The Billionaire's Bride of Innocence
Miranda Lee
Wanted: her body…to make a babyJames Logan knew it was time to take a wife and produce an heir. Megan was perfect for his plans: shy, unworldly, and quickly seduced by the Sydney advertising tycoon’s devilish charm. She was pregnant on their wedding day.The honeymoon was barely over when Megan had a miscarriage and the scales fell from her eyes: she was trapped in a convenient marriage, and James expected her to conceive again soon. She should have demanded a divorce, but Megan was facing the uncomfortable truth: she’d fallen in love with her ruthless husband…Three Rich Husbands When a wealthy man takes a wife, it’s not always for love…
‘Why me?’
‘Because you were perfect,’ came his smoothly delivered reply.
‘Did you mind that I was a virgin?’
‘Mind? Why would I have minded?’
She shrugged. ‘Because I was inexperienced. I dare say after a while you found me rather boring in bed.’
‘Megan, darling. I am being honest. I never thought you boring in bed. At the same time that doesn’t mean that I would not have one day moved our love-life in a more…imaginative direction. I get the impression you wouldn’t object if I did during our second honeymoon…’
‘What do you mean by a more…imaginative direction?’
‘I don’t think this is the time or place to go into detail. If you trust me, however, as the more experienced partner, I will show you when we get to Dream Island.’ His eyes caressed hers in the most seductive fashion.
The
Billionaire’s
Bride of
Innocence
by
Miranda Lee
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/)
Prologue
MEGAN lay on her side in the hard, narrow hospital bed, hoping and praying that the injection the doctor had given her would start working soon. She could not bear to be awake for much longer. Could not bear the pain of her loss for another minute.
Yesterday she had been so happy, the ultrasound showing that she and James were to become the parents of a dear little boy. She’d been over the moon. So had James.
His lovemaking last night had been extra gentle and tender. They’d talked for ages afterwards, discussing what names they would give their son. They’d finally settled on Jonathon, after James’s older brother, who’d been tragically killed in a car accident some years earlier.
The cramps had started during the early hours of this morning. Then had come the bleeding. James had rushed her to the hospital and the doctors had done their best. But nothing could save her baby.
Tears flooding her eyes once more, Megan pressed a smothering fist into her trembling mouth when a sob threatened to escape. She didn’t want anyone to hear her weeping. She didn’t want to listen to any more words of comfort, or sympathy. All she wanted was oblivion. So she bit down on her knuckles and endured her grief in tormented silence.
Time dragged. So did Megan’s heart.
Finally, the sedative did its work and she drifted off to sleep. She did not see her husband re-enter the room a short time later. Did not see the distress on his face as he stared down at his sleeping wife. With a sigh he stroked her hair back from her face, then bent to kiss her softly on the cheek. Shaking his head, he straightened then strode from the room.
It was some considerable time before Megan stirred. Even then, her eyes stayed shut, her head feeling thick and heavy. She could hear voices in the room: male voices—gradually she recognised them as belonging to her husband’s two best friends.
‘James has been out there talking to that doctor for a long time,’ Hugh said irritably.
Hugh Parkinson was the only son and heir to a media fortune. Although he was a playboy by reputation, Megan had always found him rather sweet. He’d been best man at her wedding and had made the loveliest of speeches.
‘He’s probably worried about Megan’s condition,’ Russell answered. Russell McClain was one of Sydney’s most successful real-estate agents.
The three men had been best friends since they’d shared a room at boarding school. And, whilst they had little in common besides their wealth and their love of golf, their friendship had endured for over twenty years. Megan sometimes envied their unconditional affection for each other. She’d never been a girl to make friends easily, being somewhat shy and introverted.
‘Huh!’ Hugh snorted. ‘More likely making sure that she can have more babies.’
Megan was shocked, both by the reproach in Hugh’s voice and the inference behind his words. Surely he didn’t think James had only married her because she’d been pregnant! That wasn’t right. James loved her. She knew he did. Why, he told her so all the time!
‘He should never have married that poor girl,’ Hugh raved on. ‘It was wrong. No, damn it, it was downright wicked. Serve him right if she can’t have more kids.’
Megan’s mouth fell open. Why was Hugh being so cruel and so condemning of his friend?
‘That’s a bit harsh, Hugh,’ Russell said.
‘No, it’s not. Marriage should be about true love, not satisfying an egotistical need to reproduce.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with James wanting a family. It’s unfortunate that he doesn’t love Megan, but he is very fond of her.’
Megan had almost stopped breathing by this stage, the emotional pain of her miscarriage eclipsed by a shock even more devastating than the loss of her baby. She could survive that loss—eventually—if she had her husband’s love.
But it seemed she didn’t.
Oh, God…
‘I could forgive him if the girl had conceived by accident,’ Hugh said. ‘Marrying her under those circumstances would have been the honourable thing to do. What I find hard to condone is that he deliberately set out to impregnate her first.’
Megan had to stuff her fist into her mouth to stop herself from crying out. It was just as well she had her back to Russell and Hugh or they might have seen her hand move.
‘I can understand why he did that,’ Russell remarked. ‘You must remember what he was like when he found out Jackie was barren. The poor bastard was beside himself.’
Barren! His first wife was barren?
James had told her his first marriage had ended because Jackie, an Australian supermodel, wanted a jet-setting lifestyle, whereas he wanted a normal family life. He’d claimed they’d been drifting apart for ages and had split up by mutual consent. It was obvious, however, from what his friends were saying, that James had divorced Jackie because she couldn’t have children.
Megan desperately tried to find some mitigating circumstances against such a ruthless course of action. Maybe they had been drifting apart. They couldn’t have been madly in love, or James would surely have suggested adoption. Unless, of course, he was one of those egotistical men who only wanted a child who carried his own genes. Hugh had implied as much.
‘I could forgive the man if he’d chosen a tough bird like Jackie,’ Hugh growled. ‘But, of course, that wouldn’t do the second time round, would it? James had to regain total control of his life. So he zeroed in on an innocent young virgin who was so swept off her feet by the dashing James Logan that she wasn’t able to see the wood for the trees.’
‘You don’t know Megan was a virgin,’ Russell pointed out. ‘She is twenty-four. Not too many twenty-four-year-old virgins around these days.’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake, Russ, you only have to look at the way she acts around James to know he was her first lover. She’s utterly besotted with him. He could tell her the world was flat and she’d believe him.’
Megan cringed, whilst Russell sighed.
‘Probably,’ he said. ‘But that doesn’t mean James won’t make a good husband and father. He’s a bit ruthless at times, but still basically a good man. And a good friend. We have no right to judge him, Hugh, we’re far from being perfect. And it’s not as though Megan knows the truth.’
‘But what if she finds out?’
‘Who’s going to tell her? Not us, that’s for sure.’
No, Megan thought wretchedly. You wouldn’t tell me. Not even you, Hugh, who obviously didn’t approve of James’s actions. Both of you stood up at my wedding and bore witness to James promising to love, honour and cherish me when you knew it was all a lie.
Megan froze when she heard the door open, followed by the sound of her husband’s voice.
