His Next Ex Read online

  “What is it going to take before you stop running away?”

  His right hand flexed, and her stomach and bottom both tightened sharply in response.

  “I’m not going to let you spank me anymore,” Jamie blurted in panic, certainly with a good deal more confidence and bravery than she felt. “I-I’ve changed my mind!”

  His expression didn’t change. “Nice try, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.”

  The urge to bolt and run right now was incredibly strong, but trapped in a one-entrance bathroom, Jamie had no place to run to. Except the shower, and fat lot of good that would do her. She shifted her feet, bouncing the wailing baby and wishing she could fall to the floor and start wailing, too.

  “I just wanted to be alone.”

  “You said something that scared you,” he corrected. “You ran to avoid having to face it. You do this every time the situation grows uncomfortable, and we’ve discussed your running away once already, haven’t we? In fact, I believe that was the cause for your very first trip across my knee, wasn’t it?”

  Her eyes teared. “I d-don’t want you to-to—”

  “That’s the funny thing about wants and needs,” he interrupted. “They rarely ever match.”

  “You can’t spank me against my will. You’re not that kind of man.”

  “Perhaps you should reevaluate exactly what kind of man you think I am.”

  She took a small step backwards as he walked into the bathroom, and she bumped up against the louver doors of the towel closet. Though anger still flashed and sparked in his eyes, he didn’t shout and yell, or grab and shake her, or anything of the things she remembered from the occasional fights she’d experienced with Dale. In fact, his hand gave every indication of being calm and gentle when he cupped her chin in his palm to keep her eyes on his.

  “We have two hours until we need to leave for the airport. In that time, you are going to put Megan down for her nap, we are going to finish packing, and we are going to take care of this. Yes, I am going to spank you,” he said, when she tried to shake her head. “And do you know why? Because I know something you haven’t yet figured out.” His eyes bored into hers, unblinking, as he took his hand from her chin. His fingers unfurled, turning his hand into an ominously familiar, open-palmed shape. “You need to be spanked. It’s a part of who you are.

  “If you insist on topping from below, then the spankings that will be eliminated from our relationship will be the erotic ones. No more warm, playful slaps delivered to the bottoms of sexy house maids, or Geisha girls, or anyone else. If you’ve really changed your mind, then I will abide by your edict in that regard. But don’t think for one second that if your behavior calls for a real spanking that I won’t take you across my knee and blister you soundly. I assure you, I’ll do it in a heartbeat, because it’s what you need.”

  Her bottom lip began to wobble and he blurred before her eyes.

  He lay his open hand against the side of her face, cupping her cheek. “I’m going to my room to calm down. I want you to put Megan to bed for her nap, and then we are going to talk about this some more.”

  When Travis leaned down to kiss her, she turned her face away. But he merely slipped his thumb back under her chin and turned her back to meet his mouth.

  “I can’t do this,” she whispered brokenly when he left the bathroom. She sagged, her breath shuddering out of her as she grabbed onto the edge of the tub and sat on the rim.

  It took a long time for her to calm Megan enough to put her to bed. It took even longer to calm herself.

  She thought she could do this, but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. He was too perfect and he seemed to know her so well. Her body wanted to respond to him, and neither it nor her heart was listening any more when she told herself the relationship wasn’t real.

  It felt real. That was the problem. To have to leave in two years as though this was not the kind of relationship she’d fantasized about all her life was going to kill her. If she didn’t put some distance between herself and Travis now, this arrangement was going to absolutely devastate her heart.

  When Megan finally fell asleep, Jamie steeled herself to confront Travis. Her legs shook as she walked down the hall to his bedroom door. She stopped in front of it, all but feeling how angry he must still be through the pale wood. She took a deep breath and held it. Then knocked.

  She expected him to call a terse ‘come in’, but he opened it for her instead.

  “You don’t have to knock,” he said, mildly enough as he walked back to his bed and the open suitcases laid out only half packed at the foot of his bed.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “For what?” He stopped at the dresser to select several pairs of socks for the trip. “Generalized ‘I’m sorrys’ aren’t what I want to hear. They lose their meaning if you don’t deserve to be or don’t know why you are. Unless you have a specific reason to, indeed, be sorry, I don’t want to hear those words from your lips.”

  “I’m sorry I made you mad, then.”

  A sigh exploded past his lips and he threw the socks into his suitcase. “You didn’t make me mad.”

  “You broke the door down.”

  “Yes, but not with anger.” He gave her a hard look. “Although I will admit to a certain exasperation, a good deal of annoyance, and just a smidgen of mental angst. From now on, I expect you to talk to me, Jamie. No more running away. No more locked doors. And—” he stalked back around the bed to where she still hovered in the doorway. “That little declaration of yours about not allowing me to spank you anymore,” he shook his head. “It’s not going to happen.”

  “I can’t do this,” Jamie told him.

  He braced his hands on his hips. His jaw clenched. “What can’t you do?”

  “Any of it.” She flapped her arms helpless. “All of it.” She thought she’d cried herself out with Megan in the bathroom, but with him standing there, hands on his hips and frowning, it started all over again. She briefly covered her face with her hands, then shrugged again, whispering, “I’m so sorry. I have to go.”

