The Billionaire's Marriage Bargain. Carole Mortimer

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      Which was why, she was sure, he was purposely keeping her waiting.

      Much to the interest of the other diners, not that they expressed it overtly. The face of Kenzie Miller was well known from her catwalk days, and more recently from the advertisements she appeared in on worldwide television as well as billboards and promotions in stores. Kenzie Miller, the face of Carlton Cosmetics.

      Kenzie Miller, international model, sitting on her own for the last fifteen minutes at a table set for two, obviously having been stood up by her date for the evening!

      No doubt this was Dominick’s idea of a joke, a minor vengeance for her having walked out on him, but, favour or no favour, if he didn’t turn up in the next three minutes she was walking out of here—

      He had just walked into the restaurant!

      Even if she hadn’t seen him enter Kenzie would have known of his arrival. She could feel the familiar ripple of awareness down her spine at his proximity, and the warmth of her breasts as they began to tingle, while an even hotter fire began in the pit of her stomach.

      It hadn’t gone away then, her complete physical awareness of Dominick.

      Not that she had ever thought that it would.

      It was just distressing to once again be confronted with the proof. He looked amazing, Kenzie acknowledged, in his dark tailored suit and white silk shirt. She imagined the long muscular length of his powerful body underneath, and watched his dark hair as his head moved, hair that she remembered burying her fingers in as she drew his head down to hers and…

      He wasn’t even looking her way, damn him. She watched him looking perfectly relaxed as he paused to talk to the maître d’.

      Her stomach felt as if it were churned up into knots, and she was suddenly struck by the enormity of what she was doing. But what choice did she have?

      Really?

      None.

      Dominick was walking over to their table now, acknowledging several acquaintainces along the way, seemingly completely unaware of her presence. Or that he was almost twenty minutes late!

      

      ‘I hope I haven’t kept you waiting,’ he said coolly as he took his seat opposite hers at the table, looking just as devastatingly handsome as he always had. As devastatingly handsome as she had imagined while talking to him on the telephone earlier today. ‘I was—unavoidably detained,’ he drawled.

      Dominick had seen Kenzie as soon as he’d entered the restaurant, and had been shocked how just looking at her could still render him momentarily speechless. His mouth had gone dry, and he had deliberately paused to talk to the maître d’ in order to give himself time to get over his initial response.

      Kenzie looked beautiful this evening. Stunningly so, with her long dark hair loose down her spine, the figure-hugging green strapless dress she wore revealing bare satin shoulders and the creamy swell of her breasts. The dress was an exact match in colour for the emerald of her eyes, eyes surrounded by the darkest, longest lashes Dominick had ever seen, and her full lips held the promise of a passion he had come to know intimately.

      But Kenzie wasn’t just beautiful; she had something else, a grace, an inborn sensuality that was apparent even in stillness, like now.

      The first time he had looked at her he had felt as if someone had punched him in the solar plexus. Today, under totally different circumstances, he felt the same painful blow as he studied her beneath hooded lids.

      None of that emotion showed in the harsh arrogance of his face as he looked across at her. ‘You’re looking well, Kenzie,’ he told her distantly as he nodded his thanks to the wine waiter who was pouring two glasses of the wine Dominick always ordered when dining here. ‘Obviously taking a lover suits you,’ he added harshly.

      ‘Letting your overactive imagination run away with you again, Dominick?’ she bit out tartly, firmly pushing away her awareness of him as she tossed the long length of her hair back over her bare shoulders to meet his gaze firmly.

      She had dressed carefully for their meeting this evening, choosing to wear her hair down the way she knew Dominick preferred it, and a clinging green dress that showed off the perfection of her figure.

      She was going to need every weapon she could find to withstand the scorn Dominick now felt for her, and she had decided that she wouldn’t try to detract from the beauty of the face and figure with which she had made her fortune, but emphasize them instead. If only to show Dominick what he had given up when he had chosen to let her walk away rather than sitting down with her and sorting out their differences.

      But the coldness of his dark gaze, as it moved slowly from the top of her head to the slenderness of her waist, didn’t show any regret for that loss!

      Twenty-seven and a successful model for the last eight years, she never had been able to withstand the coldly analytical gaze that gave away none of Dominick’s thoughts or emotions.

      If he had any emotions.

      Besides physical desire, that was.

      She had certainly never seen love shining in those dark depths, not for her or anyone else.

      ‘I prefer not to imagine anything where you and Jerome Carlton are concerned,’ he snapped now as he picked up his glass to take a sip of his white wine. ‘I was merely stating that the demise of our marriage doesn’t seem to have affected your beauty!’

      ‘Oh, let’s be precise,’ Kenzie muttered with inward resentment for his cool control. If Dominick had seen her a month ago as she had sat for hours by her father’s bedside at the hospital, just willing him to live, then he would have seen that she didn’t always look beautiful, that sometimes she just looked emotionally distraught.

      ‘Fine,’ she dismissed tersely. ‘If I could just explain to you why I need to talk to you—’

      ‘I would like to order my food first, if that’s okay?’ he cut in with smooth determination, his tone of voice telling her it wasn’t a question at all but a statement of intent.

      He might have left her with no choice but to agree to meet him here at the restaurant, but she really didn’t think she could actually eat anything. Seeing him again, realizing she still loved him as much as she ever had, and knowing there was no return of love for her in his cold, unemotional gaze, was tearing her apart.

      She swallowed hard. ‘Go ahead. I won’t, if you don’t mind.’ She closed the menu she had been given without even looking at it, her dark lashes sweeping low over the paleness of her cheeks.

      Dominick studied her silently for several seconds, knowing Kenzie had never been one of those models that had to starve herself to stay thin, that her slenderness was as natural as her beauty.

      He reached out to cup her chin in his hand and lift her face so that, unless she actually closed her lids completely, her gaze had to meet his.

      She had become more adept at hiding her emotions in the last four months, he realized as she easily withstood his searching look.

      Yet СКАЧАТЬ