Bartered Proposal: The Billionaire's Wife, Part 1

Ava Lore

Copyright 2012 Ava Lore

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This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons either living or dead is purely coincidental.

Bartered Proposal: The Billionaire's Wife

by

Ava Lore

Part 1

“I'm coming, I'm coming!” I yelled, wiping the last bit of clay from my hands as I stalked to the door. Someone outside was being awfully OCD with my doorknocker, and if they kept it up Mrs. Andersen from next door was going to leave another passive-agressive note shoved in the doorjamb, bringing the total this month to seven. And it was only the fifteenth.

Exasperated, I ripped the door open. “What?” I snapped automatically. Then my breath caught.

Jonathan Dare, founder of the multimillion dollar venture capital firm of Onyx Capital, and my biological and nominal father, stood in the hallway.

“Felicia,” he said.

I slammed the door in his face.

That was my first mistake. What I should have done was beat him to death with the expired fire extinguisher sitting across the hall—an apparently permanent fixture that had been there since I moved in almost a year ago—but hindsight is twenty-twenty. Instead of committing patricide I very calmly began to root around in my tiny apartment for my phone while my father hammered on my doorknocker. I finally found it on top of a pile of library books that had been due during the last presidential administration. They had been serving time as the bedside table next to my futon. As a starving artist, I had to go with whatever worked.

I switched on my phone and called my therapist.

My father shifted to using his fist on the door. “Felicia? Felicia, please!”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” I muttered as I listened to the phone ring. My heart soared at the click on the other end, then plummeted when the canned voice of my therapist informed me that she wasn't in right now, but that blah blah blah she was very sorry, blah blah, strove to serve her blah, leave your blah and blah blah and she would blah blah blah blah, beep.

“Shit!” I hissed, and only an intense consciousness of exactly what the damn phone was worth kept me from throwing it at the wall.

“Felicia, I need to talk to you!” In fine New York tradition, my father's voice was barely muffled by the flimsy piece of wood between us.

“Go away!” I hollered, stomping back to my sculpture. I looked at it helplessly. I suddenly couldn't remember what I was supposed to be making. Desperately I milled about, gathering materials, rearranging them and thinking, manically, that it was about time I reorganized my workspace. Anything, anything to keep my mind off the fact that my shithead of a father stood outside my apartment. I hadn't seen him in almost four years. In fact, I had barely seen him at all when I was growing up. Once when I was seven he mistook me for the head housekeeper's niece. That's how great a father he was.

“Felicia...”

My jaw clenched. “Fuck off! I don't want to talk to you!”

“Felicia, it's your mother!”

I froze in the act of rearranging some of my self-designed tools.

Mom.

Was she okay? I had just talked to her two days ago. She had been fine then.

I chewed the inside of my cheek.

A lot can happen in two days, I thought.

I shouldn't have opened the door. I knew better. My therapist, whose advice I could both ill-afford and ill-afford to disregard, had taught me all about setting boundaries with my family. Preferably, she had said, an official international boundary. But I hadn't listened, had I? And now my father was here. Talking about Mom.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the door. My father started, pausing in mid-pound.

“What about Mom?” I demanded.

Relief flickered over his face. “We need to talk,” he said.

“We can talk here,” I told him. “And you can make it quick.” It was the sort of decisive, ruthless command that would have made him proud of me, once upon a time.

Instead, to my utter horror, he burst into tears.

I stared at him. I had never, ever seen my father cry. In fact, if you had asked me five minutes earlier if he were capable of it, I would have told you that reptiles couldn't produce tears.

I stood in the doorway, wavering, my heart in turmoil. He was a shitbag, sure, but he was my shitbag father. And he didn't look so hot, now that I had time to study him. His hair, usually so meticulously combed, was in disarray, and his stupidly expensive Italian suit was wrinkled as though he had slept in it. It looked too big on him, too, and I was shocked to realize that he had lost weight. Jonathan Dare had always been a robust man, a college football star gone slightly to seed. Now he looked like a man wearing my father's skin, draped over a bony frame I didn't recognize.

Glancing back over my shoulder at my unfinished work, I hesitated.

My father saw my moment of weakness. Another mistake. He pounced.

“Felicia, please. We have to talk.”

I was going to regret this. I knew it.

Nevertheless, I found myself giving in to him, like I always did. Because I wanted him to love me. Because I needed his approval. Apparently knowing this wasn't enough to fight it.

“Fine,” I said. I grabbed my keys and purse from beside the door, and stepped outside. “Let's get this over with.”

*

I took him to the local coffee chain, which I hated, but I didn't dare take him to Rick's or Shade's Cafe. I didn't want his presence to taint the places I actually liked.

