Betrayed by the CEO

by Clare Connelly

  “He was never the kind of man who could go without.” She shook her head. “I got caught up in the fantasy of the wedding, without realising that if he wasn’t sleeping with me, he must have been doing so elsewhere.”

  “Jesus Christ,” he swore, standing up abruptly and stalking across the small lounge room. “You’re actually making excuses for his jackassery?”

  His scathing tone stung. She set her wine down a little unsteadily, and crossed her legs onto the sofa. “I believe in love,” she retorted defiantly.

  “You believed in fairy tales and magic, Chloe. Things that don’t exist. But that’s not what I’m saying. How can you possibly take on the blame for his behaviour? He carried on like some kind of dog on heat and you think that is, in some way, your fault?”

  Her cheeks stained with a perfect pink. “Neither of us met the other’s needs. I’m only saying that I can understand why he …”

  “Don’t finish that sentence,” he ground out, a muscle shifting in his jaw as he stared down at her.

  “Why are you getting so angry about it?”

  He shook his head. “Because you’re a smart, funny, beautiful woman. And you should have kicked him to the curb when you first learned about his affair. Instead, you’ve made excuses for his behaviour that put the blame squarely at your feet. It’s like a bad line from a Tammy Wynette song, except you actually believe it to be true.”

  She pushed to her feet now, all pleasure in the evening evaporating. “I think you should go after all.”

  He glared at her for a long, hard moment, and then shook his head in frustration. “You just said that waiting until you were married was his idea.”

  “Yes?” She ran her hands over her arms, but nothing kept the cold at bay.

  “So he should never have suggested it if he thought it would lead him to infidelity. People don’t cheat because they’re not getting laid enough.”

  She spun away from him, her heart hurting. “You don’t know enough about it.”

  “I know that William Ansell-John sounds like a man who thinks with his dick. That’s not your fault. The only thing you did wrong was agreeing to marry him in the first place.”

  Her indignation was a painful presence. “And you’re different, I suppose?” She challenged, crossing her arms over her chest so that she could glare at him properly.

  “Damn right I am,” he ground out, moving to stand in front of her.

  “You don’t sleep with woman after woman, then forget they exist?” She pushed, her throat knotting as she swallowed.

  His laugh was a rumble of anger. “I sleep with women who know I don’t want much more than a great fuck.”

  “Stop it,” she stomped her foot, and lifted her hands to her ear. “I don’t want to talk about this with you.”

  “Cinderella doesn’t exist. Prince Charming doesn’t exist. We’re all just people, making decisions and living our lives. Enjoying sex doesn’t make me like your husband.” He lifted a hand and ran it insolently along the flesh of her décolletage, towards her cleavage. Her breath was dragging in to her lungs, lifting her breasts closer to him. “Your husband was a lying cheat. And I’m not.”

  Her stomach rolled as he moved his finger to her nipple and circled it through the flimsy fabric of her shirt.

  “Everyone lies,” she said through a fog of desire. Her knees were weak. She wasn’t actually sure that they wouldn’t buckle beneath her.

  Ah, how right she was! But his own lie was being closed out of his mind, as he felt, for a moment, how perfect it would be to take possession of her body. Her nipples were straining at the fabric of her shirt. She was responsive, and he’d barely touched her.

  “Did you like sleeping with your husband?” He asked quietly, dipping his head so that his words tickled the sensitive flesh at the base of her neck.

  She made a low, slow moan of feeling. “He was my husband,” she said thickly, as though that explained everything.

  “Did he make your body ache with need?” He queried, rotating his hips so that she could feel for herself the power of his arousal.

  Her body shuddered in silent answer. “I … I don’t know what you’re asking.” She needed to get a hold on the situation. This was madness. But her mind was at war with her libido, and her body’s needs were gallivanting to the finishing line.

  “Did he screw you until you couldn’t speak, because your voice was so hoarse from screaming?”

  She wanted to pull away and slap him, but more than that, she wanted him to … to what?

  “Please don’t speak like this,” she said, and it sounded prim to her own ears.

  Even his laugh sent her nerve endings jumbling. “We don’t have to speak,” he promised thickly. He had intended to seduce her slowly. To wine and dine her, and make her comfortable. But the evening had worn down his strength. Her lips parted on a sound of surprise, and he was powerless to resist. He lowered his mouth to hers and took command of her sweet warmth with an angry hunger.

  She whimpered against him, and lifted her hands to tangle in his hair. One small push with his hips and she fell backwards onto the sofa. He tumbled after her, the weight of his body against her, his erection pushing towards her feminine heart.

  The barriers of their clothing didn’t disguise the need he felt for her. She writhed beneath him, and her body shuddered as his tongue lashed her mouth. He was angry. Furious. His kiss was heavy with those emotions, and his hands, as they moved over her body, were seeking. He was not Prince Charming. He was the evil fucking step brother. His part in her story was pure villain. There was no sense pretending anything else.

