It had been a situation he had known couldn’t continue.
Which had left him with one solution.
Marriage…
Why not? he had reasoned once he’d got over the initial shock that he had even been considering such a move. He would never be stupid enough to fall in love, and so leave himself open to the pain and disillusionment his parents had inflicted on each other over the years of their marriage and since.
He was thirty-seven years old, he had reasoned at the time, and taking a wife, especially a beautiful and accomplished one like the international model Kenzie Miller, as well as putting her in his bed, could also be an astute business move. The fact that he wasn’t in love with Kenzie, and that he was determined never to love any woman, had never come into his calculations.
It was something he had come to regret only nine months after they were married when Kenzie had left him for a man who obviously could give her what she wanted!
For her part, Kenzie was glad this conversation was taking place over the telephone, relieved Dominick couldn’t see the pallor of her face, and the strain about her eyes and mouth created just from talking to him again.
She had taken one look at Dominick and fallen in love with him, and had been completely knocked off her feet when he had returned that interest. The two of them had been inseparable for the next few weeks, before Dominick had totally surprised her by whisking her off to Las Vegas in his private jet and marrying her.
She had felt a momentary flash of regret at the time that her parents and sisters couldn’t be at the wedding, knowing that her family would be disappointed too. She was sure her parents had always thought she would have a similar traditional white wedding, to those her two younger sisters had had when they married.
But she had been so much in love with Dominick, and had secretly longed to be his wife, that she had quickly forgotten those regrets in the wonder of having her dream come true as they had spent two weeks completely alone on the Caribbean island that he owned.
What she had failed to realize for some months after they were married was that although Dominick had asked her to marry him he didn’t actually return her love. He had only fallen in lust with her, and considered her a business asset as much as anything else.
And none of these painful memories was helping her situation now!
‘I didn’t call to talk about the divorce, Dominick,’ she told him softly.
‘No?’ he came back scathingly. ‘It’s been four months, Kenzie. Haven’t you persuaded Jerome Carlton into proposing yet?’
She flinched at his sarcasm, wondering how she could ever have fooled herself into believing this man was in love with her. But she also had no intention of getting into any sort of slanging match where Jerome Carlton was concerned; Dominick had refused to believe in her innocence four months ago where the other man was concerned, and from his tone of voice now she knew he still didn’t believe her.
‘I’m still married to you, Dominick,’ she reminded him wearily.
‘Only just,’ he reminded her tersely.
Only just, yes. Once those divorce papers had been signed and witnessed, and there was a legal recognition of their parting, maybe she might be able to once again get on with her life.
Although that idea certainly didn’t involve marrying anyone else.
How could she when she had never stopped loving Dominick?
She loved him but knew she was unable to live with him when he could never feel the same love for her. As his wife she had only ever been an ornament in his well-ordered life, an accessory.
‘I need to talk to you properly, Dominick, and I can’t do it over the telephone—’
‘You aren’t suggesting the two of us meet?’ he snapped, the derision clear in his voice now.
Kenzie sighed, feeling no more eager to see him again than he obviously was her. It would be so painful to see Dominick again and know that he never had loved, and never would love, her in the way she loved him.
But she knew Dominick’s reluctance to see her again was vastly different from her own. She represented the one failure he had had in his life. And failure, as she knew only too well, was something Dominick Masters refused to recognize.
In fact, she had been waiting the last four months for some move of retribution on his part for her ever having dared to leave him!
When it hadn’t happened she had decided that perhaps his inactivity was his retribution, with Dominick quite capable of imagining her apprehension—and relishing the fact!
‘I need to see you—to ask you—something,’ she amended carefully. Despite their situation, she ached to see him, but not the coldly distant man, the ice man, of their last meeting, the man she could tell, just from the tone of his voice, that he still was. ‘I need to—ask a favour, Dominick,’ she expanded slightly breathlessly, wincing at the admission.
‘From me?’ Dominick couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice.
He clearly remembered Kenzie assuring him, on the day she walked out of his life, that their marriage was over, and she would never ask him for anything ever again!
Except for a divorce, of course.
His mouth tightened. ‘You have a damned nerve thinking that you can just waltz back into my life after four months and ask me for anything—’
‘Dominick, please—’
‘No—you please!’ he cut in forcefully. ‘You walked out on me, Kenzie. On our marriage. Straight into the arms of another man! And now you want me to do you a favour?’
‘I did not leave you for another man!’ she came back just as strongly, knowing he didn’t believe her, that he never had, but determined never to stop claiming her innocence.
‘I happen to know differently,’ Dominick rasped.
‘You don’t know the first thing about me, Dominick.’ She sighed. ‘You never did.’
The first shock of hearing from her had passed now, her conversation such that Dominick was pretty sure this call was just a coincidence. After all, Kenzie had no idea that the sword of Damocles—a blow entirely of Dominick’s devising!—was about to drop on her lover’s head.
‘I’m not—the favour I have to ask isn’t for me, Dominick,’ she came back sharply. ‘Well…not really,’ she amended impatiently. ‘Maybe,’ she muttered uncomfortably.
‘Perhaps you had better let me be the judge of that, Kenzie,’ he decided tersely. ‘Tell me what it is you—need, from me—’ he used the word deliberately ‘—and I’ll tell you if I’m willing to give it.’
‘Not over the telephone,’ she insisted determinedly. ‘I need to explain a few things to you first, to help you understand—Dominick, could you meet me for lunch?’
His brows rose at the suggestion. Talking to her on the telephone was one thing, but actually seeing her again, being close to her long-legged beauty, was something else. ‘Today?’
‘Well, of course—’ She broke off her impatient response. ‘Yes, today,’ she resumed more reasonably. ‘If that’s possible,’ she added abruptly.
Dominick looked at the open diary on his desk-top, unnecessarily so, already knowing that he was free for lunch today.
‘I’m afraid it isn’t,’ he told Kenzie smoothly, totally ignoring the blank space in his diary. ‘But I am having dinner at Rimini’s at eight o’clock this evening, if you would care to join me there?’
Kenzie winced her dismay at the thought of having dinner with Dominick, tonight or any other time. It meant none of the informality of a crowded lunchtime restaurant