“Okay,” I said as we sat down across from each other at dark wooden tables carefully designed to look intimate and indie. “What's going on?”

He stared down at the cup in his hands, and I tried not to do the same. I'd noticed the significance of his order the second he'd placed it: smallest size, black coffee. The cheapest thing on the menu besides water.

My father never ordered the cheapest thing on the menu. He always said that looking poor invited being poor. That little cup of coffee between us on the table sent alarm bells clanging in my head, even more so than his tears. He could have been crying just to manipulate me, but appearing poor?

Something was definitely very wrong.

“Felicia, I need your help,” he blurted suddenly. “Everything's gone all wrong, and I can't fix it. I need you, you're the only one who can do it. Please, Felicia.”

Oh my god. I stood up. “You said this was about mom,” I snapped. “I'm leaving.”

“She's sick.”

Perhaps, I thought, sitting down was a better idea.

I sat. I blinked. “What?” I said, stupidly.

Tears brimmed in his eyes again, and I could have almost sworn they were real. But why would my father cry over the woman he had married? As far as I could tell, he'd never given a second thought to her after the ink on the marriage certificate was dry.

“She has cancer,” he said, and the words came out in a sob.

I felt cold. Looking down at my hands, I flexed my fingers, trying to warm them up. “What do you mean, she has cancer?” It was a stupid question. But I'd just talked to mom two days ago. Why had my father flown all the way out here to tell me she was sick? Why couldn't she have told me in a phone call? Surely she was already in treatment.

None of this felt right.

My father shook his head and mopped at his eyes with a napkin. “We found out a week ago,” he was saying, “but we couldn't start chemo.”

My mouth went dry. “Why not?”

He brought his hands to his face, and I was shocked to see them covered in liver-spots, wrinkled and papery. They were the hands of an old man.

“I'm ruined,” he said.

My mouth dropped open. “What do you mean, ruined?”

He shook his head, unable to speak, and took a few deep breaths. “There's no money left,” he said finally. “It's... it's gone.”

I pressed my lips together. “It's gone?” I couldn't believe it. My father was richer than King fucking Midas. How did that kind of money just... disappear? “How the hell did you manage that? You don't have the houses? The cars? All the artwork?”

“It's all leveraged. Everything. I owe it all.”

Shock numbed me. “You... is this about the company, or you?”

“Both.”

“You crossed the streams?” How was that even possible? The corporation should have had enough equity and assets to fund any venture, no matter how stupid.

“It was private. I wanted to start up a new company on my own. But it didn't work. And the company... well, financial empire building isn't what it once was. We're broke. I'm broke.”

I sat there in silence. Across the coffee shop someone burst into laughter and the noise grated against my nerves.

“Are you on drugs?” I finally said. “What on earth made you do those things?”

He finally lowered his hands, but he didn't look at me. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe I was.”

Holy shit, I thought. “How much do you owe?”

He told me. The number he quoted was so huge that even if I grabbed a plane and sacks full of dollar bills and spent a month dumping money into the Pacific, I wouldn't have come close to making a dent in what he'd wasted.

I sat and stared at him some more. “Are you for real? Jesus Christ, meth-heads are better at money than you. What the hell is wrong with you?”

He just shook his head and I realized that was all I was going to get out of him.

I leaned back, reeling. “Why don't you guys declare bankruptcy?”

“Because... it's my life, Felicia.” I flinched at my name. “I can still fix it, I just need enough capital. And I could cook some books and get it, but...” He trailed off. “Your mother should have started chemo last week. But I can't afford it. Every bill is past due, my credit is tapped out, and I dropped the insurance a few months ago to free up some money...”

This couldn't be real. No one could have been this stupid.

“So it's just pride that's keeping you from saving mom.” I stared at him, cold with fury. If he wanted to ruin his own life, well, he was welcome to it, but to drag mom down with him... I couldn't stand it.

“No,” he said, and he finally looked up at me. “No, I have a plan. I have a backer. Someone who believes in my vision. I can get it done, but I need his help. And... there's a condition.”

I had an oddly clear premonition. “This is one of those Indecent Proposal things, isn't it?” I said. My voice was too loud. Heads turned in our direction. “Holy shit. I'm your daughter.”

“No!” he said, his face flushing, his eyes darting this way and that. “No, it's not like that.”

“What, I have to sleep with him and he'll give you a million dollars and I'll see diddly? Is that it?”

“No! It's...” He turned to his omnipresent briefcase, popped it open, and pulled out a contract as thick as a paperback book. He extended it to me, but when I just stared at him, he set it on the table between us.

“It's a marriage proposal,” he said.

