Bride, Bought and Paid For

Her eyes deepened to a brilliant sapphire. ‘I’m surprised you remember.’

Yet he did, more vividly than he was prepared to admit. Her sweet mouth, the taste of her, the way she fit in his arms…her smile, how her eyes lit up with pleasure whenever she was in his presence.

He’d been her first lover, Xavier reflected. A fact that had alternately delighted and dismayed him, for he’d always dealt with women who knew the score and that what he offered them was a pleasant interlude for however long the relationship lasted, with no strings attached.

Romy had been different. Something he’d only begun to realise after she had ended their brief affair. That had been a rare, almost unknown occurrence, for in the past it had been he who had called time, presented a parting gift and moved on.

‘What of your father’s gambling debts?’ Xavier pursued. ‘Do you intend presenting his loan shark with a similar deal?’ He was already aware of the facts, except he wanted to hear them directly from her.

Romy bore his appraisal with equanimity, holding those dark almost black eyes in a determined effort not to be diminished in any way. ‘Yes.’

‘You have to know they won’t buy it.’ Quiet, deliberately stark words that accelerated her anxiety factor to new heights.

She’d already paid over a reasonable sum, but it had been made painfully clear what would happen if the outstanding balance wasn’t paid on time.

‘They might if I can negotiate reasonable terms with you.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t have the means to negotiate.’ Didn’t she know what she was up against? Or fully realize the consequences her father faced at the hands of a loan shark, who, after subjecting Andre Picard to a brutal lesson, would have no scruples in enforcing the lesson on Andre’s daughter?

‘That’s your final answer?’ Each word uttered caused her immeasurable pain, evidenced in the paleness of her features, the pulse jumping at the base of her throat.

Xavier bit back a pithy oath…more in anger at the situation she found herself in, than sympathy for the man who’d inadvertently put her there.

‘Your expectation of my generosity is too high.’

‘How much too high?’

She had courage, a quality he admired. Except she was way off base if she imagined any help he might be predisposed to offer came without a price.

Every risk Xavier took, and he admitted to many along the way, involved deliberate calculation. It was the basis of his success, the code by which he ran his business interests.

He knew all the angles, every devious aspect of human nature. Hadn’t he worked them to his advantage in his early days on the streets of New York? It was also the reason no woman had managed to capture his heart as he climbed high among the social echelon.

Yet recently he’d experienced an unaccustomed restlessness. He owned a luxury mansion in one of Melbourne’s prime waterfront suburbs, houses and apartments in various cities around the world, his own jet, expensive cars, an art collection worth millions. All he had to do was indicate he needed a woman in his bed, and several lined up to please him, aware the gift of jewellery and an all-expenses-paid sojourn in a spa resort were the only price he was prepared to pay.

While his business interests continued to challenge him, his personal life had become predictable, even boring. Was he sliding towards a mid-life crisis in his late thirties? Evaluating what he really wanted when, if appearances meant anything, he had it all?

In spite of the acquired sophistication, his generosity to select charitable causes, and the numerous acquaintances who sought his attention, his favour, he retained a degree of cynicism. Aware there were few women who would see past the size of his bank balance.

He owned a multi-national business enterprise, yet there was no child of his blood to take the reins in future and forge a dynasty.

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he regarded the young woman facing him. Affection, sexual compatibility…weren’t those qualities realistically attainable in a relationship? And honesty…a quality Romy Picard possessed in spades.

‘What if I were to put forward a proposal?’

For a moment she was prepared to swear her heart stopped beating. ‘Proposing what, precisely?’ The query held caution and an elevated degree of suspicion.

‘Involving you.’

No. The word echoed through her mind as a silent scream. He was toying with her, like a butterfly in captivity as he waited for the moment he would pin her to the wall.

‘I don’t enter the equation.’

He continued to study her in silence, until she felt close to hitting him. Had he any idea how impossibly angry she was at having to confront him? In normal circumstances, she’d take extreme pleasure in telling him to go to hell.

‘No?’ Xavier posed with deceptive mildness. ‘You represent the only tangible entity your father possesses of any worth to me.’

Something deep inside curled into a tight, painful ball, and she wanted nothing more than to turn and walk from the room, the building…anything to escape the compelling man who held her father’s fate in his hands.

‘You’re suggesting I become a form of payment in human kind?’ Each word took immense effort to enunciate and emerged in faintly strangled tones.

‘Your words, not mine.’

His drawled voice held an indolence that caused the pulse at the base of her throat to quicken to a hammered beat.

‘Prostitute myself by becoming your current mistress?’

‘And bear me a child,’ Xavier continued silkily.

It took enormous effort to resist the urge to slap his face, and for a heart-stopping moment time stood still, becoming a suspended entity when electric awareness pulsed heavily in the air.

Restrained anger emanated from her slender frame, and her eyes darkened to a vivid blue sapphire. ‘Are you insane?’

‘You beg leniency and attempt to bargain by offering nothing in return?’

Her eyes speared his, their blue depths intensely fiery with incredible fury. ‘What you’re suggesting amounts to blackmail.’

‘I prefer to call it a negotiated deal between two consenting adults.’

‘Bastard.’

His eyebrows rose. ‘Erroneous,’ he relayed in a musing drawl. ‘Given my parents were married at the time of my birth.’ The fact his father had abandoned mother and child within weeks no longer seemed relevant, or that his mother had been forced to do menial work for long hours in order to survive a trailer-park existence, and had died young.

Romy took a deep, calming breath, aware it didn’t come close to enough. Did he have any idea how much she wanted to rail against him? Even in her most trying moments in the classroom with students from hell, she hadn’t come this close to physically lashing out. And that was saying something!

‘You demand too much.’

He rose and indicated the door. ‘Then we have nothing more to discuss.’

Words temporarily failed her, and she could only look at him with stark disbelief. ‘You’re asking me to become pregnant with your child,’ she demanded with incredulity. ‘Give it up after birth…then be cast out of its life?’

‘Why would I cast a wife aside?’

The colour leeched from her face. ‘What do you mean—wife?’

‘Marriage,’ Xavier clarified succinctly. ‘Adequate recompense for me dropping all charges against your father,’ he added in dry mocking tones. ‘And clearing his gambling debts.’

For a moment she lost the power to think as erotic images filled her mind…images she’d never been able to erase, and words tumbled from her lips without thought. ‘I don’t want to marry you.’