The Convenient Wife (A BWWM Steamy Marriage of Convenience Romance) (11 page)

I turned toward her one last time,
my fists clenched so hard that I could swear blood was seeming from little
crescent cuts in my palms.

“I’m nothing like you.”

I jogged up behind Gigi, her shoes
in her hand as she made her way back toward the courthouse. Her hands were
balled into fists at her sides as she walked, shoulders tight with her pent up
anger over the shit show of a dinner.

“Go away, Dorian,” she said as I
came up alongside her.

“Gigi, where’re you going?”

She snorted at me. “Home. Where else
would I be going after that?”

“Do you know where home is?” I
asked.

“Of course I do,
I’ve lived there for—”

“Not
your
home,” I said, “our home.”

She stopped and turned on me. “You
can’t be serious. You can’t actually think I’d ever consider a place with you
home.
Not after that fun little
experience…”

I grabbed her hands before she could
finish, enclosing them in my palms. “Gigi, I am an idiot, and I’m sorry about
my mother. We have this… toxic relationship, and I’ve let it cloud my judgment
for too many years.”

“I’ll say,” she muttered and looked
away. I let go with one of my hands to turn her face back toward mine, staring
deep into her eyes.

“I was an ass for letting her join
us. I just thought maybe I could get her on our side… From the bottom of my
heart, I want you to know how deeply, truly sorry I am.” I took a deep breath.
“And I can understand if you don’t want to come home with me. But it is
our
home now, and per our contract…”

“I know,” she said, pulling away
from me. “I get it. Just another part of the job.”

I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t.
I wanted to explain that even if she had to come home for the sake of
appearances, she didn’t have to talk to me for the rest of the night. Or
forever, if she didn’t want to. I’d understand.

But I couldn’t expose myself like
that. Not out here in front of all these people. So I put my arm around her and
led her back toward the parking garage.

“Come on. You can follow me in your
car and you can pick out where you want to sleep. I have no shortage of rooms.”

The drive over to Dorian’s penthouse
gave me plenty of time to think over this crazy situation I’d gotten myself
into. How had I actually thought that a scheme like this would work? Nobody was
going to understand how I felt. Everyone was going to see this as a marriage
for money. I looked like a first-rate gold-digger, but with none of the class,
and Dorian couldn’t even muster up a response to the ‘do you love her’
question.

This
was such a mistake
, I
thought, clutching the steering wheel as I followed Dorian down into the
underground parking garage beneath his building. How could I let myself get
talked into this backwards relationship?
I
feel like such an idiot
.

My insides were tying themselves
into knots as I parked beside Dorian’s BMW, cutting the engine so that only the
sounds of my own breathing and heartbeat filled my ears. I closed my eyes,
hands still clasping the wheel as I leaned forward. I tried so hard not to cry,
to not let the feelings I’d held inside for so long come bursting out like a
shaken-up soda can. I thought I was going to explode.

A
tap-tap-tap
resounded against the driver’s side window, jolting me
from my silent breakdown and back into the horror of reality.

I looked up to see Dorian standing
there, his eyebrows knitted together and marring his otherwise charming
features. I tried to give him some kind of reassuring smile, but the only thing
that I managed to offer was a pained grimace.

I sighed and opened my car door,
stepping out into the cool air of the parking garage. I didn’t speak as I shut
the door behind me, instead heading toward the elevator without affording
Dorian another glance. I wasn’t sure whether I could handle looking at him
after the things he’d said that night.

“Gigi,” he called after me, coming
up alongside as I made it to the elevator.

“What?” I asked, pressing the
knuckle of my forefinger against the “up” button a few times. I knew it
wouldn’t help speed things along, but the act of forcing my will on something
gave me some infinitesimal amount of release.

“Tonight was supposed to be
different.”