I started to laugh. “Oh my god. Oh my god. You were always such a humorless dick, I thought you were serious there for a while!” It still wasn't very funny—joking around about cancer was a seriously shit thing to do—but the relief I felt was so welcome that I felt I could forgive it. After all, if all his sins had been as relatively innocent as a joke about cancer he would have practically been a shoo-in for heaven instead of the soulless earth-bound lich he was.

“It's not a joke,” he said quietly.

I stopped laughing.

“Who's this backer?” I said. Visions of his usual colleagues danced through my head. Getting married to one of the corporate aristocracy was probably on my bucket list somewhere between eat bucket of toenails and break own kneecaps with ball-peen hammer.

He took a deep breath. “Anton Waters.”

My eyebrows lifted so far they were in danger of wandering into my hair.

“The Anton Waters?” It was too absurd to be real.

I looked at the contract in front of me, and sure enough, there was his name. Anton K. Waters. A man I'd only read about in magazines and heard about on tv and in idle gossip in online forums. The ruthless, powerful, and boringly attractive lord of Empire Capital, one of the biggest corporations in existence. He'd risen to prominence from nowhere over the short course of ten years until he was on the top of the heap, leaving the bodies of competitors and colleagues alike in his wake. Anyone who got in his way was disposed of without ceremony or even, it was said, emotion.

Or so I'd heard. And I'd heard a lot. Lately no one could shut the hell up about him for more than five seconds. He'd been on all the major magazine covers, sometimes twice, and even in my relatively television-free existence every other news report I'd happened to catch seemed to mention him in some way.

And here was a marriage contract, like something out of the nineteenth century, staring at me. With his name on it.

What's the catch? I wondered. Because there had to be a catch. There was no way a guy like Anton Waters needed an arranged marriage to get him hitched. He made money and fucked bitches. Probably. That's what young, powerful, rich, handsome men did. My father had been one, once.

And look where it got him.

And mom, a little voice whispered. Look where mom is now.

I licked my lips. “What's in this contract?” I said.

“You'll want a lawyer to go over it with you,” he said, “but it's like a prenup.”

A prenup. Right. “And what business does Anton Waters have asking for an arranged marriage?”

My father looked away. “I don't know. He said his reasons were his own. You don't have to sign it. You can walk away. It's merely a condition for his backing.” Walk away and leave your mother to die. The implication hung in the air between us.

“He's going to pull your ass out of the fire and all he wants is to get married sight unseen to a woman he's never met before?” I asked him. Saying it out loud somehow made it sound even worse than it was.

A ghost of a smile flitted across his face. “Well, that, ninety-five percent of the profits, directional control of the venture—”

I held up a hand. “Stop. I don't care.” I reached out and gave the contract a tentative nudge, wondering if it were rigged to explode. It probably was, in a way. I was going to have to find a good lawyer. And not just a good lawyer, but a lawyer a lawyer unscrupulous enough to take part in essentially selling me off to be married like a piece of property.

Haha. Good one. I could just run down to the state bar office and throw a rock, probably.

I took a deep breath. The contract in front of me gave me the impression of a great weight, as though it had it's own gravitational pull, one strong enough to derail my entire life.

“What does mom think about this?” I asked quietly.

My father looked down at his hands. He fiddled with his fingers, pulling and kneading.

“She doesn't know, does she?” I knew it. And she hadn't told me when I'd talked with her two days ago because she didn't want me to worry.

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“He wants to meet with you first,” my father said. “He said you should drop by any time you like. His door is always open to you. He wants to make sure you will... meet his needs in a wife.”

Meet his needs? Christ, that sounded ominous. A cold fist closed around my stomach and squeezed.

“This is completely ridiculous,” I said. “You know that, right?”

My father didn't answer.

I picked up the contract and stuffed it into my messenger bag. “I'll go talk to him,” I said. And give him a piece of my mind while I'm at it.

The look of naked relief on my father's face made me want to punch him. He'd destroyed my mother's life without a thought, and now he wanted me to destroy my own by letting him use me as a pawn.

Well. I loved my mother, but I wasn't her. I stood up and walked out of the coffee shop, not even saying goodbye to my father. I was the master of my own fate. I wouldn't let some man control me, and if Anton Waters thought he could buy someone's hand in marriage in this day and age, he had another think coming.

*

Empire Capital, like most of its sister companies—each fairly interchangeable and all with thrusting, dominating names clearly compensating for something—stood on Wall Street. It looked like a mausoleum on the outside, so I was surprised when I entered the mezzanine to find the insides gutted and remodeled in an ultra-nouveau post-modern style. On the one hand, I could appreciate the fine, smooth lines of a well-designed space, but it made me angry that someone had been paid handsomely to minimize the character of the building while I, struggling alone in my art studio, strove to put character into the world. It was clinical. And also I liked old buildings.