‘Sorry to be so long,’ he said to his friends. ‘Megan still asleep?’
‘Hasn’t moved a muscle,’ Russell replied. ‘What did the doctor say?’
‘There’s no reason why, in time, Megan can’t have another baby. But he cautioned not to rush things. He said it’s going to take quite a while for her to get over this. She’s taken it very hard.’ He sighed a weary sigh. ‘We both have. It was a boy, you know,’ he went on somewhat croakily. ‘We were going to call him Jonathon…’
Megan hated hearing the distress in her husband’s voice. Hated the fact that she could still sympathise with his pain.
‘I’m sorry, mate,’ Hugh said, all condemnation clearly gone now. ‘We do know how much having children means to you. You must be feeling really rotten. Come on, we’ll take you for a drink. There’s a pub just down the road.’
‘I’ll have to check on Megan first.’
‘Sure thing.’
Megan felt the warmth of his breath on her cheek as he bent over her.
‘Megan, darling, can you hear me?’
Why, oh, why did she open her eyes?
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked her gently.
Her eyes filled with tears as she stared up into the face of the man she loved, and who she’d thought loved her.
‘Go away,’ she choked out. ‘Please…just go away!’ The sobs came in earnest then, shoulder-wracking, heartbreaking sobs. She simply could not stop.
‘I’ll get the nurse,’ he said.
The nurse hurried in, a kind, motherly creature who took Megan in her arms and just held her.
‘There, there, dear,’ she crooned. ‘I know how you feel. I lost a baby once.’
But I’ve lost more than that, Megan agonised. I’ve lost everything!
And she sobbed all the louder.
‘Best leave her for now,’ the nurse directed at James, who was obviously hovering near by. ‘I’ll get the doctor to give her something stronger. She’ll be out of it for some time. Come back this evening. Hopefully, she’ll be feeling better by then.’
No, I won’t, Megan thought despairingly. I’m never going to feel better. Never!
Chapter One
Three months later…
SYDNEY in late April often belied the fact that winter was just over a month away. The nights and mornings could be crisp, but the days were usually warm and rain-free, the skies clear and blue.
The day of Hugh’s wedding was such a day. By midafternoon the temperature had reached a very pleasant twentyfour degrees, which was just as well, since Megan had little in the way of warm outfits to choose from in her wardrobe. She hadn’t been clothes shopping since she’d come home from hospital in January. In actual fact, she hadn’t been out of the house.
Till now…
Megan sat stiffly, her handsome husband beside her, in the second row of seats which had been set up on the main deck of the father of the groom’s super-yacht. When the invitation had first arrived, she’d immediately declined to attend. But James had said he wouldn’t go if she didn’t come with him. Then Hugh had called personally to ask her to reconsider. It wasn’t going to be a big wedding, he’d assured her. Only sixty or so guests.
‘It will do you good to get out,’ he’d argued. ‘You can’t go on like this, Megan.’
Which was true, of course. She couldn’t continue living the way she had, shutting the world out, shutting everyone out. Especially James. She had to make a decision whether to leave him or not, a decision which seemed beyond her. Making any decision seemed beyond her. The only way she made it through each day was by absorbing herself in the one activity she could rely on to provide some escape from the conflicting emotions which constantly besieged her mind.
Painting had always been an all-consuming passion for her, even when she was quite young. As a teenager she’d dreamt of becoming a famous artist one day, of having her works hung in the finest galleries in Australia. She’d begged her father to send her to art school after she’d graduated from high school and, much to her mother’s disgust, he’d agreed.
Megan had spent three years honing her craft, receiving much critical acclaim from her teachers, but not from the art world at large. She’d only ever had one painting exhibited—in a small gallery in Bondi—so it seemed unlikely she would ever achieve the level of success she’d once craved.
But she’d kept on painting, even after she’d married James, though it had been relegated to more of a hobby by then.
Now it was her one and only survival weapon, a way of coping.
It was ironic that, if James ever saw the canvas she’d been working on since her miscarriage, he would sweep her back to the doctor who’d diagnosed her with depression a few days after her miscarriage. No doubt he’d give her another prescription of anti-depressants, along with some more sleeping tablets.
As if pills could fix her problem!
Nothing could fix her problem but herself. Deep down, Megan had always known that. She’d finally thrown all the pills away a few weeks ago and hadn’t felt any worse. In fact, surprisingly, she’d begun to feel a bit better.
Deciding to leave the house and go to Hugh’s wedding was still a huge step for her, but she made it.
So here she was, dressed in the pale pink suit which had been her own going-away outfit, and which was now a size too large. She’d had to move the button on the waistband over to make sure the skirt stayed put. The jacket was a bit loose, but that was all right. It had once been somewhat snug. Her long dark hair was caught up in a French roll. She hadn’t been to a hairdresser in ages and this was the only sophisticated style which she could manage herself. Her make-up had taken her ages: foundation, lipstick and blusher to counter the pallor of her skin and lots of eye make-up, using toning shades of eyeshadow to complement her brown eyes and heaps of mascara. No eyeliner, however. She had tried it but her hands had trembled and she’d poked herself in the eye, making it water, so she gave up on that idea.
James had said she looked lovely when he’d first seen her today.
Inside, she’d shrunk from his compliment, in much the same way that she shrank from him whenever he tried to show affection to her. This time, however, she’d managed a small smile and a polite thank-you. Then, when he’d taken her hand as they walked up the gangway onto the yacht, she hadn’t snatched it away. She’d left it there.
That had been a mistake, Megan now realised as she stared down at where James still had her hand clasped firmly within his. Hand-holding might not be all that intimate an activity, but it was closer than anything Megan had allowed since her miscarriage.
Not once since she’d come home from hospital had Megan let James make love to her. Frankly, the idea of going to bed with him made her feel ill. Whenever he tried to take her into his arms she’d pull away with a sharp ‘no!’, after which she would usually make some pathetic excuse, saying that she was sorry, that she just couldn’t. Not yet.
He’d been amazingly patient with her, but she wasn’t a complete fool. She’d glimpsed the frustration on his face at times, had seen it increasing over the last month. He’d started working longer and longer hours, probably so that he didn’t have to be home with a wife who rejected him all the time. And she’d started spending more and more time down in her studio, painting. Sometimes she even slept down there.
Her letting James hold her hand might not seem like a big deal, but Megan could see that her husband was looking pretty pleased with himself just now. Pleased with her, too. He was sure to try to make love to her again tonight and he would be expecting her not to reject him this time.
The music started up—the traditional Bridal March—James’s fingers tightening around Megan’s as he pulled her to her feet. Their eyes met briefly, Megan startled by the sudden lurching of her stomach. She quickly looked away before he could see the shock in her face.
That couldn’t have been a spark of desire she’d just experienced, could it?
How perverse if it was. Wickedly perverse.
She didn’t want to want him. Ever again.
But if Megan was brutally honest with herself, this was what she’d been fearing all along, that, if she didn’t leave James, one day he would succeed in seducing her again. That was why she’d avoided all physical contact. And why she’d gone on the Pill. Because she’d known, deep down, that she was still vulnerable to her husband’s prowess in the bedroom.