I swallowed, trying to work past the
lump in my throat, my eyes burning with held back tears. I wasn’t sure how, but
his words just seemed to make me feel worse. Of course it was supposed to be
different. You’re not supposed to get married to some rich guy to pay off your
student loans, even if you do like him... You’re supposed to get married for
love. True love.

“It’s not like I haven’t heard it
before, Dorian,” I said, my voice strangled and tight. “I’m always someone’s
embarrassment.”

I couldn’t hold it back any longer,
closing my eyes as a stream of tears began to flow. I tried to breathe through
it, to keep myself under control, but my feeble attempts at calm only turned
into loud, ugly sobs.

“It’s always the same… I’m never the
one that people love. I’m just the person who’s most convenient.”

The elevator opened and the two of
us went inside. Dorian hit the button for the top floor as I tried to put as
much distance between us as possible.

“That’s not true,” Dorian said, trying
to move in to hold me. I pushed him away and he frowned deeper. “I don’t—”

“It’s the whole reason you chose me,
Dorian!” I shouted, tears running down along the line of my jaw, dripping down onto
my feet. “You had a problem, and I was
on
hand,
ready to be used. You’ve never had to plan ahead in your entire life.
This was never about anything more than money for you—an easy way for you to
get your inheritance without having to actually put any effort into caring
about someone. And I went along with it, not because I wanted to, but because I
had to. Because all my life I’ve been beaten down for doing the right thing. I
just wanted to take one little shortcut for a change, and this is what I get
for it.”

“That isn’t fair,” Dorian said, his
own voice tightening. “No matter how this started, I
do
have feelings for you, Gigi. I trust you, and every time I see
you, my heart beats a little faster. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be having this
conversation right now.”

“Or you just don’t want your little
marriage plan to fall apart. Maybe you mother’s right, Dorian,” I mumbled. “Maybe
this
won’t
work.”

Part of me wanted to accept that and
move on. But another, stronger part of me wanted Dorian to object, to tell me I
was wrong. To fight for me like nobody else ever had. His silence only made the
tears flow faster.

The elevator door opened onto a
luxurious entryway, marble tile stretching out through a pair of double doors
to my left into an equally opulent foyer. My heart stopped beating for a moment
as I stepped out of the lift and into the gorgeous penthouse that I would be
sharing with Dorian for the foreseeable future.

“Listen,” Dorian said, gently
turning me toward him, taking advantage at my dumbstruck state at the sight of
his home. “I get it. You have every right to be angry with me for it.
But I mean it with every bit of my
being when I tell you, Georgia Lynn Devereaux, that you are in no way an
embarrassment to my family—to anyone. Least of all to me. Maybe it’s fate that
put us together, maybe it’s just dumb luck, but I feel something and I know you
feel it too. There are dozens of women who would stab each other in the back to
take your place, but I didn’t want them. I wanted something real. I don’t know
if
we
will work. All I’m asking for is
the chance to find out.”

I took a few deep breaths, looking
up into Dorian’s eyes as he spoke. It felt good to finally hear those words
after so many years of doubting my own importance and worth. I felt a weight
lift off of my chest as I forced a smile onto my lips.

“But what are we going to do about
your mother?” I asked, wiping at another stray tear. “She’s not going to just
sit back and take this.”

“I was hoping she wouldn’t realize
what I’d done until we had a chance to spend some time together… Look, we’ll
deal with her when the time comes,” Dorian said, rubbing my arms. “You just
have to remember that the only reason that she’s doing all of this is because
she feels threatened by you—by
us
.”

I blinked. A billionaire matriarch,
threatened by
me?
It was absurd. “You
really think so?”

Dorian nodded. “She’s afraid of what
will happen if this
does
work out and
I’m actually happy. My mother is a complete narcissist, and if anything happens
that isn’t about her, then she flies into a rage and has to break whatever is
making anyone else happy.”

“How in the world did you survive
growing up with her around?” I asked, the thought of a parent who practically
hated their kids bringing bile to my throat. Despite my father’s faults, I was
grateful that he at least cared for me.

