could she face that hatred day after day?
She looked up at him again, shocked at how cold and ruthlessly calculating he had become. He had certainly been no angel in the past—yes, he had been strongwilled and proud and had arrogantly insisted on his own way, but he had never been cruel. But what hurt most was that it was her choice to marry Douglas that had brought about the change in him. Of course Marc would think it had been deliberate, but then, unbeknown to her, Douglas had planned it that way.
She twisted her hands, unconsciously fingering the amethyst ring on her finger, a peace offering Douglas had given her during the last months of his illness. ‘I need some time to think about this…’
Marc’s eyes flashed like fast-drawn daggers. ‘You’ve had six weeks.’
Ava blinked at the savage bite of his words. ‘You surely don’t expect me to accept this outrageous offer without some careful consideration, do you?’
His mouth was curled upwards in a sneer. ‘It didn’t take you too long to consider moving on with another man after you walked out on me. Within a month you were living with Cole as his wife.’
‘I am sure you moved on with your life just as quickly,’ she said with a fiery flash of her eyes. ‘In fact you are rarely out of the Press with a starlet on your arm.’
‘I admit I do not live the life of a monk,’ he said, ‘which brings me to another condition of mine on the arrangement.’
‘I haven’t agreed to it yet.’
‘You will.’
Ava ground her teeth at his imperious manner. ‘Let me guess,’ she said, glaring at him resentfully. ‘You want me to be faithful to you while you get to do whatever you like with whomever you like.’
His dark eyes gleamed. ‘You are well trained, I see. Perhaps your time with Cole has finally taught you how to behave.’
She tightened her lips until they went numb, anger bubbling inside her at his assumption of her as a gold-digger. It was so unfair. Why couldn’t he leave the past alone? To come to her now, after all this time, was going to achieve nothing but more heartache for her. It had broken her heart to walk away from him the first time. It had taken every bit of willpower and self-respect to do so. Living as his mistress had been so bittersweet and in the end she had chosen the bitter over the sweet. He had flatly refused to promise her anything but a short-term affair. The concept of marriage was anathema to him; now it seemed more so than ever.
Marc took an envelope out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her. ‘I have drawn up a legal document for you to sign,’ he said. ‘It states how much money I am willing to pay you to cohabit with me. By signing it you will be unable to claim support when our relationship is terminated.’
‘A prenuptial?’ she asked, frowning as her fingers took the envelope from him.
‘Without the nuptials,’ he said, his eyes diamond-hard. ‘No marriage, no children.’
Ava felt her insides twist in pain. Watching her sister go through the agony of not being able to conceive had made her acutely aware of how much she longed to have a baby of her own. To hear Marc state so implacably that he wanted no children struck at the heart of her. She was twenty-seven years old, which was still young enough not to panic, but with her younger sister’s fertility problems she couldn’t quite quell the worry that she too might not be able to conceive naturally.
‘I can assure you I would not for a moment think of bringing a child into such an arrangement as this,’ she said, turning away from Marc to put the envelope to one side.
Ava heard him move behind her and froze. She silently prayed for him not to touch her in case she betrayed herself. The skin along her bare arms crawled with anticipation of his warm, gliding hands. How many times had he embraced her from behind in the past? His hands would move slowly from her hips to her breasts, cupping her, his mouth nuzzling on the sensitive skin of her neck until she would turn in his arms and offer herself to him.
Her mind exploded with images of them together. The passion he had ignited in her was something she had never experienced before even though she had not been a virgin when they had met.
When his hands came to rest on her hips she shuddered. ‘You find my touch abhorrent, or is it that you are still hungry for it?’ he asked, his warm hint-of-mint breath skating past her ear.
If only he knew! she thought as her heart rammed against her sternum like a giant pendulum inside the body of a too small clock. ‘I told you…I…I want some time to think about this,’ she said, trying to keep her voice even.
He turned her around to face him, his eyes boring into hers. ‘You haven’t got time to think about it, cara,’ he said. ‘You have debts up to your diamond-studded ears.’ He fingered one glittering earlobe. ‘Did he buy these for you?’
Ava’s breath caught in her throat like a scrap of silk on a savage thorn. ‘Y-yes…’
His hands fell to his sides as he commanded, ‘Take them off.’
She frowned again, her stomach nosediving in alarm. ‘What?’
His mouth was bracketed by lines of steel. ‘Take them off and everything else he gave you. Now.’
Ava pressed her lips together to contain her pulsing panic. Was this really her Marc? The man she had fallen in love with so deeply and irrevocably? He was a stranger to her now, a terrifying stranger with not just revenge on his mind, but the total humiliation of her as well.
She would not give in to him.
She would not.
She tightened her hands into fists by her sides, holding his glacial glare with a feisty flash of her own. ‘No.’ Her voice came out too thready and soft, so she repeated it. ‘No. Absolutely not.’
His pupils flared, his mouth flattening even further. ‘I will give you one minute, Ava, otherwise the deal is off. Keep in mind the massive debts your husband left behind. At last count it was in the hundreds of thousands.’ He set the timer on his watch, his dark gaze holding hers challengingly. ‘Your minute starts now.’
She swallowed back her anguish, the determination in his eyes making the base of her spine rattle in fear. ‘D-don’t do this, Marc…’
A nerve flickered at the side of his mouth. ‘If you will not do it then I will do it for you,’ he warned.
Ava believed him well capable of it. Her hands began to tremble as she tried to remove the earrings, her fingers fumbling uselessly until she felt terrifyingly close to tears. She soldiered on, glaring at him bitterly, hating him with such intensity she could taste the acridity of it in her mouth. Finally she got the studs out and placed them on the coffee table to her right.
‘Now the rest,’ he said, standing with his feet apart, his arms folded across his chest in an authoritarian stance that boiled her blood.
Still glaring at him, she took each of her dress rings off and put them beside the earrings. ‘There,’ she said, arching one of her brows at him. ‘Happy now?’
His black eyes stripped her mercilessly. ‘Keep going.’
Ava’s
