.

And only his emotional distance from Kenzie, she remembered achingly.

‘Why on earth would I do that?’ she prompted incredulously. ‘You never showed any interest in my family when we were married, so why would you want to be bothered now that we’re divorced?’

‘Separated,’ Dominick corrected harshly. ‘I haven’t signed the divorce papers yet,’ he reminded her.

No, he hadn’t, although Kenzie didn’t understand why not. She had thought he would be glad to get rid of her and the marriage he wished had never happened. But weeks after they had been sent, as far as she knew the papers remained unsigned as well as unreturned.

In the circumstances, perhaps that was as well…

It certainly made it a little easier to come here and talk to him this evening. A little…

‘A technicality,’ she accepted heavily. ‘I—’ She broke off as a waiter put a plate of hors d’oeuvres in the centre of the table before making a discreet exit.

Dominick turned to give the waiter a rueful smile, appreciative of the fact that the other man had realized the tension bouncing off this table meant there would be no meal ordered here this evening. Or perhaps he was just another person who found Kenzie’s ethereal beauty enthralling…

Kenzie seemed to have been momentarily knocked off balance too. ‘How are your own parents?’ she prompted awkwardly.

He gave a rueful shake of his head. Kenzie had met both his parents only once, separately of course, in which meetings his father had been leeringly flirtatious and his mother had been interested in learning what beauty products Kenzie used to maintain her natural loveliness.

Kenzie had dealt with those meetings with teasing laughter for his father, and warm interest for his mother.

She had impressed Dominick at the time, he grudgingly acknowledged, particularly considering that neither of his parents had been overly interested in his marriage, even when he had told them he and Kenzie had separated.

‘The same,’ he answered dismissively. ‘And stop trying to change the subject, Kenzie. Tell me about your father.’

She absently picked up a prawn confection from the plate and popped it into her mouth before answering him.

Dominick found his attention caught by the fullness of her lips, lips that he had kissed, lips that had kissed him and pleasured him to new heights.

God, how he still wanted her!

And how dearly he wished that he didn’t…!

Her tongue moved to moisten those lips now, her gaze once again shadowed. ‘He had a heart attack,’ she repeated evenly.

Dominick knew what a blow that must have been for the Miller women, for Nancy, his wife of thirty years, for the youngest daughter Kathy, for Carly and Suzie, and for the eldest daughter, Kenzie. Donald was adored by all of them.

The eldest daughter Kenzie…Who had once been Dominick’s wife. Who had come to him now to ask for his help in some way, albeit reluctantly. But what help could he possibly be to her? Kenzie was extremely rich in her own right, and could afford to give her father the best medical care available, so what could Dominick possibly give her that she didn’t already have?

Kenzie knew it was time to stop prevaricating, that Dominick would either help her or he wouldn’t. It was better to know sooner rather than later.

She drew in a deep breath. ‘My sister Kathy is going to be married on Saturday. Kathy wanted to cancel the wedding until my father is feeling better, but he’s adamant that those arrangements not be changed.’

Dominick frowned. ‘And you want me to send her a wedding gift…?’

‘No, of course not,’ she sighed impatiently; if only it were that simple!

‘You surely don’t want me to give Kathy away in your father’s stead?’ he taunted.

‘You’re being ridiculous now!’ Kenzie said, exasperated. ‘What I want, what I need from you—This isn’t easy for me, Dominick!’ She groaned, her eyes, those incredible green eyes, filled with tears now.

He gave a shake of his head, his brown gaze guarded. ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there,’ he rasped.

No, he couldn’t, could he?

During the months they had been apart Kenzie had had plenty of time to realize that it wasn’t completely Dominick’s fault that their marriage had been such a disaster.

He had never lied to her, having always been completely honest about his feelings for her, and had never once, either before or after they were married, said that he was in love with her, or that it was ever more than her body that held him in thrall. It had only been her own deep love for him, she had come to realize, her romantic ideal of what marriage should be, that had convinced her otherwise.

Until faced, irrevocably, with the painful truth…

She swallowed hard. ‘The thing is—Dominick, what I do need is for you—for you to come to Kathy’s wedding with me on Saturday!’ She looked up at him now, needing to see his reaction.

To say he was stunned was an understatement, although he quickly masked the emotion, his gaze once again narrowing, questioningly now. And all the time his razor-sharp brain was working behind his guarded appearance, evaluating, assessing.

But this time not reaching a logical conclusion…

Dominick gave a shake of his head. ‘Why?’ he prompted economically.

This was so like Dominick. Blunt. To the point.

And it would be better if Kenzie answered him in the same way. ‘Because they all expect you to be there!’

‘Why?’ he repeated tautly.

‘Because—because I’ve never told my family that we’re separated!’ The words came out in a rush, her face once again pale as she looked at Dominick.

Dominick frowned. Kenzie’s family didn’t know their marriage was over, that it had been so for four months?

The newspapers, thankfully, didn’t seem to have picked up on the rift in the marriage yet. The fact that both of them often travelled abroad, necessitating lengthy partings, probably accounted for that. But why hadn’t Kenzie told her family at least?

