Читать книгу Brides for the Billionaires: The Billionaire's Marriage Bargain / The Billionaire's Marriage Mission / Bedded at the Billionaire's Convenience - Кэрол Мортимер, HELEN BROOKS - Страница 13

DOMINICK gave Kenzie a glance from behind dark sunglasses on Saturday afternoon as he drove them to their destination, having picked her up from her apartment almost an hour ago.

As usual Kenzie looked stunningly beautiful as she sat beside him in the car dressed in an emerald-green sundress and high-heeled sandals, the thin straps of the dress showing off her bare shoulders and the creamy swell of her breasts, and her deep green eyes hidden behind the shield of her own sunglasses.

Yes, Kenzie looked stunningly beautiful—and extremely remote, he thought, realizing that since her initial greeting she hadn’t spoken a single word.

Now who was the one playing games? Dominick wondered with a hard grin as he returned his attention to the road in front of him. It felt good knowing how easily he could break her cool control.

He decided to do exactly that. ‘How was your dinner with Carlton on Wednesday evening?’ he enquired mildly, immediately sensing Kenzie’s sudden tension.

Kenzie turned to look at him for several long, probing seconds. ‘Why do you ask, when you can’t possibly be interested?’ she finally sighed.

‘Oh, but I am, Kenzie,’ Dominick assured her lightly. ‘Did you and Carlton have an emotional reunion?’ His voice had hardened perceptibly.

‘As it happens, we didn’t have a reunion of any kind,’ she bit out. ‘Jerome had to cancel his trip for a couple of days,’ she explained as Dominick seemed to be waiting for her to say something else.

‘Something more important came up, obviously,’ he drawled derisively.

Jerome had telephoned her late on Wednesday to cancel their dinner engagement in the evening, explaining that he had to delay his arrival in England until Saturday because of a pressing business matter that prevented him leaving New York at the moment.

As his dinner with her had also been a business engagement Kenzie hadn’t been particularly concerned, the two of them making arrangements to meet on Monday instead once Kenzie had explained she would be away over the weekend. She hadn’t told Jerome whom she was going away with though; despite what Dominick chose to believe to the contrary, her private life really wasn’t any of Jerome Carlton’s business.

‘I guess it did,’ she acknowledged dismissively.

‘Poor Kenzie,’ Dominick murmured. ‘I seem to remember you accused me of putting business first, too,’ he reminded her as she looked at him with a frown.

Kenzie didn’t even qualify that remark with an answer; her relationship with Jerome was nothing like her marriage to Dominick, so there was no point in comparing the two.

‘Are we nearly there?’ she asked instead, the last hour having taken them out of London and into the Hampshire countryside.

‘Not long now,’ Dominick confirmed with satisfaction, wondering what Kenzie was going to make of Bedforth Manor. Not that it really mattered; she would never be going there again. But it would still be interesting to see her reaction.

She looked more puzzled than ever when he turned the car into the long gravel, tree-lined driveway that led up to the house, and turned to look at him in confusion as he parked the car in front of the three-storey, mellow-stoned building.

‘Bedforth Manor,’ he told her economically as he got out of the car to get their bags.

Kenzie followed him slowly, coming to stand beside him at the bottom of the steps that led up to the huge front door. ‘Is it a hotel?’ she asked.

‘If it were it would be a very empty one!’ He looked around them pointedly at the lack of any other vehicles in sight.

‘But—’

‘It’s just a house, Kenzie. My house,’ Dominick cut in tersely as he began to walk up the steps.

‘Yours?’ She followed him up the steps feeling slightly dazed.

‘Mine,’ Dominick turned to assure her.

To say she was surprised was an understatement. Not that Dominick didn’t have homes all over the world, but they were mainly apartments, places that could be closed up when Dominick left and then opened up again when he returned possibly months later. A house, at least a house like this one rather than his villas in the South of France and on his Caribbean island, was something else entirely.

