“THAT WAS...” AMELIA’S voice faded as though she didn’t have words.
Hunter didn’t. His brain was nothing but fried wires. He was spent and gratified, still joined with his wife, who was sprawled upon him. His wife. Why did that satisfy him as deeply as the sex?
“A long time coming,” she decided, then burst into giggles, stirring the hair on his chest and turning her smug laughter at her own pun into the hollow of his shoulder.
Tightness invaded his chest, but it wasn’t a chuckle. It was a yank of discomfort at the truth in her remark.
“I’m sorry. Was that tasteless?” She abruptly lifted her head, sobering as she realized he wasn’t as amused as she was.
“It was terrible. Worse than a dad joke. You’re stepping on my territory.” He smoothed her hair back from where the ends were tickling the edge of his jaw.
She searched his eyes, then gave him a smile as pale as his own. When she shifted away, Hunter didn’t try to stop her.
She slipped into the bathroom and he stayed where he was, throwing his arm over his head as he mentally probed at why he was so dismayed by something that was exactly the sort of dirty private joke a couple ought to share in the afterglow.
He didn’t brag about conquests and had never been embarrassed by dry spells between lovers. On the contrary, it was a point of pride for him that he could go without sex, unlike his father.
But it felt too revealing that Amelia knew he hadn’t slept with anyone since her, probably because self-discipline wasn’t the reason he had put off having sex with Eden. Eden had broached the subject a couple of times, very cautiously. There had been a necessary timeline on their marriage, but they hadn’t known each other well. He’d assured her there was no rush for intimacy.
The stark truth, however, was that he hadn’t desired Eden the way he wanted Amelia. At that point, it had only been the memory of Amelia, interfering and preventing him from rousing to desire for Eden.
And once Amelia had been back in his life, it had been all he could do to wait the three days until they were married and she had some reliable birth control in place. How long had they been here? Not even an hour, and he’d been all over her. If he’d been able to manage it, he would have made her come three more times before he let himself finish.
He almost wished it hadn’t been as good as he remembered. If he was disappointed right now, regretting this marriage, he wouldn’t feel so raw. Instead, the sex had been too good. He was already impatient for her to emerge from the bathroom. Maybe they wouldn’t have sex, but he wanted to touch her. Cover her. Kiss her.
He bit back a groan, flesh stirring with recovery. With want.
He didn’t know her well enough for this to be an emotional connection. It was pure chemistry and hormones, which made it worse. His libido didn’t care about little things like whether he could trust her.
If he wasn’t very careful, he would become as besotted and stupidly indulgent as his father.
“I should unpack.” Amelia reappeared wearing a fluffy white robe. She paused in the walk-through closet to stare at the suitcases that had been left there.
“Kyra will do it.” Hunter made himself rise and find his briefs. They needed to get out of here or he’d have her on her back again before either of them knew it. “Let’s walk. If Peyton is awake, we’ll bring her with us.”
Amelia wasn’t sure what she had expected from her honeymoon—probably that she would get to know her husband better, but small things got in the way.
The most persistent small thing was their daughter. That didn’t bother her. She enjoyed seeing Hunter bond with Peyton. He wore her in a sling while they took short hikes, never shied from changing her and even brought her to Amelia, saying, “That sounds like her hungry cry.”
Other times the obstacles were more dismaying. They were out in public, where they could be overheard. Or even in the house, Kyra and her husband were always nearby.
When she did get a minute to ask him something personal, Hunter always seemed to deflect. He was comfortable telling her facts—his mother had died from a blood infection when he was nine—but he didn’t tell her how he felt about it.
“That must have been so hard. I’m really sorry.” Amelia’s heart ached for him.
“Vienna barely remembers her. That’s why our family foundation raises money for treatments and cures for sepsis. The gala is next month, actually. I’ll have my PA send you the details.” He walked away to find his phone and issue that command.
He worked on and off, taking calls at odd moments and disappearing to sit in on video meetings, which formed yet another thin wall between them.
Amelia couldn’t help wondering if he would have done the same to Eden if he’d been sailing the Greek islands with her. Then she felt churlish because she was the one he had married.
She still didn’t know what to think of his celibacy between July and their wedding night. It probably wasn’t significant. Maybe Eden hadn’t wanted to be intimate with someone who didn’t love her.
Amelia wondered if there was something wrong with her that she did, because the other thing that came between their communicating with words was the constant sex.
She wouldn’t call it lovemaking, because in a strange way, it felt almost like a sensual battle. They both triumphed, yet she always felt defeated. Sometimes it was a stolen quickie during naptime, sometimes it was a lazy, sleepy midnight coupling, and sometimes it was a lengthy contest where Hunter seemed determined to hold back through sheer strength of will while he found every single way he could wring moans and sobs and gasps from her.