What possible reason could she have for not telling them?

Considering Kenzie had left him to go to another man this oversight didn’t make a lot of sense to him.

Her father had had his heart attack a month ago, Kenzie had said, which was before or after she’d had the divorce papers sent to Dominick?

After, he would hazard a guess, otherwise she would surely have told her family the truth by now.

Kenzie couldn’t meet the intensity of Dominick’s gaze now, knowing that not telling her family of their estrangement was stupid, and that her hope that their separation wouldn’t last had been even sillier.

But for weeks she had hoped. She had simply refused to believe that Dominick couldn’t return at least some of the love she felt for him, and that once they were apart he would come to realize how much he really did love her. She also hoped he would acknowledge that his accusations concerning her sexual involvement with Jerome Carlton were completely untrue.

It was because she had longed for a reconciliation, that she had decided there was no reason to tell her family of the estrangement yet.

It hadn’t been all that difficult to keep it from them either. She had been away in America for almost a month after she and Dominick had parted, and redirecting her mail, using her mobile whenever she called them, had been an easy way of concealing her change of address. None of her family had questioned why Dominick wasn’t with her when she’d visited, her family knowing how busy he was and how much he travelled on business. Her explanation that he was in Australia when her father had become ill had been easily accepted by all of them.

But she had waited in vain for Dominick to realize he cared for her after all, even the serving of the divorce papers eliciting no response from him, at which point she had had no choice but to accept that he really had never loved her, and that their marriage really was over.

Which was when she had known she had no choice but to tell her family the truth.

But before she had been able to do so her father had had his heart attack, and for the last month she had forgotten everything but willing him to get better.

Which he had. And the doctors were hopeful that, with time, and no undue stress, he would make a full recovery.

In the meantime, her sister’s wedding was on Saturday, and her family still had no idea that she and Dominick were no longer together.

No undue stress, the doctors had said her father needed.

It was definitely not the time for him to learn that the marriage of his eldest daughter was going to end in divorce!

Which was why she had no choice but to ask Dominick if, for one day only, he would agree to pose as her husband.

The real question was, would he agree to do it…?

CHAPTER THREE

‘WHY didn’t you tell them, Kenzie?’ Dominick demanded. He hadn’t exactly gone around shouting about the failure of their marriage either, but he would have thought Kenzie would have at least told her own family…

She glared at him, tears still in her eyes, precariously balanced on those long, dark lashes. ‘And admit what an idiot I had been ever to have thought—Tell them that our marriage had lasted only nine months?’ she amended with a self-derisive shake of her head. ‘I was going to tell them—I had every intention of telling them—but everyone was so wrapped up in the plans for Kathy’s wedding! And then Carly announced that she’s expecting a baby, closely followed by Suzie announcing she was too. And I couldn’t—I just couldn’t—’

‘Kenzie—’

‘Don’t!’ She glared across the table at him, her face very pale. ‘You made your feelings about “bringing children into this world” perfectly clear five months ago!’

The question of children had never arisen when they had been just seeing each other, and when they had been newly married—a constant source of amazement to the jaded Dominick!—he had given little thought to the subject, either. So it had come as a complete surprise to him after they had been married for eight months that Kenzie had brought up the idea of them having a baby together.

Kenzie had seemed to draw away from him after his refusal to even contemplate the thought, and soon she had been no longer the fiery lover and the laughing companion of their first months of marriage. Then she had come to him a month later and told him she had decided to take up Jerome Carlton’s offer to work exclusively for Carlton Cosmetics, and that she was leaving for America the following week.

At which point Dominick had probably made the biggest mistake of his life, by issuing the ultimatum that if Kenzie left she needn’t bother coming back…!

Not only had she left, but Jerome Carlton had been standing smugly at her side when she had!

Carlton Cosmetics, Dominick now knew, was a family run company, Jack Carlton having retired several years ago to leave the running of the business to his eldest son Jerome. There was also a younger brother and sister, Adrian and Caroline, who were significant shareholders.

Dominick knew this because over the course of the last four months he had made it his business to know!

‘I—you do see my problem, Dominick?’ Kenzie looked at him anxiously.

‘Oh, I see your problem, all right, Kenzie,’ he admitted coldly. ‘In the circumstances, it wouldn’t do at all to turn up at Kathy’s wedding with your lover in tow, now would it?’

Kenzie could feel herself trembling now. ‘That was never an option,’ she told him flatly. ‘I do intend telling my family the truth, Dominick, I—just not now. So…’ she breathed deeply, her gaze challenging ‘…will you come to the wedding with me on Saturday or not? For my father’s sake, if nothing else,’ she added persuasively.

‘That’s emotional blackmail, Kenzie, and you damn well know it!’ he replied harshly.

Was it? Probably. But it wasn’t for her own personal gain; it was only to help her father.

Although it was obvious Dominick didn’t see it that way!

‘I know it’s a lot to ask, and I really wouldn’t have bothered if I didn’t think it was important. I would be very grateful if you would do this for me, Dominick,’ she added quietly.