  He pushed at her shirt, lifting it over her head and throwing it to the floor. Her bra was simple white cotton. He didn’t dare keep his mouth from hers, in case she changed her mind. Reality was always at the edge, and it would ruin everything. Now, when he kissed her, he was able to push aside the flimsy material and feel her naked breasts. They were larger than he’d thought they would be – a pleasing handful. Her legs wrapped around him of their own free will, and Hendrix moved his arousal, simulating the movements he wanted to be making. The way he wanted to be moving inside of her.

  “Hendrix,” she cried, digging her nails into his back as her whole frame began to shake with sensation. “I’m … what are we …” she cried out as an orgasm began to tingle, right down in her toes.

  His laugh was the only answer she was to receive. He moved his stubbled chin down her body, delighting as she responded to the tactile contact. He took one of her nipples in his mouth and continued to move his hips against her. When her arms came around his neck, he grabbed them easily in one hand and pinned them above her head. She was his prisoner, and more than that, she was his.

  He knew, as he tormented her breasts with a mix of intense pleasure and teasing pain, that she had never felt this level of arousal before. It was all for him. And piece by piece, he was going to erase that bastard William Ansell-Johns from her memory and her life. He was going to take the woman William had loved, and he was going to own her completely.

  That bastard didn’t deserve a woman like Chloe.

  And Hendrix was relishing the prospect of showing him that.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Manhattan was a city that never slept. Despite the lateness of the hour, as his car cut through the labyrinth of downtown roads, the vista beyond his window was alive with neon activity. It passed him by in a colourful blur. His reflection stared back at him, his black eyes piercing him with angry reproach.

  Chloe Ansell-Johns was not the experienced society wife one might have anticipated. She hadn’t married William for his claim to the family fortune, and she hadn’t married him for what he could give her.

  She’d married him because she’d believed herself to have been swept off her feet. She had believed his lies, and she had loved him.

  Her soft admissions that evening had infuriated him. She had practically laid down and begged William to stomp all over her. And he had. He’d
treated her appallingly, and he’d been free to hurt God knew how many other women because his wife turned a devotedly blind eye.

  Would his sister have become involved with William, if Chloe had taken more of an interest in her husband’s extra-marital behaviours?

  He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with the insinuation that Chloe was in some way to blame for Eleanor’s death. Whatever else he knew about the situation, that Chloe was as much a victim as Eleanor had been was obvious.

  Those black eyes pinned him with darts of guilt. She was a victim, and yet he’d punished her. His body reacted as he remembered the way she’d moved beneath him. Despite the fact she’d been married and borne a daughter, the fact that her body had never been properly explored and aroused was obvious. She had moved in his arms as a virgin might. She had been terrified by the strength of her feelings, and he had used his experience to drive her to new levels of pleasure.

  The only saving grace was that he’d stopped short of having sex with her. He had wanted to. Of course he had. And not just to throw it in William’s face. But instinctively, he bucked against the idea of sleeping with her under those circumstances.

  Instead, he’d brought an end to their exploration of one another, and he’d left.

  His stomach rolled.

  Guilt was not a familiar emotion to Hendrix Forrester. He was assured of his rightness in most matters. But not now. Not this.

  He made a sound of frustration and lifted his phone from his pocket.

  What could he say to her?

  He closed his eyes and remembered Chloe, as she’d been that first day he’d met her. Uncertain, pretty, and anxious. Was he really prepared to use her to avenge his sister?

  Of course he was. Chloe would become collateral damage in his quest for vengeance, and he didn’t relish that prospect. But his thirst suddenly to deliver a blow against the man who had got away with killing his sister overpowered any other consideration.

  He ran his finger over the screen of his phone and thought of their parting words.

  “I didn’t come here for that,” he’d said, stroking her hair gently, as though that made up for the fact that he’d tormented her with the pleasure her body could produce.

  She’d fiddled with the ends of her hair, and those enormous blue eyes of hers had collided with his. Her smile had been the last word in valiant disguise. “I know.” She’d swallowed, and then forced an even brighter smile. Her slender shoulders had shrugged. Her bra strap was visible because she’d buttoned her shirt so hastily. “These things happen.”

  He’d leaned against the door of her apartment, and made a show of seeming relaxed. “I like you, Chloe. I’d like to see you again.”

  “You’re my lawyer, remember,” she’d said with a genuine grin warming her face.

  “Separate to that,” he’d refused to be drawn off point. “I mean, I want to see you.”

  She’d shaken her head from side to side, sending her blonde hair fluffing in a fair cloud about her face. “I’d like that too. But it’s complicated.” A frown had crossed her delicate features. “I need to be smart.”

  He had resisted – barely – the impulse to kiss her. To kiss some sense into her. “We will be,” he’d promised instead.

  “And discreet,” she’d murmured, her eyes clouded with thoughtfulness. “I don’t want William to think I’ve been carrying on as he has.”

  “Of course,” he demurred silkily, thinking that it would be his gift to reveal to William, when the time was right. “Can Georgia look after your daughter tomorrow night?”

  “Ellie?” She fidgeted her fingers. “I don’t know. Hendrix, I don’t know what’s just happened between us. I … I need to think things through. I’ll give you a call in a few days.”

