What Matters Most: The Billionaire Bargains, Book 2 (11 page)

“I expect the conversation to be stimulating.”

This was insane.
He
was insane. He was going to
pay
her to stay married to him. He hadn’t paid her to marry him in the first place. He hadn’t paid her for sex. But this was just nuts.

“If we got divorced, I’d have to pay for that,” Tony said when she didn’t respond. “What’s the difference?”

She laughed at that. Not a humor-filled laugh, of course, but an oh-my-God-what-have-I-gotten-myself-into laugh.

“I guess the difference is that most people get married for love. Because they want to make a life together. Because they can’t imagine not being together. Not because of money.”

Something flickered in Tony’s eyes, and Reese caught her breath. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him look so serious as he came toward her slowly. He stopped in front of her and crossed his arms as well.

“I’m convinced that I’m in love with you, Reese. I told you that yesterday. I told an entire church full of people that. I want to make a life with you. I think you could be very, very good for me. And, yes, I’m used to getting what I want by whatever means necessary. I want you.”

He paused, and Reese realized she hadn’t breathed in several seconds. She took a long, shaky breath. Dammit. He was insane and he threw dollars around like they were confetti on New Year’s, and he had probably never taken anything seriously in his life. But when he said he loved her and wanted her—she couldn’t deny that there was a part of her, down deep behind all the healthy skepticism, that believed him. Or wanted to believe him.

She didn’t know him. He didn’t know her. They had amazing chemistry and very little else in common.

But she wanted him too.

“A million dollars a month, huh?” she asked.

She was
not
going to let him know how much she wanted him though. How much she wanted to be important to the guy who clearly had everything. How intrigued she was by him. How there was a not-so-little part of her, the part that saved people and wanted everyone to be happy and wanted world peace, as cheesy and naïve as that sounded, that thought maybe she could, indeed, be good for Tony Steele. A guy who lived hard and fast like he did was looking for something, needed something.

Maybe he needed her.

Or maybe she just wanted more rocking I-never-knew-it-could-be-this-good sex from him.

“A million a month,” he said with a nod.

Well, maybe she would do a trial period. Like six months. That seemed reasonable.

She almost snorted at that. Nothing about any of this was reasonable. But she was as at fault for the situation as he was.

“Six-million dollars could do a lot of good,” she said out loud. It could. No question. She could fund multiple projects that were close to her heart.

She could see Tony tense.

“Twelve months a year for the next eighty years is nine hundred and sixty million, Reese.”

She got a little dizzy at that number.

“Eighty years? Good Lord, do you have a fountain of youth in your backyard next to your money tree?”

He didn’t smile.

“How about we try it for six months?” she asked.

“No.”

“Tony—”

“Married to me, you’ll have access to my money,” he said. “Your access lasts as long as the marriage does, and some of it goes with you when we divorce anyway. I’ll negotiate the amount, I’ll negotiate what the arrangement involves, but I will not negotiate a period of time. No deadlines.”

Tony Steele didn’t like deadlines. What a shock.

Still, Reese found herself biting back phrases like, I have some ideas about our
arrangement
, and, let me tell you what I’ll do for free and we can go from there. “It seems creepy, doesn’t it? Paying me to be your wife.”

“Then we’ll call it shared assets,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t care about the money, Reese.”

Clearly. Which was the basis for most of her trepidation.

“I just don’t—”

“You said yes.”

She stopped. She had? She
wanted
to say yes, but it wasn’t about the atrocious sum of money. It was all about him.

And she really wanted him to make this all make sense. She wanted it to be a no-brainer. Because her brain wasn’t helping her out much at the moment. “What?”

“You said yes when I asked you to marry me last night. Obviously. And you said I do during the ceremony.”

She had. She pressed her lips together and nodded.

“Why?” he asked simply.

But there was nothing simple about the way he was looking at her. There was a heat and intensity there that made her whole body shiver—with remembered pleasure and anticipation. Tony might be a playboy, he might be a troublemaker, he might flirt with all kinds of wicked things, but there was something about him, an underlying power that said he got things done. And he got them done the way
he
wanted them done.

And wanted her.

She just flat out could not be immune to that.

“What do you mean? Women say yes to you all the time.”

“Why, Reese?” he repeated. “What made
you
say yes last night?”

“Liquor,” she said, trying to sound flippant.

Truthfully, the liquor might have made it easier to ignore the reasons she should say no, but
he
had made her say yes last night. He was a fantasy come to life and she was only human.

He nodded. “Maybe that helped you let go of all of those voices in your head that were telling you it was rash and didn’t make sense.”

Yes, it had mostly definitely done all of that.

“But you wanted to say yes before you even took the first drink,” he said with confidence. “We both got on that plane telling ourselves that we were friends jetting to Vegas for a fun weekend in the aftermath of your wedding drama, but we also both know there was more to it.”

Finally, she nodded. “Yes. I wanted to say yes because…you’re…”

He wasn’t going to help her out. He stood watching her, waiting for her to come up with the right words. Crap.

“Fascinating,” she admitted. “I’ve been drawn to you since the first day we
actually
met.”

He grimaced slightly at that and it got him a point or two.

“I like the word fascinating,” he told her, moving in closer.