Anton Waters, I decided then and there, was a jerk.

I strode up to the front desk, sleek and cleverly fashioned and utterly alone in the center of the dark gray slate floor. The receptionist behind it tapped away on a thin white keyboard and stared at a thin white monitor. She wore the tiniest of bluetooth headsets. Also white. Naturally.

She didn't even look up at me for a full minute. It figured. I was dressed like... well, like a boho hobo who had just crawled out of her weed den. Streaks of dried clay marred my work clothes, cracking and crumbling. Even as I stood there, not moving, tiny flecks flaked away and floated to the immaculate floor.

Good. I wasn't going to be the perfect little wife Mr. Waters probably wanted, and I was happy to show it in whatever way I could.

Finally the receptionist deigned to glance at me. Her perfect nose wrinkled. The clothes she wore probably would have paid for a month's rent.

“May I help you?” she said.

This was going to be fun. “Yeah,” I said. “I'm here to speak to Anton Waters. He's expecting me,” I added, hoping this would help my case. It didn't.

She blinked politely, and I felt a tiny bit bad. She probably thought I was a crazy person who had refused to take her meds. I kept a close eye on her hands in case she had a secret panic button concealed under the lip of her desk. “Is he?” she said. “May I ask who is calling?”

“Felicia Dare.”

At the sound of my name her entire demeanor changed.

“Oh!” Her pretty eyes grew wide. “Of course, Ms. Dare. I'll call up and let them know you're here.”

So he was expecting me. That was... unexpected. Frankly, in my experience, powerful rich men made their own schedules and everyone else had to keep up with them. That I wasn't going to be kept waiting was... nice. “Er... thanks,” I said. I glanced around for a place to sit down while she hurriedly punched numbers into the sleek numberpad sitting next to her computer.

“Yes, Felicia Dare is here to see Mr. Waters,” she said. Someone burbled at the other end of the line. “Yes, thank you,” she replied, and hung up. She flashed me a huge smile. “He'll be waiting for you. Top floor, of course.”

“Thanks,” I said again, feeling lame. I skirted the desk and the now-beaming receptionist and made my way to the corridor of imposing elevator doors. They looked like something out of some old sci-fi silent film. One of the creepy dystopian ones. I pressed the button for the doors that led straight to the top, and they opened immediately. I stepped inside. They shut behind me, and the bottom dropped out of my stomach as it shot up.

Now that I was inside the elevator and clearly on my way to actually see Anton Waters, my nerves began to fail me. What was I thinking? What was I doing? I should have ripped up that contract and thrown it back in my father's face and not even bothered to come here. I could take out a line of credit to pay for Mom's treatments. Couldn't I? Like everyone else and their dog applied for credit cards and ran up crazy massive debt. I could do that too! And then I could declare bankruptcy! Everyone wins!

Yes. That was what I would do. I'd yell at the billionaire for a bit, and then turn around, go back to my apartment, and drive myself into financial ruin. Hey, it worked for my father.

No sooner had I reached this conclusion than the elevator came to a heart-stuttering stop, and the doors opened wide.

The top of Anton Waters's personal financial behemoth resembled the bottom only in that they were both huge spaces. Where the bottom floor had been all brushed steel and dark gray slate, the top floor of the building was laid in white marble and gold. Everything, from the white marble floor to the delicious dark brown leather furniture to the rich mahogany desk to the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling—a chandelier! in a corporate office!—spoke of tastes too sumptuous for mere moral minds to ken.

Behind the desk, a man whom I could only assume was Mr. Waters's personal assistant stood and bowed to me. Like, actually bowed. Full tilt and everything. Perhaps the firm did a lot of business with the Japanese or visiting Arab royalty and it was just a reflex? This place was too much. My vague, dim memories of my father's offices were of stately grandeur, not spartan modernity or spa-weekend getaway gaudiness.

“Ms. Dare,” the man said. “You may call me Arthur. Mr. Waters is waiting for you inside.” And he gestured to the right, at a pair of double doors, the twins of the doors on the left.

Butterflies raged in my stomach but I lifted my chin. I was not going to be cowed. “That's tits,” I said. I had the satisfaction of his startled face as I swept by him and through the doors.

Another small foyer waited behind the doors. This space was decorated much more sparingly, with a large aquarium full of brightly colored fish and a few zen fountains dotting the corners and walls. Two grand doors of frosted glass stood in the center of the wall across from me. A small, understated name plaque simply said, 'Waters.'

