The Billionaire's Marriage Bargain (11 page)

‘I’m well aware of how long it’s been, Kenzie,’ he said grimly.

Kenzie looked at him in frustration, wishing for just a glimpse of the softer, more indulgent Dominick that she had seen during their marriage, and on occasion during last weekend at her parents’ house. She knew the latter, at least, had all been an act for her family’s benefit, an act that had put her totally in Dominick’s debt. If Dominick felt any emotion towards her at all now, it was hate.

But he had given her a weekend, and now she owed him a weekend in return…

She drew in a determined breath. ‘What sort of clothes will I need to bring with me?’

He shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Something to wear for Saturday evening. A swimming costume, perhaps. Or not,’ he added throatily as he moved his gaze deliberately down the length of her body.

Kenzie withstood his examination with a determined rise of her chin, although she was a little puzzled as to where he could be taking her if she was going to need an evening dress and a swimming costume—the two didn’t seem to go together somehow.

‘Dominick, I know you accompanied me to the wedding last weekend, but I really don’t think I’m up to a weekend being social with business acquaintances of yours.’

His mouth twisted humourlessly. ‘I assure you, Kenzie, the only person you’re going to be social with this weekend is me.’

Kenzie was more puzzled than ever. But at the same time she could see by his uncompromising expression that Dominick didn’t intend telling her any more than he already had.

‘Okay, Dominick, if that’s the way you want it,’ she agreed abruptly.

‘It is.’ He nodded.

‘I’ll leave you to get back to your—work, then,’ she said dryly, aware that he hadn’t been working at all when she had entered his office uninvited a few minutes ago, but staring out of the window instead.

‘And I’ll leave you to get back to yours.’’ He gave a mocking inclination of his head. ‘Oh, and, Kenzie…?’ he added as she reached the door.

She turned back reluctantly. ‘Yes?’ she prompted warily.

‘Enjoy your dinner this evening,’ he said softly.

Kenzie searched his face for several long seconds, but once again Dominick made sure she could read nothing from his mocking expression as he steadily returned her gaze.

‘Three o’clock on Saturday,’ she repeated firmly before making good her escape.

All the humour left Dominick’s face once he was alone, his breath leaving him in a shuddering sigh.

Four months since they parted, Kenzie had said.

The same four months it had taken for him to devise a suitable retribution that would include Kenzie as well as her lover. But it was all coming together now, and it would very shortly be over.

The fact that Kenzie had amazingly come to him last week, needing something from him that only he, as her husband, could give, and therefore putting her totally in his debt, only added to his feelings of satisfaction.

He would take settlement this weekend slowly and leisurely, knowing every caress and pleasure that made Kenzie wild and wanton in his arms. It was a pleasure he intended drinking to the full, a pleasure that would be all the sweeter to him when she returned to her lover after the weekend knowing that she had come to him willingly.

Then Jerome would no doubt inform her of exactly what retribution Dominick had taken on both of them.

Now Dominick waited until he was sure Kenzie had passed through the outer office before sitting forward to press the intercom on his desk. ‘Stella, put a call through to Caroline Carlton in New York, will you?’ he instructed before sitting back to wait for the connection, his smile of satisfaction not reaching the hard determination of his eyes as he resumed his sightless staring out of the window.

DOMINICK gave Kenzie a glance from behind dark sunglasses on Saturday afternoon as he drove them to their destination, having picked her up from her apartment almost an hour ago.

As usual Kenzie looked stunningly beautiful as she sat beside him in the car dressed in an emerald-green sundress and high-heeled sandals, the thin straps of the dress showing off her bare shoulders and the creamy swell of her breasts, and her deep green eyes hidden behind the shield of her own sunglasses.

Yes, Kenzie looked stunningly beautiful—and extremely remote, he thought, realizing that since her initial greeting she hadn’t spoken a single word.

Now who was the one playing games? Dominick wondered with a hard grin as he returned his attention to the road in front of him. It felt good knowing how easily he could break her cool control.

He decided to do exactly that. ‘How was your dinner with Carlton on Wednesday evening?’ he enquired mildly, immediately sensing Kenzie’s sudden tension.

Kenzie turned to look at him for several long, probing seconds. ‘Why do you ask, when you can’t possibly be interested?’ she finally sighed.

‘Oh, but I am, Kenzie,’ Dominick assured her lightly. ‘Did you and Carlton have an emotional reunion?’ His voice had hardened perceptibly.

‘As it happens, we didn’t have a reunion of any kind,’ she bit out. ‘Jerome had to cancel his trip for a couple of days,’ she explained as Dominick seemed to be waiting for her to say something else.

‘Something more important came up, obviously,’ he drawled derisively.

Jerome had telephoned her late on Wednesday to cancel their dinner engagement in the evening, explaining that he had to delay his arrival in England until Saturday because of a pressing business matter that prevented him leaving New York at the moment.

As his dinner with her had also been a business engagement Kenzie hadn’t been particularly concerned, the two of them making arrangements to meet on Monday instead once Kenzie had explained she would be away over the weekend. She hadn’t told Jerome whom she was going away with though; despite what Dominick chose to believe to the contrary, her private life really wasn’t any of Jerome Carlton’s business.

‘I guess it did,’ she acknowledged dismissively.

‘Poor Kenzie,’ Dominick murmured. ‘I seem to remember you accused me of putting business first, too,’ he reminded her as she looked at him with a frown.

Kenzie didn’t even qualify that remark with an answer; her relationship with Jerome was nothing like her marriage to Dominick, so there was no point in comparing the two.

‘Are we nearly there?’ she asked instead, the last hour having taken them out of London and into the Hampshire countryside.