Sex with James had far surpassed anything she’d ever dreamt about. Had from the word go, despite her virginity, and she’d simply thought him wonderful.
She’d thought him even more wonderful on their honeymoon. She’d been suffering a slight case of morning sickness during their two weeks in Hawaii and he couldn’t have been more considerate.
But when James had been away on business during the weeks leading up to their wedding, Megan had experienced a taste of what frustration was like. Memories of his expert lovemaking had tormented her every night during his absence, and she’d lain awake for hours as she’d relived every exciting moment.
By the time their wedding night had come around, she’d wanted him like crazy. She’d wallowed in their seemingly mutual passion that night, and had been upset when her nausea each morning had interrupted their lovemaking. She’d been looking forward to spending long hours every day in his arms. As it was, James had still made love to her each evening, and occasionally in the middle of the night as well, before her morning nausea kicked in.
By the time they’d returned from their honeymoon, Megan had become used to being made love to at least once a day. When James went back to work, however, their sex life had lessened somewhat. Megan had thought this was because James was tired. As the owner of one of Sydney’s most successful advertising agencies, he worked very hard. She realised now that he was probably bored with her. His mission had been accomplished, after all: she had been carrying his child and was blindly besotted with him.
She supposed it was possible that he thought she wouldn’t want him as much, once she became pregnant. Just the opposite was the case, however. She’d wanted James more than ever.
There’d been a few times when Megan was so frustrated that she thought of initiating things herself. Once, when they’d been swimming in the pool together on a hot summer night. Another time, when they’d been getting ready to go out on New Year’s Eve. James had been in the shower, whistling, and she’d suddenly been tempted to strip off and join him. She’d experienced a strong urge to do some of the things to him that she’d read about in books: bold, sexy things, with her hands and her mouth.
But, in the end, she hadn’t had the confidence.
Still, her desire for her husband, Megan now understood, had always been far greater than his desire for her. Which was only natural; she loved him.
She still loved him, despite everything. Loved him and, to her shock and shame today, still wanted him.
Where, in heaven’s name, was her pride?
Not much in evidence at that moment, her heartbeat quickening when he turned to her and smiled one of those supersexy smiles which had used to turn her to mush.
In desperation, she managed to extricate her hand with the excuse that she always cried at weddings and needed to get a tissue from her handbag.
‘I have to admit,’ James said as she rifled through her handbag, ‘that I never thought this day would come. Hugh always vowed and declared that he would never get married.’
Megan recalled what she’d overheard Hugh saying at the hospital; that marriage should be the result of true love, and nothing else.
‘Still, I have a feeling he’ll be more successful at marriage than his father,’ James whispered to her. ‘Not that that’d be hard. I’ve lost count of how many wives Dickie Parkinson has had, each one younger than the last. Hugh’s chosen very well, I think. Kathryn’s a lovely girl. And very sensible. Oh, wow!’ he exclaimed. ‘What is it about brides that means they always look absolutely gorgeous?’
Megan was glad to have something to distract herself from the turmoil in her heart, her head turning to watch the bride walk down the aisle.
Megan didn’t know much about Kathryn Hart, only that she’d been Hugh’s PA. But James was right. She made an absolutely beautiful bride, dressed in a strapless white gown which had a tight beaded bodice and a gathered floor-length skirt. It was very similar in style to her own wedding gown, though hers had been ivory, not white. Kathryn seemed to float down the strip of red carpet which bisected the rows of seats, a long tulle veil trailing after her, her dark hair up and anchored in place by a tiara of white roses.
Megan’s eyes swung back to where the minister was standing along with Hugh and Russell, both looking resplendent in black dinner suits, white roses in their lapels. As handsome as both men were, neither of them could hold a candle to James, in her opinion.
Her eyes slid surreptitiously back to her husband, whose attention, thankfully, was elsewhere.
There was no doubt James was a striking-looking man: very tall and well-built, with a masculine face and deep-set, extremely dark eyes that commanded immediate attention. His cheekbones were prominent, his nose strong and straight, his mouth nicely shaped. His ears sat flat against his wellshaped head, which was just as well, because he always wore his dark brown hair very short, giving a tough-guy edge to his otherwise conservative image.
Women would still have thrown themselves at him, Megan conceded, even if he hadn’t been rich and powerful.
On top of that, he was always superbly dressed. The white-jacketed dinner suit he was wearing today was no off-the-peg variety. It had been tailored especially to fit him. But he looked just as good without clothes, she knew, his shoulders naturally broad and his muscles well honed from regular workouts in the gym. His quite magnificent male body was well-equipped to satisfy a woman in every way.
He satisfied me, she recalled. Every time.
And he’d satisfy you again, a devilish voice piped up in her head. All you have to do is let him…
Her face flushed at the temptation, a small groan escaping her lips.
When James’s head whipped round, she brought the tissue up to her mouth and tried not to look embarrassed.
‘You’re not crying already, are you?’ he said, but with an indulgent little smile.
‘Not yet,’ she croaked out.
‘You are a real softie, aren’t you? But I love that about you.’
Do you? she wondered as she wrenched her eyes away from his. Do you actually love anything about me?
Russell had said he was fond of her. That could be true, Megan conceded. James was always very nice to her.
But being fond of someone was a wishy-washy, lukewarm feeling, no match for the mad passion James had evoked in her from the start, and which she’d believed was mutual. How much of his so-called passion on their wedding night had been pretend? Did he have any real desire for her? Or was she just a means to an end?
Megan was well aware that men could not fake an erection. But it didn’t take much for a man in his prime—and James, at thirty-six, was still a young man—to become aroused. It was a well-known fact that men didn’t need love to want to have sex; just a willing woman in most cases.
She’d been very willing. And very naïve.
But not so naïve any longer.
If she ever went to bed with James again, she would have to do so with the full knowledge that he didn’t love her.
Could she do that? Could she really?
Before today, she would have said no. Definitely not!
Now she wasn’t quite so sure…
‘I hope Russell hasn’t forgotten the rings,’ James said. ‘We don’t want any dramas like we had at his wedding. Remember how that dreadful mother of Nicole’s showed up at the last minute and accused him of marrying her daughter for revenge?’
‘Yes, I remember,’ Megan said tautly.
‘Stupid woman. As if any man would marry for revenge. Anyone with half a brain could see that Russell was madly in love.’
Megan glanced at Russell, who was right at that moment smiling at Nicole, who’d preceded the bride down the aisle and looked absolutely exquisite in pale green. Megan recalled their wedding very well; recalled actually standing up and clapping when Nicole had said love was all that mattered. Megan had not long been back from her honeymoon at the time, her blind belief in James’s love having given her a new confidence and self-esteem, all of which had vanished the day she’d lost her baby boy. And, with it, her innocence.
James’s low chuckle dragged her back to the present. ‘Poor Hugh,’ he said. ‘If that look on his face is anything to go by, then Kathryn is going to run rings around him.’
Megan stared at Hugh as he stared at his bride, his expression one of total adoration and admiration. His eyes even filled with tears as she drew close.
