The Wedding Night Debt
She owes him a wedding night…and he will collect!Billionaire Dio Ruiz’s convenient union was meant to secure two things: vengeance, and the enticing Lucy Bishop. But from their wedding night onwards Dio found his marriage bed inconveniently empty. Now, two years later, his virgin bride wants a divorce. But freedom has a price…Hurt and humiliated to learn their vows were just a business transaction to Dio, Lucy played the perfect wife in public while their cold war waged in private. She wants to walk away—not bow to his command! Can she pay Dio’s price and survive ten days as true husband and wife?Praise for Cathy WilliamsBound by the Billionaire’s Baby 4.5* RT Book ReviewWilliams offers lively, smart dialogue and nice descriptions of quirky characters. The attraction between Susie and Sergio is apparent from the beginning, and the zany start to the story is quite refreshing.The Real Romero 4* RT Book ReviewWilliams takes readers on a luxurious ride from London to the snow-capped French Alps and, finally, to sunny Spain. Her quaint Brit-isms add legitimacy, but it’s her couple’s entertaining interactions that keep the story interesting.To Sin with the Tycoon 4* RT Book ReviewWilliams’ office romance is a Cinderella-esque tale between her very un-Prince Charming-type hero and her cautiously reserved heroine who’ve both overcome horrendous childhoods. Her authentic English settings inspire, and the relationship-building is truly well done.
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‘You want your divorce? You can have it. But only after you’ve given me what I expected to get when I married you.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Dio raised his eyebrows and smiled slowly. ‘Don’t tell me that someone with a Maths degree can’t figure out what two and two makes? I want my honeymoon, Lucy.’
‘I… I don’t know what you mean…’ Lucy stammered, unable to tear her eyes away from the harsh lines of his beautiful face.
‘Of course you do! I didn’t think I was signing up for a sexless marriage when I slipped that wedding band on your finger. You want out now? Well, you can have out—just as soon as we put an end to the unfinished business between us.’
‘That’s blackmail!’ She sprang to her feet. She had looked forward to that wretched honeymoon night so much, and now here he was, offering it to her… but at a price.
‘That’s the offer on the table. We sleep together, be man and wife in more than just name only, and you get to leave with an allowance generous enough to ensure that you spend the rest of your life in comfort.’
‘Why would you want that? You’re not even attracted to me!’
‘Come a little closer and I can easily prove you wrong on that point.’
Heart thudding, Lucy noted the dark intent in his eyes, and the desire she had shoved away, out of sight, began to uncurl inside her.
CATHY WILLIAMS can remember reading Mills & Boon® books as a teenager, and now that she is writing them she remains an avid fan. For her, there is nothing like creating romantic stories and engaging plots, and each and every book is a new adventure. Cathy lives in London, and her three daughters—Charlotte, Olivia and Emma—have always been, and continue to be, the greatest inspirations in her life.
To my three wonderful and inspiring daughters
Contents
DIVORCE. IT WAS something that happened to other people: people who didn’t take care of their marriages; who didn’t understand that they were to be nurtured, looked after, handled as delicately as you would handle a piece of priceless porcelain.
At any rate, that had always been Lucy’s way of thinking, and she wondered how it was that she was standing here now, in one of the grandest houses in London, waiting for her husband to return home so that she could broach the subject of divorcing him.
She looked at her diamond-encrusted watch and her stomach knotted in anxiety. Dio was due back in half an hour. She couldn’t remember where he had spent the past week and a half. New York? Paris? They had places in both. Or maybe he had been in their Mustique villa. Maybe he had gone there with another woman. Who knew? She certainly didn’t.
Self-pity threatened to engulf her and she stemmed the tide with ease of practice born of habit.
She’d been married for nearly a year and a half, plenty of time to get accustomed to the way her youthful dreams had crumbled to ashes.
When she glanced up, she could see herself reflected in the huge, hand-made contemporary mirror which dominated the ultra-modern drawing room. Five foot ten, slender as a reed, long blonde hair that dropped to her shoulders, vanilla-blonde and poker-straight. When she was sixteen, she had been spotted by an agency and her father had tried to shove her into a career in modelling, because why waste a pretty face? After all, women weren’t cut out for anything more challenging, not really... But she had resisted—not that it had done her any good at all, in the end, because what good had been her degree when she had ended up...here? In this vast house, wandering in and out of rooms like a wraith, playing the perfect hostess? As if perfect hostessing was any kind of career for someone who had a degree in maths.
She barely recognised the woman she had turned out to be. On a warm evening in the middle of July, she was languishing in silk culottes with a matching silk vest top, just a few discreet bits of fairly priceless jewellery and high heels. She had turned into a Stepford Wife, except without the adoring husband rolling in at five-thirty every evening and asking what was for dinner. That might have been a distinct improvement on what she actually had, which was...nothing.
Or, had been nothing. She allowed herself a little smile because things weren’t quite as sterile as they had been. Her situation had changed in the past two months and she hugged that secret pleasure to herself.
It made up for all the time she had spent dressed up like an expensive doll, administering their various properties, smiling politely when she needed to smile politely and hosting dinner parties for the great and the good. Or, at any rate, the very, very rich.
And now...a divorce would set her free.
Provided Dio didn’t kick up a fuss. Although she told herself that there was no reason for him to, she could still feel a prickle of nervous perspiration break out over her body.