“She wasn’t around… not for the
important parts of my life, anyway,” he said, running a hand through his
gorgeous hair. “I was raised by nannies and my father. He and I spent more time
together than my mother and I ever did.”

“I can’t even imagine growing up like
that,” I said, reaching over to gently touch Dorian’s arm. “My mother and I
were really close, and the thought of her not being around for me just… I can’t
even describe how awful that would be.”

“I felt that way about my dad.”

I looked up into Dorian’s eyes
again, a gentle warmth growing right in the center of my chest the longer I
stared up into them. It felt so strange, almost like I was vibrating the longer
the two of us gazed into one another’s eyes.

“So how many bedrooms does this
place have?” I asked, averting my gaze as I felt my heart begin to flutter. I’d
always thought that Dorian was attractive, but the more the day had progressed,
the more I’d actually come to realize just how attracted
to
him I was becoming.
Sure, he came off as some spoiled brat from the ivory towers
of the one-percent, but as we spent time with one another, I couldn’t shake
that little feeling in the back of my mind.

And that wedding… Okay, maybe it was
a sham. Maybe it happened in a courthouse and I hadn’t gotten everything I’d
ever hoped for, or even a smidgen of it. But Dorian had tried to make it
special for me, at least. In his own way.

And that kiss. Oh, God, that kiss…
It was almost enough to make me forgive the last few hours.

“Five bedrooms—each with its own
bathroom,” he said, stealing me from my reverie with a smile he lead me through
the foyer and into an enormous open area that comprised the living room,
kitchen, and dining room. The opposite wall was just a long set of floor-to-ceiling
windows with two sliding glass doors at either end of the room leading out onto
a covered balcony.

“Oh my God,” I whispered, dropping my
purse to the floor as I turned my head to take in the size of it all. “My
entire apartment could fit in here…
twice!”

Dorian chuckled, rubbing the back of
his neck. He looked a little embarrassed. I liked that pink tinge to his cheeks
just then. Really brought out his dimples.

“Yeah, it’s pretty big,” he said,
leading me in to the living room, “but usually it’s empty. I don’t like to
throw any parties here… it lets me have my own space to relax and unwind.”

“So, how many other women have been
here?” I asked, eyebrows raised.

He shot me a quick glance in return.
“Not many.”

“Good answer, but I don’t believe
you,” I said, biting shyly down on my lip as I stepped a little closer.
His lips look so soft
, I thought,
glancing over them before I locked my eyes back onto his.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m
contractually obligated to be a one woman man. Remember?”

He licked his lips as I came closer,
sliding his arms around my waist. He drew me in and I felt his fingers brushing
up along my sides. A shudder ran through me, gooseflesh covering my arms as he
leaned in closer to me.

What
the hell are we doing?
I wondered through the haze clouding my mind.
Our marriage isn’t real. Everything about is us manufactured. We could
take our time...

Again, my thoughts returned to our
courthouse kiss and the discussion we’d had in the dressing room. My face
flushed and I felt a pulse down low. Okay, so maybe there was a spark. But was
it enough to ignite a flame?

I kind of wanted to find out. And
looking into his eyes, I got the impression I wasn’t the only one.

I looked at those soft lips and
closed the distance between us, pressing my mouth tenderly against his. I slid
my hands along his sides and around his back, pulling him deeper still into the
kiss. Behind my eyelids I could see fireworks flashing, exploding in a night
sky to the sounds of an orchestra, a jubilation of sensations all assaulting my
mind at once.

And just as quickly as it began, it
was gone as both of us pulled away, an aching need replacing the gentle warmth
that had filled my chest. Something inside of my thrummed with a desperate
desire that I knew could only be filled by the man in my arms.

There was comfort there, too, and
something that ran a hell of a lot deeper than lust. It was scary. Crazy. Could
a man like Dorian Lambert actually want me—
need
me? One thing was certain: I damn sure needed him. Right now.