CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SIX
‘H OW SOON CAN you be ready to fly?’
Mari was still reeling from his easy acceptance and his question didn’t register. What had just happened? She’d half expected him to flatly turn down her request. Ten million dollars was a ridiculous amount of money to pay anyone to pretend to be their wife. But clearly ten million dollars was not ridiculous enough because he’d agreed. And maybe she’d secured a great pay day, but she had a gut-churning feeling that she’d just made a deal with the devil.
‘Fly?’ she said, as his words filtered through. ‘Fly where?’
‘San Sebastián,’ he said, back at his desk and busily barking instructions to whichever poor soul was at the other end of his phone. He looked up. ‘Oh, hell, you do have a passport, don’t you?’
She thought about lying. If she didn’t have a passport, she couldn’t fly internationally. But already the prospect of being paid ten million dollars to temporarily marry Dominico was worming its way into her brain, boring holes in her reservations.
Ten million dollars .
It would solve so many of her problems. It would be the answer to Suzanne’s ongoing care issues—for years. All she had to do was pretend to be his wife—his real wife—but only temporarily. A pretend wife to a man who had abandoned her to her grief and despair.
Temporarily.
She had no doubt that he’d be done with her as soon as he had no more need of her. That was the rock she clung to.
Numbly she nodded.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘And do you have some decent clothes to bring?’
‘Decent?’ She had her working wardrobe. It wasn’t haute couture, but it served its purpose. She looked down at herself. ‘What’s wrong with this?’
He sighed and barked some further instructions into his phone. ‘Right. We’ll fix that. Is there anything else you need to take care of before we go? Do you have a cat or dog that needs looking after?’
Oh, heavens, how could she go anywhere? Not a cat nor a dog, but a sister. Suzanne.
‘How long will I be gone?’
‘A matter of weeks. Two months tops.’
‘Then yes, I have…um…something to organise.’
‘All right. I’ll have a car pick you up downstairs. Get your personal effects—don’t worry about your clothes, someone else will take care of that—organise what you must and meet me back here.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Will one hour be enough?’
To get to her flat in Chelsea and then to Suzanne’s house, see her settled and ensure there was nothing she’d overlooked.
‘More like three.’
He grimaced. ‘All right. Get on with it.’
He took a call, turned to the window and only when he turned back, saw her still there. ‘What?’
She licked her lips. ‘We haven’t talked about terms.’
‘You’ll have your money. You needn’t worry about that.’
‘I need an advance. To make the arrangements I need to get in place before I can leave.’
‘How much does it cost to put a pet or two in kennels?’
She lifted her chin. She wasn’t going to sound like she was begging. He was the one asking for favours. Without her usual pay packet, she still needed the means to pay for a carer for Suzanne for however long she was away. And maybe—just maybe—there was a chance she could persuade Valerie to change her plans and stay on if she offered her a decent inducement.
‘One million dollars should tide me over. For now.’
‘Tide you over…?’
He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed, and Mari knew she had him and that she was now the one calling the shots. ‘All right. I’ll need your bank details in that case. Is that it?’
‘Not quite. Because there’s something else we haven’t discussed.’
This time his sigh was less resigned, more aggravated. ‘There’s nothing complicated about this, Marianne. It’s a simple contract. You pretend to be my ever-loving, happy wife for however long you’re needed, and I pay you ten million dollars. That’s not a bad deal from where I’m standing.’
She shook her head. ‘Not bad, perhaps. But not complete. You see, I’ll marry you, Dom. I’ll take part in this farce and play the loving wife in public, but I won’t sleep with you. There will be no sex. This marriage will never be consummated.’
He took a few moments to consider that. A few moments where she wondered if he wanted to call off the deal. And then he rose from behind his desk and came closer. Much closer. Until he was standing right in front of her again. Until she could feel the heat emanating from his body, his signature scent filling her every breath, the drumbeat of the heart in his broad chest like a siren’s call to her.
