Modern Romance Collection February 2025, #1-4

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

F AYE HAD JUST returned to her Manhattan apartment from visiting her father, after a trip to Los Angeles to secure a piece of sculpture for a client at an auction. It had been a week since she’d seen Primo Holt. But he’d started texting her twenty-four hours after they’d spoken.

Messages like:

Have you had a time to think about it yet?

She’d replied:

How did you get my number?

Your assistant was very helpful when I told him I needed to get some urgent assistance with an art purchase.

That’s underhand.

I would have said enterprising. Well? Have you thought about it?

A decision like this requires more than twenty-four hours.

Twenty-four hours later, Primo had sent:

How about now?

I ’m in LA. You just woke me up.

There’s a great breakfast spot on Sunset. Angie’s. Tell them I sent you.

Thanks for the rec but I know it already.

You’re welcome. Think about my proposal on the flight home.

I’ll be sleeping.

Pity.

That provocative flirty response had sent flutters through Faye’s body. No, not flutters. Something distinctly stronger and earthier. Something that scared her with its intensity. And it annoyed her because she had no doubt that he was just playing with her.

It had been a long time since anyone had been so direct. Since someone had wanted her. Even if it was for a marriage of convenience. But those last words he’d issued to her face had revolved in her head like a mantra all week.

‘You can’t deny that there is something between us.’

Disturbing. Intoxicating. Unbelievable.

Faye hated to admit it, but she’d spent much of her time when not working looking the man up online. There were scant details of his mother and father’s divorce. Acrimonious. How his father had married again, numerous times. How his brother had refused his inheritance and become a self-made billionaire with his tech business and was now based in S?o Paulo. How Primo had taken the reins of the family business and within just a few years had tripled its fortunes and importance. Thousands of employees globally.

The man seemed to be indefatigable. In one twenty-four-hour period a journalist had accompanied him as he’d done a deal over breakfast in London, another in New York that afternoon, and by the same evening had been hosting a charity ball in Miami.

Faye could remember seeing him at that event, because it had taken place during a famous art fair held annually in the city. She remembered him wearing a white tuxedo jacket and looking vital and gorgeous. Not as if he’d just traversed the globe.

As for his private life—it was locked up tight. There were only a few photographs of him online with beautiful women. Each one more accomplished and impressive than the last. A human rights lawyer. A famous model turned philanthropist. An interior decorator. A fashion designer.

There were no salacious kiss-and-tells. No tabloid rumours. Only endless speculation as to when he was going to settle down and with whom.

And he wants you .

As his wife. Not a lover. It was probably second nature to a man like him to make a woman feel desired. He could have seduced her that first night and she probably would have succumbed, much to her shame.

Faye walked over to the window in her living room and took in the view of Central Park in the distance. She worried her lower lip—a bad habit.

While she’d been in Los Angeles her father had agreed to the deal with Primo. Her father looked years younger already...as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Faye’s conscience pricked. She hadn’t truly noticed how much of a burden the business had become.

She’d had lunch with her father after that conversation with Primo, and she’d told him about the proposal.

He’d responded, ‘You don’t even know the man.’

Faye had explained about Primo taking her for a drink.

Her father had frowned, ‘Is he using marriage as a bargaining chip?’

‘Not exactly,’ Faye had had to admit. ‘He would still do the deal with you, to take over majority control of MacKenzie Enterprises, but...as he pointed out...a marriage would ensure his personal investment as well as the business deal.’

Her father has asked, ‘What do you think of him?’

Faye had avoided answering that directly by asking, ‘ Would it be beneficial to you? If we married?’

Her father had shifted a little uncomfortably and hadn’t been able to meet her eye. Faye’s insides had sunk. Primo himself had confirmed it already. Of course it would be beneficial.

Eventually her father had sighed and looked at her. ‘It would give us an added level of protection. He’d naturally be more invested in protecting his wife and father-in-law.’

Her father had reached for her hand with his and Faye had noticed how fragile he felt.

He’d said, ‘I do worry about you, my dear. What are we going to do about you?’

‘Daddy, you don’t need to worry about me, I’m perfectly fine as I am.’

