Bought for the Billionaire's Revenge(21)

He closed the paper and drained his coffee cup before placing it neatly on the edge of the sink. The seconds ticked by loudly in the background.

‘Why do you think?’

A thousand possibilities clouded her mind, some of them dangling hope and others promising despair. ‘I don’t know,’ she said finally, warily, shaking her head.

‘To prove that I could have you.’

She had to brace her hands on the edge of the bench for support.

Her face flashed with such a depth of hurt that Nikos instantly wanted to call the words back. To defuse the situation and make her smile again. To make her laugh in that beautiful, inimitable way she had.

Laughter was a long way from Marnie’s mind, though. ‘You’re serious?’ She pressed her lips together, her mind reeling. ‘This was just ego? As a seventeen-year-old I rejected you, and you couldn’t handle that, could you? And now you’ve bullied me into this marriage so—what? So you can make me feel like this? So you can berate me and humiliate me...’

He held up a hand to silence her. ‘I told you last night—I do not mean to hurt you. I never did.’

‘Yeah, right.’ She swallowed, her throat moving convulsively as she attempted to breathe normally. ‘It didn’t occur to you that this whole idea would hurt me?’

A muscle jerked in his cheek. ‘Are you having regrets?’

‘How can I not be? You put me in an impossible situation.’ She spun away from him, looking out at the storm. She was at a crossroads. She could tell him the truth—that it was impossible to be married to him knowing he would never love her. Or she could remember that she had married him. A thousand and one reasons had driven her to it, and they were all still there.

Worse, Marnie stared down the barrel of her future and imagined it without Nikos and she was instantly bereft. Even this shell of a relationship, knowing he would share only a small part of himself with her, was better than nothing.

She’d faced life without him and it had been a sort of half-life. She’d poured all her energy into her work, and she’d dated men that she’d known her parents would approve of, but she hadn’t felt truly alive until she’d seen Nikos once more.

Was it better to feel alive and permanently in pain or to be alone and feel nothing?

She turned to face him slowly, her face unknowingly stoic. ‘I didn’t hope for much from you, Nikos, but I expected at least that you would respect me. And do you know why? Because of who you are. Last night you said that the girl you fell in love with never existed. Maybe you feel that—maybe you don’t. I don’t know. But I have no doubt that I knew you. Who you were then. I think I know who you are now, too. And the contempt you are meeting me with is completely unwarranted.’

Her eyes sparked as she spoke the declaration.

‘You say you married me to prove that you could have me. Well, I only married you to save my father. Did you honestly expect me to do anything less?’

‘Not at all.’ His voice was gravelly. ‘You are excellent at taking direction.’

She sucked in a breath at the cruel remark. ‘My parents were right to tell me to break it off with you. Not because you had no money or family prestige, but because you’re a jerk.’

It wasn’t funny but he laughed—a short, sharp sound of disbelief.

‘I’m serious,’ she said stiffly. ‘I am Lady Marnie Kenington. I am the same woman I’ve always been. You forced me into this marriage and now you’re angry with me just for being who I am. You’re the one who’s trying to make me something I’m not.’

Her words were little shards of glass, all the more potent for she was right. He couldn’t fault her behaviour as his wife. She’d done and been everything he’d required of her. She hadn’t shifted the goalposts—he had.

The realisation only worsened his mood. How could he explain to her that he never enjoyed being at events like the party they’d attended the night before? That he hated most of the people in attendance, despised their grandiose displays of wealth and their desire to outdo one another. That he hated that entire scene and she was the very epitome of it? That seeing her amongst her own people—people who’d been born to wealth and prestige—made him realise that they’d never see the world the same way?

‘You make an excellent point. I knew what I was getting when I suggested this marriage.’ He looked at his wife long and hard. She was a woman who projected an image of being cool and untouchable—except with him. A gnawing sense of frustration engulfed him. ‘Now, I really am late.’

