‘Are you telling me that although you’re now the major shareholder of Carlton Cosmetics you have no intention of interfering with my running of the company?’ he said sceptically.
Dominick looked at the other man with mocking eyes. ‘No, I’m not saying that at all—’
‘I didn’t think so!’ Jerome Carlton snapped.
‘Carlton, if you were any good at running the company then it would never have got into the difficulties it did a couple of years ago—’
‘We got through that,’ the other man defended.
‘Only because you sold off forty-nine per cent of the shares and then contracted Kenzie to be your new face,’ Dominick said provocatively. ‘Your father built up the company, but since he retired five years ago and left it to your management it’s been going steadily downhill—’
‘That’s a lie!’ the older man came back angrily.
‘It’s the truth,’ Dominick insisted quietly. ‘You may be the eldest son and heir, but of Jack Carlton’s two sons you aren’t the one who should have been running Carlton Cosmetics the last five years.’
Jerome snorted. ‘You think my little brother Adrian could have done better?’
‘From the enquiries I’ve made, I know he could,’ Dominick assured him grimly. ‘I take it you haven’t spoken to your brother this morning?’ he added mildly.
‘To Adrian?’ the other man questioned in surprise. ‘Why would I have?’
Yes, why would he? Kenzie wondered, mesmerized by this conversation in spite of herself.
Until the last few weeks she had only ever known Jerome as the charming sophisticate he chose to show, but having witnessed his behaviour last night and this morning she knew he was anything but that. Now he seemed to be nothing but a blustering bully who was completely outclassed by the calmly controlled Dominick.
The two men were so different in looks too, Jerome with all his golden boyish good looks, and Dominick so dark and brooding, but of the two Kenzie knew which one she had always preferred. There was simply no contest!
Although Dominick had always refused to believe that.
Did he still believe that…?
Their conversation before she had answered the door to Jerome seemed to imply otherwise.
‘I had breakfast with Adrian this morning,’ Dominick informed them both. ‘We had a very interesting meeting, and I believe when you next speak to him you will find that he is in possession of an extra fifty-one per cent of Carlton Cosmetics shares and as the major shareholder is now completely empowered to run the company as he sees fit.’
Kenzie gasped. Dominick’s breakfast meeting this morning had been with Adrian Carlton, Jerome’s younger brother…?
Jerome’s handsome face darkened angrily. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he finally replied. ‘Adrian doesn’t have the sort of money to buy that amount of shares.’
Kenzie could see, from Dominick’s self-assured smile, that he was in fact telling the truth.
‘Oh, he didn’t buy them from me,’ Dominick said sardonically. ‘I’m signing them over to him later this afternoon. In exchange for his agreeing to release Kenzie from what’s left of her contract.’
‘You—’
‘That was extremely arrogant of you, Dominick!’ Kenzie gasped disbelievingly.
‘You didn’t let me finish, Kenzie,’ he told her softly. ‘Adrian will agree to release you from the contract only if you choose to be released,’ he added firmly.
‘And why would I want to do that?’ She frowned.
‘Because you’re pregnant,’ Dominick pointed out softly. ‘How do you think you’re going to carry on working when you’re seven, eight months pregnant?’
‘Surely that was for me to decide, not you?’ She shook her head.
‘You’re pregnant?’ Jerome interrupted coldly. ‘That’s the reason you fainted last night?’ He stared at her exasperatedly.
‘That’s the reason she fainted last night,’ Dominick clarified, knowing that he hadn’t explained himself to Kenzie properly, and that she saw his behaviour as high-handed. But really he was only trying to give her a let-out if she wanted one, the let-out he knew she had been seeking the last five weeks…
‘I don’t believe this!’ Jerome shook his head as he began pacing the room impatiently. ‘This is just—unbelievable,’ he muttered inadequately. ‘Did you get her pregnant on purpose?’ he accused Dominick. ‘Were you so determined to get her back that you made her pregnant to do it?’ he scorned.
Kenzie’s cheeks were flushed now. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Jerome—’
‘You did, didn’t you?’ Jerome took no notice of her as he scowled at Dominick.
