The Billionaire Claims His Wife

Jacqui gripped the knife hard as his voice, still a little husky from his flu, carried an entirely different meaning towards her altogether. She was conscious of him watching her every move as she bent and pulled the perfectly crisped bacon from the oven, adding it to the tray of goodies. She took a calming breath before lifting the tray and turning to face him, still unprepared for the familiar kick down low as his jade gaze slid over her.

‘Why are you really here, Nate?’

Because he needed his wife back. That was what he’d said. Needed. Not wanted. He needed her back. His choice of words had been curious. Very curious. And she’d turned them over in her mind a hundred times since he’d uttered them. Had he said he wanted her back she would have dismissed it as a flight of fancy issued from the depths of a flu-ravaged brain. But need. Need indicated necessity rather than desire. Need was an entirely different word altogether. It was more … calculated.

‘I told you. I want a reconciliation.’ And this time it wasn’t fever that glinted in his eyes but stone-cold purpose.

There was a moment of silence. Jacqui’s head spun and she gripped the tray so hard she was surprised it stayed in one piece. He just stood there, looking at her, his expression deadly serious. Oh, God! He hadn’t been delirious that night.

She swallowed. She couldn’t do this. Not on an empty stomach. Her gaze dropped to his naked chest. Not with him in his underwear. She moved forward, tossing her hair, praying her tremulous legs would carry her to her destination.

‘For God’s sake, Nate,’ she said as she passed by him, injecting as much bored-with-the-view into her voice as possible. ‘Put some clothes on.’

Nathan smiled as she strutted by, her nonchalance not fooling him for a moment. Her perfume embraced him in a hundred rekindled memories, and none of them involved her asking him to get dressed. In fact he doubted she’d ever uttered those words to him. ‘I remember a time when you would have asked me to take my clothes off,’ he said to her back.

Hell, he remembered a time when she would have ripped them off for him.

Jacqui almost stumbled with the tray as she set it down on the table. She took a moment fussing with the plates before she raised her face and looked him square in the eye. ‘Those times are long gone.’

Nathan noticed the determined jut of her chin and the hardening of her toffee eyes. Yes, they were. They seemed about a million years ago now. He pushed away from the doorframe. ‘I’ll be right back.’

He climbed into his trousers and his business shirt, doing up three buttons, rolling up the sleeves, not bothering to tuck it in. He joined Jacqui in her braless singlet and hemp pants, feeling way overdressed.

He smiled to himself as she swiped at some egg yolk that had dripped down her chin. ‘You are a disgrace to hippies everywhere—you know that, don’t you?’ he said as he took a seat opposite.

‘Not all hippies are veggies,’ she protested.

‘Just as well.’ He grinned, enjoying how she devoured her food. He’d used to love watching her eat. Like everything else, she did it with gusto. ‘They would have revoked your card years ago.’

Jacqui savoured the salty flavour of the free-range bacon and the warm squelch of locally churned butter, ignoring Nate’s familiar patter. He’d always teased her about her lackadaisical approach to the alternate lifestyle she’d embraced in her teens. A ‘hybrid hippy’, he had affectionately called her.

‘Mmm, but it tastes sooooo good,’ she said shutting her eyes in rapture. At the moment eating was preferable to thinking. Eating gave her a focus other than Nate’s preposterous statement.

Nathan shook his head and smiled at the look of bliss on her face. The corner of her mouth glistened with a smear of butter that in another time and place he would have taken great pleasure in removing with his tongue. Her corkscrew russet curls framed her face in the same wild abandon they had a decade ago, and she looked so happy, so sated. Like a goddess.

The hippy goddess of abundance.

‘How did I end up with you?’ he mused.

Jacqui opened her eyes and stared into his puzzled gaze. His beautifully sculpted lips sported a Mona Lisa smile. Their gazes locked, and for a moment neither of them said anything, contemplating their wild glory days when neither of them had needed anything but each other.

‘I don’t know, Nate. I don’t know.’

Nathan’s stomach grumbled and he broke their eye contact, helping himself to some toast and placing an egg on top. As hungry as he was, he didn’t think it wise to pile up his plate after two days of starvation. Jacqui was right, though, it did taste good. Damn good. He could feel the residual weakness from the flu virtually disappearing as he ate, the restorative effects of protein, carbohydrates and coffee making him feel bulletproof again. Preparing him for the verbal sparring to come.

‘So, I take it that’s your Porsche bogged down the road a bit?’ Everyone who had come into the clinic on Saturday had reported the unusual sighting.

He looked up at her and nodded. ‘Is it okay?’

Jacqui frowned. ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?’

‘Sports cars attract attention.’

She laughed. ‘Isn’t that the point?’

‘Sometimes not the good kind.’

‘This is hardly the Bronx, Nate. Don’t worry, your mid-life-crisis toy is safe here.’

Nathan chuckled, well used to her disdain for the trappings of wealth. ‘What makes you think my car represents a mid-life crisis?’

Jacqui shrugged. ‘You’re forty-two and you’re here.’

He laughed again. ‘Sorry to disappoint. I’m crisis-free.’

Although that wasn’t entirely true. He did have a problem or two. One she could help him with. The other … that odd, restless feeling that kept rearing its ugly head … that was best left undefined. Best left well alone.

‘Well, the car certainly doesn’t represent option number two.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes—you know. The I’m-compensating-for-a-lack-of-what-I-have-in-my-shorts toy.’ God knew she’d been reminded of that too often this weekend.

This time Nate roared laughing. ‘No. Nothing Freudian about it.’

Jacqui had forgotten how magnificent his laugh was, and she felt goosebumps feather her skin and her nipples tighten in blatant response to his sexy baritone. She watched over the rim of her coffee mug as the crinkles around his eyes and mouth relaxed. But the amusement still sparkled in his jade gaze.

God, she’d missed this. Sharing a meal with him.

She placed her coffee mug down on the table. Time to lay their cards on the table. Her stomach was full and he was dressed. She couldn’t bear the suspense any longer.

‘Okay, Nate. Spill. Why the bizarre request?’

Nathan watched her watching him, her gaze wary. Would she listen to him? Would she hear him out? Would she agree? ‘I have a … problem only you can help me with.’

Jacqui’s heart started drumming in her chest. It seemed so loud in the intense silence that followed his statement it was real competition for the rain on the roof. Surely he could hear it? ‘Go on.’

‘You ever heard of a guy called Vince Slater?’

Jacqui frowned, the name vaguely familiar. ‘Some rich old guy who’s on to wife number six?’

Nathan chuckled. Good summation. Except he was also a world-renowned financial genius, with razor-sharp business acumen and the Midas touch. And a friend.

‘That’s the guy. He’s agreed to join the executive of TrentFertility, which will put us in a very strong position for the float.’ He looked at Jacqui, looking at him as if he was speaking in tongues. ‘You do know about the float?’

Jacqui nodded. Her mother kept her up to date with all Nate’s goings on. She received regular clippings from the nation’s newspapers, all featuring Nate’s very commanding presence.

TrentFertility was about to go public.