‘And yet,’ he said, raising one hand to a loose tendril of her hair, winding it around his finger, ‘if I remember correctly, we were so good together.’
She swallowed, the sensation of him touching her hair, the gentle pressure from the curling motion, threatened to undo her. Threatened to make her forget what she’d demanded. Almost.
‘Past tense,’ she said firmly, stiffening her spine against the onslaught to her senses. ‘We’re not good together now or evermore.’
He looked down at her intently, at her eyes, at her mouth, lingering way too long on her lips. He let go of her hair and didn’t touch her again. He didn’t have to. She felt him in her peaked nipples and the humming vibration between her thighs.
‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that I’m paying an awfully hefty sum for this arrangement.’
‘You’re paying me to play your wife. You’re not paying for the right to sleep with me. You want this marriage easy to unwind? Not consummating it will make it a piece of cake.’
A nerve in his cheek twitched. His eyes grew colder. ‘You’re absolutely certain about this?’
‘Dead certain.’
‘Well,’ he said, his eyes still hard but with a smile that could only be described as a challenge accepted. ‘We’ll see.’
She threw him her own smile in return. ‘Won’t we just?’
Arrogant man. Mari stewed all the way to her flat. Stewed while she changed out of her suit and into jeans, a clean T-shirt and pulled on a navy blazer. She gathered up the rest of her belongings she might need in a suitcase. She wasn’t sure what Dom had meant about someone else taking care of her clothes, but she wasn’t about to leave packing them to someone else. With her suitcase packed and her peace lily, the one indoor plant she’d never quite managed to kill, tucked under her arm, she closed the door. Her flat would take care of itself while she was gone, there was enough money in her account for the rent to be paid. It was leaving her sister that worried her the most.
‘Suzanne, hi!’ said Mari ten minutes later as her sister opened the door.
Her sister looked from Mari’s face to the pot plant in her arms. ‘This is a surprise. Did you get the afternoon off?’
She leaned down to give her sister a hug. ‘Something like that. How are you?’
‘You know,’ she said, wrapping one arm around Mari’s shoulders, the slur in her voice more pronounced today. ‘The same. What’s happening in your world?’
I just agreed to pretend to be someone’s wife.
‘Oh, you know,’ Mari said, dodging the question until she could work out a way to share the bizarre events of the day. Where would she even start?
‘God, we’re a boring pair, aren’t we? Come on,’ said Suzanne, struggling to negotiate a three-point turn in her wheelchair to turn around, ‘let’s have a cup of tea.’
Mari’s heart broke as her sister’s electric chair carried her into the kitchen. The house had originally been Marianne’s, but she’d swapped it for the unit Suzanne had bought five years ago when she’d moved to Melbourne to be close to her sister. The home swap had seemed a good idea at the time, but the layout of the two-bedroom house was less than ideal when you factored an electric wheelchair into the space, and as Suzanne’s disease progressed and her condition deteriorated it would become increasingly problematic. Soon, though, if she could carry out her end of the deal, Mari should be in a position to provide her sister with something more suitable. All she had to do was complete this deal with the devil.
Simple.
Mari sucked in a breath. If only. She was under no illusions that these next few weeks were going to be the hardest she’d ever endured. Even harder than those godawful weeks and months when she’d paid the price for falling in love with Dominico Estefan.
In the kitchen it was Mari who filled the kettle and turned it on. Mari who found the mugs and teabags and found the milk in the fridge. Mari knew that, on a good day when her pain levels were low, Suzanne could do it, but still she hated her guests waiting for minutes for her to do things that would take them seconds.
‘Actually,’ Mari started as she sat down opposite her sister, mugs of tea and an open packet of biscuits between them, ‘something did happen today. Eric Cooper sold the company.’
Suzanne frowned as she wound the fingers of one hand around her mug’s handle. She knew what Mari’s job meant, not just to Mari, but to them both. ‘So that’s why you’re not at work. But what does that mean?’
