The Wrong Billionaire, page 13
Knowing Micah would presume exactly that kept her from telling her brother what she was planning. Her mother would be equally alarmed, so she kept her in the dark, too.
The secrecy heightened her anxiety. It made her feel she was doing something wrong, but there was value in keeping her nuptials under wraps. Those investors who were rubbing their hands with greedy glee, expecting to oust her, would be ambushed by her announcement. She would throw the switch on their takeover before they had time to make any other dirty ploys. In fact, with her stock price down, Remy was buying up as much as came available, helping her cement their combined ownership.
As for the contracts, they modified the agreements she had negotiated with Hunter. Her groom would still own a huge chunk of BH&G, but unless she was incapacitated, Remy was obliged to support her leadership.
All of that should have reassured her, but Remy moved with such lightning speed and determination, she felt pounced upon. His decisions were made like a blade cutting through inconvenient obstructions, forcing a path toward his goal. Yes to this paragraph, no to that. Chop, sweep, get us there.
In the midst of her double-checking the legalese on the new contracts, he broke in with fresh information.
“Martinique has a month-long residency requirement. So does France. We can marry in Gibraltar within a day, so we’ll tie the knot there after we attend my aunt and uncle’s anniversary party. Where is your birth certificate? I’m chartering a flight for my assistant to meet us with my own documents.”
“It’s at my apartment.” She blinked in bemusement. “Quinn might be there. She offered to take my suitcases to my apartment. I told her to stay there if she wants to.”
Quinn usually spent her summers working in PEI, where rent costs were lower, but she had begun her doctorate and was looking for accommodation closer to the university.
She picked up the video chat right away. Her red hair was in a messy bun, her freckled face clean of makeup, and she was wearing a loose-fitting T-shirt with stars and moons on it. Eden’s kitchen was behind her.
“Are you okay?” Quinn asked without even saying hello.
“Yes.” Eden was taken aback by her urgent tone. “Why?”
“Because you were publicly thrown over two days ago! You’re allowed to be an emotional wreck.”
“Oh. Right.” Eden spared a moment to take stock. Her veins were stinging with the stress of having a lot to do, her emotions were reeling over the news that Micah had another sister, but her mind was clear and her heart... Her heart felt stretched in every direction. “I’m not great. These last two days have been a lot.” Understatement of the year. “But I’m doing well enough.”
“Okay. I’m glad.” Quinn didn’t sound convinced. “Because I can come if you need me. Just say the word.”
“Thank you. I—” Eden was genuinely touched. She loved her mother and brother with everything in her, but Quinn was like a sister. “I actually need your help. And I have to ask you to keep it a secret.”
“I’ll put it in the vault with the rest of them,” she vowed promptly.
“You’re the best.” Eden curled her legs beneath her. “Can you go into my office? There’s a key under the plant on the windowsill. It opens the middle drawer on the desk. I need my birth certificate.”
Quinn was no dummy. She set down her mug and her expression became very grave.
“You know I’ll do anything for you, Eden, but it’s been two days. At least you got to know Hunter. Even at that, you didn’t know enough.”
“I know it sounds impulsive, but it’s for the company.” That was partially true, at least.
“Your dream was always to marry for love,” Quinn reminded her. Pleaded almost. “That’s why I was so hesitant about you marrying Hunter. You have always wanted what your mom had with your dad because your childhood was so much better than Micah’s. Saving BH and G shouldn’t come at the expense of your own wants and needs. You know that, right?”
“It won’t,” Eden insisted, even as her stomach clenched with fretfulness. “It’s complicated, but can you please trust me when I say I’m in my right mind and doing what needs to be done?”
“I trust you.”
“But Micah has poisoned you against trusting Remy.” Eden sighed. “Was he awful when you got up to the hotel room in Niagara Falls?”
“He wasn’t pleased.” Quinn started down the hall.
“I’m sorry I jumped ship. Please tell me you enjoyed the room at least.”
“Erm.” Quinn plonked the phone onto the desktop so all Eden could see was the ceiling. Quinn’s voice sounded higher, almost strained, but maybe she was simply pitching her tone so Eden could hear her as she moved to the window. “He did his yeti act, blamed me for being your best friend rather than his informant. I finished the wine and had a bath. Enjoyed the view.”
“Good.”
“Which is pretty much what I’m doing here. There’s paparazzi downstairs. They know I know you and keep trying to come up. But, hey, Vienna lives in the building. You never told me that. We’re having drinks later.”
“I thought you knew. But their apartment is a convenience. They live in Calgary.”
“Really? I must have misunderstood her. Okay, I found the certificate. What now?” Quinn came back on the screen to show it.
“Put it in an envelope, lock the drawer and—”
A noise at the door made Eden glance up. Her heart lurched when she saw Remy there. How long had he been listening?
“Would you like her there?” Remy asked quietly.
“Where?” Eden frowned.
His head tilt said, You know.
Their wedding? Eden swallowed and nodded jerkily. She wanted someone who loved her at her wedding, seeing as her groom didn’t.
