“Yes, sir,” the man bustled away instantly.
Carlo was telling a story, gesturing with his hands and Annie was laughing almost uncontrollably.
Her face radiated amusement and happiness and the loss Kyle felt was profound. How in the world hadn’t he realised before now?
How had he not seen that she was miserable?
With a sense of gnawing panic he thought back to the first time they’d met. No, not the first time they’d met, for she’d been worrying about her idiotic brother then too and her expression had worn the proof of that concern. But once he had assured her he would fix things on that score, they’d gone on a date. And she’d laughed and laughed all night.
He’d told her stories that he hadn’t meant to be amusing, but she’d gently teased him until they’d both ended up laughing. A frown marked his brow; a scowl etched his lips.
“Thank you.” He took the proffered Glenfiddich and swirled it in the glass. The ice chipped a little and he took the first sip.
When had she stopped laughing?
They’d married quickly. Within two months. He had wanted her in his home, with him all the time. He had always loved her obsessively.
And she’d still smiled and laughed. Their honeymoon had been perfect, right here in Aspen. He’d teased her for her British accent and her British ways – that addiction she had to tea, and her insistence that ‘chip butties’ were a food group in and of themselves. She’d made him pimms and lemonade and he’d almost been sick at the pungent sweetness of the drink. They’d watched Ricky Gervais and on that score he’d had to agree that she had a point – he was hilarious.
So when had she stopped laughing? When had she stopped greeting him at the door with the smile that could make his world tip off its edge? And why hadn’t he noticed until that moment?
She felt so far away from him. Oh, she was only across a room in a gallery, but she might as well have been in a different galaxy.
The panic was suffocating him now.
Why hadn’t she talked to him?
He frowned.
That horrible last day, she’d tried to. She’d come to see him and he’d stone-walled her. He’d grown impatient with her demands. What he’d seen then as her insecurities and petulant over-reactions.
So he’d told her to calm down and go home. To drink a tea and watch a movie.
He cringed now at the condescending way he’d dismissed her.
And he really had dismissed her.
When he’d returned home several hours later clutching a bunch of roses as though such a meagre offering could atone for the way he’d ignored the feelings she’d tried to convey, Annie had been long gone.
His heart turned over in his chest as the past seemed to gulf like a river of accusations.
Annie looked in his direction at that moment and their eyes clashed for a brief second, before she slid her gaze onwards without a hint of reaction.
He saw nothing in those eyes he recognised. It wasn’t simply that she was indecipherable, as he’d believed earlier. She was wilfully closed off to him. She had agreed to be his wife but she was showing him that she would never be ‘his’ in the way she had once been. In the way he’d tried to remind her when they’d been in bed earlier.
He took another swig of his scotch and began to move through the room, looking at the pictures without seeing them. All he could visualise was Annie’s smile. The way it dazzled on her face as she laughed with Carlo. The way it hadn’t shone for him for a very long time.
Kyle Anderson felt a flush of regret and an ever greater dawning of doubt. He had never been good at fixing broken relationships, and theirs was quintessentially, completely and perhaps irreparably broken.
CHAPTER SIX
“See anything you like?” His wife’s voice was a murmur from behind him.
Kyle was startled out of his reverie to realise he’d been fixating on a large-scale black and white image of the curve of Bianca’s legs and backside.
He turned his back on it and looked straight at Annie. “Now that you’re here, yeah.”
She blinked at him and then shrugged as if to dismiss the compliment. “You were right. She’s more talented than just this stuff.” Annie waved a finger around the room.
Kyle really didn’t want to talk about Bianca though.
“How did you meet her?” The question was voiced casually enough but Kyle had years of experience with his wife’s jealousies and he heard the note of steel in the few words and understood.
“Through mutual acquaintances,” he hedged, putting a hand in the small of Annie’s back and guiding her through the room. “She used to date a guy I went to college with.”
Annie was walking slowly and he remembered belatedly that she’d been gesturing to her feet as though they hurt. “Would you like to sit down?”
Her expression was quizzical. “Why?”
His chest twisted at the derisive question. She was dismissing his concern. She didn’t want it. Not from him. But from Carlo? The jealousy now was all his.
“And you dated her too?”
The question shouldn’t have surprised him but it was more direct than her usual approach. In the past, Kyle might have obfuscated to protect his wife from the silly feelings of envy that had seemed to plague her.
“Yes.” He studied her face, trying to interpret the emotions he perceived in her expression.
“I’m always so impressed by how you stay friends with all these women you’ve slept with,” she said in a saccharine way that seemed to imply exactly the opposite.
He pressed his lips together. “We don’t have to stay if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“I’m fine.” She blinked up at him. “I gave up caring about your ... other lovers ... the day I moved out.”
He lifted a hand to her cheek and cupped it gently. “I’ve missed you.”
She swallowed rapidly. He saw the betraying gesture and dropped his thumb to the pulse point at the base of her neck. Her blood was raging just like his. “I’m sure you’ve found ways to console yourself.”
His laugh was a short burst. “I told you yesterday: it’s been a very long, lonely six months.”
