Page 24 of The Heiress Masquerade (Dollar Princess #2)

A few hours later, after Harrison had pleasured her several times more, Aimee opened her eyes, realizing Harrison was no longer in bed with her. She glanced around the softly lit room and saw he was standing by the window, staring down into the street below.

He was naked still, but didn’t seem to care, and she felt herself blushing from staring at him, but she couldn’t help herself, he was that fine of a specimen of a man. She pulled up the sheet to cover her breasts and sat up in the bed.

Hearing her movements, he turned around and stared at her, but rather than the smile she expected to see, instead there was a frown on his face.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, knowing it couldn’t be because he didn’t enjoy being with her, given he’d taken them both to the realm of ecstasy three times already.

“I’m considering the ramifications of everything,” he answered. “And how to break the news to your father that we’re to marry.”

“Marry?” Aimee nearly screamed. “I never said anything about marrying you.”

“You didn’t have to,” he replied. “I intend to do the right thing and make you my wife.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m dead serious,” he said, his teeth clenched together. “I took your virginity, so we will be getting married. Your father would never forgive me if I didn’t.”

“And there it is, the true reason you want to marry me,” she exclaimed, a sense of bitterness filling her. “You want to marry me because of my father.” The same reason behind every marriage proposal she’d received.

“That’s not it at all.” He dragged a hand through his hair.

“Oh please,” she scoffed, grabbing the sheet from the bed as she scooted off the mattress and began to pick up her clothes. “You probably orchestrated this whole thing so you’d be in a position to insist on marriage. And it’s not just my million-dollar dowry you want, it’s my father’s entire company, which he’d happily give you if you were his son-in-law!”

“That has nothing to do with it,” he roared, grabbing his clothes scattered across the floor. “I’ve already told you, once the Wilheimer deal goes through, I’ll be the majority shareholder of the London portion of the company. I don’t need the entire thing.”

“What a load of nonsense!” She dragged on her skirt, and then turned around and shoved her hands through the sleeves of her shirt. “You’re the most ambitious man I know, so why would you be content to run the London arm of the company when you could have the whole thing. I’m not stupid, though I clearly fell for your lies!”

“I never lied to you,” he replied, thrusting his legs through his trousers, and then jamming his arms through the sleeves of his shirt. “Though you’re being stupid to think I want to marry you for any other reason than because it’s what my honor demands. I respect Thomas too much to take his daughter’s virginity and not do the right thing after the fact.”

“You should have thought of that before you took my virginity, shouldn’t you!” she yelled, stomping over to collect her boots and ramming her feet into them.

“How was I to know for certain you were a virgin?”

“Excuse me?” Aimee didn’t think her level of fury could get worse, but his words pushed her temper to boiling point. “Why wouldn’t you think I was a virgin?”

“You were talking about taking a bath together. What virgin does that?”

“A curious one, you idiot!” She couldn’t help it: she threw one of her boots at him, which he managed to dodge. “How dare you think I’d done this with another man. You’re such a bastard!” And for good measure, she grabbed the other boot off her foot and lobbed it at him, too. When he once again dodged that, she grabbed the empty water glass from the side table and threw that at him, too. When it hit him, she felt a sense of satisfaction.

“Will you stop throwing things at me!” he yelled, rubbing his shoulder.

“I’ve never felt more disrespected than right now!” She glared at him, her eyes glancing around to see if there was anything else she could lob at the blockhead.

“You were the one begging me to take you to my bed.”

“Only because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and, let me tell you, it was overrated.”

“Overrated?” he roared, stomping over to her, his eyes a burning green furnace. “You climaxed several bloody times, I made certain of it.”

And they’d been some of the most extraordinary moments of her life, but she wasn’t going to tell him that, not after his derogatory assumption about her. Damn it, even now, with him standing inches away, her body was begging her to grab him and get him to taste and touch her all over again.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, raising her chin and meeting his stare head on. “Because it won’t be happening again, end of story.”

“We’re getting married, end of story.”

“No. We’re not.”

“Yes, we bloody well are, and once I tell your parents, they’ll insist upon it.”

“You wouldn’t dare tell them!” She gasped. He wouldn’t, would he? “My father would never forgive you.”

He took in a deep breath and stepped back from her. “He’d never forgive me if I compromised you and didn’t do the right thing to fix it.”

“The right thing?” Her voice sounded rather desperate. “How is marrying each other the right thing? We argue all the time! If we married, we’d end up killing each other within the week.”

“You do like to be dramatic, don’t you?”

“Ooh!” She fisted her hands and shook her arms. The man infuriated her as no one else could. Not even her parents. “You’re forgetting a very large thing, Harrison Stone. My mother will never agree. She wants me to marry a lord, not some self-made American. She’ll have you thrown in the Thames before she agrees to us marrying.”

He started laughing, though there was little humor in the sound.

“What’s so funny about that?”

“It’s funny because she’ll have you thrown in the Thames if you refuse me.”