‘Aren’t you lonely, though? I was so lonely after your mother died... I know what it is to be alone.’

His words echoed in her now, with a kind of hollow truth. In spite of her hectic work schedule she was lonely. More than she’d like to admit. And one of the most exciting men she’d met was expressing an interest in her.

No , she corrected herself. He was expressing an interest in acquiring a convenient wife along with his new business venture.

At that moment her phone pinged with a message and she looked at it.

I want to marry you, Faye, so you’re going to have to come up with something more compelling than a lack of desire to have children. Primo.

Faye put her hand to her mouth and let out a little helpless sound somewhere between laughter and a sob. It was as if he was inside her head, hearing her innermost thoughts.

It wasn’t just that she wouldn’t agree to have children. She couldn’t have children. It was the reason why her first marriage had broken down. She’d got pregnant in textbook style, practically on their wedding night, but very early into the pregnancy she’d started bleeding and had been in intense pain. She’d been rushed to hospital for emergency surgery, where she’d had a miscarriage. There had been complications, and a few days later she’d had to have a partial hysterectomy. Her womb had been removed.

It had been utterly devastating and her relationship with her husband hadn’t been strong enough to survive.

Faye had vowed never to put herself through that pain again—the pain of finding out so cruelly just how naive she’d been in believing that her husband loved her enough to want her just for herself. All she’d been to him was a trophy wife to stand by his side and a vessel to bear his heirs.

So why on earth would she agree to dive headlong into a marriage with someone who wanted her for the same thing? The only difference this time was that she was under no illusions that Primo Holt loved her. And she certainly didn’t love him. She barely knew him.

He was bold, uncompromising. Faye should hate it that he was being so pushy. Demanding. But it wasn’t hate she felt. It was something a lot more complicated. And, perhaps even more disturbingly, she felt a sense of curiosity.

In spite of every misgiving, Faye was filled with a sudden desire to consider taking something for herself. Reclaiming a part of her womanhood and reputation that had been decimated with the divorce. She could still remember the looks and whispers as people had wondered what on earth was wrong with her that she hadn’t been able to hang on to her husband for even a year.

It had been so cruel. She’d felt like a failure as a woman because she’d failed to bring a pregnancy to term and would never bear a child.

The truth of her medical condition had never been made public, thankfully. Not even her father knew the full extent of her operation. It had been too raw and painful to share.

And so Faye had just held her head high and weathered the scrutiny and gossip until the next inevitable scandal had come along and she’d become yesterday’s news.

But even today, after she’d healed so much from that early raw pain, there was an air of failure that seemed to cling to her in public. And pity. Maybe a marriage with Primo Holt would give her a chance to redeem herself. Not that she’d ever really needed that validation, but a small part of her still felt that pitying scrutiny whenever she stepped into a public space. Alone. And it did get to her, deep inside, down to the part of the wound that had never been allowed to fully heal.

Not only that, it would secure the business deal with her father and the family business. Protect them on another level. As Primo had said himself, he’d be ‘more personally invested’ .

A sense of illicit excitement gripped her as she entertained the notion of actually acquiescing to Primo’s proposal. But the excitement dissolved a little when she thought of how she couldn’t possibly offer him what he would ultimately need to secure his position—the next generation.

But maybe she could ensure that that would never be an issue. If he was willing to agree to her terms for a marriage.

Before she lost her nerve, Faye typed back a response to his last text:

I’m willing to discuss things further.

A text came back almost immediately.

Good, my assistant will be in touch to arrange a meeting.

Two weeks later, Manhattan

It was her wedding day. Faye’s head was still spinning at the speed with which things had moved since she’d sent that text to Primo.

The speed of light.

The speed of Primo .

She was in the luxuriously spacious en suite bathroom of the penthouse suite in one of Manhattan’s oldest and most iconic hotels.

Primo had booked her and her father in, insisting that they stay there rather than travel in and out of the city. A thoughtful gesture. They could have used Faye’s Manhattan apartment, but this was far more convenient and comfortable.

On this same floor there was a function room where guests were already mingling. It was a small crowd. Intimate. Her father, some of their closest friends and their legal team. On Primo’s side he had no family, just his legal team as witnesses.