I took a deep breath and opened the door.

Anton Waters stood behind his desk staring out at the New York skyline from one of the windows. He turned when I entered and watched as I marched to the center of his office.

I didn't even look around. I'd seen his face everywhere in the past few years, and he was, depressingly, just as stunning in person as he was on magazine covers. His dark hair was a perfectly coiffed mess, and his vivid green eyes were visible even from across the room. The light fell on them beautifully, as though the whole world were set up to highlight his incredible looks. High cut cheekbones framed a straight, powerful nose, but his lips were full and sensuous. He had a chin you could cut diamonds with. And, judging from his comfortable and yet oh-so-GQ attire, he had the body to go with it.

I hated him on sight. For guys like Anton Waters, earth was a photography studio, not a planet, and everyone was a sycophant telling him to make love to the camera. In fact, my first thought was, Man, I'm going to hate this guy.

Unfortunately for me, my second thought was, Holy shit, he's hot.

Even more unfortunately, my third thought was, Those are some lips you could really ride until morning.

Goddamn hormones. I hadn't gotten laid in six months since I broke up with Steele—no, that hadn't been his real name and yes, he had been just as much of a douche as you would expect from a guy who willingly called himself Steele—and it was showing.

I crossed my arms. “So what's this about us getting married?” I demanded.

He stared at me and didn't react.

My words seemed to fall to the floor between us, clattering like spilled silverware. The longer he stared, the more I realized that he was no ordinary handsome man. Even from across the room I could feel the magnetic charge he gave out. It was terrifying, intense, turbulent. The force of his personality far outweighed his beautiful face, even when he wasn't even moving.

This was a man who could rule the world, if he wanted to.

You know. Like the antichrist.

Finally he smiled faintly. “Hello, Miss Dare,” he said.

Vaguely, I wished I'd been sitting down. His voice was like... something really sinful. Deep. If he'd been singing, he might have reached the great depths of a basso profundo. It was the kind of voice you could turn up really loud and then sit on your speakers to. Not, of course, that I'd ever done that...

Oh, fine. When it's three in the morning and you've had too many PBRs everything is a great idea, okay? And if I'd had his voice stowed away in a little file on my computer, I'd have played that damn thing on repeat for an hour.

I shook myself, trying to focus. “Yeah,” I said. “Hello.” I forced myself to look away from him and tried to concentrate on studying his office.

Except there was nothing in it. There was only his desk with his chair and his computer at one end of the room, and just to my left, two sofas arranged across from each other with a spartan coffee table between them. The only nod to individuality he seemed to have given was another small fountain sitting on the coffee table, the water running over carefully placed river stones.

A small, hysterical part of myself wanted to laugh. Waters! it said, and I had the sudden, wild idea that Anton Waters was just like poor, dumb old Steele, except with actual charisma. He'd chosen a name for himself—a far better name—and gone out to conquer the world. The fountains were a hint to anyone keen enough to decipher them.

No, that's stupid. I was almost afraid to look back at him, but I did it anyway.

He hadn't moved. He was still staring at me with that faint smile on his face.

I never had known when to keep my mouth shut.

“Looking's free,” I snapped, “but touching will cost you.”

Slowly, deliberately, he tilted his head. “Nothing is free,” he said.

If he had been any other person, the words would have been laughable, comical, a real human being trying to sound like a Bond villain, but the way he said it, his entire demeanor, screamed that he had given those words serious thought and he had said them because of a long struggle to find the truth.

I swallowed and tried to stay calm. Against my will, my heart was picking up speed. For a second I couldn't quite understand why, but then he broke out of his stillness.

Slowly, he rounded the desk and walked toward me. His gait was graceful and flowing. Like a predator. Like water.

I stood my ground as he approached and forced myself to remember just what I was here for. I was pretty sure it wasn't sex. What was it again?

Oh yeah. This guy wanted to buy me.

That thought cut through the strange spell he seemed to have placed on me, and for a brief second I was able to distance myself from the situation and break free of his gravitational pull.

“God, you're rude,” I said. “You want to marry me and you haven't even asked me to sit down. Usually guys try to get me drunk first.”

The only reaction he had to my words was a slight tightening around the eyes. When he got to the place where most people stop and respect personal space, he took two more steps.

He was tall. He loomed over me, and his scent filled my head. It was cool and calm, like ice, but underneath it there was the subtle, rich tang of his skin. The smell of a man.

My heart, already doing double time, picked up the pace. My blood rose. His body was only inches from mine. If my tits had been bigger I could have inhaled deeply and brushed them against his chest.

This is not going well, I thought, but it was a fuzzy thought. Slippery. Hard to hold on to. Other thoughts were coming to the fore, thoughts like, kiss him! and grab his crotch!

