The Billionaire's Bride of Innocence

How perverse if it was. Wickedly perverse.

She didn’t want to want him. Ever again.

But if Megan was brutally honest with herself, this was what she’d been fearing all along, that, if she didn’t leave James, one day he would succeed in seducing her again. That was why she’d avoided all physical contact. And why she’d gone on the Pill. Because she’d known, deep down, that she was still vulnerable to her husband’s prowess in the bedroom.

Sex with James had far surpassed anything she’d ever dreamt about. Had from the word go, despite her virginity, and she’d simply thought him wonderful.

She’d thought him even more wonderful on their honeymoon. She’d been suffering a slight case of morning sickness during their two weeks in Hawaii and he couldn’t have been more considerate.

But when James had been away on business during the weeks leading up to their wedding, Megan had experienced a taste of what frustration was like. Memories of his expert lovemaking had tormented her every night during his absence, and she’d lain awake for hours as she’d relived every exciting moment.

By the time their wedding night had come around, she’d wanted him like crazy. She’d wallowed in their seemingly mutual passion that night, and had been upset when her nausea each morning had interrupted their lovemaking. She’d been looking forward to spending long hours every day in his arms. As it was, James had still made love to her each evening, and occasionally in the middle of the night as well, before her morning nausea kicked in.

By the time they’d returned from their honeymoon, Megan had become used to being made love to at least once a day. When James went back to work, however, their sex life had lessened somewhat. Megan had thought this was because James was tired. As the owner of one of Sydney’s most successful advertising agencies, he worked very hard. She realised now that he was probably bored with her. His mission had been accomplished, after all: she had been carrying his child and was blindly besotted with him.

She supposed it was possible that he thought she wouldn’t want him as much, once she became pregnant. Just the opposite was the case, however. She’d wanted James more than ever.

There’d been a few times when Megan was so frustrated that she thought of initiating things herself. Once, when they’d been swimming in the pool together on a hot summer night. Another time, when they’d been getting ready to go out on New Year’s Eve. James had been in the shower, whistling, and she’d suddenly been tempted to strip off and join him. She’d experienced a strong urge to do some of the things to him that she’d read about in books: bold, sexy things, with her hands and her mouth.

But, in the end, she hadn’t had the confidence.

Still, her desire for her husband, Megan now understood, had always been far greater than his desire for her. Which was only natural; she loved him.

She still loved him, despite everything. Loved him and, to her shock and shame today, still wanted him.

Where, in heaven’s name, was her pride?

Not much in evidence at that moment, her heartbeat quickening when he turned to her and smiled one of those supersexy smiles which had used to turn her to mush.

In desperation, she managed to extricate her hand with the excuse that she always cried at weddings and needed to get a tissue from her handbag.

‘I have to admit,’ James said as she rifled through her handbag, ‘that I never thought this day would come. Hugh always vowed and declared that he would never get married.’

Megan recalled what she’d overheard Hugh saying at the hospital; that marriage should be the result of true love, and nothing else.

‘Still, I have a feeling he’ll be more successful at marriage than his father,’ James whispered to her. ‘Not that that’d be hard. I’ve lost count of how many wives Dickie Parkinson has had, each one younger than the last. Hugh’s chosen very well, I think. Kathryn’s a lovely girl. And very sensible. Oh, wow!’ he exclaimed. ‘What is it about brides that means they always look absolutely gorgeous?’

Megan was glad to have something to distract herself from the turmoil in her heart, her head turning to watch the bride walk down the aisle.

Megan didn’t know much about Kathryn Hart, only that she’d been Hugh’s PA. But James was right. She made an absolutely beautiful bride, dressed in a strapless white gown which had a tight beaded bodice and a gathered floor-length skirt. It was very similar in style to her own wedding gown, though hers had been ivory, not white. Kathryn seemed to float down the strip of red carpet which bisected the rows of seats, a long tulle veil trailing after her, her dark hair up and anchored in place by a tiara of white roses.

Megan’s eyes swung back to where the minister was standing along with Hugh and Russell, both looking resplendent in black dinner suits, white roses in their lapels. As handsome as both men were, neither of them could hold a candle to James, in her opinion.

Her eyes slid surreptitiously back to her husband, whose attention, thankfully, was elsewhere.

There was no doubt James was a striking-looking man: very tall and well-built, with a masculine face and deep-set, extremely dark eyes that commanded immediate attention. His cheekbones were prominent, his nose strong and straight, his mouth nicely shaped. His ears sat flat against his wellshaped head, which was just as well, because he always wore his dark brown hair very short, giving a tough-guy edge to his otherwise conservative image.

Women would still have thrown themselves at him, Megan conceded, even if he hadn’t been rich and powerful.

On top of that, he was always superbly dressed. The white-jacketed dinner suit he was wearing today was no off-the-peg variety. It had been tailored especially to fit him. But he looked just as good without clothes, she knew, his shoulders naturally broad and his muscles well honed from regular workouts in the gym. His quite magnificent male body was well-equipped to satisfy a woman in every way.

He satisfied me, she recalled. Every time.

And he’d satisfy you again, a devilish voice piped up in her head. All you have to do is let him…

Her face flushed at the temptation, a small groan escaping her lips.

When James’s head whipped round, she brought the tissue up to her mouth and tried not to look embarrassed.

‘You’re not crying already, are you?’ he said, but with an indulgent little smile.

‘Not yet,’ she croaked out.

‘You are a real softie, aren’t you? But I love that about you.’

Do you? she wondered as she wrenched her eyes away from his. Do you actually love anything about me?

Russell had said he was fond of her. That could be true, Megan conceded. James was always very nice to her.

But being fond of someone was a wishy-washy, lukewarm feeling, no match for the mad passion James had evoked in her from the start, and which she’d believed was mutual. How much of his so-called passion on their wedding night had been pretend? Did he have any real desire for her? Or was she just a means to an end?

Megan was well aware that men could not fake an erection. But it didn’t take much for a man in his prime—and James, at thirty-six, was still a young man—to become aroused. It was a well-known fact that men didn’t need love to want to have sex; just a willing woman in most cases.

She’d been very willing. And very naïve.

But not so naïve any longer.

If she ever went to bed with James again, she would have to do so with the full knowledge that he didn’t love her.

Could she do that? Could she really?

Before today, she would have said no. Definitely not!

Now she wasn’t quite so sure…

‘I hope Russell hasn’t forgotten the rings,’ James said. ‘We don’t want any dramas like we had at his wedding. Remember how that dreadful mother of Nicole’s showed up at the last minute and accused him of marrying her daughter for revenge?’

‘Yes, I remember,’ Megan said tautly.

‘Stupid woman. As if any man would marry for revenge. Anyone with half a brain could see that Russell was madly in love.’

Megan glanced at Russell, who was right at that moment smiling at Nicole, who’d preceded the bride down the aisle and looked absolutely exquisite in pale green. Megan recalled their wedding very well; recalled actually standing up and clapping when Nicole had said love was all that mattered. Megan had not long been back from her honeymoon at the time, her blind belief in James’s love having given her a new confidence and self-esteem, all of which had vanished the day she’d lost her baby boy. And, with it, her innocence.

James’s low chuckle dragged her back to the present. ‘Poor Hugh,’ he said. ‘If that look on his face is anything to go by, then Kathryn is going to run rings around him.’

Megan stared at Hugh as he stared at his bride, his expression one of total adoration and admiration. His eyes even filled with tears as she drew close.

That’s what I want, she thought, her heart squeezing tight. For James to look at me like that. For him to really truly love me.