Faye looked at her reflection in the mirror, feeling as if she was looking at someone else. She was wearing cream high-waisted tailored trousers, wide legged, teamed with a midriff-skimming long-sleeved sheer top overlaid with lace and intricate beading. Her hair was pulled back into a low chignon, and she wore classic pearls and the engagement ring Primo had surprised her with a couple of days after she’d agreed to marry him. A square yellow diamond with smaller triangular white diamonds on each side in a gold setting. It was an antique, from his family vault, and yet it felt surprisingly modern and very elegant. It also fitted snugly, without needing alteration. Something that had unsettled Faye a little—especially as she didn’t consider herself to be remotely superstitious.

Just the previous day she had signed the final legal papers—a marriage agreement setting out the parameters of this union. She’d met with Primo in his offices over a week ago and laid out her terms for a marriage, all of which he’d agreed to—which had taken her by surprise.

Because there, in black and white, she’d made it clear that she would only agree to a marriage if they could review the situation in six months’ time and decide at that point whether to carry on or divorce.

It gave Faye a get-out clause, and she was sure that Primo would want to get out by then too. Because she’d also made it clear that under no circumstances would she consider having children, so at least she could feel that she hadn’t deceived him.

But you didn’t tell him the full truth , pointed out a little voice.

No, she hadn’t divulged the full extent of her infertility.

She had no intention of baring her innermost pain to someone who she hardly knew. After all, she wasn’t planning on this being a long-term union. If Primo was so determined to marry her then this was how she was doing it. On her terms.

Six months of a marriage between the two families would solidify the business deal between her father and Primo, and give them added protection and security for the future. She’d ensured that there was a clause in the marriage agreement that, in the event of a divorce, it wouldn’t have any detrimental effect on the business deal. And, as little as she knew Primo, he didn’t strike her as a vindictive man.

Faye knew what she was doing was ruthless on some level, but it was no more ruthless than Primo expecting that he could secure himself a convenient wife on the back of a deal. And he’d made it very clear that this marriage had nothing to do with emotions, so there was no danger of hurting him. If anything, divorcing in six months would be an annoyance, but she was sure he could go to number two on his list of potential wives and secure another bride.

And in the meantime you’ll be married to a man you want for the next six months.

Faye flushed at that incendiary thought.

Her mind slipped back to Primo’s offices a week ago. He’d looked at her from across his desk, leaning back in his chair, supremely relaxed. Fingers steepled before him. She’d noticed how masculine his hands were. Short, blunt nails. She’d imagined they’d be slightly calloused. Not soft. Hard. Like the rest of him.

‘So you’re saying that you don’t want to cohabit and that you’ll only agree to us appearing together in public at pre-agreed events?’

She’d nodded, a quiver in her belly, knowing that she must be pushing him to the edges of his patience with her list of requirements for their marriage agreement.

She’d said, ‘I’ve been independent for a long time and I won’t give that up. I’ve also got a busy work schedule, so I simply won’t be available for every public outing. I might not even be in the same country. But I’m sure if an event is important enough, and organised far enough in advance, we can ensure you get what you need out of the arrangement.’

His eyes had flashed at that, sending more than a quiver through Faye.

He’d commented dryly, ‘What I’m getting, by the sounds of it, is a part-time wife.’

He’d stood up then, and walked over to one of his floor-to-ceiling windows. His loose-limbed grace had caught Faye’s eye more than the commanding views of lower Manhattan. The way his shirt pulled across his broad back and shoulders, hinting at the muscles underneath, the narrow waist and the firm buttocks—

He’d turned around to face her and Faye’s face had flamed guiltily.

He’d said, ‘If we don’t live together, and only meet intermittently, then how do you suppose we’ll consummate our marriage? Or will you do me the honour of cohabiting with me on our wedding night? I have every intention of this marriage being a real one, Faye. I don’t sleep around and I’m not unfaithful. And I like sex.’

‘I like sex.’

At that blunt pronouncement, Faye hadn’t been able to stop a slew of images of their limbs entwined from spooling out in her head.