“There’s room on the flight. Tell her my assistant will send her the details.” He walked away.
Ridiculously moved, she blinked her hot eyes as she asked Quinn, “Would you like a free trip to Europe?”
“Always. But seriously, are you okay? Be real.” Quinn frowned with concern.
“I am. I promise you, I am,” she lied. “But I have to go. Remy’s assistant will be in touch.”
She ended the call, her chest tight with emotion. It was nothing for Remy to add a body to a flight and cover a few nights at a hotel. Such a small gesture shouldn’t mean this much to her, but it did and she knew why.
Quinn was right. Eden had always wanted to marry for love. It was hitting her that she was. It was too soon, way too soon, to believe herself in love, but she was halfway there. Remy was considerate. He was protective and valued family. And the more she got to know him, the more she was convinced that he was worthy of her love.
Even so, she felt as though she was sliding down a well-greased slope, careening at an uncontrolled speed toward... The unknown. A broken heart maybe?
Remy still regarded her as an enemy of sorts. At best, they would be business partners with benefits.
Now would be the time to call a halt to this madness, but she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. She had never been able to forget him, and marrying him, being with him, felt bigger than necessary. It felt done. Whether they went through the legal process of marrying or not, whether she had his child or not, she was linked to him forever. She was his and had been for a very long time.
It made for more hot tears against her eyes. They blurred the future she was sketching for herself. What if she was making a horrible mistake?
* * *
They flew overnight to Paris.
Eden was still feeling raw, aware that her attraction to Remy was far beyond fantasy and infatuation. It was a very earnest yearning for him to feel as she did. To want her in the same all-encompassing ways she wanted him.
They shared a light meal, talking of incidentals to do with the contracts and what sort of gown she should procure for the party, but the air crackled with discordant tension.
When they were finally left alone, Remy said gravely, “I heard what Quinn said, about your wanting to marry for love. Is that true?”
Eden wished she could make some quip about love being a luxury she couldn’t afford. She wished she could downplay her dream as a childish whim.
Instead, she asked unsteadily, “Isn’t that what most people want? Don’t you?” She tried to make the question a mild one, but her heart was tripping in her chest.
He took his time answering, voice heavy when he said, “Love makes you so damned vulnerable. I’ve never wanted more than liking and respect.”
His words went into her like twin stilettos. How could he like and respect her when she was related to his enemy and needed his money?
This was exactly how she had felt after Paris, when she had put herself out there, been open and receptive and excited and suffused with attraction, only to be struck back with a hard knock from reality. Five years ago, Micah’s words had made her feel callow and wrong to want so much from Remy. Today was the same, as she reckoned with his not having any real feelings for her. And he didn’t want to have them.
Each of her breaths burned inside her lungs.
“I would argue that I am marrying for love,” she said and heard his sharply indrawn breath. “Micah doesn’t know that I’m doing this for him, but love isn’t transactional. It’s something you feel by giving, not getting.”
As she sat in the truth of her words, some of her misgivings dissipated.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Eden. Then I would be exactly what Micah is warning you against—someone who used his sister to get what he wants.”
“What do you want?”
“You,” he said with pained remorse.
A pang of agonized pleasure went through her.
“You already have me.” She felt positively naked as she said it, barely able to meet his eyes, but she needed him to know this was about more than money and family secrets and potential babies. She needed it to be about them.
He held her gaze with facets of bronze and copper and gold all churning in his eyes.
She swallowed and had to look away, but as he rose, her heart swerved in her chest, swooping and dipping, then soaring as he held out his hand. She set her fingers on his palm and watched them disappear in the gentle crush of his grip.
He led her into the jet’s sumptuous stateroom, where a pale bar of indirect light glowed above the bed. When he closed the door, the click of the lock sounded like the mechanism on a vault.
The way his gaze slid over her made every inch of her burn.
“I don’t want to fall in love because even this...” He cupped her face. “This craving consumes me. I don’t believe in witchcraft, but it’s like a spell. I don’t want to be helpless to it.”
She dropped her gaze to his throat. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Her mouth must have pouted with her disappointment because his thumb slid across her bottom lip.
“That wasn’t blame. I’m trying to tell you to be careful. Don’t see this as more than it is.”
“You think I’m not cursed in the same way?” she asked with a trace of bitterness. She tilted back her head in time to see him flinch.
Then his mouth was on hers, his kiss long and thorough, not rough, but not gentle. There was a taste of regret when he drew back enough to look into her eyes.
“It feels like something bigger than I can control. That makes it destructive.” His voice was quiet, but his words reverberated in her ears, leaving her trembling, but not in fear. In excitement.
Her hands rose to grip his wrists. “Destroy me, then.”
Their next kiss was all the more powerful, imbued with the desperate longing that had gripped her ever since he had kissed her in a nightclub then glared at her with betrayal.
That anxious yearning had her pressing closer, fingers clenching into his shirt while her body flowered with need as she absorbed the warmth of his. She needed to take all of him into her. All of him.