That’s what I want, she thought, her heart squeezing tight. For James to look at me like that. For him to really truly love me.
But that wasn’t going to happen, was it? came the voice of brutal honesty. And you’re never going to leave him. Not now that you want him again.
Megan had never imagined that she would actually cry. She’d been beyond tears for some time now. But suddenly, there they were, flooding her eyes, her one single tissue totally inadequate to mop up the flood.
James came to the rescue with a clean white handkerchief before putting a tender arm around her shoulders.
‘What a silly billy you are,’ he said gently. ‘Weddings are happy occasions, not sad.’
‘I…I want to go home,’ she cried. ‘Please take me home.’
James sighed. ‘I can’t, Megan. Not yet. Look, I promise we won’t stay late but I can’t just up and leave. Hugh is one of my best friends. You know that.’
The arrival overhead of a helicopter hired by the media drowned out the rest of her weeping. Fortunately, it didn’t come low enough to ruin hairdos and blow hats off, but it was still quite noisy, the minister having to talk louder and louder. The helicopter finally left just after Hugh and Kathryn were pronounced man and wife, by which time Megan had stopped crying. But the release of emotion had left her feeling totally drained.
She only just managed to get through the next few hours, though she did hide in one of the luxurious powder rooms for a while. Megan had always found making idle conversation difficult when faced with people she didn’t know, which meant most of the guests at this wedding. There was also a measure of guilt when faced with the few people she did know, especially Russell and Nicole. She felt terrible that she’d rejected all of their social invitations over the last few months, and never invited them back.
More guilt followed when they were so nice to her.
And all the while she was cripplingly aware of James, and the physical effect he was suddenly having on her. Even when he wasn’t by her side, she found herself watching him. Jealousy raised its ugly head whenever she saw him chatting to other women—attractive women.
It came to her suddenly that maybe her handsome husband—the one who didn’t love her—might not have been as frustrated as she’d imagined these past three months. Maybe he hadn’t been working when he came home so late every other night. Maybe he’d been having sex with one or more of the many beautiful women whom he met on a daily basis. Running an advertising and management agency brought him into constant contact with actresses and models, most of them beautiful and glamorous, all of them sophisticated women-of-the-world. He wouldn’t have any trouble finding a casual bed-partner.
When James finally said his goodbyes to the happy couple, Megan was more than ready to leave, her jealousy by then bubbling up inside her like a rumbling volcano.
She wanted to erupt, wanted to throw angry accusations at him. Wanted to tell him that she knew he didn’t love her, that he’d only married her to have children. She wanted to start a fight.
She almost did. They’d stopped at a set of traffic lights and she actually turned towards him, her mouth opening to launch into her tirade.
If only James hadn’t chosen that moment to bend over and kiss her. Not sweetly but hungrily, his right hand cupping her chin, keeping her mouth captive beneath his onslaught.
If Megan had been in any doubt earlier that her desire for James had been well and truly revived, then his kiss quickly cemented that realisation. The kiss went on and on, James’s head only lifting when the car behind them beeped impatiently.
‘Keep your skirt on,’ he muttered, his mouth still hovering close to her lips. ‘I’m busy, kissing my wife.’ And then he kissed her again, ignoring the now blaring horn, ignoring the other driver’s verbal abuse as he was forced to angle past their still stationary vehicle.
By the time James stopped kissing her, Megan’s volcanic anger had been replaced by a desire so intense that it threatened what was left of her sanity. This was even worse than she’d feared, much worse. This wasn’t just wanting to be made love to. This was a craving so strong that it would not be denied.
Her skin crawled with the need to be touched. Her body ached to be filled. At that moment nothing else mattered. Not the fact that he didn’t love her, or that he’d probably been unfaithful.
Thank goodness that she’d had the forethought to go on the Pill!
When more cars started to honk their horns at them, James sighed and turned his attention back to the steering wheel.
The drive home saved her. Or was it the last vestiges of her pride that came to the rescue? Whatever, by the time James went through the gates of the six-bedroom mansion he’d bought shortly after their marriage, Megan had managed to get some control over her treacherously weak flesh.
‘Do you fancy a nightcap?’ James asked as they both climbed out of his car.
‘No, nothing,’ Megan replied quickly. ‘The thing is, James, I have this terrible headache. I’m going to take some tablets and go straight up to bed.’
He stared at her over the bonnet of the car, his dark eyes not happy. ‘A headache,’ he said slowly.
Megan didn’t say a word.
‘You do realise this can’t continue, Megan.’
‘Yes,’ she replied tautly, then looked away from his probing gaze.
‘We’ll talk in the morning. Before I go to work. Make some decisions about our future.’
Her eyes flew back to his. Maybe he was going to make it easy for her and ask for a divorce himself. Maybe he’d finally lost patience with her. Part of her hoped so.
But not the part which tormented her for hours that night as she lay in their marital bed, her back to James, pretending to be asleep when all the while she was wide-awake.
In the end she could bear it no longer. Rising quietly, she drew the matching silk robe over her nightie and made her way downstairs and out onto the back terrace. The moon was up, moonlight dancing on the water of the swimming pool as she hurried past it down to her studio, shivering in the cool night air as she went.
Once inside what had once been the pool house, she turned on the lights and the air-conditioning and made her way over to the easel that was set up under the skylight which James had had put in for her. Lifting the dust sheet off the canvas, she studied the painting she’d been working on for ages.
It was not what she wanted to work on tonight. Tonight, she would work on something very different indeed.
Quickly she replaced the canvas with an empty one, hiding the other painting in a cupboard. After that, she sat down on the stool in front of the easel and began to mix her paints, every now and then glancing up at herself in the long mirror which hung on the wall opposite.
Could she capture that look on canvas? she wondered.
What did it matter if she couldn’t? No one would ever see this painting, or the other one, but herself.
Chapter Two
JAMES emerged from the bathroom and stood there for a long moment, glowering at the king-sized bed which dominated the elegantly furnished master bedroom and which, at that moment, looked as if it had been in the path of a herd of stampeding elephants.
The dishevelled state of the sheets and pillows wasn’t the result of a night of satisfying lovemaking with his wife, something he’d been hoping for when he’d kissed her in the car last night and she’d responded like the Megan of old.
Instead, the moment they arrived home from Hugh’s wedding, she’d claimed a headache and bolted for bed straight away, although it hadn’t been late, only about eight-thirty. Then, soon after he’d finally come to bed around eleven, she’d upped and fled the room altogether, leaving him to toss and turn, the meagre hours of sleep he’d managed to get being peppered with darkly erotic, highly arousing dreams. He’d woken this morning and even after a fifteen-minute cold shower he’d felt extremely frustrated.
Tightening his tie, James marched across the plush cream carpet and flung open the French doors which led out onto the sun-drenched balcony. Dark brows bunched together, he gripped the curved railing top and peered down at the pool house which sat at the far end of the swimming pool.
He couldn’t see inside the pool house. But he knew she was in there, painting.
When he’d had the pool house converted into an art studio for Megan, James had imagined he was doing the right thing, giving his emotionally fragile young wife something to distract her from her grief. She’d taken losing their baby very hard, even harder than he had.