But he’d made it sound so...functional. Like something they’d do that was part of the agreement, to tick a box. He hadn’t alluded to what he’d said before, about there being something between them. Did he know she wanted him and so he didn’t feel the need to feign his own desire any more? She’d felt vulnerable. Exposed.

‘No one needs to know the intimate details of where we’re living. We both have busy lives.’

Primo had stalked back towards his desk and Faye had felt herself tensing against the way her skin prickled with anticipation. He’d perched on the edge of the desk, one strong thigh in Faye’s peripheral vision. It had taken all of her strength and control to keep her gaze up. He’d been striking a dominant pose and yet she hadn’t felt intimidated. She’d felt very keenly that he was curious about her reactions to him.

‘That’s not really answering my question.’

Faye’s throat had suddenly been dry as sandpaper. ‘I’m not saying we can’t...consummate the marriage...’

After all, whispered a little voice, isn’t this what you want too? Something out of this arrangement for you?

But the thought of surrendering to him on a more intimate level had been terrifying. Because without even touching her he’d made her feel things she’d never felt before—a kind of wild yearning. An awareness of herself that no other man had ever made her feel. A sense of not being fully in control. When he seemed to be scarily in control.

She’d forced her brain to work. ‘I’m open to discussing making plans, but if you want to get married on the date you’ve specified, I’m afraid I’m already booked on a flight to Venice that evening. I have clients lined up to meet during Carnival.’

Primo had narrowed his gaze on her before saying dryly, ‘Discussing making plans to consummate our marriage? How romantic.’

The disdain in his voice when he’d said that had made Faye stand up. She’d shot back, ‘We both know this isn’t about romance, but if you’re going to mock me then perhaps you need to look for another convenient bride.’

Primo had stood up too and regarded her. ‘Forgive me. I don’t mean to mock. You know where I stand on the fantasy of romance in marriage. But I would like this marriage to function, and for it to function we need to be aligned in public and in private. If you don’t think that is possible then maybe this is not a good idea.’

She’d overreacted. And Faye had felt even more exposed. Primo had agreed to all of her terms, and it obviously made sense for their marriage to appear as real as possible.

Aware of the stakes if she pulled out at that point, she’d taken a breath and said, ‘I do think it’s possible. I want this marriage to work too.’

For six months at the most.

There was a knock on the door at that moment, jolting Faye out of her memories of last week. She said absently, ‘Come in.’

It was her father, stooped and walking unsteadily with two sticks. Even so, he looked dapper in his steel-grey three-piece suit. He was determined to walk her down the aisle. Her father knew well that this was no love-match, but she could see that he hoped it might become something enduring. She hadn’t told him of her terms. Her conscience pricked, but she told herself that the long-term benefits of having been married to Primo Holt even for a brief period would be worth it.

Her father looked at her with suspiciously shiny eyes. ‘You remind me so much of your mother...you look beautiful.’

Now Faye’s eyes stung. ‘No one was as beautiful as Mother.’

Her father said a little gruffly, ‘They’re ready for us.’

Faye sucked in a breath and gathered up her matching cropped jacket and the posy of flowers—yellow and cream, matching her outfit and the engagement ring. She hadn’t even thought to organise flowers. Primo had done it.

She went to her father and forced a smile, slipping an arm through one of his. ‘Let’s go, then, shall we?’

Primo didn’t like how on edge he felt. Almost...nervous. Which was ridiculous. He couldn’t ever remember feeling nervous in his life. But right now he was definitely not feeling his usual level of confidence.

Arrogance.

Faye had accused him of being arrogant. As he’d told her, he’d be the first to admit to it. But he wasn’t so arrogant that it made him blind to things. He certainly wasn’t blind to the fact that Faye MacKenzie was an enigma.

He knew she was marrying him for her own ends—to shore up the business deal with her father and to bolster her own reputation after a failed early marriage and years of being something of a social outlier. In spite of professing not to care what people thought, she was human, and no one was immune to the lingering toxicity of an old scandal.

But apart from that...? He knew she wasn’t mercenary. She had a family fortune of her own to inherit. Not to mention a very lucrative and successful career as one of the world’s most respected art brokers.