If anything his expression became even colder, his eyes so dark now the black of the iris wasn’t distinguishable from the brown. ‘Tell me if I’m mistaken, Kenzie,’ he murmured, scowling darkly, ‘but it sounds very much to me as if you’re offering yourself up to me as some sort of human sacrifice in order to coerce me into agreeing to be your husband again for a day?’

‘Of course I’m not!’ She gasped, staring at him incredulously. ‘I didn’t mean—That wasn’t what I meant at all—Oh, this is hopeless!’ She threw up her hands in frustrated anger. ‘Forget I asked! Forget I even told you any of this! I’ll find some other way of solving the problem!’ she added determinedly.

Dominick looked at her long, slender hands, the hands that used to touch and caress him…

Hands that he knew had been touching and caressing another man for the last five months!

It was obvious now why Kenzie hadn’t seen Jerome Carlton for several weeks—she could hardly drag her lover along to visit her father in hospital when her family weren’t even aware she had a lover!

‘What are you going to do, Kenzie, tell them that I’m too tied up on business to attend Kathy’s wedding?’ he scorned.

She had already tried that. Last weekend when she had gone home to visit, in fact. To which her father had assured her that of course Dominick would be back from his business trip to Australia in time for Kathy’s wedding, that he was probably going to surprise her by arriving back unexpectedly.

Something she knew there was no chance of Dominick doing. Ever.

She shook her head impatiently. ‘I’ve already told them you’re away in Sydney on business, but my father is absolutely certain that you will make the effort to be back in time to attend your own sister-in-law’s wedding.’

‘It’s nice to know that one member of the family has a little faith in me!’ Dominick’s expression was bleak and unapproachable.

Kenzie opened her mouth to protest. And then shut it again. What could she possibly say that wouldn’t make this situation worse?

‘This isn’t the place for this conversation,’ Dominick told her grimly, picking up his wineglass and throwing the contents to the back of his throat before standing up. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he muttered, taking her arm as she stood up to join him.

Kenzie forced herself not to tremble as he touched her, determined not to let him see how he still affected her.

Dominick kept his hand lightly under her elbow as they made their way through the crowded tables, nodding his thanks to the maître d’ as he passed. He had an account with the restaurant, and he would make sure he tipped the man very generously when he settled the bill at the end of the month.

‘Where are we going?’ Kenzie prompted stiffly once Dominick had flagged down a cab, very aware of the light brush of his hand against her spine now.

‘My apartment,’ he bit out dryly.

Kenzie held back from getting inside the cab. ‘Your—the apartment where you—where we—’

‘Lived after we were married?’ he finished coldly. ‘But of course that apartment, Kenzie. It’s been my English home for over five years; why would I have bothered to move?’

Why indeed? Kenzie accepted heavily as she got into the back of the taxi, shooting over to the far side of the seat so that not even their thighs could come into accidental contact.

Dominick, she had discovered during their nine months of marriage, didn’t particularly like change, and, for all that he had business dealings all over the world, he had homes in all those countries too, apartments that were always kept ready for his use, disliking intensely the need to stay in hotels. Even his own.

Kenzie had put this need down to the fact that his childhood had been so erratic, no one place ever really becoming home as he’d ping-ponged between his parents’ houses after their divorce. His mother had retained the family home, but had moved in a constant stream of husbands and lovers, while his father, after an unsuccessful second marriage, had entertained various women in his city apartment.

She didn’t relish the idea of going to Dominick’s apartment, the home she had shared with him as his wife, as she remembered all too clearly the intimacies they had shared there, as well as that last terrible scene before she had left him.

She might not like it, but, until Dominick had said a definite no about accompanying her to the wedding on Saturday, she was willing to continue this conversation wherever Dominick decided.

At least he was still listening to her.

‘Drink?’ he offered once they were in the apartment, holding up the brandy decanter before pouring a measure of the dark gold liquid into a glass.

Would brandy make any difference to the trepidation she felt? she wondered ruefully. Probably not, but it might help to calm her nerves a little. ‘Yes. Thank you,’ she accepted as he handed her the glass before pouring another one for himself.

Dominick watched the slender arch of her throat as she took a swallow of the brandy, the creamy softness of her skin, while at the same time inwardly acknowledging that he had missed her in his life this last few months, and not just in his bed. Sometimes he had ached with wanting her to talk to, to laugh with.

‘So—’ his voice was harsher than ever as he determinedly squashed down his thoughts ‘—I believe we were discussing what sacrifice you’re willing to make in order to persuade me to accompany you to Kathy’s wedding on Saturday…?’

Kenzie had been about to swallow another sip of brandy, but instead gasped at the outrageousness of Dominick’s remark, gulping too quickly in the process, and starting to cough as the fiery liquid took her breath away.

‘Careful!’ Dominick moved to pat her on the back.

A little too enthusiastically, as far as Kenzie was concerned; she was sure there was no need for him to be quite so heavy-handed!

‘You did that on purpose!’ she told him fiercely once she could speak, her cheeks red, and her eyes glowing deeply green with anger.

‘More brandy?’ he offered wryly as he took the empty glass from her unresisting fingers.