James had never anticipated that she would end up spending all day, every day in there—and now every other night as well.
What he’d thought might be good therapy had become an obsession. Hell, she wouldn’t even let him look at any of her work. Goodness knew why. She didn’t seem to want to share any part of her life with him any more. It was the bed part, however, which bothered James the most.
Megan’s doctor had said to be patient; that Megan was an especially sensitive young woman; that he couldn’t expect her to want sex for a little while.
Well, he’d been more than patient in his opinion, and a ‘little while’ had turned into three long months. James had coped. Just. What he could not cope with was the constant delay in trying for another child. He was already thirty-six years old, older than he’d planned to be when he became a father.
Becoming a dad was what James wanted most in the world these days, but it was almost impossible if your wife never let you make love to her.
James sympathised with Megan. He really did. But running away from life was no answer. You had to face up to things, then move on.
Of course, Megan was an extremely soft, shy, vulnerable girl. That was why he’d chosen her.
Because she was nothing like Jackie.
James’s heart twisted when he thought of his first wife. Why was it that men often fell for the wrong woman?
Jackie had captivated him from the start, his mad passion for her beautiful body blinding him to her materialistic motives in marrying him. The ugly truth had been outed when she’d been unable to conceive and James had suggested IVF, or adoption. When she’d rejected both of his suggestions out of hand, James began to suspect that Jackie didn’t want children at all. During the course of their subsequent argument, she admitted that she’d known all along that she was infertile, that she could never give him the family he so desired.
That she hadn’t really loved him had also become obvious to James. He’d just been a ticket to the good life, an insurance policy for the future when her modelling life came to an end.
What she’d done had been wicked, and cruel, and totally selfish.
Hugh and Russell believed he was still in love with Jackie.
But he wasn’t. She’d killed his love for her. Unfortunately, it seemed she’d also killed his ability to fall in love again. As much as he wanted to be in love with Megan, James knew he wasn’t. He liked her very much, though, and he liked making love to her.
Or he had.
Of course, sex with Megan wasn’t as exciting as it had been with Jackie. How could it be? Jackie had been an experienced woman-of-the-world with lots of tricks to turn a guy on. Megan had been a virgin when James had met her, shy and somewhat inhibited. Total nudity still embarrassed her, so their sex life so far—when they’d had one!—had been pretty conservative, with James always the initiator.
Not that she wasn’t a passionate girl, she was. Right from the start James had received surprising satisfaction in Megan’s obvious pleasure in his lovemaking.
In hindsight, he wasn’t at all sure about Jackie. Faking it would have been part of her modus operandi.
Nothing fake about Megan, or her love for him. James knew that.
Occasionally, he did experience some momentary guilt that he didn’t love her back; usually when Hugh and Russell made some uncomplimentary remark on the subject. Or sometimes, when he told her that he loved her. But whenever that happened, logic soon came to the rescue. Megan didn’t know he didn’t love her and James firmly believed he could make her happy.
If she’d only let him…
Frustration on several levels sent him striding back into the bedroom, where he slipped into his suit jacket, then collected his wallet and mobile phone from the bedside table. With one last glower at the messy bed, he headed downstairs, where the enticing smell of freshly brewed coffee indicated that his breakfast was almost ready.
‘Good morning, Mr Logan,’ Roberta said cheerily when he walked into the kitchen. ‘Your breakfast won’t be long.’
As housekeepers went, Roberta was a gem. James had hired her shortly after he’d bought this place from Russell late last year, knowing that the huge Bellevue Hill mansion was way too large for Megan to look after by herself. Though in her mid-fifties, Roberta was still slim and very fit, and a simply wonderful cook. Her handyman husband coming with the deal was a bonus. Running Images left James with little time for gardening, or cleaning the pool.
Even so, James had every intention of semi-retiring once his first child was born. When he’d come to the decision a few years back to embrace fatherhood rather than run away from it, James had resolved to give being a parent one hundred and ten per cent effort.
His own father’s pathetic example had shown him what not to do. James didn’t want any son—or daughter—of his to feel what he’d felt when he’d been growing up. No way!
‘Could you hold breakfast for a while this morning, Roberta? I’m going to pop down to the pool house for a few minutes.’
Roberta shook her head sadly. ‘Mrs Logan spent the night painting again, did she?’
James hesitated. Since his ego-bruising break-up with Jackie, James had become a bit paranoid about keeping his private life…private. But it was difficult to keep secrets around Roberta. She was a canny woman—though, thankfully, a kind one.
‘Afraid so,’ he admitted.
‘Poor love. I’ve tried talking to her, you know. Told her that lots of miscarriages are nature’s way when something isn’t quite right.’
‘And?’
Roberta shrugged. ‘She said she already knew that.’
James nodded. Yes. The doctor would have explained that to her, since he’d told him the same thing, reassuring James that there was no reason why his wife’s next pregnancy wouldn’t be fine.
‘I’ve decided to take Megan away on a second honeymoon,’ James informed Roberta. ‘Get her right away from here, and that infernal studio.’
‘That’s a very good idea. She can’t keep going on the way she is. She’s living on her nerves. And she eats like a bird. I can’t remember the last day she had a proper breakfast. Or lunch, for that matter.’
James frowned. He’d noticed her picking at her meal at night, but hadn’t realised she wasn’t eating much during the day, either.
‘Why don’t you make up a breakfast tray for two, Roberta, and I’ll take it down with me? That way I can sit with her and make sure she eats something.’
‘That’s another good idea. It shouldn’t take me too long.’
‘I’ll get myself a cup of that great coffee of yours while I wait.’
Ten minutes later, James arrived at the pool house with a well-stocked breakfast tray in his hands. The door was closed, James knocking with the toe of his shoe.
‘It’s me, Megan,’ he called out at the same time. ‘Can you open the door for me? My hands are full.’
The door eventually opened, with a sleepy-eyed Megan half hiding behind it.
‘What time is it?’ she asked.
‘Breakfast time,’ he answered, and walked in with the tray, putting it down on the small round table which sat to the right of the door. When he pulled out a chair for her, Megan ignored it. Instead, she hurried over to the easel, where she threw a dust sheet over the canvas, then sat down on her stool and started cleaning her brushes.
‘How’s the painting coming along?’ he said, suppressing his irritation with difficulty.
‘Fine,’ Megan said without looking up.
‘Am I going to be allowed to see it one day?’
‘Not till it’s finished,’ she said, still not looking his way.
Megan had confessed to him early on in their relationship that she had a dream of becoming a famous artist, an ambition which James never believed would come to fruition, mainly because he didn’t think she had enough talent. Megan was a good painter; she hadn’t spent several years at art school for nothing. But her paintings simply didn’t have that special something which made them stand out from the crowd.
They’d met last year at an art gallery, in front of the one and only painting of Megan’s ever to be exhibited. It hadn’t been to his taste—he’d never liked still-life pictures—but he’d bought it anyway at the end of the evening, knowing by then that he’d found the ideal girl to marry. Attractive enough and suitably young, with a sweetly innocent way about her which always appealed to cynical men-of-the-world. That she also came from a well-off family hadn’t hurt, either, James not wanting to risk marrying a golddigger again.
