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Public dates? Dad hadn’t mentioned anything about public dates.
Because he knew you’d refuse.
‘I didn’t know Clara was supposed to be here,’ I snapped, freshly annoyed at my father all over again. ‘Dad didn’t mention it to me. And I’m certainly not here to be her stand-in either.’
‘Clearly not.’ He tilted his head. ‘What have you got against a bit of attention, though?’
Great. That was all I needed. To drag up what had happened to me ten years ago. I didn’t want to talk about it and I especially didn’t want to talk about it to him.
‘I just don’t like it,’ I said.
‘Bullshit. Must be something pretty bad for it to involve coming to talk to me personally.’
Dammit. My options were either lying or simply not answering the question, but I was hopeless at lying and I had a feeling he wasn’t the type to simply drop a subject.
Hiding it wasn’t an option either, not when a quick search on my name would bring up the video. No matter how hard Dad had tried to scour it from the Internet, he hadn’t been able to. The Internet was for ever and so was my video.
He’ll see it if you tell him.
My jaw tightened. Well, everyone in creation had seen it, so why should I care if he did? Possibly he already had.
‘Google my name and you’ll find out.’ I lifted my chin and folded my hands in my lap so I wouldn’t be tempted to bite on my nails.
He gave me a long, silent, assessing look. Then he put down his glass and reached into his pocket, bringing out his phone.
I opened my mouth to tell him that he should wait until I wasn’t around at least. But his long fingers were already moving over the screen and a moment or two later he lifted his gaze from the phone and looked at me.
I blushed again, the old feelings of humiliation and shame washing over me, but I shoved them away. I wasn’t that girl in the video, not any more.
Instead, I stared, daring him to say a single word.
He merely lifted one dark brow. ‘So you had a sex tape drama. Who hasn’t?’
Was he being flippant? I couldn’t tell.
‘But you can see why I don’t want any kind of public attention. I don’t want anyone dragging that up again.’
‘You’re thinking about this all wrong, sweetheart.’ Casually, he dumped his phone on the table then sat back against the couch, lifting his arms along the back. ‘You could hide away for ever, afraid of all that coming back up again. Or you could go for a little revenge.’
It was not what I’d expected him to say.
‘Revenge? What do you mean revenge?’
‘A hot guy slept with you and humiliated you. And millions saw it. What better revenge than to show those millions of people another guy falling for you? Incredibly handsome, sickeningly rich.’ He gave another smile, utterly and completely charming, and not at all modest. ‘Notorious. Not a man anyone would mess with. Yet you’d have him wrapped around your little finger.’
The words slid under my skin in a way I wasn’t comfortable with. Revenge wasn’t what I wanted. Oblivion was, and I didn’t want anything to disrupt that. And yet...
‘I’d already planned some dates with Clara,’ he went on, that rich, deep voice of his winding around me. ‘Nothing major, just a few public outings to show people we’re in love. And then a big wedding to top it all off.’ His voice deepened, became softer. ‘Yes, it’s attention. But this time you get to call the shots. And it ends with you getting everything. The wedding, the mansion, the money.’ He paused, gold glimmering in his eyes, his smile making me feel hot, even though I wasn’t. ‘And, of course, you get the man.’
My instant response was to tell him no, that I didn’t care. I’d got past what had happened to me and what I wanted was to go back to my obscure life and carry on as if none of this had ever happened.
You could do that. Or you could rewrite your own story. And this time with the ending you want.
The thought hit me hard.
Back when I was seventeen, being Clara’s tall, gangly stick of a sister had been tough, and I’d longed to be like her. Pretty and curvy, popular with all the boys. I’d been an easy mark for Simon. Desperate for attention, insecure, a prime target for his manipulation. And he had manipulated me. He’d made me think he wanted me, that he loved me.
Then he’d used me, humiliated me, and all because he’d wanted my sister and she’d refused him. I’d been his revenge on her, too naive and stupid to understand what he was doing.
So, in a way, Leon King was right. This would be a perfect kind of revenge. And it would be my choice. Something I could do for myself.