Not helpful.

The faint smile returned, and he lifted an arm. For a split second I thought he was going to crush me to him and my heart leaped.

But he only gestured toward the couches off to my left.

“Please,” he said. “Sit.”

Man, I thought. I really hate him.

I whirled in place, making sure to give him a good smack with my shoulder—not in a sexy way, but in a good old you're-in-my-way-asshole way—and stomped to the couch. The effect was somewhat marred by the gasp I had to stifle; the touch of his body on mine sent electric shocks through me.

I really, really hate him.

I made sure to flop down on his perfectly appointed couch without ceremony, and propped one of my flip-flop clad feet on the table. My chipped toenail polish was, I thought, a nice touch. Subtly, I squirmed, hoping to grind dried clay into the fabric.

Anton Waters didn't even move. He stood in the center of his office, regarding me coolly.

“Aren't you going to sit down?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he said, but he didn't. He tilted his head, studying me. I sat on his couch, feeling awkward and horny. At last he seemed to be satisfied, and walked over.

However, instead of sitting on the opposite couch, he sat down next to me and crossed his legs, exposing the fine, well-made lines of his suit pants. He was close to me. Too close. I didn't want to shift away and show him he made me uncomfortable—in more ways than one—so I busied myself with fishing the contract from my purse.

“So what's this?” I said. I brandished the contract at him like a knife. It would have been far more effective if he'd been sitting across from me, like a normal person. Instead I sort of had to flap it under his nose.

That faint smile creased his face again, and he turned, propping one arm up on the back of the couch in an overly intimate manner, and tilted his head again.

“It is a contract for marriage,” he said. “I thought your father would have told you that much.”

Oh my god. He was infuriating. And sexy. The heat of his body radiated across the small space between us. My shoulder nearly brushed his chest, and I wished I had worn a thin skirt, because I was almost positive his knee was touching mine, but my clay-stained jeans were too thick to feel it. My knee tingled anyway, sending shivers up my leg. They wrapped around and under, curling at the hot apex of my thighs.

I did my best to push the feeling away. “Yeah, I know that, but why?”

He shrugged. “I would like a wife,” he said.

“And you're willing to take on my father's bad debt for it?”

He pursed his lips, a gesture too delicious to not be purposeful. Which, of course, didn't stop my gaze from being drawn to them. I wanted to run my tongue against the seam of his mouth and tease it open, snake my tongue inside and do battle with his. Unconsciously, I found myself licking my own lips as I stared at his face. When I realized what I was doing I stuffed my tongue back behind my teeth and raised my eyes.

He stared back at me, cool and knowing. “Your father's debt,” he said, “is not insurmountable. His company is still worth something in name and... contacts.” Almost absently he reached out and took the contract from me, angling his wrist so that his fingers slid over mine. Over the sudden sound of my blood pounding in my ears I heard myself gasp.

Deliberate and controlled. That's what he was. He laid the contract on the table and turned back to me. His gaze drifted up to my hair, a messy birdsnest of dark chestnut curls that I could never tame and settled for piling on top of my head in the most haphazard manner possible. One hand reached out and teased a curl from the mess I'd pinned it into today.

I should have stood up and walked away. I should have slapped him. I should have screamed.

Instead, I let him.

Boy, was that dumb.

His fingers twined around the lock of hair. It was as though he were twisting me around his fingers, up and over and under. My skin burned and my lips—both pairs—were swollen and aching for his kiss. I tried to think through the desire unfurling in my belly.

“So... you get my father's company and me. I, uh, I mean... it, uh, seems like a guy like you would have no trouble... whoah!”

Anton Waters had leaned in and buried his nose in my hair. This was a little too far, even for me.

I staggered to my feet, snatching the contract from the table.

“What do you think you're doing?” I demanded.

For the first time, he seemed vaguely surprised. “Seeing if we are sexually compatible,” he said, as though this were obvious.

“That's awfully presumptuous of you. I haven't even said I would marry you yet!” I exclaimed. My legs trembled and I wished I could sit down again, but I didn't want to show weakness.

A faint line appeared between his brows as he frowned. “But why would you agree to marriage if you did not desire me sexually?” he said. Like he was a fucking robot. A fucking hot robot. “It seems wise to get such things out of the way to begin with before anyone makes a decision they regret.” He lifted his chin and ran his eyes over me appraisingly. I felt his gaze like a blowtorch, blasting away my resistance, exposing my skin, melting my bones. “I believe we would do quite well in that regard.”

I didn't want to think about this man desiring me. No, I didn't let myself think about it. It was too tempting. I had to stay focused on my goal. Which was... what again?