He’d encouraged her to keep on painting after their marriage, thinking it would be good for her to have an involving hobby. He’d certainly encouraged her to keep on painting after her miscarriage, even putting up with her suddenly developing the kind of artistic temperament which didn’t allow anyone to see what she was working on whilst the work was in progress.
But there was a limit to his patience, and he was fast reaching the end of it!
‘Roberta tells me you haven’t been eating breakfast,’ he said somewhat sharply.
Now she glanced over at him, her eyes startled, perhaps by his harsh tone. Megan’s big brown eyes were very expressive.
‘I…I haven’t been very hungry lately,’ she said, and turned her attention back to her brushes.
‘Come and have some juice, then.’
‘In a moment…’
James counted to ten before saying firmly, ‘Megan. We have to talk.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ she said. ‘We do.’ But she made no move to join him at the table.
His patience finally ran out.
‘Then have the decency to stop what you’re doing and come over here!’ he snapped before he could stop himself.
He hated himself immediately for taking that tone with her. But, truly, there was a limit to what he could endure.
He watched, somewhat chastened, as she put down her brushes, stood up, then re-sashed her silk robe tightly around her waist, bringing his attention to just how much weight she’d lost since her miscarriage.
When he’d first met Megan, she’d been nothing out of the ordinary, a reasonably pretty, round-faced brunette with nice eyes, a few too many pounds and not much interest in how she presented herself. Like a lot of people with an artistic bent, she was introverted and unworldly. By the time he’d married her two months later, however, she’d smartened herself up considerably, admitting later that she’d sought the help of a professional style guru who’d helped her with her wedding dress and her honeymoon wardrobe, then shown her how to do herself up to her best advantage.
James had been taken aback—and turned on—by the more sophisticated look of his bride when he first saw her on their wedding day, having been overseas on business during the weeks leading up to their marriage. Her bridal gown was a delight, the strapless style and corset-like bodice giving her body a sexy, hourglass shape.
James hadn’t given Jackie a second thought on his wedding night. Quite a feat after running into his first wife in New York three days earlier, on the arm of her latest lover.
He wasn’t thinking of Jackie now, either, his eyes—and his concentration—totally on Megan as she turned and moved towards him.
Yesterday, at Hugh’s wedding, he’d thought she looked very attractive. Today, however, she looked seriously sexy and quite beautiful. Yet she wasn’t wearing any make-up and her hair wasn’t done properly, just bundled up on top of her head in a decidedly haphazard fashion, with bits and pieces falling down around her face.
The loss of weight suited her, James realised. She now had cheekbones, her eyes looked bigger, her neck looked longer. So did her legs. In fact her whole figure was leaner, but still shapely, with good child-bearing hips, nice breasts and nipples just made for a baby’s mouth.
And for a man’s.
As James stared at the provocative outline that her nipples were making against the thin silk of her white negligee, he resolved that last night would be the last time Megan would sleep down here.
Tonight, she would stay in the marital bed.
Tonight, she would not turn away from him!
Chapter Three
MEGAN tried to ignore the direction of her husband’s coalblack eyes. Tried not to respond to the obvious glitter of desire in their depths.
But it was impossible.
Her nipples tightened, so did her belly, her weakness where he was concerned both exciting and annoying. It was wicked, the way he could affect her. She should have hated him for what he’d done to her. She did hate him. Sometimes.
Don’t look at him, she lectured herself. Sit down and pour yourself some juice and simply don’t look at him!
He was ahead of her, however, reaching for the jug before she had a chance and pouring the juice for her. She was forced to meet his eyes when he handed the glass over, his expression having changed by then from one of frustration to kind consideration.
‘Drink this up, there’s a good girl,’ he said with one of those warm, winning smiles of his, the kind he reserved for difficult clients. And weak-willed wives.
Still, he wouldn’t be calling her a good girl if he looked at the painting she’d worked on all night, Megan thought with bitter irony as she lifted the glass to her lips.
‘I’ve decided to take you away on a second honeymoon,’ he said after pouring himself some juice as well.
Megan blinked at him. He’d decided, had he? Just like that.
She had to admire him. At least he could do that—make decisions. Unlike her own wishy-washy self.
‘I was talking to Rafe the other day,’ he went on, clearly assuming by her silence—and possibly because of the way she’d kissed him yesterday—that she was going to agree. ‘You know Rafe, don’t you? Rafe Saint Vincent, the photographer. Anyway, he was telling me about this island he went to once, Dream Island. It’s off the coast of Queensland up near Cairns. He said it was the perfect place for a romantic getaway; a tropical paradise which offers total privacy and all the luxury in the world.’
Megan’s breathing quickened as she imagined what it would be like to go to such a place with James on a second honeymoon. He would be oh, so attentive to her, attentive and loving. And he’d make love to her as passionately and as often as he had when they’d first met.
Because he had a new mission: to make her pregnant again.
It was tempting. There was no doubt about it.
Lots of women in her position would take what he was offering and go on ignoring his lies. They would even try to have another child.
But Megan couldn’t do that last part. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
So what are you going to do? demanded the voice of reason. The time has come to make a decision. But which one?
Decision one: you confront James with the truth at long last and tell him what you overheard at the hospital. But, of course, if you do that then your marriage is over. You will have no alternative but to go home to your overbearing and critical mother.
Megan shuddered inside at such a prospect.
Decision two: you decide to live with James’s lies and give your marriage a second chance. You go on your second honeymoon and enjoy what your husband has to offer you. But you stay on the Pill till you feel ready to have another baby. Naturally, you don’t tell him you’re taking contraception because, if you do, your marriage will be over and you’ll be back home with Mother again.
It really was a no-brainer, not the way she was feeling right at this moment. She had to experience his lovemaking at least one more time, or go crazy.
‘That sounds…nice,’ she heard herself saying.
‘Darling,’ he murmured, reaching over to take her hand in his. ‘I can’t tell you how happy you’ve just made me. I’ve missed you terribly in bed,’ he said, stroking her fingers all the while. ‘You must know that.’
Suddenly, and perhaps perversely, she found the courage to at least give voice to one of her concerns. ‘Actually no, James,’ she choked out, even as her stomach contracted into a savage knot of desire. ‘I don’t know that.’
His eyes betrayed true surprise, his fingers stilling on hers.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You are the big boss of Images; a very rich, very powerful man. If you’d wanted sex these past few months, you’d have had no trouble getting it.’
There was no doubting his shock. Either that, or he was the best actor in the world.
‘I have never been unfaithful to you, Megan. Never! I want you and only you,’ he insisted, lifting her curled-over hand to his lips and kissing her knuckles.
It was probably a lie, Megan thought dazedly. But a brilliant one. She could perhaps live with lies like that, if he kept delivering them with such seeming sincerity, along with some of his exquisite lovemaking.
‘I’ll get right on to booking a place on Dream Island as soon as I get to work,’ he continued with his usual decisiveness. ‘But before I leave, can I tempt you with some cereal? Or a croissant?’