She smiled tightly and took a step backwards, breaking their physical contact. “And I told you I find that impossible to believe.” She lifted a finger and pressed it against his lips in a gesture of silence. “Don’t lie to me. Don’t. I really don’t mind that you’ve been with other women since me. I considered our marriage over, and with it any obligations we owed one another.”
“I didn’t,” he muttered, his emotions bursting angrily through him. “And I swear to God, Annie, it would just about kill me to think of you with some other guy.”
Her cheeks flushed at the obvious burst of passion. Annie was not at all proud of herself but she recognised the pleasure she took from his jealousy. “Then don’t think of it,” she prodded, transfixed by the obvious torment in his face. She almost wanted to relieve his suffering and tell him that of course she hadn’t been with another man since leaving him.
But kindness was too hard to find.
“Annie.” It was a groan, a plea and an ache.
“People are starting to look,” she whispered, tilting her lips into a polite smile. “You don’t want to disrupt your lover’s exhibit.”
His cheekbones were slashed with dark colour. He put an arm around her waist and walked towards one of the doors. She moved with him simply to avoid attracting more attention.
To Annie’s chagrin, he took her into a room away from the rest and at that moment it was uninhabited by anyone else.
“I was with Bianca three years ago. Long before I’d ever heard your name. Are you going to carry a grudge because I had a sex life before we got married?”
She bit down on her lip. “It’s not the fact you had sex before you met me,” she retorted darkly. “So much as the fact you’re insistent on keeping them all on speed dial.” She angled her head so that he was met by her determine
d profile and the jut of her chin.
He furrowed his brow. “I can’t cut off contact with everyone I’ve ever been involved with.”
Annie narrowed her eyes at the casual reference to the scores of women he’d adored and desired before meeting her. Rejection and envy warred inside of her and Annie’s desire to wound him equally asserted itself. “Fine. Then put yourself in my shoes for a minute.” She pressed a finger into his chest to emphasise her point. “Imagine that I’ve spent the last six months sleeping with whomever caught my fancy just to get you out of my head. Imagine I treated sex as a perfect way to expunge you from my mind.” Her lips twisted with relish at the very idea of finally being able to forget her husband. “Now imagine all those sexy, gorgeous men were a constant, ongoing presence in my life. And then tell me I’m being difficult and demanding.”
His breath was ragged. Her reference to these men – fictitious or not – was making him feel almost murderously enraged. He moved towards her and she moved backwards, flattening against a wall. But he was gentle. His hands on her shoulders were begging her to put him out of his misery. His eyes were roaming her face, wondering how many times he’d lost her. He felt a sense of loss unlike anything he’d ever known when he imagined her being pleasured by another.
“God, Annie, I need you to tell me ...”
“No.” She forced herself to meet his eyes. “Unlike you, I don’t feel a need to drag anyone else into our relationship. Who I was with, or wasn’t, when we were ... estranged ... has nothing to do with this. And if Adam hadn’t been such an idiot we both know I wouldn’t have come within ten feet of you again.”
He felt like he’d been suckerpunched. How had he miscalculated everything so badly? He had thought it would be so simple to bring her back into his life and fix everything right back up. She had loved him once and he believed she still did; certainly, she wanted him. Was that not enough?
“I never cheated on you.” He stroked her through the dress, his voice low and soft like he’d heard one of his foster-parents talking to horses scared by a passing storm. “I married you because I couldn’t not. I had no choice. I knew then as strongly as I know now that we belong together.” He wished she’d look at him but her eyes were focussed on the floor between them. “You walked out on me but I still considered you my wife. I have no interest in other women. Why would I when I’ve sampled perfection?”
“Don’t.” She snapped her head up to his so fast it was as though whiplash had moved her. “Don’t. Don’t use your beautiful words and fast brain to con me into thinking we can make this work.” Tears were brimming in her eyes now and she clutched her hands to her stomach in a gesture that made him wonder if perhaps she was going to be sick.
“I never believed you would feel jealous of my past lovers because you never had the slightest reason to. I have never loved a woman before. I have never wanted a woman to love me. I have never thought about marrying another soul. I have had sex with women. Sex. Just sex. And yes, I had a lot of sex. I can’t change that.” He kissed the tip of her nose, his hands shaking as he ran them over her hair. “You feeling jealous of anyone from my past would be like me envying your brother. There is the same chance of you developing sexual feelings for him as there is me ever wanting another woman ever again. I have you, Annie, and you’re all I want.”
“I don’t want to hear it.” She swallowed, and lifted her fingers to her eyes.
Kyle pulled a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and handed it to her. It was one of the things about him she’d always loved, but also teased him for. The old fashioned touch was anachronistic with a man such as him, and yet she’d needed those cotton squares more times than she could count. What Annie didn’t know was that he had taken to carrying them just for his soft-hearted wife.
She dabbed just beneath her eyes and then slid it into her clutch purse.
“You need to hear it,” he promised urgently. “But this isn’t the time or the place.”
“No,” she agreed shakily.
“Why don’t we get out of here?”
