Page 28 of An Inconvenient Marriage
Natalie shook her head and dropped her fork onto her plate with a loud clang. “Why do you care whether or not I eat?”
“Because no wife of mine will starve herself.”
“I’m not your wife.”
I grinned. “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,wife.” Arching my brow, I licked my lips. And got a hell of a kick out of the way hers popped open. “Or maybe you’ve forgotten the piece of paper we both signed.”
“You know what I mean.”
Holding her gaze, I stood from my seat and walked to her side of the table. With every step I took, her eyes grew wider, and when I stopped next to her and picked up her fork, it was impossible to miss the way she worked down a swallow.
I broke eye contact for just a second to scoop up a piece of frittata. When my focus shifted back to her, I held the food in front of her mouth. “You already know how I feel about repeating myself, but it’s been… an interesting morning, so I’ll make an exception. My wife—that’s you, by the way—will not starve herself. I won’t allow it.” I edged the fork closer. “Now, eat.”
I thought my little speech would be enough to provoke her into telling me to go screw myself. She didn’t. Instead, she hesitated for a second, then knocked the air from my lungs when she leaned forward and took the bite I was offering.
Fucking hell, this was the bedroom all over again. The sight of her in those barely there pajamas had been enough to get me rock hard in seconds. But the way her lips closed over the fork while she was still staring at me with those big blue eyes was pure fucking torture.
I wanted to taste. Wanted to claim. To devour.
To ruin.
Shit. This woman was crossing my wires in the worst damn way. One moment I wanted nothing to do with her, and in the next I wanted to lift her onto the table and make her come so hard she forgot her name.
Hating where my thoughts had gone, I pulled the fork from her mouth and almost lost it completely when her tongue darted out and slid over her lips. Pink and plump, they were right there for the taking.
Surely a tiny sample wouldn’t hurt.
I gripped her chin between my fingers and lowered my head, the distance between us slowly growing less and less. I had another inch to go, just an inch when my phone buzzed to life inside my pocket.
The generic ringtone rang through the silent dining room like a blaring alarm. And not a moment too damn soon.Was I really about to kiss Natalie?Straightening, I took two deliberate steps backward and yanked out my phone.
“We leave in thirty minutes,” I told her and then headed to my office to take the call.
“You were right,” Sophie said the moment I answered. “Trent’s finances aren’t as wonderful as he’d like everyone to believe.”
Sitting behind my desk, I glared at the closed door. Was Natalie eating, or had she gotten up and left without touching the rest of her food? The latter bothered me more than I’d have liked to admit. No woman should allow a man to dictate what or how much she ate.
“Zach! Are you even listening?”
Scraping a palm over my face, I blew out a breath. “Trent has been exaggerating his successes. I know. Find me something I don’t know.” I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling. “And get me everything you can on Natalie.”
There was a pause and then, “You already have everything.”
My gaze flicked to the closed door again. “There’s more, I know there is. Find it.”
I hung up and dragged my laptop closer. Like I’d done the previous night, I typed Natalie’s name in the search bar and clicked on the first distasteful article. Ignoring the headline, I scrolled to the photo.
As I suspected, there was no photo credit given, but any smart photographer would have embedded something in the metadata. After running a few searches, I finally found what I was looking for.
Anthony Mathis. He was the one who’d captured a drunk Natalie clinging to some pretty-boy wannabe rockstar.
And he just so happened to be in a relationship with Everlee Sutton—Natalie’s one and only friend as far as I could tell.
Resting my elbow on the desk, I moved my fingers back and forth over my chin. There was more here, I simply haven’t found it yet. But I would. Soon.
I just needed to get through this damn dinner with my brother first.
Twenty-five minutes later, we were in my Range Rover headed toward Catalonia. Natalie hadn’t said a word and had barely even made eye contact. Which yet again confused the shit out of me.