Slowly, I let out a breath and looked at him. ‘So...when you say a few public dates, how many are we talking here?’
CHAPTER FIVE (#uacf83e4f-f369-5562-9e57-ac5943add40f)
Leon
I HAD HER. Definitely I had her and a good thing too.
Satisfaction swept through me. Yes, Clara would have been preferable and I was pissed off at Hamilton for trying to pull a bait and switch, but fundamentally I didn’t much care which sister I married.
It was the marriage itself, the connection to the Hamiltons and the image it projected that I was concerned about.
Vita Hamilton wasn’t beautiful. But she’d do.
Besides, the way she’d kept looking at me intrigued me. How she hadn’t been afraid and how she’d refused me—and no one ever refused me. Or at least they didn’t without risking the consequences.
But she had. And it had been a challenge I hadn’t been able to resist.
Five years ago I would have answered that challenge with force. Not physical—not with a woman—but I’d have considered that sex tape information the perfect way to blackmail her into doing what I wanted.
Maybe I would have had to resort to that if she hadn’t agreed, but she had. And I had to admit that there was something sweet about her choosing me without the need for coercion.
She sat on the edge of the chair, her head tilted slightly, watching me with those bright eyes. Like a cautious bird or a curious fox. No, definitely more fox than bird with that undercurrent of auburn in her brown hair.
That was fine. She could be a little fox. But there was no doubt as to who the dominant predator here was. Me. And she knew it. I hadn’t missed how she’d looked away earlier when I’d let my gaze run over her, or how she’d blushed. And it didn’t take a genius to figure out that she wasn’t as immune to me as she acted.
‘How many dates?’ I took another long, slow look at her body to see if I’d get the same reaction. ‘I had three or four planned so far.’
The swell of her breasts was tantalising beneath the black fabric of her dress. They were small and round, a perfect fit for my hand. The rest of her was difficult to see from the way she sat, but her legs would be long and no doubt they’d wrap perfectly around my waist. Or drape over my shoulders...
‘But they’d be in public?’ She held my gaze, determined to show me how unbothered she was by the way I was looking at her.
She didn’t fool me, however. Even in the dim light of the nightclub I could see how she was blushing. Christ, did she really think I wouldn’t notice?
I watched as the stain of red crept down the delicate arch of her throat to the neckline of her boring black dress. ‘Not much point otherwise.’
She shifted on the edge of her chair and at last dragged her gaze from mine. Her hand half lifted, her finger nearly at her mouth before she put it back down in her lap again. Her nail polish was chipped. A nail-biter perhaps?
‘What kind of dates are we talking about?’ She gave the crowd a leisurely survey before glancing back to me again. ‘Going to the movies? That sort of thing?’
I grinned, letting her know that I’d caught her small nervous movement and how she’d had to look away. That I knew I was getting to her. ‘The movies? No, sweetheart. Think bigger.’
Her dark reddish brows arrowed down, the lights in her eyes flickering with irritation. ‘Don’t call me sweetheart.’
I was definitely getting to her. How satisfying.
‘You don’t like sweetheart?’ I asked mildly.
‘Not when my name is Vita.’
‘Sure, but you’ll be my fiancée. You need a pet name.’
Her mouth tightened. ‘I don’t want a pet name.’
‘Too bad, you’re getting one.’ I was being a prick, but I hadn’t had anyone this delicious to play with for years and I was going to enjoy the hell out of it. ‘You can choose which, though. If you don’t like sweetheart, your other choices are “baby”, “little girl”, “honey”, “darling” or “sweet cheeks”.’
She glared. ‘I don’t want you to call me any of those things.’
‘Hey, I’m all for equal opportunities. I don’t mind a pet name for myself. “Stud” or “big boy” is fine. I don’t mind “hot stuff”. My preference, though, is for “sir”.’
Her frown deepened. ‘Stop playing with me. I don’t like it.’
So. A woman who didn’t play games and had no interest in playing them either.
Disappointing. Still, her honesty and directness were refreshing. And, being the perverse bastard I was, they made me want to play with her even more.