Her face blanched and she shook her head. Being alone with him was terrifying to her; she knew she couldn’t put off the conversation forever but nor was she ready for it yet.
“No. I’m fine. I was actually having fun tonight, apart from ...”
“Apart from me?”
Her smile was tight. “Are you regretting this now?”
“Bringing you here?”
“Blackmailing me here,” she corrected with a wide-eyed blink.
He made a guttural sound of impatience. “I think it’s time we straightened this up.” He braced his hands on the wall on either side of her head, so that his body formed a cage. He smelled so good.
“What’s that?”
“I did manipulate you into seeing sense, Annie, but that’s all. You want to be with me. You’re begging me to make everything better in each accusation you hurl at my feet. You want me to say the right thing to fix whatever it is that’s upset you. You want me to make everything better, but most of all, you just want me.” He saw the flicker of annoyance in her face and almost laughed. “Maybe you left me to make a point. Maybe if I hadn’t been such a stubborn arse and had called you, you might have come home sooner. But you know as well as I do that here with me is where you want to be.”
She stared at him with true consternation flecking through her. “But I can’t be.” She thought of their baby and a shiver ripped her soul in two. She had been given the most beautiful gift and she had lost it. No matter how many times she was told by well-meaning doctors that it hadn’t been her fault, she would always blame herself. And she suspected he would, too. Even if he didn’t fault her for the loss itself, he would see as betrayal the fact that she had hidden it from him.
Her eyes were stinging again and she made a noise of impatience with her quickness-to-cry. “So much has happened. I’m not the same girl you married.”
“Perhaps not. But you’re still my wife.”
“Not if you sign the papers.”
There was a long pause as her words turned into comprehension for him. “The papers? You must be bloody joking.”
“Kyle –,”
“I’m not signing them, Annie. I won’t divorce you.” He kissed her gently on the forehead. “You taught me what it is to love someone. You showed me what it is to have a family. You’re my family. My only family. And I can’t lose you again.”
His impassioned plea split her heart in two for more reasons than he could comprehend. What a baby would have meant to this man! She lifted her hands to his chest and splayed her fingers. It took a moment to calm herself down sufficiently to speak, but then she lifted her face to his. She didn’t attempt a smile. There was no way she could pull one off. Instead she let her grief flow from every pore of her being.
Her mind was a jumble. She needed time to focus her thoughts; and to remember all the nights she’d spent slowly realising that they made zero sense.
“We’ll talk,” she said finally. “But not now.”
He nodded, understanding her pain and knowing that he’d been right. She needed him to fix her, and he would just as soon as he knew how.
* * *
“You’re out here.” He strolled onto the balcony and frowned to see his wife wearing only a pair of cotton pyjamas.
She nodded distractedly, sipping her tea to save from having to make a verbal response. In the end, they’d stayed for another hour or so after their emotional discussion in the side room of the Galleria. Annie had even managed to have a reasonably good time, when she wasn’t thinking about Kyle, looking for Kyle, remembering how good it had felt to be close to Kyle. But the hardest had been hearing his words over and over and over again, on constant loop in her mind.
You walked out on me but I still considered you my wife. I have no interest in other women. Why would I when I’d sampled perfection?
I married you because I couldn’t not. I had no choice. I knew then as strongly as I
know now that we belong together.
He slipped his tuxedo jacket off and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Thanks,” she murmured, cradling her tea higher and propping her elbows on the railing.
“Did you not notice it’s snowing?”
She peered out into the night sky and made a noise of surprise. “So it is!” She put one hand out, twinkling her fingers as tiny little flecks of ice landed on her flesh. “It’s just a dusting. How beautiful.”
“Yeah.” His voice was croaky as he stared at her. She was a vision. He lifted a hand as if he no longer had the power to prevent himself and ran his fingers through her long, blonde hair. It shone in the moonlight and the flecks of snow were like glitter in the strands.
Annie shook her head and took a step away. “Did you end up buying anything tonight?”
He propped himself against the railing, acting as though he didn’t care that she’d moved out of his reach. “No. You?”
“The picture in France,” she nodded. “I liked it.”
“There was a lot of emotion in it.”
She nodded. “Bianca’s talented; you were right.” But the admission was moving them closer to the grounds she wanted to avoid; closer to a discussion of his lovers. Annie wasn’t prepared to travel that path. Not at that late hour.
“Do you come to Aspen often?” She posed the question conversationally, as though he was someone she hardly knew. But it hid desperation: a desperation to keep their conversation away from topics that would swallow them into lava and ash.
He studied her thoughtfully. “No. Once a year or so. The last time was with you.”
She nodded. That trip had been a disaster. “How did things turn out with Ralph? Did you buy that business?”
He nodded. “Eventually.”
She sipped her tea and then angled her fingers to catch another clutch of snowflakes. They were coming down more quickly now. “It’s so beautiful here.” Her eyes drifted down the street. The buildings glowed golden against the white sheen of freshly drifted snow and in the background, painted silver by the moonlight were the mountains that made this patch of Colorado famous. “It’s like a fairytale.”
The Billionaire's Ruthless Revenge Page 8