“Wait... why do you want an arranged marriage? You could get any woman you wanted.” Yeah. That was my biggest problem with this whole thing. God, I was an idiot. But at least it was a question and not me ripping all his clothes off.

He shrugged. “I do not require love or emotional attachment,” he said. “But a wife—as outlined in the contract—would be ideal for my personal needs.”

I hadn't read the contract. I didn't need to. There was no way I would marry this guy.

“What made you think I would agree to this?” I said.

He raised his brows. “I believe you can evaluate the benefits for yourself,” he said. “There are generous clauses within the contract for your own use.”

Rage bubbled up in me. “Fuck you,” I said. “Like I would ever get married for money. My father had money, and it left my mother with nothing.”

The vague smile returned. “Not money for you, Miss Dare. Money for certain... pet causes of yours.”

My breath caught. “What?” I said. “How could you know anything about me?”

“I know a lot about you,” he said in that same cool tone. “I know you enjoy knitting but abandon your projects frequently. I know you sometimes leave very cruel anonymous comments on other artists' websites. I know you often feel bad enough to go back and anonymously attack your own criticisms. And I also know you recently posted the phrase 'eat the rich' in response to the latest financial crisis on a certain left-leaning website.”

My face burned. “Wh—what? You've been... checking up on me?”

The barest expression of confusion flitted across his face, as though he could not comprehend why I would ask such a question. “Of course,” he said. “If we are to wed, I should know the sort of person I will be marrying.”

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. What else did he know? What was he not telling me?

Anton Waters could see right through me. He knew everything.

He knew it, too. I could see it in his eyes as he stood lazily and walked toward me.

“Of course, you would have all the time in the world to work on your artwork, as well. No more working as a bartender. No more taking gifts from your mother. No more shoving your creations down a flight of stairs because you have to move and can't afford to take the big pieces with you.”

My chest constricted. That had only happened once. But it had hurt. Oh, it had hurt.

He drew closer and closer and I backed up until I hit the floor to ceiling window behind me and flattened myself against the glass.

He reached out, running a finger over my cheek, down my throat, down between the valley of my breasts.

“There are a few small clauses in the contract that I thought you might find... distasteful,” he said. His voice had taken an almost dreamy quality, but I could barely hear him over the roar of blood in my head. “But given how much you want me, I don't think that will be a problem.”

How much you want me. Yes, I did. Oh god, more than I had ever wanted anyone. If kissed me, I was sure I would spontaneously combust.

“I don't want you,” I said. Even to my own ears, I could hear my throaty arousal.

His lashes fluttered. His finger traveled across my breast, and when it found my nipple, he rested his thumb and forefinger around it.

“What did you say?” he asked me.

I swallowed around my dry tongue. “I don't want you,” I told him, louder this time.

He pinched my nipple and twisted.

The effect was electric—painful pleasure shot from my nipple, through my heart and straight down to my clit. I cried out and my legs buckled. My purse and the contract slipped from nerveless fingers.

“Don't lie to me,” Anton Waters said.

I didn't answer.

He moved in.

He didn't touch me. Not really. He ran the tips of his fingers over my body, but he avoided my skin, as though touching my directly would cause him pain. His lips traversed the fabric of my sweater, over my waist, traveling over the outside of my hip. His hands skimmed against my ass, finding the sensitive creases where my ass met my thighs. He scraped dull fingernails down the backs of my legs. I could barely feel them through my jeans.

I wanted to grab his face and shove it into my crotch. I needed his mouth on me, his cock in me. My hands hovered near his hair, at the tips of his ears, but I was afraid to touch him.

The tip of his nose met my hip, scraping over the front of my jeans. He stopped, just at the cleft of my thighs, and inhaled deeply.

Putting his hands against the glass behind me he stood up and leaned in. His lips brushed my ear and his body moved forward until, at last, I could feel his cock, trapped in his pants, push against my belly.

“I can smell you,” he whispered in my ear. “Your pussy is already begging for me to fuck it.”

Yes. God, yes. My clit ached, and my cunt felt like it was about to explode. I couldn't even try to hide my arousal any more. My breath came hot and fast. His body hovered over mine, furnace-hot, and the thick swell of his erection pressed firmly against my stomach.

I couldn't get enough air. I was going to pass out.

“Sign the contract, and you will have everything you desire.” He rolled his hips, rubbing his cock over me, almost but not quite brushing against my pussy. My panties were soaked and slick with my juices. Then his lips found my throat, brushing over my hammering pulse.