Yeah, and that had been before their crazy night on the town and amazing time between the sheets. Reese sucked in a breath as he lifted his hand to her face.

She was in trouble.

They were married. It may be stupid, but it was legal. And he was clearly not willing to let her out of it easily. She was going to have to fight if she wanted to get away from Tony Steele.

And she really didn’t want to get away from Tony Steele.

“We barely know each other,” she said softly.

“We can fix that.”

Of course they could. Just because most people knew one another first, didn’t mean they couldn’t talk about their favorite flavor of ice cream and their best birthday memory and their first heartbreaks now that they were married.

Reese looked up at him with renewed interest. He was brushing his thumb along her jawline and she was about to give in and let him take her to bed. But she said, “Have you ever had your heart broken?”

“When I saw you kiss Jeff at the club the first time. When Jeff told me you’d said yes to going out with him. When you said yes to Jeff’s proposal. When I saw you walking down the aisle of the church toward Jeff.”

She melted a little and acknowledged that Tony was good. If she didn’t want to be completely seduced by him and sucked into everything in his world, she was going to have to be very, very strong.

Plus, she did kind of want to be completely seduced. Not just sexually, but by the whole impression he was giving her that he’d never been so enchanted by another woman in his life.

Which had to be total bullshit.

“You never made a move,” she pointed out. If only he had. They could have been doing all of this months ago and Jeff wouldn’t have asked her out, or at least she wouldn’t have said yes. “You just stood back and watched everything with me and Jeff happen. I convinced myself that you weren’t interested. And Jeff made me feel special and wanted.”

Tony blew out a breath. “I didn’t expect it to get serious with Jeff. I didn’t expect that he’d actually win you over.”

It hadn’t really been that hard. In retrospect, that made her feel bad, but Jeff had been eager to please, sweet, considerate. She hadn’t had a lot of any of that in her life.

And in spite of all the reasons she was hesitant right now with Tony, she had to admit that he had been all of those things—in his own way.

She licked her lip and Tony’s gaze followed the movement intently. “I’m serious. Have you ever
not
gotten your way with a woman?”

He grinned. “Kelly Harwell. I asked her to the sweetheart dance in ninth grade and she said no.”

“Ninth grade? That was the last time?” Reese rolled her eyes.

“I decided then and there that I didn’t like that feeling,” he said. “So I decided to never ask another woman something without already knowing her answer.”

She looked into his eyes at that. “So you already knew my answer last night when you asked me to marry you?”

He nodded. “I felt it. I have incredible instincts.”

“You felt it? How?” Apparently, she was quite transparent when it came to her feelings.

“Well, let me give you some advice,” he said with a grin. “Never play poker. You’re easy to read.”

She sighed. Great.

“And then, of course, there was this.” Tony lowered his head and touched her lips with his.

And, yep, there it was. She felt it too. And it made her toes curl.

It was the unmistakable feeling of
yes
. That was the best way to describe it. The feeling was pure
rightness
.

Speaking of fantasies…
that
was not real. People didn’t really just kiss and know they were supposed to be together.

But they should
, she thought. Life would be a lot easier if you could just
know
when something was right.

Then Tony put a hand on her lower back and brought her forward as he deepened the kiss. He stroked his tongue along her bottom lip, sucked on it lightly—pulling a needy moan from her—and then boldly took possession of her mouth

In that moment, Reese didn’t care if it was right, wrong, crazy or the best decision she’d ever made

She took the front of his shirt in her two hands, pulled him close and arched against him.

His hand went from her cheek to the back of her head and he tunneled his fingers into her hair.

There was more needy moaning, from one of them. Or maybe both.

And the best part—this was how he’d kissed her last night too.

The tequila didn’t seem to have anything to do with his hunger, and heat and want shot through Reese.

She pulled his tie loose and started working on his buttons, parting the dress shirt and running her hands over his bare chest.

He walked her back to the bed, and when the back of her knees hit the mattress, he followed her down, covering her body with his.

Unable to help herself, Reese pressed up against him, grinding against the hot length of his erection. He met her pressure, rubbing just right to send electric jolts from her clit through her entire body.

And he kept kissing her.

He moved his hand over her hip, down her thigh and then up to her ribcage. He cupped her breast, flicked his thumb over her nipple, and she wanted his mouth there, now.

But he moved his hand again, sliding over her hip and thigh to the hem of her dress. It was already riding high, and he dipped underneath, finding the edge of her panties and drawing them down.

Reese happily wiggled to help him. She started to sit up to strip the rest of her dress off, but Tony lifted his head.

“I’ve been thinking about this all night.” He slipped off the edge of the mattress and knelt on the floor. He took her hips in both hands and pulled her to the end of the bed, her dress dragged along the duvet, slowly exposing everything underneath.

Oh, boy.

She was now bare from the hips down, her fancy dress bunched at her waist, and when Tony spread her knees, she could do nothing but let her head fall back and hold her breath.

Tony paused as Reese fell back on the mattress and grabbed the duvet in both hands. She was so damned gorgeous and nothing had ever been hotter than her letting him have her like this. She had doubts and questions in general, but she knew that she belonged to him, he could feel it when she melted into his arms, when she opened her lips and arms—and legs—to him. They might need to work a few things out—like every single detail of having a life together after Vegas—but there was no arguing with their connection.