‘Jerome, don’t be so—’
‘No, let him speak, Kenzie,’ Dominick cut in evenly, keeping very still as he looked at the other man through narrowed lids. ‘What makes you so sure the baby is mine?’
Jerome snorted. ‘Who else’s would it be?’ he snorted. ‘Kenzie is so damned prudish she should take the veil! At least, she could have done,’ he added insultingly. ‘I’m not sure they accept pregnant nuns—What the hell—?’ he choked as Dominick grasped him by his shirt front and all but lifted him off his feet.
‘Take your hands off me, Masters!’ he blustered as Dominick thrust his face into his.
Letting this man go was the last thing Dominick wanted to do as the truth hit him squarely in the chest. A truth Kenzie had always insisted upon, and which he had refused to believe!
He had taken this man’s word over Kenzie’s, and had instantly believed Carlton when he had told him that he and Kenzie were involved.
It had all been a lie!
A lie Carlton seemed to have forgotten completely in his anger.
‘You lied to me, Carlton!’ he denounced as he pushed the other man away from him. Touching Jerome Carlton now made him feel ill. ‘Why did you tell me that you and Kenzie were having an affair?’
‘You told him what?’ Kenzie choked incredulously as she stared at Jerome in disbelief.
‘I told him that the two of us were involved in a mad, passionate affair that was beyond both our controls,’ Jerome sneered. ‘And that the only reason you were hesitating about coming to New York with me was because you didn’t want to hurt him!’
‘But—but why would you do such a thing?’ Kenzie questioned in a daze, completly shaken by this revelation.
At least it explained why Dominick had refused to believe her denials of the affair—how could he help but doubt her when Jerome was telling him completely the opposite? How must it have made Dominick feel to be told she was only staying with him out of a sense of pity?
To a man like Dominick, who didn’t believe in love, that would have been the final humiliation…
Jerome shrugged, seeming unconcerned by his actions. ‘Because selling off shares in Carlton Cosmetics wasn’t enough to get the company out of trouble,’ he told her unrepentantly. ‘I needed something else, something bigger. What I came up with was the beautiful international model Kenzie Miller as the new face of Carlton Cosmetics. But I had to get your overbearing brute of a husband out of the picture first!’
Kenzie didn’t think or hesitate as her hand arced upwards and made hard contact with Jerome’s cheek, her eyes blazing with tears of anger as she glared her dislike at him.
His face twisted with derision as he put a hand up to his rapidly reddening face. ‘Both of you seem to have lost the plot somewhere,’ he muttered. ‘The question both of you should really be asking yourselves isn’t why I lied about my affair with Kenzie. The question you should be asking yourselves is why Masters found it so easy to believe me…’
The fact that he was right only made Dominick more angry.
‘Get out, Carlton,’ he grated harshly, his face pale, and eyes dark and haunted.
‘Get out now. Before I give in to what I would really like to do to you!’ he added bleakly before turning away, having eyes for no one but Kenzie.
Now he knew exactly what he had
done and he knew also that Kenzie could never forgive him for the way he had doubted her.
Why should she? He had listened to, and believed, the word of a man who meant nothing to him, over the word of the woman who meant everything to him…
Chapter 17
‘Dominick…?’ Kenzie spoke uncertainly once the two of them were alone, the apartment door having slammed shut behind Jerome several seconds ago as he had wisely taken Dominick’s advice and left.
The verbal exchange between the two men had been vicious, but for Kenzie so very enlightening…
She moistened her dry lips. ‘Dominick, exactly when did Jerome tell you he and I were having an affair?’
‘Don’t!’ he groaned huskily, turning away to inhale a deeply controlling breath.
‘I—you—I was so wrong, Kenzie!’ he muttered in despair. ‘So very wrong and so arrogant. And I’m still doing it, aren’t I?’ he added self-disgustedly. ‘If you want to carry on working for Carlton Cosmetics I’ll tell Adrian this afternoon—’
‘I don’t,’ she cut in impatiently, knowing that after the things that had been said this morning, she could never continue working for Carlton Cosmetics, even if Adrian was now in charge of the company. ‘What I want is for you to answer my question.’