  The casually delivered rebuff had amused him, because it was the first time a woman had attempted to hold him at arms length. Usually, he was shrugging free of women who wanted his attention, even if just for a short time. Her careful procrastination fascinated him. And yes, he forced himself to be honest now that he was alone with his dark thoughts. It had endeared her to him. It had pleased him. It had made him want to embrace her in a hug. To be gentle with her. To make her like him. And to like her back.

  But that was not his plan.

  Everything he was doing was about that moment of revenge. And he could not afford to have his focus pulled from the prize.

  Have you done your thinking yet? He sent the text with a small smile, then reclined back in his seat.

  Chloe stared at her phone, a frown on her face. The sleeping figure of Ellie curled like a seashell against her stomach. Three months earlier, Ellie had turned two, and she was changing subtly every day. Her legs were getting longer, her footing more sure, her voice a little clearer and her sentences longer. But in the middle hours of the night, when magic was at its thickest, she could wrap her arms around her daughter and still feel the baby that had been. Her breathing was pronounced in the silent air, and her pale hair tickled under Chloe’s nose.

  She angled the phone, careful to keep the bright light away from her daughter’s face.

  Had she?

  The evening had passed in a blur. Relaxed enough, initially, but always with an undercurrent of tension. As though the threads of their desire had been wrapping around them, tighter and tighter with each sentence they uttered.

  The watershed moment had been inevitable. They’d piled bucket after bucket of sexual tension into the dam of feelings, and it had burst.

  Spectacularly. The conflagration of their desire had singed her. Nerve endings were still on fire in her body, and she hadn’t been able to shut her eyes, for the images that were lingering in her mind.

  Her lips were twisting into a smile.

  So that was desire. That was chemistry.

  She stared at the screen, but she saw only his handsome face, hovering over her, while his hands drove her body to the edge of sanity.

  She’d believed love at first sight was a scientific fact, as real and immovable as gravity and condensation. But lust at first sight? Desire? A physical need so great that it pushed everything else aside?

  It didn’t fit with her philosophy. Chloe had always thought that sex had to exist against a backdrop of love. That true intimacy could only develop through affection and trust, admiration and devotion.

  She’d been all of those things for William, and their sex life had been… it didn’t bear comparison. It had been bland. She pulled a face as she remembered the routine way their bodies had come together. The small tremors of desire that had built in her and then been ignored, when his own satiation was speedily reached.

  Her fingers twisted in her hair, and her teeth bit down on her lip.

  Was this what sex should be like? Was it like this for everyone? Had it been like this for William and his other women? Her eyes shuttered closed painfully at the realisation that she must have done something wrong. That she must have been so boring in bed that he hadn’t been able to stomach more than a perfunctory roll in the hay from time to time.

  Or had it been enough for him?

  She knew one thing for sure. It would never be enough for her. Not now she’d opened the door to true desire. Not now she’d felt what her body was capable of.

  She needed to keep going, down the rabbit hole and all the way to the other side. Wherever that might be.

  I’m not thinking. I’m remembering. She pressed send before she could question the wisdom of engaging in a text flirtation with someone like Hendrix Forrester.

  His response was almost immediate. Same here. Let me know when you’re ready for round two.

  Her breath hitched in her throat. Round two. More of what they’d shared that night. She put the phone down, and held Ellie more tightly.

  She wanted, so badly, to pursue this. To feel what he made her feel. But she wasn’t just a twenty four year old woman. She wasn’t just a website designer. A woman. She was a mother. A mommy, to the most beautiful little girl in the
world. She breathed in Ellie’s sweet baby smell and unexpected tears made her eyes ache.

  Fairy tales didn’t always end with Prince Charming saving the day. Sometimes, the real fairy story was just about love. And there was no greater love than what she felt for her daughter. It was the most important chapter in her book. She couldn’t push it to the back, like an appendix that was an after thought. Every decision she made in life was guided by Ellie.

  This could be no different.

  Hendrix Forrester would storm through her life, burning brightly and fiercely hot, but he’d disappear as quickly as he’d emerged. And then she’d be alone again with Ellie.

  What if Ellie got hurt? What if she got used to him? What if she liked him, too?

  Chloe squeezed her eyes shut, hating her softness. Hating that tears sprung so easily to her eyes when she was trying to be strong. She’d spent years subjugating her needs to ensure Ellie had everything she could possibly need. This was no different.

  She switched her phone off and wrapped both arms tightly around her daughter. They were a pair, and that was just fine by Chloe.

  * * *

  Hendrix glared angrily at the notes Clint Douglas had made earlier that day. His neat, precise handwriting had detailed every element of the conversation he’d had with William Ansell-Johns and his own divorce attorney.

  And what Hendrix saw, written between the lines, in the words that Clint hadn’t committed to paper, was that William was playing to win.

  William was striking out at Chloe in a way that would wound her beyond belief, unless she went back to him.

  Chloe.

  His gut squeezed as he thought of the woman he intended to use as a pawn. The woman who’d tasted what he had to offer and had point blank refused to have anything more to do with him.

  Hendrix Forrester didn’t chase women. After several calls were ignored, and texts were responded to with the briefest formality, he had realised that he’d played Chloe all wrong.

  He’d scared her.

  The strength of what she’d felt had terrified her.