It seemed entirely too permanent a home for a man like Dominick, who made a point of avoiding commitment …

Dominick could see the puzzlement on Kenzie’s face, and could guess the reason for it. But he had no intention of telling her that he had originally bought this house for her, and that six months ago he had wanted to at least give her the home she so longed for.

Six months ago, when she was his wife, materially he would have given her almost anything she wanted.

Before she had betrayed him with another man!

He wasn’t quite sure why he hadn’t just resold the place after she’d left him, because once Kenzie had gone he certainly no longer had any intention of doing it up and living in it.

But he was glad he hadn’t got rid of it now; it seemed only poetic justice that he should bring Kenzie here, to the house that he had bought for her but which she would now never live in with him.

A house he probably would sell after this weekend …

‘I—it’s lovely,’ she told him in astonishment as he opened the front door and they stepped inside the cavernous hallway.

Dominick looked around him with satisfaction, seeing that the housekeeper had followed the instructions he had given her over the telephone yesterday. There were flowers on the polished table in the centre of the magnificent hallway, their perfume strong and welcoming, and no doubt their dinner was in the kitchen and ready to be cooked. He was sure the master bedroom upstairs had also been prepared for their use …

That housekeeper having now left the house, also as per Dominick’s instructions, meant that he and Kenzie were completely alone here.

He really had been speaking the truth when he’d assured her she wouldn’t have to be social with anyone but him this weekend!

‘Why don’t you go through to the kitchen and make us some coffee …’ He nodded in the direction of the room straight ahead of him ‘… while I take our bags upstairs?’

Kenzie was looking around, loving the panelled walls and polished wood floors, the chandelier and wall lights shimmering crystal, and the lovely wide staircase leading up to the second floor. She was so surprised by the house he had brought her to instead of the cold, impersonal hotel she had been expecting that she couldn’t even think of an argument to his suggestion as she made her way slowly to the kitchen.

The sort of beautiful old-fashioned kitchen she would have loved for her own, a deep green Aga its dominating feature, pots and pans hanging down over a table scored by years of use, with the more modern features like the fridge and dishwasher hidden away behind doors of the same oak as the array of kitchen cabinets.

Why on earth had Dominick, of all people, bought a beautiful old house like this one?

And where were all the staff needed to run such a big house? she suddenly wondered.

Surely a cook was necessary, if nothing else. Or did Dominick include feeding him as part of the weekend she owed him?

Not that she couldn’t cook, in fact she enjoyed it, but despite Dominick’s warning that the only person she would have to socialize with this weekend was him, she hadn’t for a moment thought that the two of them would be completely alone.

‘No coffee?’ He raised his dark brows in question as he joined her in the kitchen to find her just standing there. ‘Never mind, we’ll make some in a minute,’ he dismissed. ‘Perhaps you would like to have a look at the swimming pool first?’

Somewhere in this big, beautiful house was a swimming pool?

Well, why not? Dominick might not have made anywhere his permanent home the last twenty years, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t have every comfort in the numerous houses he did own.

‘Why not?’ She shrugged, needing time to collect her scattered thoughts, and a tour around the swimming pool was as good a way to spend them as any.

‘The rose garden,’ Dominick told her economically as they went outside. ‘The stables.’ He pointed over to the buildings some distance away from the house. ‘The swimming pool,’ he said with satisfaction as he took a key from his pocket and unlocked a door.

Surely swimming pool was too mundane a description of the domed building he took her into, she thought, gazing at the huge windows along each side, the big glass doors at the end wall that opened out onto a terrace, and the full-length pool lined with white and blue mosaics. The pool was surrounded by alabaster pillers, and Greek statues of partially dressed women, set amongst huge urns of overflowing flowers.

‘Someone else’s fantasy, not mine,’ Dominick drawled dryly as Kenzie turned slowly to look at him.

She could have guessed that; she didn’t think this romantic setting was Dominick’s taste at all.