‘Not just now,’ she said tersely, and pulled her hand out of his hold.
James frowned as only James could, his thick dark brows beetling together, his black eyes glittering with instant disapproval. ‘As much as you’re looking incredibly lovely today, my darling, you don’t want to lose any more weight. Not if we’re going to try for another baby.’
Her nostrils sucked in sharply before she could stop them.
‘Is there a problem with that?’ he demanded to know straight away. ‘Is it still too soon for you?’
A hundred years would be too soon, she wanted to scream at him. Oh, God, what if she never wanted to have another baby? What if this fear never passed?
‘The doctor said there was no physical reason for you to have another miscarriage,’ James went on before she could find the right reply. ‘Look, you said when we married that you wanted a big family.’
‘Yes, I know I did,’ she said tightly. And she still did!
It was all so impossible, Megan realised despairingly.
‘Tell me what’s bothering you,’ he persisted.
‘I can’t.’
‘You can, you know,’ he said, reaching over and touching her hand again. ‘You can tell me anything. Would it help if I said I already know what it is?’
Megan snatched her hand away from under his. He knew she didn’t want to have a baby? Knew she was on the Pill?
‘You think you don’t want sex any more,’ he pronounced baldly as he sat back in his chair.
Megan almost laughed, just managing to hide her reaction by looking away and picking up her orange juice.
Any secret amusement—however perverse—was soon squashed when he rose abruptly from his chair and strode round to hers. Megan froze whilst he swept the glass of juice from her hand and banged it back onto the tray. Two seconds later, her chair had been twisted away from the table and he was pulling her up into his arms.
‘I should have done this last night,’ he growled as his mouth swooped.
Megan didn’t want him to kiss her, not right now!
But there was no stopping him.
She tried not to respond but it was a futile struggle from the start. Her mind quickly dissolved, along with her body. There was no thought of resistance. There was nothing but blind acceptance that this was where she wanted to be. In his arms. She forgot, in the heat of the moment, that her period had arrived just before dawn that morning…
Chapter Four
YES!
A wild elation swept through James when Megan finally responded. For a moment there, he’d thought she was going to reject him again.
But there was no rejection in the way she was suddenly pressing herself against him.
God, but he’d really missed her. Missed this.
She was so sweet, he thought as his mouth softened against hers. Delicious, really. His mind was already racing ahead of his actions, thinking of how for once he would make love to her out of a bed and in broad daylight. Soon he’d pick her up and carry her over to the red leather sofa under the window. Soon he’d be inside her.
First, however, he would have to get her a little more excited, or she might object. She really was incredibly shy.
He lifted his mouth from hers but he didn’t let her go, turning her round in his arms so that her back was against him. His left arm wound tightly around her waist, his right hand left free. Free to slide into the neckline of her robe and cup her breast, playing with her nipple through the thin silk of her nightie.
It was larger than he remembered. Larger and more responsive. Megan moaned softly as he played with it.
James was stunned when she wrenched herself out of his arms and whirled away.
‘You…you have to stop,’ she said, her voice shaking.
‘But why?’ he snapped. ‘You want it. I know you do.’
‘Yes, I do,’ she admitted, her face flushing. ‘I’m sorry, but we…we can’t do anything right now. I have my period.’
James almost swore. But just as well he hadn’t: Megan was not the sort of girl one used words like that with.
‘For how long?’ he asked, still a little sharply. But, hell on earth, he was in agony.
‘Till Friday at least,’ she said.
That was five whole days away! For a few seconds James struggled with his frustration before realising that those five days would eventually pass. After which…
‘Will your period definitely be finished by Saturday?’
‘Saturday should be fine,’ she said, and blushed prettily.
His eyes raked over her, noting that her eyes were sparkling and her nipples hard as rocks. It was going to be difficult keeping his hands off her till then.
He’d have to work out even harder in the gym this week to work off his frustrations.
‘We’ll fly out to Dream Island first thing Saturday morning,’ he pronounced firmly.
Megan’s eyes widened. ‘But you haven’t even booked yet. How do you know you’ll get a booking for next Saturday? Or even a flight?’
‘Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that. I’ll organise everything. Come Saturday, we’ll be on Dream Island.’
‘How long will we be gone for?’ she asked.
James was about to say a week. He really couldn’t afford to be away from the office for longer than that at the moment. He’d just started up a new addition to his business: a casting agency to cater for the increasing number of movies being made in Australia. But then he remembered that he wasn’t just whisking Megan away to have a twenty-four-seven sex-fest with her. He wanted to get her pregnant.
He’d forgotten that for a moment!
He quickly worked out the dates from what she’d told him about her period. Her peak time for conceiving would be a fortnight from today, give or take a few days either way. If they didn’t leave Sydney till Saturday he’d have to extend their holiday to at least ten days, just to be on the safe side. He couldn’t rely on getting her pregnant after they came back. She might go back into her shell when she returned. No, he would have to strike whilst his wife was hot. Which she was—very hot.
‘I thought ten days,’ he said.
She suddenly began to look worried again, for some reason.
Despite his earlier resolve to keep his hands off, he swiftly gathered her back into his arms, and kissed her again. It was worth the pain to feel her melt against him once more. Still, it was going to be a long week, sleeping beside her in bed and not being able to touch her. Knowing him, he was sure to try something and spoil everything. Better to keep her at arm’s length.
A sudden idea occurred to him.
‘Remember how great our wedding night was?’ he said, and she nodded, her eyes glistening a little. ‘Why don’t we try to re-create that?’
‘But…but…how?’
‘If you remember, we hadn’t seen each other for a few weeks before our wedding day. That time apart made our getting together again extra-special. I know it’ll only be a few days this time, but we could do something similar. You could sleep down here till we go. And have your meals down here. If you promise to eat, that is. What do you think?’
‘I think it’s a very romantic idea,’ she said, but with reservation, he thought.
‘I can be romantic, you know,’ he said teasingly.
‘Can you?’
‘Not often, I admit. But I can try.’
‘Won’t Roberta think it a bit strange if I don’t come up to the house for meals?’
‘I’ll explain what we’re doing.’
She blinked, then nodded. James smiled. That was another thing he really liked about Megan. She didn’t argue with him.
‘Great. Look, I’d better hotfoot it into the office and see to that booking post-haste. Don’t forget to eat some of this food. I’ll pick something up at work. Bye, darling.’ He squeezed her shoulder as he gave her a peck on the cheek. ‘See you tonight.’
‘No, you won’t.’
‘You’re right. I won’t. Damn. Still, it’s not that long till Saturday.’ Just a bloody eternity!
‘What happens if you can’t get a booking?’
‘I’ll get a booking,’ he said with a scowl. ‘Even if I have to buy the whole damned island!’
Chapter Five
WHICH he would, Megan accepted ruefully as she watched him hurry out of the pool house. James Logan was not a man to fail in anything he did. He was a man amongst men. A winner.
Megan knew more about her husband than he might realise she did. When he’d left her home alone during the six weeks between their engagement and wedding, she’d spent many hours checking him out on the internet, feeding her insatiable curiosity about the powerful man she’d fallen madly in love with and was about to marry. She’d read every item of news which related to him; every single article written about his background, his professional and his private lives.