She exulted in it, but also felt as though she was losing a piece of herself every single time.
She might have felt less dismantled if they had had a lazy day watching TV in bed, talking to no one but each other, but they went out every day. She didn’t mind. It was beautiful. They walked to see waterfalls and ambled the shoreline of glacier-fed green lakes. They went up on the gondola one afternoon, and he took her out for dinner another evening. They lingered over dessert to listen to a folk musician. It was her first time leaving Peyton, but it all went fine.
They must have been recognized, though, because they visited an art gallery the next day and Amelia became aware of the stares they were garnering. Celebrities were common in Banff, but usually came in the winter months for ski vacations. That meant the paparazzi who made their living with candid photos had slim pickings this time of year. They were more than happy to settle for the Wave-Com cad and his strumpet wife.
That night they made the six o’clock news when it was reported that they were on honeymoon in Banff. The next day, they were photographed getting out of their SUV at the base of a hiking trail.
They got straight back in, not wanting to be stalked for the next two hours.
“It’s okay,” Amelia said as Hunter turned back toward home.
She was disappointed and feeling threatened and exposed, but she didn’t think it warranted such a hard scowl as the one he was wearing. It made her feel the weight of being responsible for this scandal.
“I’ve been meaning to check in with Dad,” she continued evenly. “Maybe I can catch him before he’s out on the water again.” He was fishing every day and loving it.
“Hopefully they’re not at the gate when we get there,” he said grimly.
Her phone pinged at that moment and so did Hunter’s. Here in the mountains, they were in and out of service constantly. It wasn’t unusual that both of their phones would buzz for attention simultaneously, but this seemed like more noise than usual.
Amelia glanced at her screen. Her messages were filtered, but she had set up an alert for Jasper’s name. It was only a clickbait headline teasing his disappearance as a family trait. The article claimed Hunter was “hiding” his “runner-up wife” and her “money baby.”
She told herself it was okay that she was getting raked over the coals so long as Jasper’s situation was getting renewed visibility.
“What’s wrong?” Hunter asked.
“Nothing. Just a nasty headline.”
“Those aren’t supposed to come to you.”
“I can’t keep from seeing all of them,” she said, but he was already commanding his phone to “Call Carina.”
“You got my message?” Carina asked as she answered. “I just confirmed it.”
“Confirmed what?” Hunter snapped, glancing sharply at Amelia.
A pause, then in a confused voice, Carina said, “That Eden married Remy.”
“Sylvain?” Hunter asked out of sheer astonishment.
Carina’s swallow was audible. “Yes.”
Hunter was quiet. Too quiet. Amelia couldn’t tell if he was scorned or betrayed or embarrassed or furious or all of the above.
His only reaction was to say flatly when they got home, “The attention here is about to get worse. We’ll go to Vancouver where security is easier to manage.”
Within a few hours, they had landed in a drizzly Vancouver. After crawling across the bridge into West Vancouver, they arrived at a modern two-story home that, frankly, didn’t look as welcoming or posh as the chalet. It was kind of boxy and had stone columns and a brick drive and a fancy front door, but Amelia was thinking that everyone who had ever complained about West Coast weather and traffic and the price of real estate was justified in their disparagement.
Then they walked inside, and she was confronted by one hundred and eighty degrees of windows. With suitable drama, Mother Nature turned off the rain. The clouds parted to allow rays of sunshine to crash onto platinum water. As she walked out to the terrace, a warm breeze that was sweet as pineapple kissed her cheek in greeting.
“Oh. Kay,” she murmured. “I get it.”
She walked back into the living room of white leather sofas. They were arranged to face a fireplace that looked through to the dining area furnished with space-age chairs and a glass table. The kitchen had a pass-through like a restaurant, but it was currently shuttered.
The house was built into the mountainside so there were several terraces at different levels, one overlooking the pool, another that offered a view of the inlet and the city skyline and a land mass in the misty distance.
“Is that Vancouver Island?” She squinted against the sheen on the waves.
“Yes. And always glance down there for orcas.” He pointed.
“Get out of town!”
“True fact.” He had pulled Peyton from her seat and was following her around, watching her reaction, but now said, “I have to make some calls. I’ll show you where my office is so you can find me if you need me.”
The housekeeper had whipped their luggage up the spiral staircase, not that there was much of it. Hunter had assured Amelia she should leave most of her clothes in Banff, claiming Unity had stocked all his homes with appropriate selections for the climate. What did that even mean?
He carried Peyton as they started down the spiral staircase. It also wound upward so the hollow space took up three floors and had spheres of modern art suspended in the column of empty air.
“Is Remy one of your calls?” she asked.
“If he wanted to talk to me, he would have called by now.” Hunter spoke with so much frost, she sealed her lips.
