“Anyway, go back to what you were saying before. About the meeting with the outlaws. What was that all about?”
Arial took a hasty gulp of her coffee as she attempted to think of the right way to word what she was about to say. Bethany was going to laugh at her anyway so she might as well just blurt it out. “They wanted to know when Carson and I were planning on starting our family.”
Just as she knew she would, Bethany burst into gales of laughter. “Do people still do that? Did you tell them to mind their own business?”
“They’re different from regular people. To them, everything is about family and carrying on the DuMonde name. Carson is an only child and at this stage, his cousin Matthew is next in line. Terence said it’s important that plans are in place for the next generation of DuMonde males.”
Bethany snorted loudly. “That’s not old-fashioned – that’s prehistoric! So when are you going to produce a son and heir? They’ll be pissed if the first baby is a daughter.”
Arial could feel the warmth in her cheeks even before she made her confession. “A baby is a long way in the future and I won’t be hurried. Not by anyone. Anyway, we have to sleep together before we can conceive a baby and we haven’t done that yet.”
Bethany’s eyes bugged out of her head. “What? Why not? Carson is as hot as hell!”
“Yeah, but…” She shrugged. “I want to be in love with the man who I first make love to.”
Bethany was watching her shrewdly now. “And what are the chances of you falling in love with Carson DuMonde?”
Arial bent her head over her coffee cup and pretended she hadn’t heard the question.
“Arial?”
She lifted her head to scowl at her friend. “I like him, ok? Love isn’t instant. Look how long it took me to fall in love with Wyatt.”
“Ugh, don’t mention his name. You know I never liked him. I could see right through him from the beginning.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? It would have saved me a lot of heartbreak.”
“It’s not up to me to decide who you should fall for.” She reached across the table to squeeze Arial’s hand. “I hope it does work out for you and Carson. We both know he’s a playboy and playboys can find it hard to leave that world behind and settle down. Even the tabloids are gushing over the fact that he was never the marrying kind and making guesses as to how long the marriage will last. Just make sure you keep your heart in check until you know that you can trust him.”
Bethany’s words settled themselves, cold and clammy, around Arial’s heart. Yes, of course she knew that Carson had enjoyed his share of women in the past but wasn’t that all behind him now? He had stood in front of his family and friends and pledged his life to hers despite not knowing her too well but she’d genuinely believed that he was as committed to this marriage as she was. She avoided the tabloids, finding their shock-inducing headlines annoying, but it was worrying to hear that others didn’t give their marriage much of a chance. Now that she thought about it, Clarice might have mentioned that she was ‘defusing a social media situation’ but Arial hadn’t taken much notice.
Bethany squeezed her hand again. Arial could see her own reflection in her friend’s eyes. “You’ve gone really pale. Your face is as open as the pages of a book and I know you’ll hate me telling you this, but I can read everything you’re thinking. What did I just say to upset you?”
“Do you think he’s still fooling around with other women?” Arial whispered. Why hadn’t she stopped to consider this for herself?
Bethany released her hand and sat back in her chair. “I don’t know but until you know for sure, it’s probably best that you don’t jump in head first to something you’ll only regret later. Keep doing what you’re doing and take it slow. Ignore anything that I just said about sleeping with him just because he’s hot.”
Arial took a deep breath. Everything will be ok. “You’re right. We have plenty of time to sort it out. I’m not rushing into anything.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Carson
Carson looked up as someone tapped on the door of his study, although his enquiring look quickly turned to a scowl when he saw who it was. “What do you want?”
“That’s not very friendly. Terence said I should come on up.” Matthew walked into the room and slouched himself down into the visitor chair on the other side of Carson’s desk. “He said you were probably just sitting at your desk and staring out the window anyway and it looks like he was right. He must have a crystal ball.”
“What do you want?” Carson asked again. “I’m trying to get some work done.”
“I’ve just had an enlightening conversation with your sweet young wife. Our little chat answered a few of my questions.”
“What are you blabbering on about now?”
Matthew studied his nails. “I know I wasn’t the only one taken by surprise by your rushed wedding. As far as I was aware, you weren’t even dating anyone and then suddenly you were standing in front of us all playing the besotted groom. When Arial told me it was an arranged marriage, it all started to make a lot more sense.”
“She said it was an arranged marriage?” The idea of Arial having a private little conversation with his cousin niggled at him. He knew she liked Matthew, although he could not understand why.
“Not in so many words but she did tell me that she signed a contract.”
“A pre-nup. They’re very common. I suppose you’ll sign one too if you can ever bribe some poor, misguided girl into marrying you. Is that all? I have to get back to work.” Carson picked up his pen and wrote several lines of gibberish on his page just to prove a point.
“Is that what you did? Bribe her?”
Carson threw down his pen. “Can you please leave? You’re interrupting my train of thought with your inane ramblings.”
Matthew didn’t budge from the chair. “She was very interested in what I had to tell her too. I know it made her uncomfortable to hear it but I thought it was only fair that she knew the truth about her husband.”
Carson decided the best way to deal with Matthew was to ignore him. He stood up from his chair and walked over to the filing cabinet by the window. He slid open the top drawer and began searching through the files as if Matthew was no longer in the room.