  She moved past him and began to gather her makeup from around the bathroom sink.

  “So, you’re running away again.” Travis glared up at the ceiling, then shook his head.

  “I’ll help you get your contract,” Jamie said through her tears. “But I have to get some distance. It just feels too real.”

  The anger dissipated from his face. “How real?”

  “I’ve been trying to pretend like it doesn’t matter, but it does.” She walked around him to dump her makeup in the suitcase he’d given her for their trip. She could barely see through her tears, and her hands fumbled to close the lid and get the latches fastened. “I’m going to move back into my room down the hall.”

  “The hell you are,” Travis snapped.

  “When this is over,” she continued, “I promise I won’t cling.”

  “Cling,” Travis said. “Let Megan call me daddy. Let me give her brothers and sisters. We’ll live happily ever after, like the fairy tales.”

  “That wasn’t the deal.”

  “We’ll make a new deal.”

  Openly sobbing now, Jamie pulled the suitcase off the bed and tried to walk past him. He grabbed her arm.

  “Stay,” Travis said.

  “For how long?” Jamie wept. “And how much this time? Are you going to give me a bigger house, maybe one with a pool? How many more contracts do you need me to garner for you? I can’t do this, Travis. I thought I could, but I just can’t pretend. My heart wants to believe it, and it’s killing me.”

  “I love you,” Travis said abruptly.

  She shook her head, crying harder. “I’m a means to an end.”

  “I want you to stay with me,” Travis said. “As my wife. I want to hold you in my arms every night and wake up to your face every morning. No contracts, no money, or houses, or business associates, and our exes can go to hell for all I care. I want—” he sighed. “I just want
you, Jamie. I love you.”

  “You’re just saying that because I put you on the spot.” She pulled her arm out of his hand and continued towards the door.

  This time Travis let her go. He barked a hard and bitter laugh as he ran both hands through his black hair. “Woman, you are going to drive me to drink!”

  She got as far as the door, then Travis turned around and came after her. He caught hold of her arm and spun her around, taking her suitcase away and dropping it there in the hallway.

  “Let go of me!” Jamie cried, when he bent down to throw her over his shoulder like a bag of grain.

  “Not even if I could.” He stood up again and stalked back into his bedroom. He carried her over to his armoire, yanking open both doors.

  Craning her head back, Jamie shrieked when she saw the assortment of paddles and brushes hanging neatly from hooks along the back wall. The paddle he finally selected was over a foot in length and had a large, oval head that was wide enough to cover each of her bottom cheeks with only one smack.

  “No!” Jamie frantically beat her hands on his back frantically as he carried her over to the bed. “Please don’t do this!”

  He bent and dumped her from his shoulder, dropping her none-too-gently on the end of the mattress. He then grabbed her hand and put the paddle in it, forcibly folding her fingers firmly upon the handle.

  “Now you listen to me,” he told her angrily, holding her hand in his so she couldn’t immediately fling the paddle away. “I love you. I want to grow old and shriveled with you by my side. Someday, we’re going to be two cranky, elderly people, walking hand-in-hand through the park, whacking the young generations in the knees with our canes. I love you, and don’t you dare shake your head again when I say that. I know how I feel, damn it! But I’d sooner let you go and give up the Kuronabes contract, then hurt you or Megan. So just tell me, Jamie. Do you love me?”

  She looked up at him with watery eyes.

  Travis knelt down beside the bed. Softening his tone, he asked again, “Do you love me?”

  Jamie nodded. “Yes.”

  “Then why do you keep running away?”

  She opened her mouth, but didn’t say anything. Eventually, she only shook her head.

  “Is the idea to keep running until I quit chasing? That is a manipulative game, and I’m not going to play it with you. Don’t shake your head, answer me.”

  “I don’t mean to be.”

  “Look at me.”

  Jamie lifted her bowed head to meet his eyes again.

  “Jamie May Dorsett, I will love, honor and cherish you from this day forward until death do us part. I will protect and comfort you. I will provide for you. But I am the head of this household, and this,” his hand tightened on the one of hers that held the paddle. “This is what you will accept when you accept me. You will respect me, obey me, and trust me to care for you for so long as I uphold in my commitment to you. You will confide in me, depend on me, and under no circumstances will you ever run—not from me—but from us again.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered thickly.

  “I know.” Travis stood up, letting go of her hand and the paddle both. “You are going to sit here and think about what I just told you. Take as long as you need; I want your commitment to ‘us’ to be an honest one. If you can’t repeat this vow back to me, then we have a problem that will need to be addressed. But if you do want to proceed with our marriage as a real marriage, then you will bring me the paddle. And, Jamie, be prepared to have it used. This is the third time you’ve been told, and the second time that you’ll have to be spanked for running away. I intend to make sure it’s the last time on both counts.”

  He cupped the side of her face, then left her alone in the room to think.

  Chapter 9

  When the time came to leave the house, Jamie was still sitting at the foot of his bed, holding the unused paddle in her hand. She looked up when Travis opened the door. Coming into the room, he squatted down in front of her.