‘You’re angry.’ Dominick sighed. ‘You have every right to be,’ he accepted heavily, running a hand through the dark thickness of his hair. ‘What an idiot I’ve been,’ he murmured. ‘A stupid, stupid idiot! Can you ever forgive me, Kenzie?’ He looked at her with pained eyes.
‘I’m not sure there’s really anything to forgive,’ she said quietly.
‘It sounds to me as if we were both manipulated by a totally unprincipled man who saw the rift in our marriage and took advantage of it.’
Dominick gave the ghost of a smile. ‘That’s very generous of you, Kenzie. I’m not sure, in the circumstances, that I could be as generous—’
‘Dominick, please tell me when Jerome told you those awful lies about the two of us,’ she prompted tensely.
‘It was after one of our—uglier arguments.’ He grimaced at the memory. ‘It’s difficult to remember which one. We were arguing such a lot in that month before we separated. Ironically over having the baby you are now expecting,’ he acknowledged ruefully.
Yes, ironically, Kenzie also realized.
A baby that she already loved, but had no idea how Dominick, now that he must realize the baby was his too, felt about it…
Dominick shook his head in disgust. ‘I was always so determined never to fall in love, never to lay myself open to the sort of pain my parents had inflicted on each other and on me!’ He sighed deeply. ‘Even when I asked you to marry me I reasoned it all out so logically! I was thirty-seven. A wife, especially one as beautiful and accomplished as you, could be a good business asset. I wanted you, you wanted me, so why not get married? God, what an arrogant fool I was! Okay,’ he drawled self-derisively as he saw Kenzie smile slightly, ‘what an arrogant fool I still am!’
‘Do you think?’ Kenzie prompted softly.
‘No, I don’t,’ he said heavily. ‘Those first four months without you were indescribable! I told myself it was because I was angry. Furious. And with good reason. Not only had you walked out on me, but you had left me to go to New York with another man.’
‘Because Jerome lied to you about the two of us having an affair…’ Kenzie frowned, half of her knowing that what Jerome had said—taunted—was true: if she and Dominick had had the sort of marriage where they loved and trusted each other, then none of that misunderstanding would have happened…
‘We barely spoke anymore,’ Dominic went on, ‘let alone made love. We were like two polite strangers sharing the same apartment. And then when you seemed so determined you were going to accept the contract Carlton Cosmetics were offering you I decided to go and speak to Carlton myself. What the hell I thought I was doing, I have no idea.’ He grimaced at the thought. ‘The man I was then seems like someone else to me.’ He winced. ‘A cold, arrogant man who seemed to think the whole world, but especially you, should comply with what I wanted. Even when it came to having children…’ he added heavily.
‘We can talk about the baby in a minute,’ Kenzie assured him, a tiny bubble of happiness starting to grow inside her, getting bigger with every passing second.
‘What’s important is that you believe Jerome lied,’ she said firmly. ‘That you believe I have never had an affair. With him or anyone else.’
‘How can I not believe you?’ he groaned. ‘But, don’t you see? I should have known it then! If I had trusted you then, if I had believed in the love you said you felt for me, then—’
‘You hadn’t had too much of an example of love up to that point in your life, Dominick—’
‘Don’t make excuses for me, Kenzie,’ he muttered, interrupting her. ‘I behaved abominably when you said you were going ahead and accepting the contract despite what I said. I behaved even more dreadfully six weeks ago by taking advantage of the situation when you came and asked for my help over Kathy’s wedding,’ he acknowledged hollowly.
Yes, he had. But if, despite Kenzie’s denials, Jerome had told him that the two of them were having an affair, she could see how hard it would have been for Dominick, when their own relationship was so strained by that time, to have believed anything else.
