Кэтти Уильямс – The Wedding Night Debt (страница 1)
‘What are you talking about?’
Dio raised his eyebrows and smiled slowly. ‘Don’t tell me that someone with a Maths degree can’t figure out what two and two makes? I want my honeymoon, Lucy.’
‘I… I don’t know what you mean…’ Lucy stammered, unable to tear her eyes away from the harsh lines of his beautiful face.
‘Of course you do! I didn’t think I was signing up for a sexless marriage when I slipped that wedding band on your finger. You want out now? Well, you can have out—just as soon as we put an end to the unfinished business between us.’
‘That’s blackmail!’ She sprang to her feet. She had looked forward to that wretched honeymoon night so much, and now here he was, offering it to her… but at a price.
‘That’s the offer on the table. We sleep together, be man and wife in more than just name only, and you get to leave with an allowance generous enough to ensure that you spend the rest of your life in comfort.’
‘Why would you want that? You’re not even attracted to me!’
‘Come a little closer and I can easily prove you wrong on that point.’
Heart thudding, Lucy noted the dark intent in his eyes, and the desire she had shoved away, out of sight, began to uncurl inside her.
CATHY WILLIAMS can remember reading Mills & Boon® books as a teenager, and now that she is writing them she remains an avid fan. For her, there is nothing like creating romantic stories and engaging plots, and each and every book is a new adventure. Cathy lives in London, and her three daughters—Charlotte, Olivia and Emma—have always been, and continue to be, the greatest inspirations in her life.
The Wedding
Night Debt
Cathy Williams
To my three wonderful and inspiring daughters
Contents
DIVORCE. IT WAS something that happened to other people: people who didn’t take care of their marriages; who didn’t understand that they were to be nurtured, looked after, handled as delicately as you would handle a piece of priceless porcelain.
At any rate, that had always been Lucy’s way of thinking, and she wondered how it was that she was standing here now, in one of the grandest houses in London, waiting for her husband to return home so that she could broach the subject of divorcing him.
She looked at her diamond-encrusted watch and her stomach knotted in anxiety. Dio was due back in half an hour. She couldn’t remember where he had spent the past week and a half. New York? Paris? They had places in both. Or maybe he had been in their Mustique villa. Maybe he had gone there with another woman. Who knew? She certainly didn’t.
Self-pity threatened to engulf her and she stemmed the tide with ease of practice born of habit.
She’d been married for nearly a year and a half, plenty of time to get accustomed to the way her youthful dreams had crumbled to ashes.
When she glanced up, she could see herself reflected in the huge, hand-made contemporary mirror which dominated the ultra-modern drawing room. Five foot ten, slender as a reed, long blonde hair that dropped to her shoulders, vanilla-blonde and poker-straight. When she was sixteen, she had been spotted by an agency and her father had tried to shove her into a career in modelling, because why waste a pretty face? After all, women weren’t cut out for anything more challenging, not really... But she had resisted—not that it had done her any good at all, in the end, because what good had been her degree when she had ended up...here? In this vast house, wandering in and out of rooms like a wraith, playing the perfect hostess? As if perfect hostessing was any kind of career for someone who had a degree in maths.
She barely recognised the woman she had turned out to be. On a warm evening in the middle of July, she was languishing in silk culottes with a matching silk vest top, just a few discreet bits of fairly priceless jewellery and high heels. She had turned into a Stepford Wife, except without the adoring husband rolling in at five-thirty every evening and asking what was for dinner. That might have been a distinct improvement on what she actually had, which was...nothing.
Or,
It made up for all the time she had spent dressed up like an expensive doll, administering their various properties, smiling politely when she needed to smile politely and hosting dinner parties for the great and the good. Or, at any rate, the very, very rich.
And now...a divorce would set her free.
Provided Dio didn’t kick up a fuss. Although she told herself that there was no reason for him to, she could still feel a prickle of nervous perspiration break out over her body.
When it came to the concrete jungle, Dio Ruiz was the pack leader. He was an alpha male who played by his own rules. He was the sexiest man on earth and also the most intimidating.
But he wasn’t going to intimidate
The only slight fly in the ointment was the fact that this would be the last thing he would be expecting and Dio didn’t do well when it came to flies in the ointment, not to mention the unexpected.
She heard the slam of the front door and her stomach lurched sickeningly but she only turned around when she sensed him at the door, his powerful, restless personality permeating the room even before she looked at him.
Even now, after everything, hating him as much as she hated him, his physical beauty still managed to take her breath away.
At twenty-two, when she had first laid eyes on him, he had been the most sinfully stunning guy she had ever seen and nothing had changed on that front. He was still the most sinfully stunning guy she had ever seen. Raven-black hair framed arrogantly perfect features. His pale, silver-grey eyes, so unusual against his bronzed skin, were dramatically fringed with thick, dark lashes. His mouth was firm and sensuous. Every little bit of him relayed the message that he was not a guy to be messed with.
‘What are you doing here? I thought you were in Paris...’ Lounging in the doorway, Dio began tugging at his tie, strolling into the room at the same time.
Surprise, surprise. It wasn’t often he found himself anywhere with his wife that hadn’t been meticulously planned in advance. Their meetings were formal, staged, never, ever spontaneous. When they were both in London, their lives were hectic, a whirlwind of social events. They each had their separate quarters, readied themselves in their own private cocoons and met in the vast hall, both dressed to the nines and ready to present the united image that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Occasionally, she might accompany him to Paris, New York or Hong Kong, always the perfect accessory.
Smart, well-bred...and most of all stunningly beautiful.
Tie off, he tossed it onto the white leather sofa and circled her, frowning, before coming to rest directly in front of her, where he began undoing the top two buttons of his shirt.
‘So...’ he drawled. ‘To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?’
Her nostrils flared as she breathed him in. He had a scent that was peculiarly unique to him. Clean, woody and intensely masculine.
‘Am I interrupting your plans for the evening?’ She averted her eyes from the sliver of tanned chest just visible where he had unbuttoned the shirt.
‘My plans involved reading through some fairly dull legal due diligence on a company I’m taking over. What plans did you think you might be interrupting?’
‘No idea.’ She shrugged her narrow shoulders. ‘I don’t know what you get up to in my absence, do I?’
‘Would you like me to fill you in?’
‘I don’t care one way or another, although it might have been a little embarrassing if you’d come home with a woman on your arm.’ She gave a brittle laugh, hating herself for how she sounded—hard, cold, dismissive.