Page 11 of Fake Engagement Arrangement (Wilde Billionaire Brothers #1)

Mollie left him to go and pack her bag, her thoughts in turmoil.

Being in proximity with Jago for the next few days would test her resolve in ways it had never been tested before.

She had to resist the temptation to fall into bed with him, but their kiss had shown her how weak her defences were.

His kiss had reawakened her desire for him, the driving need that had drawn her to him two years ago.

Lust was the way he described his feelings for her, but she knew deep in her bones that it was more than that for her.

She had developed feelings for him in the few short months they had dated and become engaged.

She would not have agreed to marry him unless she had genuinely loved him.

She had spent the last two years trying to forget about him, trying to fool herself she no longer loved him, but that passionate kiss had shown her what dangerous territory she was venturing into again.

Her heart had never quite healed from having to jilt him.

To turn her back on the future she had dreamed of with him had cost her dearly emotionally.

But what else could she have done? If those ghastly images had gone viral, she would have been publicly shamed and vilified, not to mention humiliated beyond imagination.

Jago’s reputation, too, would have been sullied by his association with her.

Maxwell Wilde might well be a hard-nosed businessman with a ruthless streak wider than the English Channel, but she knew he would do anything and everything to protect the Wilde name.

Mollie had no idea how Maxwell was going to react when he saw her with Jago this coming weekend.

Jago didn’t seem to be too concerned, but how much did he know?

If his grandfather had told him about the images, surely Jago wouldn’t be inviting her back into his life, even if it was only for a weekend of playing at being engaged?

Jago paced the floor in Mollie’s bedsit like a lion in a cat carrier.

Why was she living in such a rundown place?

The money she had been paid by his grandfather should have been enough to set her up better than this.

She could have bought a nice apartment, even a nice house in a genteel suburb.

What had she done with the money? Did she have a gambling problem?

Did she do drugs? It seemed highly unlikely for she didn’t even drink alcohol.

But there was so much he didn’t know about her.

He knew every inch of her skin; he could picture every fleck in her grey-blue eyes and recall every contour of her beautiful full-lipped mouth.

He knew what it felt like to be inside her body, but he couldn’t get inside her head.

He reflected back on their relationship and realised it had been mostly about the sex.

They had fallen in lust, smoking-hot lust that had consumed both of them into its spellbinding vortex.

And kissing her a few minutes ago had proved their lust for each other had not died.

It had smouldered for two years like long, spreading tree roots underground, just waiting for a spark to reignite an inferno.

Jago looked around the pathetic bedsit for any signs of Mollie’s private life, but there no were photos of her family and friends.

He frowned and thought back to the wedding planner asking Mollie who she wanted to invite to the wedding.

He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now it seemed glaringly obvious that Mollie had had no intention of going through with the wedding.

There were so many red flags he hadn’t seen or had chosen not to see, which made him even more furious with himself.

Had he been so blind with lust he couldn’t see she had set him up right from the start?

Mollie had said her parents were dead and that all her other relatives such as uncles and aunts and cousins were living abroad and couldn’t make it to the wedding.

He hadn’t met a single one of her friends, although she had mentioned going out with them for coffee or yoga and Pilates classes.

That in itself should have alerted him to something.

Who didn’t introduce their partner to their friends?

And when the wedding planner had asked if Mollie wanted someone to walk her up the aisle and give her away as per tradition, Mollie had said she didn’t believe in such outdated nonsense.

She had kept insisting on a small wedding, but of course his grandmother was having none of that.

If one of her playboy grandsons was finally going to settle down, Elsie had wanted all the bells and whistles of a big, white wedding.

Jago still had the blasted wedding cake and Mollie’s wedding dress.

He had them in one of the spare rooms at his London house like he was a male version of Miss Havisham from Dickens’s Great Expectations .

He’d kept it to remind himself to never let his guard down again.

To never be so blindsided by lust that he proposed marriage.

To never feel so deeply for anyone that gave them the power to hurt him.

Before Jago met Mollie, he’d had no intention of settling down.

He wasn’t the eldest, so Jack had more pressure on him to marry and produce an heir than either he or Jonas had.

But one date had turned into two, then three, then weeks had gone by and he’d found himself more and more in lust with Mollie.

He couldn’t get enough of her. He decided to ask her to marry him, not on a whim or impulsively.

He’d thought about it for weeks before he decided it was the right thing to do.

He’d wanted the commitment from her, the security of marriage that would guarantee she was his and his alone.

Their connection was so like the passionate one of his parents.

He had wanted to be with her all the time just as his parents had adored being in each other’s company.

Jago didn’t believe himself to be in love, but sometimes he wondered if he had got scarily close to it.

But he had been duped by Mollie right from the beginning.

And yet when he kissed her earlier, he could not find it in himself to hate her for jilting him. Did that make him a lust-driven fool?

Jago ground his teeth, annoyed with himself for not putting the pieces together until now.

Two years ago, he had been thinking with his hormones instead of his head.

His lust for Mollie had blurred his judgement, opening him up to ridicule as a jilted groom when she bolted.

He hated thinking about that day and all those that followed.

Cynicism was in his blood, hardwired into his personality, and yet he had not seen the signs that were so obvious in hindsight.

But this time would be different. He was paying her to act the role of his fiancée. Yes, they might kiss and hold hands in front of his family, but he would take it no further.

But you still want her. Badly.

Jago dismissed the voice of his conscience. He wasn’t going to allow his hormones to override his common sense. Not again.