Matthew paused for only a moment before continuing. “She is such a lovely person and she deserves so much better. I explained to her that your reputation with women is less than pristine. Filthy is a better word for it. I told her that you’re not the marrying kind and she needs to prepare herself for heartache if she decides to continue with the marriage.”
Carson carried a file back to his desk. Matthew’s comments were grating on his nerves but he wasn’t going to let on how annoyed he was. Matthew enjoyed this sort of verbal provocation and Carson had learned from past experience that it was better not to rise up and bite at his baiting. Anyway, Matthew hadn’t told Arial anything that she couldn’t have found out for herself from online news sites or old entertainment articles.
Carson was about to sit down again when Matthew said something that finally caught his undivided attention. “I told her that you had lunch with your on-again, off-again girlfriend Gabriella the other week. I also broke the news to her that from an observer’s point of view, it seems the relationship is very much on-again.”
Carson leaned his hands on the desk and glowered at his cousin from beneath his brows, unwittingly replicating one of his father’s common gestures. “Who told you that?”
“I have my ways and my means of finding out what goes on at the Casino. Everyone knows that Darius is your puppet on a string but there are plenty of other people willing to speak up. Your rather passionate embrace by the elevators was noticed and we all know that those elevators are a direct route to the suites. People aren’t stupid, Carrie.”
“People are stupid if they didn’t notice that the elevator went down instead of up. I hope you didn’t spread any malicious and untrue gossip to Ari
al. She doesn’t need to listen to your secondhand lies. Now, are you going to leave my office or do I have to help you find the door?” He moved around the desk and took a menacing step toward the chair where Matthew lounged.
“She was happy to hear an unbiased viewpoint. As I said, she’s a lovely young lady. I like her a lot. I don’t want to see her hurt and we all know that is the only outcome possible from this farce of a marriage.”
“An unbiased viewpoint? You’re the most biased person I’ve ever met!” A tsunami of old feelings and frustrations rolled over Carson as a flashback of incidents from the past played a slideshow in front of his eyes. That unforgettable fight in the sandpit, Matthew smirking at him after he told Terence that Carson was the one who had snapped the branches from one of the hedges in the maze to use as a play sword, and the day Matthew ruined Carson’s tenth birthday party by pretending to faint just as the birthday cake came out.
Carson grabbed Matthew roughly by the shoulder and hauled him to his feet. “Get up,” he hissed. “Stand on your own two feet and face me like a man for once in your life.”
Matthew shook off Carson’s hand and returned his hard stare with a steely glare of his own. “I have plenty more stories to tell the newly minted Mrs. DuMonde. Unfortunately, I think you’ll keep going out there and creating plenty of circumstances unfitting for a married man. You just can’t help yourself when it comes to women. Arial doesn’t need someone like you in her life. I’ll break this marriage up if it’s the last thing I do.”
That was the last straw. Carson flung himself at his cousin and began to pummel and punch him. Matthew did not hold back and seconds later, the men were rolling around the floor, cursing and swearing and knocking over the furniture.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Arial
Arial reached down to pull the plug out and allow the soapy bubbles to swirl down the drain. She stepped out of the tub and reached for one of the impossibly soft bath towels stacked on the rail above the bath. Some things were far too easy to get used to and luxuriously long baths were one of them.
She hadn’t been able to get the conversation with Matthew out of her head. She liked the man but she didn’t exactly trust him. Matthew did not try to hide the fact that he did not hold a high opinion of his cousin (a feeling that Carson returned) but her guess was that jealously lay at the root of the men’s dislike for one another. Matthew was jealous of Carson’s place in the family line and Carson was jealous that Matthew had more freedom than he did. Matthew’s father would certainly never order him to marry a woman before the month was out. There was no reason for him to do that.
Still, what he’d said about Gabriella and Carson was disturbing. She remembered Gabriella from the wedding. The woman was stunning, even if some of her assets were obviously plastic, and Arial had noticed the way she looked at Carson on their wedding day. Because the events of that day were so overwhelming, Arial had made sure she took a few minutes here and there just to sit quietly and observe. She had seen numerous women casting envious glances in her direction, and several more looking hungrily at Carson. Beautiful Gabriella had sent the hungriest glance of all – and more than once.
Arial finished drying herself and wrapped the towel around her. She wrapped another towel around her hair and was about to walk through to the bedroom to get changed when she heard a loud thump and shouts coming from one of the other rooms. Frowning, she hurried to the door and poked her head out into the corridor. She knew Carson was working in his study so what was all the noise about?
The shouts were louder out here and as she stepped into the corridor, she heard another heavy item of furniture crash to the floor. She held her towel around her and hurried down toward the study. Was that Matthew’s voice she could hear? Why were they fighting? They were supposedly two adult men who knew better than to get involved in a fistfight with one another.
She reached the doorway and gasped. Carson and Matthew were rolling around the floor with their fists flying. A couple of chairs lay overturned and papers from the desk lay in scattered disarray in front of the filing cabinet. “Stop!! What’s happening? Why are you fighting?”