If the two of them had loved each other, if they had been secure in that love, then no one, and nothing, would have been able to come between them to destroy that love…
‘I don’t blame you for hating me now, Kenzie,’ Dominick said flatly at her continued silence. ‘It’s the least I deserve after the way I’ve behaved.’ He closed his eyes briefly, dull pain in their depths when he opened them again to look at her. ‘If I could take it all back, if I could undo what I’ve done—Damn it, no matter what I thought the provocation, I had no right to treat you the way that I did. Not six months ago. And certainly not five weeks ago when I forced you to come away with me to Bedforth Manor.’ His face was very pale. ‘I bought that house for you, Kenzie. Just before you left me.’
Dominick had bought that wonderful, warm, family home for her…?
‘It doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?’ he acknowledged as he saw her obvious surprise. ‘I’d had this vision of taking you there, of telling you I had bought it for the two of us to live in, of seeing your face light up in the way that it used to when you were happy…’ He shook his head. ‘And instead, four months later I forced you to go there with me and—’
‘Dominick,’ Kenzie cut in softly. ‘You have to stop this now. It isn’t helping anything, least of all us, to rip yourself apart like this.’
‘I told you, it’s what I deserve!’ he bit out forcefully.
‘Why don’t you let me be the one to decide what you deserve?’ she whispered huskily.
He gave a humourless smile. ‘Okay, Kenzie, tell me what you think I deserve?’ His shoulders tensed as if for a blow.
‘I will,’ she promised gently. ‘Dominick, when we first met I fell completely, irrevocably, unreservedly, in love with you.’
‘I know that!’ He gave a pained groan. ‘It was a love I believed I was totally incapable of returning!’
Had believed he was incapable of returning…?
That past tense gave her the encouragement she needed. ‘What you don’t seem to be aware of is that I’m still completely, irrevocably, unreservedly in love with you!’ She smiled shakily.
Dominick became very still, his heart beating so loudly it threatened to deafen him.
‘I could never have made love with you at Bedforth Manor in the way that I did if I wasn’t still in love with you,’ Kenzie continued softly. ‘The baby I’m carrying—our baby—was, as far as I’m concerned, conceived in love.’
He swallowed hard, his emotions—admiration for Kenzie, a building joy, but mostly love—overwhelming him.
‘Dominick, before Jerome arrived, you said I had another alternative,’
she reminded huskily. ‘You offered to continue our marriage even believing that I was expecting another man’s baby. Dominick, did you offer that because you—you love me? Please answer me, Dominick!’ she pleaded emotionally.
‘Yes, I love you!’ He took a hesitant step towards her. ‘I know now that I’ve always loved you. Since the moment I first looked at you. Since the moment you first smiled at me. I just didn’t realize it until I made love with you at Bedforth Manor. Our lovemaking that day was so overwhelming, so deeply moving, it was completely unlike anything else we had ever shared!’
‘For me too,’ she admitted quietly.
He swallowed hard. ‘Please believe me when I say I’ve changed, Kenzie! That I really do love you. That I’ll love you until the day I die,’ he said with certainty, the last five and a half months without her showing him exactly how much he loved and needed her.
She reached up to caress one hard cheek. ‘I do believe you, Dominick,’ she choked. ‘I really do.’
He breathed raggedly. ‘I want you to know our baby—a baby I assure you I want very, very much!—was conceived in love on my part too!’ he whispered. ‘We made love that day, my darling—and it scared the hell out of me!’
Kenzie didn’t seem to notice the tears falling down her cheeks as she laughed huskily. ‘Then what you deserve, Dominick, what we both deserve, is a second chance at being together. And this time we’ll get it right!’ she promised determinedly.
‘Do you really mean that, Kenzie?’ He stared at her. ‘You’ll take me back? Give me a second chance? Let me be a father to our child?’
‘All of those things, Dominick,’ she said, gulping back her tears. ‘And this time we won’t let anything, or anyone, come between us!’
Dominick no longer cared whether or not he deserved this second chance, he just intended grabbing it with both hands and never letting go!
‘I love you!’ he groaned as he took her in his arms and held her tightly against him. ‘I love you. I love you. I love you!’ He rained kisses all over her face, first her eyes, then her nose, and finally her mouth, kissing her with all the love he had inside him for this beautiful, forgiving woman.
The Billionaire's Marriage Bargain Page 14
