THE BRAVO BILLIONAIRE Page 10

  "Well, you know, I haven't figured that out right yet."

  "Like I said, I hope you know what you're doing."

  "Oh, Deirdre. So do I."

  * * *

  At six, just as Emma was finishing up in her office, Pixie buzzed her again.

  "Pix, if it's another reporter—"

  "It's not. It's him. Jonas." Pixie cleared her throat and added, somewhat defensively, "He said that I should call him Jonas."

  Emma picked up her pen, set it down, picked it up again. Her silly heart had started going a mile a minute. "He's here?"

  "No. On line two."

  "Thanks." Emma ordered her heart to slow down and punched the blinking light on her phone. "Hello?"

  "Having trouble with reporters?"

  She held the phone tight and smiled dreamily into space, images of the night before scrolling naughtily through her mind. "How did you know?"

  "It was to be expected. And you're not alone. They're storming the gates here at the Bravo Building, too."

  "Well, it's not too bad, honestly."

  "Have you spoken to any of them?"

  "Only to tell them no comment."

  "That's good. I've sent a car, to take you to Angel's Crest tonight. It should be there any minute now, ready whenever you need it."

  "But I have my own—"

  "Leave it. You'll probably be followed. Might as well let a pro drive. I'll set up some kind of press conference in the next few days. We'll let them ask a few questions, take a few pictures. That should get them off our backs."

  "All right," she said softly, wishing he were there, right then, in her office with her. She touched her lips, remembering. It seemed she could still feel the wonder of his kiss. "Jonas, I—"

  The dial tone cut her off. He had already hung up.

  * * *

  Emma got back to Angel's Crest at a little after seven. Palmer told her that Jonas wouldn't be in until much later. He had meetings scheduled into the night.

  Emma felt just a little wistful, a little let down. It occurred to her that if they didn't make an effort to see each other, they could easily live "together" in this huge house for the whole year set out for them in Blythe's will and hardly make contact at all.

  He had his own rooms. And she had hers. That had seemed just dandy yesterday, before last night had happened and everything had changed.

  Or, at least, she admitted ruefully, everything had changed as far as she was concerned.

  "Shall I serve you dinner in the small dining room?"

  Emma thanked Palmer and asked him to send a tray up to her rooms. "But let me buzz the kitchen when I'm ready, all right? I want to spend some time with Mandy first."

  "Certainly."

  Upstairs, she found that her bed had been made and her rooms set in perfect order. Fresh towels – the big, thick Egyptian cotton kind – hung in the bathroom. And there were white roses on the bedside table now instead of peonies. Festus was curled up asleep on one of the chairs in the sitting area and the Yorkies were eager for a walk.

  Emma took the dogs down a servants' stairway not far from her rooms and out onto the big slope of lawn near the back patio. As she waited for the Yorkies to do their business, she spotted two of Jonas's bodyguards, one over by the loggia and one next to the pool. Both men wore wraparound sunglasses, so she couldn't see their eyes. But she knew they were watching her and she felt more than a little bit silly as she encouraged the dogs to hurry up and then used her scooper to clean up after them.

  She took the dogs with her to Mandy's rooms. The little darling held out her arms, her adorable face lighting up with pleasure at the sight of a visitor.

  "Emma! Come hug. Oh, look. The puppies! Mama's puppies are back!"

  Emma had the Yorkies sit and then reintroduced them to Mandy. She showed the child how to greet a dog for the first time, hand low, palm up.

  "So he can sniff you. That's one way a dog gets to know you. By sniffing."

  Mandy giggled in delight when Ted licked her fingers. "See? Teddy knows me."

  Too soon, it was eight o'clock and time for Mandy to get ready for bed.

  "Stay for bath time, Emma," Mandy pleaded.

  Emma and Claudia exchanged a smile and the nanny disappeared into her own room. Mandy had a number of small boats and little plastic people. She and Emma floated them all around in the bathtub, making putt-putting sounds. The dogs sat and watched for a while, twitching their ears, looking as if such play fascinated them. Eventually, though, they stretched out on the cool bathroom tiles for a snooze.

  After the bath, Mandy brushed her teeth and demanded a story. Emma willingly complied.

  It was well after nine when she turned off Mandy's light. The dogs were perfect. They came when she signaled them, slipping out into the hall with her right before she closed the door. She paused briefly to knock on Claudia's door and tell the nanny that Mandy was in bed.

  Festus looked up and yawned when Emma entered her suite. "I missed you, too," she told him teasingly, and went to scratch the lazy guy around the ears the way he liked it.

  She rang for her tray soon after that and ate while watching the news on CNN. Then, in an effort to relax, she took a long bath.

  Relaxing didn't come easy. She couldn't stop listening for the sound of footsteps. Couldn't keep from wondering if Jonas would come to her when he arrived home, if she'd see him at all that night.

  It was near eleven when she climbed into bed. Festus settled in at her feet and the Yorkies took their places, one on her left, one on her right. She turned off the light.

  It took a while to get to sleep, a while to let go of her disappointment that he had not come. But eventually, she drifted off.

