until the lowercase v between her eyebrows disappeared.
“You have some brass balls on you––”
“I prefer to think of them as golden.”
She rolled her eyes, which of course induced another grin.
“And the orgies?”
I resisted any more unrepentant smiles. It would only piss her off and ruin my seduction plans. “Small fabrication.”
“Mmm. Well, in case you’ve forgotten this is a marriage of convenience, and that convenience is business-related.”
“I got news for you, Sunshine. The world’s been populated by business-related arranged marriages.”
She shook her head, muttering to herself as she stalked out of the kitchen into the living room. I followed and she nearly crashed into me when she abruptly turned. I wanted to touch her, needed to kiss her until she couldn’t remember her name or mine, but I needed to go slow. Once bitten twice shy. As soon as her stubborn gaze climbed up, I knew this was not going to go my way.
“I can’t be casual about this, Scott. It’s not…” She exhaled roughly, frustrated. “I can’t jump into bed with you one night and see you with someone else the next. I can’t do it. Go exercise your sexual frustration elsewhere. I’m sure you have a virtual cloud filled with names and numbers of women who would love to let you treat them like gym equipment.”
That was the point though, wasn’t it? I didn’t want to “exercise elsewhere.” I wanted to exercise those frustrations out on her, work out with a wife who was proving hard to convince.
She left the room only to return a moment later with an armful of pillows and a blanket she threw at me. “Bathroom is to the left. Have a good night.”
Which was more than I’d ever said to her when she was my guest. Her bedroom door slammed shut. The night had officially gone to shit.
Chapter Fourteen
Sydney
“We’re about to land, Mrs. Blackstone.”
The flight attendant’s voice yanked me out of some very deep thoughts, and it was the woman’s use of my married surname that did it. It was still jarring, hearing someone address me as the wife of a man I was only beginning to know.
Speaking of husbands, I hadn’t spoken to Scott in over four weeks. Complications at work had kept me in Manhattan. Due to a pending lawsuit, which was commonplace in our business, I couldn’t leave until the middle of February. And honestly, I was a bit relieved because I had no idea how to continue in this arrangement. One thing I did know was that the attraction between us wasn’t going away. Distance and time certainly hadn’t stopped him from claiming all my attention.
He could claim a lot more if you’d only let him.
I squirmed in my chair. That voice had been growing louder each day. Not for nothing, but the man had been making women wet between the thighs since he’d learned how to walk. It was inevitable I’d succumb like all the rest. I didn’t even want to fight it. He was right. Neither of us would be dating anytime soon. When was I ever going to have sex again––with another person, I mean. Between my workload and a husband, it’d be tricky.
The night he’d slept at the apartment, I’d gone to bed all proud of myself for turning down his offer of sex. The self-congratulations lasted for all of a nanosecond. Then it started to sink in that I’d essentially told Scott to sleep with other women. After which, panic set in and I spent the rest of the night staring up at the ceiling, eyes wide open with my blanket pulled up to my chin, fighting off horrifying images of Scott having sex with a bunch of women in clown masks.
The next morning, I’d awoken early, ready to put my pride aside and issue a retraction, only to find his blanket neatly folded on the couch and the pillow resting on top, Scott nowhere to be found. Had he left in search of a more willing partner as soon as I’d suggested it? Who knows? And I wasn’t even sure I wanted to know anymore.
Rationally, I knew that I’d probably dodged a bullet. Sleeping with him would definitely complicate things and not for the better. And yet I couldn’t deny that the thought of Scott in the arms of another woman made my blood curdle.
I’d gone out for coffee later that morning and caught the headline splashed across The New York Post. On the front cover, a full color picture of the two of