  “We have a problem,” he said heavily, “don’t we?”

  “You didn’t have to say you loved me,” Jamie told him.

  His eyes flashed, but his tone was calm and even. “Do you think I’m lying?”

  “I think this contract is very important to you, you’ve made no secret of that. If you don’t win it, then your ex and her new husband will, and that makes it even more important.” His mouth stretched into a hard, thin, and narrow line as Jamie said, “I understand why you said it, but you didn’t have to. I’ll still go with you to Japan. I’ll be the perfect loving and doting wife. I—” She gave him a strained smile. “I guess I’ve had lots of practice by now.”

  He stood up slowly, his face as dark as a thundercloud.

  “But when we get back, I think we need to go back to a business-only relationship until ‘us’ is over. For both our sakes, as well as Megan’s.”

  “Put that paddle down,” Travis growled, “before I use it on you.”

  Jamie jumped when he slammed out of the bedroom, and a few minutes later, she heard another door slam somewhere downstairs. When she ventured out into the hall, she felt only a partial relief to find that Travis hadn’t stormed out the front door, leaving her here while he went to Japan alone. Instead, he’d shut himself in his study.

  Her shoulders sagged. In the end, she went to get Megan ready and then helped Ben carry their suitcases out to the car.

  Ben checked his wristwatch. “The check-in process takes twice as long these days. We need to get going if you want to make your flight on time.”

  “All right.” Jamie buckled Megan into her car seat, then jogged back into the house. She knocked very hesitantly on the closed study door. When no answering hail came, she cracked it open. “Travis?”

  Sitting at his desk, the phone’s receiver pressed to his ear, Travis glanced up at her, then quickly held up one silencing hand. “Yes,” he said grimly into the phone, then checked his watch. “No, it’s a four o’clock flight… I need the papers before then… Why don’t you bring them to the airport… Well, if you’d quit talking on the phone to me then you’d have plenty of time, wouldn’t you?”

  He hung up the phone.

  Fidgeting with her fingers, knowing she was responsible for his irritation, Jamie said, “Ben says it’s time to go.”

  “I love you,” Travis countered. “We don’t have to go. I’ll call the Kuronabes, confess my sins and retract my bid if that’s what it will take for you to believe me.”

  “And resent me for it for the rest of your life.” Jamie shook her head. “It’s okay, Travis. Really, it is. You don’t have to say any of that. I promise I won’t embarrass you or let you down.”

  He stood up, grabbed his business coat off the back of his chair and stalked past her, muttering, “You really are going to make me work at this, aren’t you?”

  “Why are you angry?” Jamie protested, following him to the front door. “I’m giving you what you want. No strings attached. No clinging! Furthering your career with no ties after two years!”

  He held the front door open for her. “Get in the damn car.”

  He sat on one side and she sat on the other, with the only sounds coming from Megan, who responded to the agitation she sensed by fussing non-stop the whole way.

  Two blocks from the freeway on-ramp into Seattle, Travis said, “I want a divorce.”

  Jamie turned her head to the window. “Okay.”

  “Okay.” He took out his wallet and wrote her a check for the agreed upon sum of two million dollars. “There. Business concluded. We no longer have money between us and the contract is now null and void, agreed?”

  After only a glance, Jamie handed the check back to him. “You forgot to take out my share of the expenses.”

  His jaw clenched. “You are certainly stubborn, I’ll give you that.” He tore the check in half and opened his wallet again. “So, what were the expenses? There was the shopping trip for the clothes.”

  “
I’ll pay for half the ring.”

  “The hell you will. I bought that ring for you and I’ll pay for it.”

  She started to work the ring off her finger, but Travis stopped her quite effectively with a dark look and an even darker threat. “If that ring leaves your hand, I will have Ben pull this car over long enough for you to cut a switch and for me to break it across your naked backside.”

  “You don’t want it back?” she squeaked.

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  “What else?”

  She clenched her hands tightly in her lap. “I-I spent five thousand at the charity function.”

  “Fine.” He started writing again.

  “And I made a long-distance phone call.”

  “How long?”

  “All the way to Florida. My cousin. She couldn’t believe I’d—”

  “No,” Travis said with exaggerated patience. “How long were you on the phone?”

  “Forty, maybe forty-five minutes.”

  “Is there anything else?” he asked, pen held at the ready while she thought. Finally, when she shook her head, he wrote out the adjusted amount on a new check. He tore it from the book and handed it to her. “There. Now, is the contract between us null and void?”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice brittle and quiet.

  “Good.” Travis pressed a button on the door. “Pull the car over, Ben.”

  He was going to leave her at the side of the road, Jamie realized. And as the limo parked in front of a line of sidewalk venders and street-facing kiosks, without a word to her, Travis opened the door and got out. He disappeared among the crowd of shoppers, and with shaking hands, Jamie folded the check he’d given her and put it in her pocket. Trying not to cry, not sure at all where she was supposed to go from here, she reached across to unfasten Megan from her safety chair. Cradling the baby to her shoulder, she scooted across the seat to exit through the open door and almost cracked skulls with a grinning and rosy-cheeked woman who had ducked down to poke her head inside.