  * * *

  Emma woke suddenly some time later. The dogs had disturbed her. They were both sitting up and wagging their tails.

  A man stood by the bed, looking down at her.

  Jonas.

  Excitement flooded through her, a lush sort of feeling, a feeling that had nothing to do with helping him become a better person and everything to do with what had happened between them last night – what, it appeared, would very likely happen again, right now.

  Emma pulled herself up among the pillows. She glanced at the bedside clock. After midnight.

  Jonas tapped the side of his leg with his hand. The Yorkies jumped off the bed. He bent and greeted them, scratching each under the chin. They wagged their tails some more and made small, eager sounds in their throats.

  Jonas stood. "Come." Tails wagging, they followed him to the sitting area. He snapped his fingers at the black and gold brocade sofa. The dogs jumped onto it. "Lie down." The Yorkies, knowing a master when they saw and heard one, obeyed.

  Jonas turned and started toward Emma again, pulling at his tie and shrugging out of his jacket as he came. He tossed both toward a chair in the corner, not even glancing over to see if they hit their mark. They did. Festus got up, stretched and jumped down from the bed, as if he understood that very soon there would be no room for him there.

  "Meetings went late," Jonas said. "I need a shower." The darkness hid the details of his face from her. She couldn't see his expression – and she had a feeling it didn't matter. If she could have seen him clearly, she would not have had a clue what he might be thinking.

  He tipped his head, just slightly, in the direction of the bathroom. He was already working at his cuff links. "Do you mind?"

  She shook her head.

  He turned from her, pulling his shirttail free of his slacks as he went. She watched him go. Even after he'd vanished into the bathroom, she kept on staring like a long-gone fool at the place where he had been. Every atom of her body was attuned, humming. Yearning.

  Twice, she reached for the light – and both times she pulled her hand back without switching it on. It seemed wrong, somehow, to push the darkness back.

  Jonas emerged from the bathroom ten minutes after he had entered it. His chest and legs were bare and he had one of those thic
k Egyptian cotton towels wrapped around his waist. He came straight for her, dropping the towel to the floor when he reached her. Emma held back the sheet and he joined her in the bed.

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  «^»

  Emma had on her turquoise satin shorty pajamas – or at least, she did for a minute or two. Jonas quickly set to work getting them off her. He dropped the top over the edge of the bed and tossed the bottoms somewhere near their feet.

  His mouth was on hers, stealing her breath, banishing all possibility of rational thought – which, she probably should have been ashamed to admit, was just fine with her. She kissed him back, her hands roaming the hard terrain of his body. Oh, it was heaven…

  Emma had had two serious boyfriends in her life so far – Ridley, the actor, and Elton DuBose, her high-school sweetheart, who had joined the air force right after graduation and ended up marrying a German girl he met while he was stationed in Berlin.

  With both Ridley and Elton, Emma had found sex enjoyable. The way she saw it, sex was a natural activity. Like breathing and eating, it felt real good.

  But she had not realized, not in all her twenty-six years of life, that sex could be like it was with Jonas, that desire could be something that ate a girl alive, that it could feel so incredible, just being consumed.

  Jonas kissed his way down her body and she moaned and clutched his shoulders as he did things with his mouth and tongue that she had never known could be done. She went over the edge, with his head buried between her thighs. He kept his mouth there, sucking gently, as the aftershocks skittered through her.

  A thin wedge of moonlight, glinting in through the French doors that led to the terrace, fell across the bed, turning everything silvery. Jonas looked up from between her spread thighs, mouth wet, eyes gleaming. He laid his hand over the moist dark-gold curls that covered her sex and whispered something tender about natural blondes.

  She answered lazily, "Yes. I am an all-natural girl – at least from the neck down."

  He chuckled. And began to caress her again.

  She moaned and tried to brush his hand away. "Oh, don't. I am done for. I cannot move…"

  He ignored her protests.

  And very soon, she did move.

  She wanted to touch him and kiss him and feel every part of him. So she did. She played with him as he had played with her. He lay back and she stretched her body over his, bending to his mouth, slipping her tongue between his lips, kissing him long and deep and slow.

  She dragged her wet mouth down the center of him, and she captured him, sucking, until he gave in and bucked against her, pulsing. Spilling…

  They rested, silent, all wrapped up in each other as the wedge of moonlight moved across the snowy sheets.

  And then they began again – the two of them, all over each other in the wide white bed. He was in her and around her and nothing seemed to matter, nothing but the feel of his hands on her body, the way that he moved when he was inside her, the hot, open press of his mouth on her mouth, the burning dart of his tongue, reaching for the center of her, setting her on fire.

  It was after two when she fell asleep again. She woke at three, briefly, and saw that she was alone.

  She called for him once, "Jonas?" into the darkness. But she knew she'd get no answer. She knew that he had gone.

  * * *

  How smoothly the days that followed fell into a pattern. He came to her at night, most often waking her from sleep. They would make love. And when she woke in the morning, he would be gone. Emma went to the doctor, got a prescription for birth control pills, but she never told Jonas.

