CHAPTER NINE
‘WHATTHEHELL do you mean, the Smyth-Brown board still won’t let us bid on the final share allocation?’ Jack shouted. He’d had yet another sleepless night alone in his penthouse. The truth was he’d been tying himself in knots ever since tying the damn knot with Katherine three days ago.
He wanted his new wife to come to him. Wanted her to admit how much she needed him so he could forget about the devastated look in her eyes when he’d been straight with her about what he planned to offer this child.
He hadn’t lied about that, but the sheen of sadness in her expression still managed to get to him. It made him feel guilty about something he had never promised and could not change. Which made no damn sense whatsoever.
And now this! The main reason he’d decided to go for this marriage—well, one of the main reasons anyway—was to finally get the old fossils on the Smyth-Brown board to agree to Wolfe Inc’s bid for the controlling interest of the company. The original plan—way back when he’d first proposed to Beatrice—had been to use the marriage as leverage, to make them stop looking at him as a marauding corporate raider from the wrong side of the tracks and begin to see him as a settled family man they could trust.
His motives had become considerably more confused since then, thanks to his obsession with Beatrice’s sister and the idiotic decision not to use a condom. But, if he couldn’t even get this much out of the marriage, he was going to go completely insane.
‘Jack, chill out,’ Terry Maxwell murmured, completely unperturbed by his meltdown.
Terry was his right-hand man, his fixer, his consigliere and his chief financial strategist all rolled into one. Terry didn’t do deference because he’d been in Jack’s employ since Wolfe Inc had made its first million.
It had never bothered Jack before, but his temper surged when Terry added, ‘Someone leaked the fact you’re not living with your new bride. Daniel Smyth is not the only one beginning to question the authenticity of the marriage.’
‘What?’ Jack ground out the word, so furious and frustrated, he would not be surprised if steam began to pour out of his ears. ‘Who leaked it? I want them fired immediately.’
How dared that son of a bitch question his integrity, especially with women, after what the guy had done to his mother?
But, before Jack could begin to work himself up into even more of a temper, Terry said, ‘Jack, it could be anyone—you’ve been photographed coming and going from your penthouse. Perhaps the more cogent question is why aren’t you living in Grosvenor Square with your beautiful wife?’
‘That’s none of your damn business,’ Jack shot back, but he could hear the defensiveness in his voice as he strode to the windows of his thirty-fourth-floor office and glared at the view of the Shard on the opposite bank.
It wasn’t Terry’s fault he’d got into this fix with Katherine, allowing his libido and his pride to dictate his actions.
‘Fair point,’ Terry said, still not bothered in the least by Jack’s temper tantrum. ‘But, whatever your reasons, there might be a way to quash the rumours, thus fixing the problem with the Smyth-Brown takeover, while also giving the grand opening of Wolfe Maldives next month a huge publicity boost.’
Jack broke off his contemplation of the City skyline. ‘Which is?’ he asked, not particularly liking the sympathetic smile on his advisor’s weathered face.
Terry didn’t know about the true nature of his marriage, or Katherine’s pregnancy, because Jack had kept all those details on a strictly need-to-know basis to stop any unwanted questions and ensure the smooth passage of the Smyth-Brown buyout. Or so he’d thought.
‘The resort is already fully operational. All the staff have been hired and Wolfe Resorts’ marketing division have been inviting journalists, travel bloggers and vloggers to try out the six-star experience over the last couple of weeks...’ Terry began in a measured tone. ‘But we can get rid of the media for a much better publicity coup.’
Jack turned round completely, to skewer his right-hand man. ‘Get to the point, Terry.’
‘Jack, the place is a prime honeymoon destination...’ Terry stared right back at him.
‘So?’ Jack said, but he could already see where this suggestion was leading, because the familiar pulsing in his groin that had plagued him ever since he’d confronted Katherine on the limo ride back to the house in Mayfair on their so-called wedding night had gone into overdrive.
He had every intention of seducing his wife, and soon. He certainly didn’t plan to wait much longer to settle that aspect of their relationship to his satisfaction. Especially as he knew full well her reluctance to welcome him into her bed had nothing whatsoever to do with a lack of desire. But spending any quality time with her was out. The last thing he wanted was to be subjected to another conversation like the one they’d had in the limo.
He hadn’t married her to have an actual relationship with her. That had been the whole point of contracting her to pose as his wife—which she seemed to have conveniently missed. Of course, the pregnancy complicated that somewhat. But he didn’t talk about his past, or his motives or feelings, with anyone. And certainly not with women he was sleeping with... Or intended to sleep with. Especially when they had the unique ability to blindside him with lust—the way Katherine did—and were also carrying his child.
‘Jack, don’t be deliberately obtuse,’ Terry said, looking pained now. ‘You’ve just got married. Wolfe Maldives isn’t due to open for another month. A two-week honeymoon there with your blushing bride would garner the kind of organic global media reach your PR department would have wet dreams about for years.’
No way in hell.
That was what his head shouted but, even as he opened his mouth to tell Terry to forget it, the image of Katherine in a skimpy bikini, strolling out of the lagoon’s glittering blue waters, those generous breasts bouncing enticingly as she moved, blasted out of his subconscious and sunk deep into his abdomen.
Damn.
He closed his mouth. And frowned.
As much as he hated to admit it, Terry had a point. The truth was, he didn’t give a damn about the golden PR opportunity. But the chance to have Katherine all to himself—where he could seduce her in private—held some obvious advantages. Surely he’d already done enough to disabuse her of any sentimental notions she might have had about this marriage?
‘Two weeks is too long,’ he said, his voice dropping several octaves as more images of Katherine—wet and willing in a luxury beach setting—began to galvanise his resolve. ‘I can’t afford to spend that much time away from the business.’ Which wasn’t a lie.