Flames licked over my body, radiating out from where he touched me. My hands came up, gripping his shoulders. He felt as good as he looked, all hard planes and firm muscle underneath that white linen shirt. My hands curled into fists as he let his fingers drift along the hem of my sweater. Then, slowly, torturously, he slipped them beneath and trailed his fingertips against my stomach.

I wanted to tell him to stop. I couldn't tell him to stop.

His wrist rotated and he flattened his palm against my belly, sliding his hand down, under the waistband of my pants, past the elastic of my panties.

My head lolled and I pushed against his hand. Smoothly he parted my outer lips and slid his fingers along the outside of my slit, but he didn't touch my swollen clit, the place where I needed him most.

He curled his fingers, coating them in my juices. Withdrew his hand, slid his other two fingers along my slit, grazing against sensitive flesh, but not quite touching.

Mad with need, I tried to maneuver my hips over his hand, trying to capture him, but he avoided me deftly. His teeth scraped against my collarbone, and he spoke into my skin.

“Beg me to take you,” he murmured. His voice was rough, reverberating through my bones. “Beg me to bend you over that couch and fuck you.”

The words were out of my mouth before I could think about them. “Oh, yes,” I whispered. “Please.”

He paused.

Then, to my everlasting dismay, he pulled back, removing his hand from my pants and leaving a wet, cold trail behind. A deep chuckle rumbled through his chest, turning my knees to pudding.

“No,” he said.

It took a second to register. “What?” I cried. “Why? You asked me to... why?”

And he laughed. He laughed at me.

“Miss Dare, why on earth would you buy the cow if you could get the milk for free?” And he brought his fingers up to his lips. Without taking his eyes from mine, he licked them clean one... by... one.

I turned and fled.

I barely had the presence of mind to grab my purse—and the contract—as I left my dignity behind. Bursting through the double glass doors, I didn't even pause to fix my hair. Instead I just made a beeline for one of the pairs of wooden doors and crashed through them.

I ran past Arthur. I didn't even turn to tell him goodbye. My gait was awkward as I rubbed my thighs together, rushing to the elevator. I slammed my hand against the button and, mercifully, the doors opened immediately. I stumbled inside and they closed behind me, beginning their descent.

I was so close to coming, I didn't care that I was in an elevator. I shoved a hand into my jeans, parting my pussy lips and revealing the nub of my clit to my questing fingers. Desperately I rubbed my fingertip in tight, quick circles, my other hand snaking its way up under my shabby sweater, slipping beneath the strap of my bra. I squeezed my breast and pinched my nipple, sending a stab of need straight down through my belly. My knees buckled and I staggered against the hand rail circling the small space, my body on fire with need. My moans filled the elevator, my face numb with heat and my cheeks burning with shame.

Dipping my fingers into my slick folds, I dragged moisture over my clit, slipping and sliding, my hips bucking against my hand. In the dark of my head, I imagined Anton Waters scraping his large, rough fingers over me, and with a final thrust I dragged myself over the edge. My back arched and I cried out, my head banging against the wall as I thrashed, waves of pleasure crashing into me, threatening to drag me out to a deep and hungry ocean I had only begun to realize was there.

My whole body seemed to contract with the force of my orgasm, my hungry passage squeezing tight around nothing. It wasn't enough. It couldn't be enough. Not when I could have been fucking him. I almost sobbed with disappointment, even as I rode it out, my body locked in tight spasms.

The pleasure faded, and I barely had enough time to pull my hand out of my pants before the elevator doors opened.

A group of business men stood in the foyer, waiting. They pushed their way inside, and I barely had enough presence of mind to slip by them and make my escape.

I had just masturbated in an elevator. And I'd come in record time.

Gulping, I wiped my sticky fingers on the inside of my sweater and hurried past the receptionist and out the door. The cool air of fall slapped me across the face, sobering me.

Couldn't have even waited til you got home, huh? I thought. Pathetic.

My mind reeled as I wound my way through the burgeoning lunch crowd, and I took three wrong turns before I found my way to the subway station. When I finally boarded the subway car, I buried my face in my hands and tried to think. The smell of my own juices clung to my fingers, reminding me of how salaciously I had behaved. I tried to pick through my feelings, but by the time I got home, the pickings were still slim.

I only knew two things. I hated Anton Waters. And I was going to fuck him.

Maybe in more ways than one.

* * *

To be continued in Bartered Seduction: The Billionaire's Wife, Part 2!

About The Author

Ava Lore was raised by wombats and lives to corrupt the innocent. When she's not writing erotic romance, she spends her time thinking about writing erotic romance and drinking enough iced coffee to kill a musk ox.

Discover other titles by Ava Lore at Amazon.com

You can email Ava Lore at authoravalore@gmail.com. She yearns for your approval.

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