‘Not long now,’ Dominick confirmed with satisfaction, wondering what Kenzie was going to make of Bedforth Manor. Not that it really mattered; she would never be going there again. But it would still be interesting to see her reaction.

She looked more puzzled than ever when he turned the car into the long gravel, tree-lined driveway that led up to the house, and turned to look at him in confusion as he parked the car in front of the three-storey, mellow-stoned building.

‘Bedforth Manor,’ he told her economically as he got out of the car to get their bags.

Kenzie followed him slowly, coming to stand beside him at the bottom of the steps that led up to the huge front door. ‘Is it a hotel?’ she asked.

‘If it were it would be a very empty one!’ he looked around them pointedly at the lack of any other vehicles in sight.

‘But—’

‘It’s just a house, Kenzie. My house,’ Dominick cut in tersely as he began to walk up the steps.

‘Yours?’ She followed him up the steps feeling slightly dazed.

‘Mine,’ Dominick turned to assure her.

To say she was surprised was an understatement. Not that Dominick didn’t have homes all over the world, but they were mainly apartments, places that could be closed up when Dominick left and then opened up again when he returned possibly months later. A house, at least a house like this one rather than his villas in the South of France and on his Caribbean island, was something else entirely.

It seemed entirely too permanent a home for a man like Dominick, who made a point of avoiding commitment…

Dominick could see the puzzlement on Kenzie’s face, and could guess the reason for it. But he had no intention of telling her that he had originally bought this house for her, and that six months ago he had wanted to at least give her the home she so longed for.

Six months ago, when she was his wife, materially he would have given her almost anything she wanted.

Before she had betrayed him with another man!

He wasn’t quite sure why he hadn’t just resold the place after she’d left him, because once Kenzie had gone he certainly no longer had any intention of doing it up and living in it.

But he was glad he hadn’t got rid of it now; it seemed only poetic justice that he should bring Kenzie here, to the house that he had bought for her but which she would now never live in with him.

A house he probably would sell after this weekend…

‘I—it’s lovely,’ she told him in astonishment as he opened the front door and they stepped inside the cavernous hallway.

Dominick looked around him with satisfaction, seeing that the housekeeper had followed the instructions he had given her over the telephone yesterday. There were flowers on the polished table in the centre of the magnificent hallway, their perfume strong and welcoming, and no doubt their dinner was in the kitchen and ready to be cooked. He was sure the master bedroom upstairs had also been prepared for their use…

That housekeeper having now left the house, also as per Dominick’s instructions, meant that he and Kenzie were completely alone here.

He really had been speaking the truth when he’d assured her she wouldn’t have to be social with anyone but him this weekend!

‘Why don’t you go through to the kitchen and make us some coffee…’ He nodded in the direction of the room straight ahead of him ‘…while I take our bags upstairs?’

Kenzie was looking around, loving the panelled walls and polished wood floors, the chandelier and wall lights shimmering crystal, and the lovely wide staircase leading up to the second floor. She was so surprised by the house he had brought her to instead of the cold, impersonal hotel she had been expecting that she couldn’t even think of an argument to his suggestion as she made her way slowly to the kitchen.

The sort of beautiful old-fashioned kitchen she would have loved for her own, a deep green Aga its dominating feature, pots and pans hanging down over a table scored by years of use, with the more modern features like the fridge and dishwasher hidden away behind doors of the same oak as the array of kitchen cabinets.

Why on earth had Dominick, of all people, bought a beautiful old house like this one?

And where were all the staff needed to run such a big house? she suddenly wondered.

Surely a cook was necessary, if nothing else. Or did Dominick include feeding him as part of the weekend she owed him?

Not that she couldn’t cook, in fact she enjoyed it, but despite Dominick’s warning that the only person she would have to socialize with this weekend was him, she hadn’t for a moment thought that the two of them would be completely alone.

‘No coffee?’ he raised his dark brows in question as he joined her in the kitchen to find her just standing there. ‘Never mind, we’ll make some in a minute,’ he dismissed. ‘Perhaps you would like to have a look at the swimming pool first?’

Somewhere in this big, beautiful house was a swimming pool?

Well, why not? Dominick might not have made anywhere his permanent home the last twenty years, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t have every comfort in the numerous houses he did own.

‘Why not?’ She shrugged, needing time to collect her scattered thoughts, and a tour around the swimming pool was as good a way to spend them as any.

‘The rose garden,’ Dominick told her economically as they went outside. ‘The stables.’ He pointed over to the buildings some distance away from the house. ‘The swimming pool,’ he said with satisfaction as he took a key from his pocket and unlocked a door.

Surely swimming pool was too mundane a description of the domed building he took her into, she thought, gazing at the huge windows along each side, the big glass doors at the end wall that opened out onto a terrace, and the full-length pool lined with white and blue mosaics. The pool was surrounded by alabaster pillers, and Greek statues of partially dressed women, set amongst huge urns of overflowing flowers.

‘Someone else’s fantasy, not mine,’ Dominick drawled dryly as Kenzie turned slowly to look at him.

She could have guessed that; she didn’t think this romantic setting was Dominick’s taste at all.

But it was hers, she realized, the warm enchantment of the place definitely appealing to her. So much so that she longed to get her costume from her bag upstairs and immerse herself in the lovely cool water.

But not if that was going to mean Dominick joining her!

She was already aware of Dominick enough as it was, and had been so since the moment she had joined him in the car earlier. The darkness of his hair had still been damp from the shower he must have taken, his jaw clean-shaven, his muscled arms bare beneath the black polo shirt he wore, and his legs long in the black fitted denims.

Just looking at him had been enough to put all her senses on alert.