He made a noise that seemed equally tormented and his arms hardened around her. He crushed her close and she reveled in that small ache of her bones and joints and flesh in the vise of his embrace. She gloried in the enormous hunger that drove him to do it.
They dropped their clothes away and it was all about contact. Touching and caressing, claiming and tasting and sighing at the sheer bliss of holding each other. They rolled back and forth as she splayed herself across him, legs interlaced with his, breasts loving the friction of hair on his chest. He pressed her beneath him and pinned her hips with the weight of his thigh, then teased her ear with his tongue and scraped his teeth against her throat. She pushed him onto his back and his hands skated down her waist and hips, claimed her backside and swept up for the weight of her breasts.
Wisps of doubt floated in her periphery, making her wonder if they would burn each other to cinders, but she brushed away the thought, letting the miasma of sensuality engulf her. In this moment, they had and were everything. She worshipped the heat of his neck and the hollow beneath his ear and the scorch of his hard shaft against her damp, aching sex. She gloried in the way his palms drew circles at her waist and hips and buttocks, while his mouth drank from hers again and again.
She loved his smell.
She loved him. She loved him so much.
A skeptical voice asked, How? But a stronger voice countered, How could she not? He had so many admirable qualities. Sexy and physically strong, but strong in character, too. Protective and principled and loyal. He was funny and capable of forgiveness, and he stilled to cup her face, forcing her to meet the banked lust in his gaze while he asked huskily, “Are you still with me?”
“Yes.” She wanted to tell him she was falling so deeply in love, she would be with him forever, but she feared he would push her away. Her eyes were wet and she felt foolish for being so emotional, but... “I really want this. You.”
She wanted to pour her love over him so she could wallow in the beauty of it.
She melted onto him and ran her lips across his chest and stomach, and lower, making him groan. His hand squeezed her shoulder, cupped her neck, caressed her cheek.
“No more,” he finally said in a husky, tortured voice that thrilled her.
He dragged her upward until she straddled him again.
“Condoms are in the drawer,” he said.
Their gazes locked. She wanted to say it wasn’t necessary. She wanted to marry him and have his babies and grow old together.
She did as he asked and retrieved one, then tried to put it on him, only to hear him as he rasped, “Are you trying to destroy me?”
With a soft laugh, she let him take over rolling the condom onto his length, then rose to guide him into her, so deliciously satisfied when she was finally connected to him again. She splayed her hands on his chest and felt his heart beat against her palm. The strong, uneven rhythm traveled up her arm, made her own pulse skip, then filled her heart to overflowing.
This was love. It had to be because it was too perfect to be anything else. It was generosity and sharing and vulnerability. It was such incredible dedication to ensuring the other’s pleasure, it could only be that beautiful, all-powerful force.
It held her in its tender, unbreakable grip as they began to move in flawless synchronicity.
* * *
Despite their exhaustive lovemaking, Remy didn’t get much sleep.
He reached for Eden in the night, half-lost to a heart-stopping dream that she wasn’t there. She slid close and murmured sweet nonsense. Moments later, they were immersed in passion and his dream was forgotten.
She woke him a few hours later, returning to bed chilled from a trip to the bathroom. Her cold foot found his shin and she ruefully apologized for waking him. Then her hand found his hardening flesh and she said, “Since you’re awake...”
He couldn’t seem to get enough of her.
Which worried him. It felt a lot like the way people hoarded necessities right before the supply was cut off. He felt as though he was storing up all the memories he could, from the explosive orgasms they gave each other to the sound of her breath when she was relaxed against his side, so he would have something when he had nothing.
They were marrying, though. She had said he already had her. Did she mean her heart?
He hoped not. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he couldn’t let himself fall for her. There would be an inevitable choice—her or his family. Such a split of loyalty would tear him apart.
He was already tense as hell at her meeting Yasmine at the anniversary party.
Perhaps Eden sensed it, or perhaps she was apprehensive as well. She was quiet through the day as she was fitted for a gown and went to bed early.
Remy made some calls, forewarning his aunt Hanameel whom he was bringing as his plus-one.
“You can’t bring her here, Remy,” she scolded. “After all that trouble she caused you and your cousin? She’s one of them.”
He drew a subtle breath of patience, understanding her concern, but he said, “Please don’t judge her until you’ve had a chance to meet her, Auntie.”
She tsked and acquiesced, but Eden was equally unsettled when her stylist arrived.
“Are you sure about this? I don’t want to get between you and your family on your aunt and uncle’s special day. If you’d rather leave me here...”
They were in a trendy apartment he owned in Paris, big enough for a bachelor who traveled frequently, but not ideal for a couple. Remy was already thinking about where they might look for something that would feel more like a home.
“I want them to meet you so it won’t be such a shock when we marry. If they make you feel unwelcome, we’ll leave.”
“I don’t want that!”
Neither did he. “We’ll make it work. I promise. I have to run out for a few minutes, but I’ll be back in time to change.”