He stalked towards the door, then turned back to face her. She was staring straight ahead with such an attempt at strength and resolve that something inside him twisted painfully.

‘Marnie...’ What? What could he offer her? ‘We can make this work. The way we are in bed—’

‘Is just great sex,’ she reminded him, hating the words even as she spoke them.

But it was more than that. In bed, in his arms, Marnie was as he wanted her to be. Genuine, overflowing with desire and feeling: a real flesh-and-blood woman. Not the fancy ice queen she showed the world.

‘Yes. And many marriages are built on less.’

‘Great.’ She appeared calm and in control, but her strength was crumbling. ‘Don’t you have a meeting to go to?’

He walked out of the door with a heavy pain in his gut that stayed with him all day.

His mind was shot. He lost concentration, he sent emails to the wrong people, he inverted figures on his spreadsheets.

He gave up on work in the early afternoon.

When he arrived home the place was deserted. He wandered from room to room, pretending he wasn’t looking for Marnie, until he heard her voice drifting from the small space she’d claimed as her office.

By silent but mutual agreement he didn’t intrude on her there. She generally only utilised it when he was at work, anyway. But curiosity drove him towards the door now, and he lingered for a moment on the threshold.

‘We’re in stage three of some very promising trials. Yes...’

She paused, and he could imagine the way she’d have that little line between her brows that showed deep concentration.

‘That’s true. Human trials are still a way off. But every day brings us closer.’ Another pause. ‘You’re a gem, Mrs Finley-Johns. That’s really very generous. Thank you.’

Silence filled the room for long enough that Nikos presumed she’d hung up the phone. He pushed the door inwards silently.

Marnie—his wife—was sitting at her desk, her honeyed hair piled into a messy bun, her head bent over a page as she handwrote something. He watched her for a moment and then stepped into the room.

That feeling in his gut didn’t dissipate. He’d thought seeing her might do it. That just the sight of her might make everything slide back into place. It didn’t.

When she realised she was no longer alone and lifted her gaze to his face he waited impatiently for a smile to burst sunshine through the room and relax his chest. It didn’t. If anything, she was impatient, lifting her eyes to the clock above the door.

‘Nikos? Is everything okay?’ She reached for her phone, rotating it in her hands.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘It’s so early,’ she said with a look of confusion. ‘You’re usually not home for hours.’

He felt as if the ground was slipping beneath him. ‘My afternoon was freed up,’ he said with a shrug. ‘You wanted to speak this morning and I rushed you. I thought we could go out for dinner and talk properly.’

The suggestion had come out of nowhere but as soon as he’d issued the invitation he’d known it was right.

‘We did speak this morning.’

Their conversation had chased its way through her mind all day. Like a maze, it had twists and turns, but no matter which path she chased down they all finished in a dead end of despair.

‘Not properly.’ The words were gruff. He dragged a hand through his hair. ‘Let’s have dinner and try to be civilised.’

She arched a brow, genuine surprise obvious. ‘I’m working.’ She bit down on her lip. ‘And I don’t think anything’s served by going out, do you?’

She sounded prim, and inwardly she winced. ‘You’ll always be Lady Marnie Kenington...’

He crossed his arms over his chest, staring down at her. Marnie felt the imbalance in their arrangement and fought an urge to stand, to right it. That would just be symbolic; the true imbalance would remain.

‘What is it you are doing? For work?’ His smile was an attempt to relax her. To elicit a similar reaction in her. It failed. ‘Or is it still a secret?’

‘It’s not a secret.’ She shook her head. ‘It never has been. I do behind-the-scenes fundraising for a cancer charity. Specifically leukaemia research.’

It wasn’t what he’d expected and that was obvious. He rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin, propping his hip against the doorframe. He was settling in. Marnie swallowed. Her insides were clenching with desire, her mind was sore from trying to figure out what the hell they were doing, and all she could think as she looked at him was how much she wanted him. To hell with everything else.