Their Virgin Hostage (Masters of Ménage #5)(2)

Then Kinley started imagining her own children. Panic engulfed her again. She couldn't imagine being pregnant by Greg. She couldn't even imagine sleeping with him, like married people were supposed to do. And by sleeping, she was sure that Greg expected something more active than snoring.

Kinley gulped back her nerves. He was good-looking, but she wasn't attracted. Did that make any sense? How could she have babies with someone she had no interest in touching intimately?

Becks gave her a dazzling grin. "It was hell for a few years, but the nanny certainly helped. My personal trainer whipped my body back into shape, and it was bye-bye pregnancy pounds. Then when the kids turned six, I shipped them off to boarding school. Now, life is grand again. My two angels are practically my retirement fund." She chuckled. "If Brian wants a divorce, he'll have to pay through the nose before he sees his kids again. That's how I've kept my hand wrapped firmly around his balls. Oh, his dick probably runs around on me, but as long as I have his testicles, he's not going anywhere. You should take a page out of my book."

"No." That parody of marriage wasn't at all what Kinley had in mind. Shouldn't "'til death do us part" be about commitment and devotion? "That's you, Becks. Mom loved Dad."

Kinley wished her mother were still here. Mom would never have allowed either of her daughters to marry someone they couldn't give their hearts to. Her father was a wonderful man, but … he was weak. Though the situation wasn't entirely his fault, he'd put her in a position that basically forced her to marry Greg. If she didn't, they would all be ruined.

"Not in the beginning," Becks said. "You have this silly, white-lace ideal of their marriage, but Daddy married Mom because Granddaddy told him that if he didn't, Daddy was getting cut off. Aunt Mayrene gave me the whole story. Daddy ran off to become an artist and ran right back three weeks later and proposed. He liked the art part, but apparently he didn't love the starving."



       
         
       
        

"Neil and Sharon Landry are in love." They were the sweetest couple she knew. They sent out the loveliest Christmas cards with all four of their kids dressed in red sweaters while Neil and Sharon held up mistletoe and kissed. She'd looked at that last card and wondered if she would ever be so in love.

"He's fucking his barely legal nurse, Kins," Becks said, wrinkling her nose. "How did you not hear about that? It's all over town. And for a highly respected obstetrician, I've heard he's rough on that girl's vagina, if you know what I mean. You would think since he's got his hands shoved up them all day that he would be a little more tender."

But Neil and Sharon had looked so happy. Blinking mutely, Kinley gaped at her sister, trying to process this ugly underside to marriage. "That's horrible."

Becks held her glass of champagne up in an ironic toast. "That's life, sister. The love thing is for people without money. Two nobodies without a cent to rub between them are perfectly free to fall in love and get married and have a cluster of children because nothing is at stake."

Kinley turned slowly because her dress was still a teensy bit tight and grabbed her phone like a comfort object. "Hello, Ms. Hypocrite. I'm a nobody without any money now. Or have you forgotten?"

Their father had lost everything in a Ponzi scheme. For two hundred years, the Kohls had acquired money, property, and political power. Her father had lost it all in the blink of an eye. Then he'd gotten sick, and the need for money had become critical.

"No, you are not." Becks wagged a finger at her. "You're an heiress. You inherited a majestic and vastly respected name that's valuable to a man like Greg. Because of you, the doors to every old-money house on the East Coast will be open to him."

Her name was all she had, and she was basically selling it. "I don't have to do this. I could get a job."

"Doing what? You have a degree in art history."

It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but then she'd never thought she would need an actual job. "I could work for a nonprofit. I've run our charities ever since Mom died."

And now that money was running out rapidly. The economy had gone south, and demand for assistance among the poor had grown. Greg said he'd endow the charity her mother had started with fifty million dollars after their honeymoon. He'd already started making business connections for her, including several manufacturers willing to donate clothes for the organization at cost. He had also instituted some changes in the way the charity ran that he swore would make them more efficient so she could get more aid to the people who needed it. And he was willing to pay for her father's medical treatment and support her whole family. All she had to do was marry him and become his smiling hostess.