The men were so involved in their punching and swearing that they didn’t hear her. She took another step into the room, making sure to avoid the flailing limbs and kicking feet. She opened her mouth and shouted at the top of her voice, “Stop! Stop right now!”
Matthew, who was currently on the bottom of the ruckus while Carson pinned him down, dumbly turned his head to look at her. It took Carson a few seconds before her voice sank in and then he too turned to stare at her. “Uh. Hi, Arial.”
“Look at the pair of you! You’re acting like children! Get up and talk through your disagreement like two mature adults. I’m ashamed of you both.”
Carson rolled off his cousin and pushed himself to his feet. Arial could see now that his lip was bleeding and he had the beginnings of a bruise on his cheek. Matthew groaned and rolled over onto his hands and knees before slowly rising. He had a cut above one eyebrow and a bruiser of a black eye. He tried to grin at Arial but he didn’t quite manage it.
“Why are you fighting?”
“Matthew told me about how he’s been talking to you and spreading rumors about me. I won’t stand for it and I needed to get it through his thick head in the only way that he understands.” Carson touched his finger to his lip and winced.
“He was giving me some cousinly advice. Don’t try to make more of it than what it is, Carson. You’re starting to make a habit of it and it’s becoming annoying.” Why hadn’t Carson come to see her about this instead of starting a brawl with his cousin?
Matthew blinked groggily. Blood from the cut on his brow was now trickling down his face, making its way across his cheek and onto his chin. Arial hastily unwrapped the towel from around her head and passed it to him. “You’re covered in blood. Use this.”
“What do you mean, I’m starting to make a habit of it?” Carson had turned his anger on Arial now. “That’s a ridiculous thing to say.”
“Your nose is bleeding. It’s going to drop on the floor.” Without stopping to think, she pulled the towel from around her body and handed it to him. She wasn’t ashamed of her body and he was her husband. He would get to see it soon enough anyway. She would leave these two ridiculous men to clean themselves up and she would go back to her room to dress.
Both men gasped in unison as she stood bare-skin naked in front of them. Matthew’s eyes were as big as dinner plates from behind the towel that he’d scrunched up to his cheek but it was Carson’s expression that caught her attention. A combination of admiration, astonishment, and lust had turned his handsome face into a cartoon caricature that would have made her laugh if the situation wasn’t so messy.
“Arial! Cover yourself up!” Looking horrified, Carson finally found his voice. He thrust the towel back at her in a clumsy attempt to hide her body from Matthew’s view. “Go and get yourself dressed while I deal with this idiot. I never expected his very first glimpse of a naked woman to be of my own wife!”
“Take that back, Carrie!” Matthew shouted. “Don’t you dare try to put me down in front of her!”
After that, it all happened too quickly for anyone to stop it. Dropping the towel to the floor, Matthew pulled his hand back with unexpected force and inadvertently caught Arial on the side of the head as she stepped up to prevent the men’s argument from descending into yet another brawl. She felt the powerful force of the blow on the side of her head and then everything went black.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Carson
It should never have happened. He blamed himself. He should have walked away from Matthew and not allowed his taunts to get to him. He should have learned from his past mistakes. Now Arial was hurt and it was all his fault.
He bent over her now, anxious to see if she was feeling ok. They were in the back of one of the cars while the driver did his best to get them to the hospital without breaking any traffic regu
lations and she was laying across the seat with her head in his lap. Matthew hadn’t meant to hit her, he knew that, but that didn’t change the fact that his cousin had knocked the poor girl unconscious. Carson had hurriedly covered her beautiful, naked body with one of the towels while Matthew, who could not stop apologizing, called for a driver to bring the car around to their private entrance. There was no need to get the older DuMondes involved. Matthew had then run down to Arial’s bedroom to grab her robe. At this point, and much to Carson’s relief, Arial had opened her eyes and faintly asked what had happened. She seemed puzzled that she was naked and she had no recollection of the few minutes immediately preceding the blow to her head.
“Arial? How are you feeling?” He stroked her hair back off her face, taking care not to touch the side of her head where Matthew’s flying and badly aimed fist had landed. This girl had his emotions in a turmoil. She’d snatched the breath from his lungs when she pulled her towel off. Yes, he’d known that her body would be exquisite beneath her clothes but she was perfection. A true Venus. And she hadn’t batted an eyelid when it came to revealing herself. Maybe she wasn’t so uptight after all. Maybe their problems in the bedroom and their failure to progress in that area were because of him. Perhaps she wasn’t attracted to him. That thought stung more than it should have.
“Hmmm?” She stared up at him with those unbelievable baby blues and his heart tugged and wrenched. He couldn’t bear it if anything bad happened to her.
“Can you remember anything?”
“I remember having a bath… I don’t remember anything after that. Did I slip and fall?”
“Uh, yeah.” It might be best if he allowed her to think that. It would save him from having to admit that he was fighting with Matthew. It would also save having to answer too many tricky questions in the ER. Matthew hadn’t meant to hurt her and he was cut up about the entire thing, making Carson promise to text him as soon as he knew that Arial was going to be ok. “The floor was wet and you slipped.”
Playboy Billionaire Page 12
