The Billionaire's Convenient Bride: A BWWM Billionaire Love Story by Cj Howard Page B

calmed, and then she watched the sunset and hoped he would keep his word.

Chapter5
     
    Emmaline and Peter didn’t see much of each other in the days that followed the fight. Neither one of them really knew what to say to the other, nor did they necessarily want to talk. He was angry and hurt by her cold rejection, and she was frustrated with his thoughtlessness and his selfish actions.
         When they did see each other, it was awkward and quiet. She began to wonder when that would change, because she knew that all things do over time, but living practically alone in a huge house was going to be hard on her, and she hoped that they could at least be friends, because three years of solitude would be too much for her to handle well.
         Peter was experiencing a phenomenon he had never known before. He was heart hurt over her reaction to him. He had acted out, partly hoping to make her jealous, while hoping to show her that he was just fine with her not wanting him, and hoping to elicit some sort of response from her, some feelings of desire toward him, but none of that happened. All he had managed to do was incur her anger over his selfishness and he felt that all she had seen was his darker side. There was a growing bitterness in him about it.
         He was sitting in his office one morning, about a week after it had happened, still fresh and raw in him, when Nelson walked in and Peter snapped at him a few times before Nelson, who had worked with Peter for a long time and knew him fairly well, sat down and asked off-handedly, “How are things going with the city? Are we able to move the project forward at all yet?”
         Peter’s eyes narrowed. “No. We aren’t any further along with the city. They want more meetings, they want more paperwork, and they want more money. They want more time with Tristan to go over everything, and he suggested that I become more of a silent partner for this deal just so we can get it through all the red tape. I accidentally sleep with the Governor’s wife once, and this is the hassle I face afterward. Luckily, his re-election campaign is weak and I don’t think we’ll have him in office much longer. Hopefully his replacement will want to see this refurbishment happen sooner than later.”
         Nelson watched him and then asked lightly, “How is it going with Emmaline?”
         Peter scowled. “Not well at all. She is cold and quiet, she might as well be an ice-queen! I can’t believe I married anyone at all, let alone her!”
         Nelson took a deep breath and said in a low tone, “Sir, we agreed that she would be a wife in name only and that it would be a business deal. You aren’t talking about physical relations with her, are you?”
         Peter caught himself and felt heat flush his face. He turned away from Nelson and focused on the papers laid out across the table he was standing over. He had meant physical relations. He’d been torn over wanting her and feeling angry with her for that need not being reciprocated by her, but it seemed clear that the frost between them was not going to thaw anytime in the future and it weighed on his heart and his mind that she was in the same house, just down the hall, and he could not go to her; he could not touch and have what was not offered to him, but what he wanted so badly. “No, of course not, Nelson,” he lied. “I mean that she and I have our differences of opinion when it comes to my being with other women. I run hot blooded. You know that, she knows that, I think that everyone must know that, but she wants to curtail my physical activity with other women here in my own home, and not only that, here in my own city. In my own state as well! She is insisting that I go out of state anytime I want to indulge in some physical release. I can’t go running off to some other state every time I want a woman or two for the night. That’s bad for business.” He stalked around the table and splayed