They stepped off the stairs into a rec room tricked out like a pub with a full bar, a dance floor, a pool table and a dart board. There were comfortable pockets of seating and three televisions hung at convenient angles. Four sets of glass doors appeared to fold back upon themselves, opening the room to the patio and pool area. There was a hot tub out there as well. Hunter showed her a switch that ignited a semicircle of fire surrounding an outdoor eating area.
“Dramatic.”
“It was built by a musician.” He popped her eyes by naming one of Canada’s most successful vocalists. “I bought it not long after I met you, actually.”
“Did he let it go for a song? I couldn’t resist.” She bit her lip again.
“He did not.” He didn’t crack a smile.
She sighed inwardly. Did he blame her for his best friend moving on his bride? Was he concerned that any hope he’d had of salvaging the business side of his marriage to Eden was now circling the drain?
“After the court case was over, I was ready for a change of scenery. Vi is in Calgary so I was planning to make that my home, but this came up. Then I spent three weeks out of four back east so I was planning to unload this and make Toronto my home again.”
Because of Eden.
“You might prefer something closer to your father. We can talk about it as time goes on. That’s salt water,” Hunter said of the pool, continuing his tour. “Home theater.” He moved to a windowless room at the back. It sat twelve in three rows of four recliners. “Gym.” He opened and closed a door on a room full of equipment.
“Nanny suite.” He flicked a wrist toward the back corner as he crossed behind the bar. “This is my office.”
It took up the corner and was enormous. Two sets of French doors and a plethora of windows looked onto a garden that was in full bloom. The interior wall contained shelves filled with books and awards and art pieces. His desk was a shiny slab of ribbon-grained wood across two blocks of marble that were so big, she suspected the house had been built around them.
His phone rang so she said, “I’ll leave you to it.”
She took Peyton back upstairs, wondering if Hunter had bought this thinking he would raise his family here. The top floor held three bedrooms, all with walk-in closets and full bathrooms. One room was a nursery, and she thought the big one on the far end was the master since it had such a lovely view, but the closet only held a guest robe.
She went to the other end of the hall and this was the master. The walk-in closet here was a dressing room. It was lined with sliding doors and held a wall of shoe shelves, and there was a round upholstered bench in the middle. There was even a tailoring platform placed before a trifold mirror in the corner.
“I’m starting to think we’re not in Goderich anymore,” she whispered to Peyton.
The bathroom was as extravagant as everything else with French doors leading onto a private veranda and a massive shower that looked more like a sci-fi transportation device with nozzles and buttons and glass. In a bowed window, a jet tub invited her to relax and contemplate her life choices.
Amelia was questioning them. Big-time. Misgivings had been creeping in at every turn. While they’d been in Toronto, she’d been in shock, not fully appreciating Hunter’s wealth until they had married and she had climbed aboard his private jet. His. Vienna had one, and there was a corporate one as well. In Banff, she had fallen into an illusion that she was visiting an all-inclusive upscale resort. It was a nice place to visit, but it wasn’t her life. No one actually lived like this.
Except Hunter.
And her?
Things grew even more surreal as the day wore on. People arrived. She met her personal assistant and her West Coast stylist. The housekeeper asked her questions about menus, and a prospective nanny arrived.
Amelia had chatted with the agency a few times through the week, shortlisting résumés, but it hadn’t hit her that the decision to hire someone would rest with her—as it should, but it still freaked her out. She barely felt qualified to be a mother. Suddenly she found herself interviewing an accomplished woman her own age who had a degree in early childhood education, held a lifeguard certificate, and was fluent in English, French, Punjabi and Spanish, “Because my last family spent their winters in Mexico.”
Matinder was not only more highly educated than Amelia, she was more prepared for Hunter’s lifestyle.
Amelia introduced her to Peyton, who loved her, and Hunter, who asked questions around whether Matinder was prepared to travel internationally and whether she had pediatric first aid. She did. Of course she did. She had also worked briefly with a toddler who was hearing impaired. She knew basic ASL that she said would be useful for Peyton before she became verbal.
They arranged for her to start the following day.
“Because we have that party tomorrow night,” Hunter added.
What party? Amelia recalled her PA asking if she wished to accept the invite while her stylist had promised to pull a few outfits together. She had told them to ask Hunter whether they would attend. Apparently, he had said yes.
Great, she thought with dread.
Hunter was still withdrawn at dinner, and Amelia thought a few times that she ought to try harder to discover how he was feeling about his best man marrying his bride. She kept thinking that if she couldn’t bring sophistication and social cachet to this marriage, at least she could offer him emotional support.
He didn’t seem to want that, so she began to quietly hyperventilate. Until now, all the pressure on her had been from the outside. Paparazzi followed them and people judged her, but she was mostly able to shrug it off because they didn’t know her.