There was one heck of a lot.
Although she already knew that James’s father was transport magnate Wayne Logan, Megan hadn’t known that Logan senior was a self-made billionaire who’d begun life as a lowly truck driver, becoming a multimillionaire by the time he was thirty. Of course, his marriage to the daughter of his wealthy boss had given him a leg up on the ladder of success, a strategy Megan was familiar with. Megan suspected her own mother had married for money, not for love. She was sometimes ashamed of the way her extremely materialistic mother did nothing but spend her poor father’s money.
At least Wayne Logan had pulled his weight, proving himself an astute businessman by building up his ailing father-in-law’s trucking company into the biggest in Australia. After his father-in-law passed away, Logan had gone on to bigger and better things, expanding his transport empire overseas, buying container ships and a couple of airlines, as well as more trucks.
Logan’s marriage had produced two sons. Jonathon, the elder by five years, had been killed in a car accident a few weeks after his twenty-third birthday. The Porsche he was driving—he’d run off the road and hit a telegraph pole—had been a birthday present from his doting father.
James didn’t figure largely in any articles about the Logan family until he was twenty-five, at which point he’d burst into the media spotlight—not because he’d followed into the family business as his older brother had, but as the highly successful manager of several singers and actors whose previous manager had been arrested for embezzlement three years earlier. Facing financial ruin, they’d all clubbed together at that time and turned to James for help. James had set up shop as a civil litigation lawyer after leaving university, raking up business by dropping pamphlets through letter boxes.
It came out later than none of them had known James had only been twenty-two at the time. James had always looked older than he was.
But help them he had. Not by suing the man who’d fleeced them—an impossible course of action after the gamblingaddicted fool had committed suicide—but by talking them into taking him on as their manager. James had always had the gift of the gab, it seemed, and a passion for the entertainment business.
It was history now that under the original contract they’d signed with him James had taken no commission for the first year, provided they did what he said, no questions asked. With little to lose—all of them were in danger of fast becoming ‘has-beens’ and ‘never-wases’—they’d all agreed to his terms.
Within three years, every one of James Logan’s clients was a success story and James was raking it in. His new company, Images, quickly became the most famous management agency in Australia, and he was dubbed ‘The Makeover Man’.
That was his basic modus operandi. James made people over; gave them what he called the right image, transforming the bland and the boring into the bold and the beautiful, giving each singer and actor not just a new look but also sometimes a new name, and always a new confidence. This, combined with lots of exposure on television—in everything from telethons to reality shows to guest spots on the proliferation of breakfast programmes—made his clients some of the most well-known faces in Australia and subsequently some of the most sought-after performers.
His biggest success story back then had been Jessica Mason, a country-and-western performer in her late twenties, who’d once won a ‘Golden Guitar’ in her late teens, but had languished in mediocrity ever since. She’d also gained about twenty kilos in that time. James didn’t change her name, though he shortened her first name to Jessie and left off the last. He personally supervised her diet and exercise programme till she was back to her optimum weight of fifty-two kilos, allowing her very good figure to emerge once more. Her long mass of rather ratty blonde hair was dyed jet-black and her wardrobe was changed from fringed suede vests and cowboy boots to long, flowing skirts, low-cut tops and jewelencrusted sandals.
Her first album—titled ‘Barefoot Gypsy’—had one of the sexiest covers ever produced, with Jessie standing next to a camp fire in a flamenco-style pose, with her skirt lifted high to expose a lot of hip and thigh, her head thrown back so that her wild black curls flowed down her back and her obviously braless breasts thrust up high against the gauzy white blouse she was almost wearing.
The album had gone gold within days; platinum within weeks. Years later it was still selling. Of course, this wasn’t entirely due to the provocative cover, though it played a big part. The songs on the CD backed up the promise of the packaging, being moody and sexy, with great lyrics and throbbing rhythms.
‘You still have to deliver,’ James was quoted as saying when he was accused of selling sex. ‘My singers can sing, and my actors can act. The trouble with the entertainment industry is that the truly talented don’t always get the opportunity to show what they can do. I give my people that opportunity by promoting them in a way which gets them noticed.’
It was inevitable that James would eventually extend his business interests into the advertising industry.
‘Products aren’t much different from people,’ he was also quoted as saying in another article after he’d started up Images Advertising. ‘They require an image to be successful, as do companies. Come to me and I’ll guarantee to increase your sales in six months, or I’ll give you your money back.’
This extremely bold statement had seen stressed sales and marketing managers flocking to James to perform his magic. And perform it he had, with the help of the highly creative, lateral-thinking staff he’d hired.
By the age of thirty James had become a multimillionaire and something of a playboy. The internet threw up hundreds of photographs of him doing what playboys did during their leisure hours: there were snapshots of him at the races, at movie premieres, at swish charity dos and golfing tournaments; on yachts, driving sports cars and relaxing in five-star resorts.
Most of the photographs showed James with a different dolly-bird on his arm. It came as a surprise to the Press when, at the age of thirty-two, he married Jackie Foster, the Australian supermodel. He’d been tabbed to stay a swinging bachelor for a few more years.
Megan had only felt minor jealousy over James’s earlier girlfriends. They were way in the past, after all. But she’d taken one look at the photographs of James’s first wedding day and realised she had a long way to go before her bridal snaps would even compare. Jackie Foster had made a simply stunning bride.
Megan still wasn’t jealous. James had done a good job of convincing Megan she was what he wanted, not Jackie Foster. Suddenly, however, she’d not been happy with the way she looked. The least she could do was make the best of herself. So she’d turned to a fashion guru for help—not her overly critical mother!—and been very pleased with the result. She’d swanned down that aisle on her own wedding day believing she was truly beautiful, and also believing that she had her husband-to-be’s true love.
‘What a fool I was,’ she muttered as she picked up a piece of toast and gave it a savage bite.
What hadn’t she believed back then?
Thinking about her husband’s lies and deceptions stirred up a hornets’ nest of anger inside Megan. Some directed at James, but most directed at herself. She should have confronted him with the truth at the hospital, when the hurt had been fresh in her mind, and in her heart. She should not have left it.
It was too late now. She was trapped, not just by her unrequited love for the man, but also by her renewed desire for him. She wanted to go on that second honeymoon with him quite desperately. Wanted him to make love to her for days on end. No use pretending differently. No use thinking she was going to do or say anything which would stop that from happening.
Standing up, Megan walked over to the easel and lifted the dust cloth from the painting. What she saw there still had the power to shock her…but also to excite her.
The phone ringing startled Megan. Impossible for James to be in his office yet. He’d only left ten minutes earlier. Of course, he could be ringing her from his car phone, but she didn’t think so. He didn’t do that too often.
Megan winced at the thought it might be her mother, wanting to know the ins and outs of Hugh’s wedding. She’d rung last night as Megan had been undressing for bed. Megan had put her off at the time, saying she had a headache.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/miranda-lee/the-billionaire-s-bride-of-innocence/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.