Page 38 of Meeting the Billionaire Boss

The lawyer has a marriage contract drafted because he’s known since Grandpa passed away that it might be required. Now we need to firm up some things and I want to make sure that everything is as advantageous as possible for Ava. To be fair, when I first discussed the possibility of me marrying just to fulfil the inheritance clause with our lawyer, I thought I’d marry someone as a purely business transaction. I couldn’t imagine ever caring for another woman like I cared for Lucille. But this is Ava, for crying out loud, and I’m already in too deep for comfort.

I’ll be in the city for a few days because I have some business meetings too, and it’s probably a good thing. I need some space from Ava before I do something I’ll regret that will confuse the hell out of the two of us.

Never before has a business deal been so close to becoming personal. Never before have I wanted to mix business with pleasure.

What the fuck am I going to do?

Chapter40

Ava

Edward doesn’t come home for ten days.

Ten days!

If it wasn’t for the engagement ring that must weigh at least a pound, I’d wonder if it had happened at all. I’m kept busy in that time by Joe, as well as by Polly and Jeff. It’s like they can sense that I’m at a loss and so they encourage me to eat with them in the evenings, to bake with Joe, and Polly even takes me grocery shopping a few times to get me out of the house. They really are like adoptive parents looking out for my welfare and I’m grateful to them for their kindness. Edward does see Joe though, he takes him out for dinner several times after school then Jeff brings Joe home while Edward returns to the city. But I don’t see him and it’s hard.

I do get two text messages from Edward informing me that he’s with the lawyer working out some aspects of the contract and to check that I’m happy with some of the things he’s prepared to offer me should we, at some point in the future, decide to divorce. It’s shitty to be thinking about divorce when we’re not even married yet, but then I remind myself that Edward is an incredibly rich man, and he needs to protect his wealth as well as his son. Whatever happens, it sounds like I’m going to do very well out of this. At least financially and materially, that is. As for my heart, I’m not sure that it’s built for this kind of transaction.

Joe is at school and I’m putting some of his toys away in his room when I hear voices. I go to the landing and peer over the banister and my heart skips a beat because there he is. Handsome as always. My fake fiancé.

As if sensing me there, he looks up and when our eyes meet, I gasp. I’ve missed him so much that the ache for him has been physical and it’s only now that I can admit it to myself.

‘See you later, Jeff.’ Edward says then he turns to the stairs and climbs them two at a time.

He approaches me slowly, as if worried he’ll scare me away and I gulp. There’s something in his eyes and I don’t know what it is, but it makes my legs shaky and my heart pound.

‘Ava,’ he says when he stops near me. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes. Why?’

He glances at the hallway below. ‘I heard that you were… out of sorts.’

‘Who—’ I don’t finish my question because I know it would have been Polly or Jeff who told him.

‘I’ve got the contract with me. I want you to look over it before it’s finalised and make sure that you’re happy with it.’

Hunger!

That’s what it is. In his eyes. He’s hungry.

‘OK.’ I grip the banister and he glances at my hand.

‘You’re not OK, are you?’

I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t understand what’s happening to me.’

He closes the space between us and pulls me against his chest. He holds me so tight I can barely breathe but I hold him too. Needing him. Wanting him. Wishing things were different.

Then he lifts me in his arms and carries me to my room, pushes the door closed with his foot and lays me down on the bed. I open my mouth to speak but he shakes his head. He reaches for the button of my jeans and undoes it then the zip and next thing I know I’m naked from the waist down. I’ve only even been naked with one man before, a colleague I worked with at the hotel, and it didn’t feel like this. It was awkward, embarrassing, forced. I did it out of curiosity and it was disappointing, nothing like the sex I’d read about. Being exposed to Edward though fills me with yearnings I can’t even articulate.

‘I want to taste you,’ he says, holding me captive with his eyes. ‘I want to make you come hard then drink you.’

Words have deserted me.

He takes my ankles and pulls me to the edge of the bed then he kneels between my legs. When he blows gently on my exposed skin, I moan. This is wrong, I know it’s wrong, and yet I can’t find the words to stop it.

I want it. I want him. He wants me too.

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