So, was she marrying him because she was also getting something more personal out of it? He wasn’t so sure after she’d informed him that they’d have to make plans to consummate their marriage.

Usually women were only too happy to bare all with him as soon as possible—physically and emotionally. But not this woman. She looked at him with those gold and green eyes warily.

He knew there was heat between them. The moment they were in the same room he felt it like a live current. Maybe he should have kissed her that day when she’d come to his office, looking so prim in a trouser suit. Accusing him of mocking her. He’d wanted to kiss her. To muss up her hair. Undo the buttons of her blouse. Mess with that pristine elegant surface and demonstrate the physical benefits of a marriage that had nothing to do with romance.

The prospect of that made his blood hum with anticipation.

But at that moment a hush went over the group of people in the function room. The back of Primo’s neck prickled as the celebrant came and stood before him and gave a cue to the string quartet, who started playing music.

For a moment Primo felt an almost superstitious reluctance to turn around to see his bride. But then, telling himself he was being ridiculous, because this really was just a slightly more personal and intimate form of a business deal, he turned around and was instantly awe-struck.

Faye was stunning.

Primo barely noticed her father, or how slowly she walked with him to keep pace. He drank her in. She was elegant and cool and sexy all at once in a wide-legged trouser suit. Hair pulled back. Make-up discreet. He saw the flash of her yellow diamond engagement ring and felt a surge of possessiveness to think of one of his ancestor’s rings on her hand, marking her as his. It was a deeply primal and uncool sentiment to feel, but he couldn’t help it. Primo had never felt possessive of a woman in his life; when those games started he would be gone.

She wore a top under her jacket that at first sight looked transparent, sending his pulse into overdrive, but then he realised it was sheer, not transparent, and overlaid with beaded lace. Edgy. Sophisticated. He hadn’t known what she would wear, and from what he’d seen of her so far she clearly favoured a modern kind of elegance.

She reached him. Her scent was subtle and made him want to lean closer. Roses and musk...and something much more sharp cutting through those classic notes.

She looked at him with those wide hazel eyes. They glowed green today, enhanced by her subtle make-up. Long lashes. Mouth slick with a colour that looked like wine.

Primo suddenly had an image of taking a glass of wine and tipping it over her bare skin before licking it—

‘Take care of her. She’s precious to me.’

Primo’s wayward imaginings dissolved under the unmistakably steely tone of Faye’s father as he handed his daughter to her fiancé. He forced himself to meet the man’s eyes and said with full sincerity, ‘I intend to take very good care of her.’ His gaze went to Faye’s. ‘If she allows me.’

Faye made a slightly strangled-sounding noise as her father put her hand into Primo’s. He curled his fingers around it securely, not even sure at this late moment that she wouldn’t try to walk away. The fact that he still wasn’t sure of her after she’d laid down a slew of ultimatums before agreeing to this marriage told him all he needed to know about how exciting it would be to marry her.

As for those ultimatums—no cohabiting and only going to prearranged social events. They didn’t perturb him. It wasn’t as if he was suddenly ready to cohabit either, but it would be more practical, long-term. In six months she’d have grown comfortable in his world—he was sure of it.

What if she wants out? asked a little voice.

He dismissed it immediately. She wouldn’t want out. He could only enhance her social standing and add to her business contacts. Her father would be reaping the benefits of not having to worry about the family business.

Primo slid her a glance now, as the celebrant welcomed them. Faye was presenting him with her very perfect side profile, not a hair out of place. Once again, her remoteness made his fingers itch to undo her—literally. Because he could see the pulse under her skin. Fast. He imagined it as hot as his.

Turning this marriage from part-time into full-time, and revealing the woman under the sky-high walls she hid behind, was a challenge that fizzed in his veins. And her insistence about not having a family? He wasn’t too bothered about that... Let him persuade her first that they could be good together, and then they could move on to the next phase: to build an enduring marriage with a legacy that would last for generations.

Primo faced forward, Faye’s hand in his, and vowed that this marriage would be as successful as every other venture he’d ever invested in. Failure wasn’t an option. Not for Primo Holt.