“What are you talking about?” Was he losing his mind?

“You know how I told you my parents were English?”

“Yes. What of it?” She grabbed her jacket and put it on, determined to not stay in his room a moment longer than necessary.

“My father was Lord Edward Stone. The younger son of the Earl of Carlisle.”

“Your father was a lord?” Aimee had a bad feeling about where this was heading.

“He was. Now my uncle is the current earl.”

“My mother wants me to marry an earl, not be the niece of one.”

“My uncle has five adult daughters and no sons,” he replied.

It took her a moment for the ramifications to hit. “You’re his heir?”

He nodded, then gave her a mock bow. “The future Earl of Carlisle, at your service, my lady.”

For a good minute, Aimee was speechless. “Does my mother know that?”

Harrison shrugged. “I’d say so. I mentioned it a while back to your father in confidence after arriving in London and finding out. Obviously, I knew he’d tell your mother, given your parents don’t have secrets between them.”

“No, they just like to keep secrets from me, it seems.”

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?”

“Well, clearly you like to keep secrets, too.” She pinned him with an accusatory stare. “Why didn’t you say anything earlier? And why didn’t anyone else mention it?”

“I choose to not tell people, especially not at work.” He shrugged.

“So no one knows?”

“People in English Society know I’m Carlisle’s heir,” he replied. “But I didn’t bother telling anyone in New York, apart from your father. The last thing I wanted was to be bothered by debutantes and their marriage-minded mothers given I don’t want to get married. Didn’t want to,” he quickly corrected.

“Oh please, you don’t want to marry me just as much as I don’t want to marry you.” For some reason, those words made her stomach feel hollow, which made no sense given she didn’t want to marry him. “Let’s at least be honest about that.”

“Fine. Do I want to get married? No. However, I knew I’d have to eventually, so given I’ve compromised you and need to rectify that to satisfy my honor, then marry you I will, even if I don’t really want to.”

“Your honor can go and drown itself in the Thames!” Aimee roared at him, striding over and grabbing her satchel from the floor. “I wasn’t going to marry you before, but I’m most definitely not going to marry you now!”

“I’m being honest.”

“Do you think we’ll be happily married when neither of us wants to be married to each other?”

“Most marriages are like that.”

“My parents’ isn’t!” she yelled, suddenly realizing that that’s what she wanted, if she ever was to marry. A man that adored his wife and would move the earth for her if he had to, not a marriage of convenience so some man could satisfy his honor.

“Their marriage is a rarity, and you know it.”

“I suppose it is. But I’d rather never marry than settle for less.”

“You’re so damn difficult sometimes.” He banged his hand on the wall nearest him. “Any other woman would beg me to marry them, knowing they’d eventually become a countess.”

She felt his eyes following her as she stormed over to the bedroom door. “Then go ask your friend Lady Whitley to marry you, as I’m sure she’d jump at the chance!”

“I don’t want to marry Lady Whitley.”

“But you don’t want to marry me, either, now do you?” She paused with her hand on the door handle, as she turned back to look at him.

His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. “It’s my duty to marry you.”

“What a way to sweep a girl off her feet, my lord .”

He narrowed his eyes. “I’m not a lord yet. Hell, I don’t even want to be one. And I didn’t know I was trying to sweep you off your feet.”

“You couldn’t sweep me off my feet even if you tried,” she replied, with a tight smile. “There’s not one romantic bone in your entire body, and as big as you are, that’s saying something!” She wrenched the bedroom door open and stormed through his living area to the entrance door of his suite.

“Damn it, this has nothing to do with romance, and you know it!” He stalked after her. “I’m trying to be practical. What if you’re pregnant?”

She froze mid-step and swung back around to face him. “We can cross that bridge if it eventuates, which I’m praying it doesn’t, because I have no intention of being your Dollar Princess, ever! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to Mrs. Holbrook’s.”

“Damn it, wait,” he yelled, as she pulled open the door and left the room. “I’ll accompany you.”

Ignoring him, she strode down the hallway and took the lift down to the lobby, then hurried through to the entrance, before asking the doorman to hail her a hackney.

As she got into the carriage and the vehicle began pulling away from the curb, Harrison rushed through the front doors of the hotel and caught sight of her.

“This isn’t over, Aimee!” he yelled aloud, caring little of the other hotel guests who were entering and exiting the building.

“It most certainly is,” she yelled through the window as the carriage pulled into traffic and he disappeared from view. She took in a deep breath and released a sigh.

If Harrison Stone thought she’d ever agree to marry him, he was delusional. No man, no matter how good a lover he was, nor how much she was starting to crave him, was going to distract her from her career path and convince her to give up her dreams, simply to become a wife. Especially not a future earl, who would demand his wife be a good little countess and look after his households.

Aimee couldn’t think of a worse future.

And no man was worth giving up her dreams for, even if a tiny portion of her heart was trying to convince her otherwise.