But it was hers, she realized, the warm enchantment of the place definitely appealing to her. So much so that she longed to get her costume from her bag upstairs and immerse herself in the lovely cool water.

But not if that was going to mean Dominick joining her!

She was already aware of Dominick enough as it was, and had been so since the moment she had joined him in the car earlier. The darkness of his hair had still been damp from the shower he must have taken, his jaw clean-shaven, his muscled arms bare beneath the black polo shirt he wore, and his legs long in the black fitted denims.

Just looking at him had been enough to put all her senses on alert.

And that awareness had only deepened during the journey down here, an emotion she had hopefully kept hidden behind her dark sunglasses.

She drew in a ragged breath. ‘Perhaps we should go and have that coffee now?’ she prompted quietly, finding this setting far too—intimate, for comfort.

Dominick deliberately put his hand beneath her elbow on the pretext of helping her up the steps as they walked back to the house, and was rewarded by her huskily indrawn breath and the sudden stiffness of her arm before she pulled sharply away from him to walk several feet away.

He smiled to himself as her actions told him that, although Kenzie might try to deny it, even to herself, she still obviously desired him …

‘Only trying to be helpful,’ he said with a shrug.

He set about preparing the coffee himself once they reached the kitchen, and Kenzie was no longer able to hide her eyes behind dark glasses now that they were back inside the house. Her green eyes looked at him beneath her long, lowered lashes as she sat at the kitchen table watching him fill the coffee machine and set it on to percolate.

‘I hope you’re going to be more helpful when it comes to preparing dinner,’ he rebuked mockingly as he got out the mugs. ‘As I’m sure you remember, making coffee and warming ready-prepared meals in a microwave is as far as my culinary talents go!’

Kenzie did remember. She also knew that was because until the two of them had married Dominick had either eaten out or had a live-in cook who had prepared his meals when he had been at home. Any of his homes.

‘Where’s the staff, Dominick?’ she probed warily.

‘There isn’t any,’ he said, sounding unconcerned by her enquiry. ‘A woman from the village comes in to check on the place, and she put some flowers in vases and brought in some food for this weekend, but other than that there isn’t anyone.’

Meaning they were going to be completely alone here this weekend.

Surely flowers in vases and food for the weekend weren’t the details Dominick had told her he still had to finalize before confirming this weekend away?

And what were the two of them doing alone here for the weekend, anyway? What—

‘Why don’t you stop thinking so much and go and take a swim instead, Kenzie?’ Dominick cut into her thoughts harshly, his brown eyes hard and glittering. ‘And you accused me of having an overactive imagination!’ he added with obvious disgust. ‘I thought I had assured you I don’t take unwilling women to my bed!’

What about willing ones?

Kenzie was fast coming to the conclusion she wasn’t unwilling, and that she never would be where Dominick, the man she loved, was concerned.

Dominick had been her husband, the only man she had shared every intimacy with, and the more time she spent in his company, the harder she was finding it to separate that man she’d fallen for from the stranger he should be to her now.

Was this how all the other women she’d read about felt when they had been married to a man and were thinking about sleeping with him again? A certain curiosity? To see if there really was no last vestige of feeling, no hope, left between them?

She stood up abruptly. ‘I think I will go and take that swim, if you don’t mind.’ A plunge into cold water was probably exactly what she needed!

‘I was the one to suggest it, so why should I mind?’ Dominick shrugged, obviously still deeply annoyed. ‘The bedroom is the first door on the left at the top of the stairs,’ he called out to her as she turned and hurried from the room.

She was a fool, Kenzie berated herself as she ran up the stairs as if pursued.

Dominick was deliberately tangling her emotions up in knots and enjoying every moment of it, no doubt.

Although she wasn’t so sure that was all he was doing when she got to the bedroom and saw the huge four-poster bed that dominated the room. A huge king-size four-poster bed, with both their weekend bags sitting on top of the brocade cover!