Virgin: Undone by the Billionaire: The Innocent's Dark Seduction / Count Maxime's Virgin / Untamed Billionaire, Undressed Virgin

“You will agree to my demands, or I will take you to court. I will fight you for custody with every lawyer I possess.” He gave her a grim smile. “Believe me, you will run out of lawyers long before I will.”

A cold shiver went through her. She looked at her baby in Roark’s arms. Seeing them together, Roark tenderly holding his child, caused a crack in her heart. It was just what she’d always dreamed of.

Then he looked back at Lia, and all tenderness disappeared from his eyes. Instead she saw only hatred.

Hatred—and heat.

“Do you agree to my terms?”

She couldn’t let him win. Not like this. She wasn’t the kind of woman to surrender without a fight.

She lifted her chin. “No.”

“No?” he demanded coldly.

“I won’t travel with you as your mistress. Not with our child living with us. It’s not decent.”

“Decent?” His dark eyes swept through her like a storm. “You’ve never thought of decency before. In the rose garden. In the broom closet. In my hotel suite.”

“That was different.” Tears rose to her eyes, tears she despised as she glared at him. “If Ruby is with us, that changes things. I’m not going to set that kind of example for her, or give her that kind of unsettled home life. It’s marriage or nothing.”

“You’d rather show her the example of selling yourself in marriage without love—not just once, but twice?”

She flinched.

“I will accept your terms, Roark,” she said hoarsely. “I will sleep in your bed. I will follow you around the world. I will give myself up to your demands.” She swallowed. “But only as your wife.”

He stared at her for a long moment. Then he bared his teeth into a smile.

“Agreed.”

He put out his hand.

She reached out to shake on the bargain. The touch of his skin against her fingers sizzled her as he jerked her close.

“Just remember—becoming my wife was your choice,” he whispered in her ear. He reached his other hand to stroke her cheek, looking into her eyes. “It was your mistake.”

Roark married Lia in a drab little affair at city hall that evening. Mrs. O’Keefe held Ruby and acted as one of the witnesses; his assistant, Murakami, acted as the other witness. No family was in attendance. No friends. No flowers. No music.

Lia wore a cream-colored suit she’d pulled hastily out of her closet. Roark didn’t bother to change out of his black shirt and pants. Why should he act like this wedding meant anything to him at all?

He didn’t smile as they were married. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t even kiss her at the end. He just put a plain gold band on her finger as the judge proclaimed them man and wife.

And he would make his wife pay for what she’d done.

They left city hall for the downtown heliport in a Cadillac SUV. His assistant sat in the front passenger seat, next to the driver, with Roark directly behind him. As they discussed the current financial details of the Kauai and Tokyo build sites—the price of steel was going through the roof—Roark couldn’t stop glancing at Ruby, who was in the baby seat next to him.

He had a daughter.

He could still hardly believe it. As Murakami droned on about the rising costs of concrete, a situation that normally would have been of the utmost importance to Roark, he barely paid attention. He couldn’t take his eyes off his baby. She was yawning now, sucking sleepily from a bottle.

There could be no doubt she was his child. Her eyes were as dark as Roark’s, with the same coloring he’d inherited from his Spanish-Canadian father. She looked just like him.

But she also looked like Lia. She had the same full mouth, the bow-shaped lips. She had the same joyful laugh, holding nothing back.

Roark would just have to ignore that. He despised Lia and didn’t want to be reminded of her features in his baby’s face.

He had the strangest feeling in his heart every time he looked at Ruby. He didn’t know if it was love, but he already knew he would die to protect her.

A totally different feeling than he had for his baby’s mother.

In the third row of the SUV sat Lia and the nanny, who seemed like a sensible, trustworthy sort of woman. But Roark would have her references investigated just in case.

He ground his jaw. His instincts were clearly not as sound as he’d once believed.

God, he hated Lia.

When he remembered the pathetic way he’d lowered his guard at the snow-filled park and spoken of how his family died—something he’d never discussed with anyone—his cheeks went hot. He’d even told her about his humiliating upbringing with his grandfather. The way Charles Kane had despised his low-class blood. The way he’d fired the nannies as soon as Roark began to love them. The way he’d tried to toughen Roark up as a boy, stamping out his childish, desperate yearning for his dead family with harsh lessons and cold comfort.

Roark had revealed himself to Lia in a way he’d never done with anyone in his life.

He had laid his soul bare to her.

Now, remembering how he’d been so determined to blow her mind in bed, practically begging her to run away with him, Roark was overwhelmed with anger and shame.

He would enjoy punishing her. Their marriage vows would be the chains he’d use to destroy her. He would make her regret eighteen months of lies.

She had made Roark want her. The thought still made him furious. She’d made him think she was special, a smart, sexy, loving woman different from the rest. She’d almost made him care.

And all along she’d been playing him for a fool.

“Thanks for coming,” he heard Lia whisper behind him.

“It’s no bother,” Mrs. O’Keefe replied softly, settling back noisily against the leather car seat. “I couldn’t let you and wee Ruby fly off into foreign lands without me, now could I?”

He realized the woman saw more of the truth about the relationship between Lia and Roark than she was letting on. She knew something wasn’t right about this marriage, and didn’t want Lia and her baby to face it alone.

For Ruby’s sake, Roark was glad the woman had agreed to leave New York with them. He’d offered to double her salary for the inconvenience. He wanted his child to receive the best of care. He didn’t want her to be separated from her caregiver, as he’d been as a child.

But he disliked the thought of Lia having a friend. He didn’t want her to have any comfort.

He wanted her to suffer.

But not at the cost of Ruby’s happiness.

The chauffeur parked the Escalade outside the Pier 6 heliport, following with their luggage and the baby seat. Murakami stayed behind as Roark’s chief bodyguard, Lander, awaited them on the tarmac and escorted them to the helicopter.

After a seven-minute helicopter ride, they touched down at the small Teterboro Airport and boarded Roark’s private plane. It was comfortable and luxurious. Roark, Lia, Ruby and Mrs. O’Keefe were the only passengers, waited on by three bodyguards, two copilots and two flight attendants, one of whom brought crackers and juice for Ruby as the other offered Lia a glass of champagne before takeoff.