  Because they never talked, not really, during the night. If he had something to say to her, he would call her at PetRitz, usually in the afternoon.

  Two days after they were married, he called to set up the press conference that was supposed to get all those reporters to stop following them everywhere they went. The press conference worked. It succeeded in getting the reporters and shutter-happy paparazzi to back off.

  Unfortunately, the resulting articles made Emma want to gag. They had headlines like "The Blond Bombshell and the Bravo Billionaire… True Love at Last?" and "Bravo Billionaire Brought to Heel By Sexy Dog Trainer." It was so insulting. They couldn't even get her job title right. Everybody at PetRitz teased her about it. It got old real fast.

  She decided to talk to Jonas about the articles and how much they bothered her. They were lying in her bed, naked as usual, and satisfied, for the moment, though Emma knew that very soon it would start all over again.

  She told him that she had read some of the articles about the two of them and that she had hated them.

  He shrugged. "Don't read them."

  She glared at him. "That's it? That's all you have to tell me, don't read them?"

  "That's right."

  "But it's so … rude. The things they're allowed to print for the whole world to see. I have half a mind to sue them, I sincerely do."

  He canted up on an elbow and bent over her. "Emma…"

  She saw the look in his eyes and she knew just what it meant. "Don't. Don't you touch me, not right now. I am tryin' to talk to you about something that is a problem for me and I—"

  "Listen," he whispered, his voice like warm honey, pouring over her, making everything thick and sweet and slow. Making her stupid – there was no other word for it. All he had to do was look at her, speak to her, put a hand on her, and she got real stupid, real fast.

  He instructed, "Do not read them. Don't read them and don't think about them. Act as if they don't exist. And they won't."

  "I can't help thinking about them. I get razzed about them all day long."

  "You get razzed because the people who razz you know that it bothers you. Don't let them know, and they'll leave you alone."

  "But I—"

  And then he kissed her.

  That was the end of that conversation.

  She did take his advice. She stopped reading the tabloids.

  Surprisingly, she found that he was right. She pretended that the articles didn't exist and after a very short time, she found she could almost believe it. When folks teased her, she just smiled and nodded and let it go. They stopped teasing.

  In bed a couple of nights later, she told Jonas that his advice was working. She thanked him.

  He bent close. "Let's see just how grateful you really are…"

  Well, and what could she do, but show him?

  The next afternoon, he called PetRitz to tell her that he would be gone for a few days. He was flying to New York for a series of meetings that had something to do with buying a high-rise in Dallas. He gave her the news, said goodbye and hung up.

  Emma sat at her desk with the dial tone buzzing in her ear and wondered why he couldn't have told her that last night.

  The answer was disgustingly obvious, even to a woman made terminally stupid by love or desire or whatever you wanted to call what was going on between her and her new husband.

  Jonas couldn't hang up when he was in bed with her. If he talked to her about anything important while he was actually in her presence, there was always the chance that she might talk back. He'd have to get up and put on his clothes and leave to get away from her. That could get awkward, so he just called her, said what he had to say – and then said goodbye.

  Emma set the phone down, her mind turning to those warnings of Deirdre's.

  Let's talk about Jonas Bravo, who is a control freak… If you fall for a guy like that, you're in trouble. You've given him all the power, and he'll just use it against you…

  They had been married for less than a week. True, that was only a tiny fraction of the year Blythe had given her to make Jonas Bravo into a different kind of man. It would be easy to tell herself that she still had plenty of time – and it would be true. She did have plenty of time.

  But she hadn't gotten off to much of a start, now, had she?

  She'd let him do exactly what Deirdre had predicted
he would – take control and use her own craving for him against her. She'd allowed him to set up their marriage just the way he wanted it.

  * * *

  Jonas got back from New York on Tuesday. Emma knew he'd returned because he called to tell her he wanted to have dinner with her that evening at eight o'clock in the small dining room.

  Emma said, "Oh, Jonas, I'd love that," feeling all warm and hopeful inside, thinking that this was more like it.

  Jonas said, "Good. See you at eight," and hung up.

  * * *

  Emma dressed with great care that evening, in her one little black dress, which was much simpler and less provocative than the clothes she usually wore. Yes, it clung to her curves just as all her dresses did, but it fell to her knees rather than mid-thigh. It had a simple scoop neck and cap sleeves and seemed to her to be the kind of dress that would give off serious signals – signals that said she'd enjoy a little conversation with her new husband for once, thank you very much.

  She stood before the mirror in her dressing room and shook her head. "Real pathetic. Married for one whole week and you only see him in bed."

  Even on the weekends, Jonas had proved elusive. This last weekend, he'd been in New York. And the one before, well, Emma had no idea where he'd been, exactly. Maybe working. She knew he worked very long hours during the week. He probably worked weekends, too. And he'd spent some of the time with Mandy – Claudia had told her that. But somehow, he managed never to go to Mandy's rooms when Emma was there.

  Well. Tonight would be different than the other nights. Tonight, Emma and her husband would talk.