Tomorrow, however, she would have to step into a role that was completely foreign to her. When she organized a dinner or spoke at a fundraiser, she would make missteps and be critiqued on her decisions and actions.
No wonder he had wanted to marry someone like Eden. Amelia was going to embarrass him as badly as his stepmother had, and she wouldn’t even do it on purpose.
When she got Peyton settled for the night, she found him waiting for her in their bedroom.
They barely spoke. She was so desperate for reassurance she went straight into his arms. Whatever emotions were churning within him translated into white-hot passion. His hard arms caught her close, and his hungry mouth ravished hers.
She sobbed with relief. Here she didn’t have to think about what a misfit she was in his life. Here they were equals.
At least, that’s what she thought as he carried her to the bed. As they stripped and he came down to cover her, she pressed his shoulders, urging him to fall onto his back.
She was no shy virgin any longer. They had become familiar enough with each other’s bodies that she didn’t hesitate to pour herself over him, slithering her nudity against him and sweeping her hands over his shoulders and ribs and stomach. She was being more aggressive than she ever had been, caressing and kissing across his chest. His rib cage expanded beneath her lips as he drew a deep, shaken breath.
She loved it. She smiled and stroked her hands lower, caressed his powerful thighs and the flesh between, hearing him growl in pleasure. When she shifted lower to take him in her mouth, his hand on her shoulder tightened and he groaned like she was his salvation. Like he needed this. Her.
Excitement and sweet exaltation poured through her. She did everything she could to drive him wild, reveling in the intimacy. In the trust it implied. She was always the one to break first, but this time she would take him into that vulnerable place and know that she gave him this.
“Stop,” he said in a jagged voice.
She lifted her head, feeling almost drugged, she was so lost to the act. “What’s wrong?”
“What do you want?” His harsh question, delivered in that gravelly tone, didn’t make sense.
“You.” Wasn’t that obvious?
“Take me, then.” He dragged her up and atop him. “Do you need—No,” he said with satisfaction as he caressed between her straddled thighs and found her slippery with desire. “You’re more than ready, aren’t you?”
So ready. She was shivering, holding still for his explorations because it felt so good. So necessary.
He held himself for her to impale upon and she groaned out as his thickness filled her.
This was better, she agreed hazily. She wanted them to be together when they finished. She began to move, losing herself in these rhythms they had taught each other. This was where they were not just equal, but the same. They wanted and sought as one. They reached and rose and lifted each other toward that pinnacle, arriving—
She shattered, dimly aware of his hips lifting hard beneath her. His hands gripped her waist, firm and unyielding. His grimace was one of ultimate control as he withheld his own release, leaving her to shudder and cry out and lose herself while he watched.
As she folded limply onto him, he rolled her beneath him and slowly began to pump, bringing her still-quivering senses sharply back to life. He knew exactly how to touch her, when to scrape his teeth on her neck and where to trail his fingertips on her breasts to make her nipples peak and sting. He knew how to lift her hips so the angle of his penetration hit a spot that had her arching with acute pleasure, a cry of anguished joy torn from her throat.
Then, only then, when he had her again on the brink of another explosive orgasm, did he allow himself to let go and take her over the edge with him.
That culmination, shared with him this time, was so powerful and glorious, it brought tears to her eyes.
But the sting lingered behind her eyelids when they were both weak and panting on the sheets. They weren’t equals, she acknowledged, trying to swallow back the lump in her throat. She might be helpless to the chemistry that gripped them both, but he was impervious to it. Or at least, not as susceptible.
Maybe he had reasons for refusing to give up his control to her. Maybe he was determined to control something, given he was blindsided and helpless to do anything where his best friend and former bride were concerned.
Maybe she would know if he told her, but he only spooned her into his front and exhaled as his arm grew heavy across her waist.
Despite her physical satisfaction and growing lethargy, her lashes stayed wet and her mind continued to churn with angst. She was hurt and she was frustrated that he wouldn’t share with her and she knew why it ate at her so relentlessly.
She was starting to fall for him.
Oh, who was she kidding? She had begun falling for him last year, when she had let a man she’d only just met take her virginity. She had been angry and scorned and deeply hurt when he didn’t want to see her again. When he had told her he was marrying someone else, the rejection, the sense of a chance missed, had leveled her. She had blamed her weepiness on losing Jasper, but a large part of her depression at that time had been because there had been no more chance with the only man who interested her.
Then she had had his baby and had felt even more connected to him. That’s why she had let him put her on this bullet train into his life. Here was her chance to see what they might have had.
But they had nothing.
That was the harsh reality she was beginning to face.
Perhaps not nothing, but a lot less than she had dreamed of.
As she realized what sorts of romantic ideals she had let form over that week of their honeymoon—that he might come to love her—she quietly cringed at how childish that vision had been.
This was her life. And she would have to live up to it.