Maybe I’d save that for later, though. Now I’d got her agreement to the marriage there was no point risking that for a bit of fun.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘No games. As to the dates, I’ll send you the details later. But fair warning. There will be press involved. My aim is to show the entire world we’re in love.’
Another flicker of emotion crossed her face at the mention of the press and it looked like trepidation. Not that I could blame her. I’d only had a cursory look at the first couple of results of that search on her name, but that sex tape looked like it had been a major scandal. Seventeen was a hell of an age for that sort of attention, especially when that attention was the wrong kind.
‘But I get to say what happens on them, right?’ The trepidation had vanished, her expression becoming more concentrated, fierce almost.
Ah, yes. I had said something like that, hadn’t I?
A thread of unease wound through me. I wasn’t good at taking orders, never had been, even when my father had been the one giving them. Plus, I hated the thought of relinquishing control of a situation to someone else.
Then again, there were ways around that. Topping from the bottom, and all that.
‘Revenge,’ Vita said suddenly, as if she could sense my discomfort and was hoping to exploit it. ‘That’s what you told me. I could rewrite my own story, this time with me calling the shots.’
Shit. Little vixen was good at sniffing out a weakness, wasn’t she?
Not that it mattered. It was only a couple of dates, holding hands and some kissing. Maybe more than kissing depending on the situation. And if she didn’t want that, then so what? I wasn’t attracted to her anyway.
Yet... The devil inside me found her fascinating. It wanted a reaction from her, some kind of response, and I didn’t care that she wasn’t my type.
I was a predator who wanted the chase and who knew she’d put up one hell of a fight in the end.
‘Yes,’ I said, already thinking about how I could turn this to my advantage. ‘You get to call the shots.’
She gave a nod as if she’d been expecting me to okay it all along. ‘All right then. I agree to marry you. But only on the condition that whatever happens in public is directed by me.’
I waved a hand. ‘Be my guest.’
‘So what happens after the wedding?’
‘We’ll have a couple of months of blissfully happy marriage so my brothers and I can get as many investors on board as we can, and then I leave the country.’
Her hand lifted to her mouth again, and I was pretty sure it was an unconscious thing because she didn’t seem to be aware of it. ‘So, I have to live with you?’
‘Yes, you’ll stay with me at my house—don’t worry, it’s massive; you can have your own wing. You won’t even see me if you don’t want to.’
‘And then?’ She nibbled absently on the end of her nail.
Holy Christ, that mouth. I stared at the full, red shape of it. What if she had those lips wrapped around my cock instead of her own finger? Would she use her teeth? Dear God, I hoped so.
Why are you having fantasies about Vita Hamilton’s mouth?
I had no fucking idea.
‘Then, like I said, I leave the country.’ My voice sounded rough. Jesus.
She tilted her head, dark eyes on mine. ‘Why?’
I shifted, uncomfortably aware that my suit trousers were tighter than they’d been two seconds ago. ‘Why am I leaving the country? Because I am.’
‘Will you come back?’
‘No. Hence you getting the house. We’ll leave it six months, then sign the divorce papers and you’ll be free to go.’
She continued to nibble on her nail, frowning at me, as if she was working out a tricky problem in her head. ‘I won’t have to do anything I don’t want to do, right?’
‘Right.’ Though I could think of a couple of things I could convince her that she did want to do. Things involving that mouth. I was, after all, very good at convincing people.
‘Okay.’ Abruptly, she took her finger out of her mouth, much to my relief. ‘That’s all the questions I have for now.’ She reached for the small handbag she’d put down on the seat next to her, obviously getting ready to go.
Except I hadn’t finished.
We were in a nightclub and there were a lot of people around and, if I wasn’t much mistaken, a couple of columnists from the local gossip websites were propping up the bar. Which made right here, right now a prime opportunity to make our so-called relationship public. Plus, there was a small experiment I wanted to run. Just a test to...confirm something.
‘Excellent.’ I sat forward. ‘Give me your hand.’
She turned her head, giving me a wary sidelong look. ‘Why?’
‘You’re full of questions.’
