The Billionaire's Pretend Wife novel Chapter 56

When Jacob got home that evening, he was determined to solve the issue between him and Isabelle once and for all. She retreated to her room early in the night, and when he went to see her, he found that she was drawing some designs.

“Can we talk?” he asked, standing beside her desk.

“I don’t have time right now,” she replied, indicating her paper. “I’ve got work to do.”

“Okay,” he said, knowing she wasn’t going to like it if he interrupted her work. “We’ll talk when you are done.”

“I have a lot of work,” she let him know. “I might not finish until very late.”

“I’ll still wait,” he told her. He didn’t want this matter to go on for much longer. By the end of tonight, he wanted it all to be behind them.

She gave him a curious look, but didn’t object further. When he settled on her bed with his back against her headboard, she frowned. “You can wait in the living room,” she suggested.

“I’m good here,” he told her.

She nibbled on her lip, and while the action was innocent enough, the thoughts it sent through his mind were anything but. But then again, he had been thinking all day about how he was going to seduce her tonight. It was no wonder that when she bit her lip, all he wanted to do was kiss her senseless.

“As long as you don’t disturb me,” she warned him. “I need to concentrate.”

He smiled and nodded, happy that she wasn’t going to try and throw him out. Even if she did, he would simply grab her and lay her on the bed, and show her all the things he had been thinking about all day. “I’ll behave,” he promised her.

But only for a while…

Isabelle didn’t rise from her desk until after midnight. He wondered whether she worked that much every night, or whether she had extended her work, hoping he would get tired of waiting and leave.

“What do you want to talk about?” she asked him, approaching the bed and standing a few feet away.

He swallowed as he gave her a once-over, taking her in. She was wearing a short cream skirt paired with a heavy white sweater. Her hair was held in a bun at the top of her head, stray strands framing her face and others falling down her neck.

He sat up straight, aware of the stirring in his pants. How had he managed to stay away from her after that hot kiss the other day? He could almost remember the softness of her skin beneath his fingers, the swell of her breasts, her sweet scent.

“Jacob?” she called when he didn’t say anything for a while. “It’s already so late, and I have to get up early tomorrow for work. So tell me what it is you have to say.”

Jacob got to his feet and took a step towards her. She stepped back, but he didn’t let her get away. Taking a couple of quick strides towards her, he reached out and wrapped an arm around her waist. She gave him a look of shock as he grasped her and pulled her against him, bringing their bodies together.

Leaning towards her, he whispered in her ear, “I just want to know what I can do to pacify you.”

“What?” she gasped, trying to free herself from his hold. “Let go of me! What are you doing?”

Jacob heard the mortification in her voice, but he didn’t release her. The heroes in the romance stories he had read were bossy and stood their ground. Eventually, the heroine would give in to them, and they would get what they wanted. So, instead of releasing her, Jacob tightened his hold on her, until he could feel her breasts pressed up against his chest.

“Let me go and we’ll talk,” Isabelle requested, her hands clawing at his upper arms in vain. “We can’t talk like this!”

He gripped the hand that had hit his away and pressed it to the mattress beside her head. “Bella,” he called softly, “relax. Let me make you feel good.”

She swiped her other hand at him, but this time, it wasn’t a harmless hit. Her fingernails scratched down one length of his face, and he jerked back in pain. She scrambled away from him and grabbed a blanket, pulling it over her body.

“Leave,” she told him, her hands clutching the blanket tightly around her while she glared at him.

Sighing, he moved away from her and climbed from the bed. This was all a disaster. If he insisted on trying to coax her, he would only be acting like an asshole and probably end up losing an eye or two.

She was no heroine who was easily romanced to submission, and it was now clear that he was nothing like those male leads. They were all lucky, fictional bastards who had the odds rigged in their favour.

He walked back to his room and went straight to his bedside cabin, where he had placed the books Jason had given him after bringing them from work. He threw them all into the trash can, wishing he had never followed Jason’s advice. The guy had already misled him twice. Why had he thought this time would be different?

Maybe he wasn’t as good with women as he thought.

Or maybe Isabelle was just a hard nut to crack.

He went to his mirror and winced as he looked at his brand-new scratches. He had thought he would end the night with similar scratches on his back as she held onto him in the throes of passion.

Jason was going to pay.