‘It means the buyer is keeping the lab staff on, but he’s bringing in his own team to cover administration.’ Mari held up one hand. She could see Suzanne adding up A and B and coming up with C, when the answer was actually D. ‘The good news is that he offered me another role in the business.’
‘Wow, what a relief. How lucky is that?’ She reached for a biscuit. ‘What’s the new job, then?’
‘Less accounting. More of a support role for the boss,’ she said, massaging the position. Instantly she berated herself. Do not think about massaging. Do not think about positions.
There would be no positions.
‘The annoying thing is it’s going to take me overseas for a little while. That’s why I was hoping you could look after my peace lily.’
Her sister looked at the plant and back to Mari. ‘How long will you be gone?’
‘I’m not entirely sure. It could be a few weeks, but I’ve been told no more than a couple of months.’
Suzanne frowned. ‘Are you sure about this? It sounds a bit dodgy to me.’
‘I know it sounds odd.’ Because it sure did, even to Mari. ‘But it pays well with a really good bonus.’
‘In that case,’ Suzanne said with a sniff, ‘I’ll miss you.’
Mari reached out to take her sister’s hand. ‘And me you. But at least I’ll know my peace lily will be in good hands.’
The same butler let her back into Dom’s suite, relieving her of her pull-along suitcase. Dominico was looking out of the window, phone in hand, the other hand behind his head, and just the view of his broad shoulders, the pull of his shirt over the muscled arm triangled behind his head, was enough to ramp up her heart rate. He ended the call and turned around, his eyes fixing on her immediately. ‘Change of plans,’ he barked. ‘There’s no way we can get married in Spain, or even in Australia for at least a month from now. The licence conditions don’t allow for it.’
‘Oh. So, the deal’s off?’ Mari wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved. Relief had a slight edge, but then there remained the issue of repaying the million-dollar advance she’d asked for.
‘No, nothing’s off. But we can’t wait four weeks. We have no choice. We leave for Las Vegas first thing in the morning. Once we’re married, we’ll head to Spain.’ He glanced at the suitcase the butler had in hand. ‘What’s that?’
‘My things. My clothes.’
‘I thought I told you not to bother with that. The stylist is in your room waiting to outfit you.’
‘My room?’ He was talking nonsense. ‘What are you talking about?’
He pointed to his left, to the door, now open, beyond the dining room. She saw racks of clothes inside and a bevy of women sorting through them. ‘That’s your room. You’ve got work to do.’
She looked back at him. ‘What is this? I don’t need someone to dress me. I’m thirty-nine years old, not twelve. I hardly need a dresser.’
His gaze raked her up and down, now wearing what she’d imagined would make for comfortable travel wear, and nothing about his gaze was complimentary.
She bristled, her spine pulling tight. ‘You think that insulting me makes me more amenable to playing your wife?’
‘I’m not insulting you. I’m just pointing out that you need to look like someone I might be interested in marrying.’
‘Instead of some commoner you dragged off the street?’
‘If you want to put it like that.’
‘How would you put it?’
He sighed, as if bored with her protests and that she had no right to be offended. ‘I move in certain circles. I want people to believe that we’re married and for that you need to look the part. That means no chain store suits or ripped jeans. Now, there’s an entire boutique full of clothes that’s been shipped into your room waiting for you. I’ve given them an outline of what you’ll need. And don’t take too long. The hairdresser arrives in two hours. Dinner’s at nine.’
She stood stock still, hating him more than ever right now. He knew nothing about her or about her life or the choices she’d been forced to make. Sure, it would have been lovely to blow her salary on posh designer clothes, but she’d thought she’d done okay outfitting herself on a budget when her first priority had been ensuring her sister’s needs were met.
‘Yes, sir,’ she said, giving him a mock salute. ‘We can’t have you looking like you’re slumming it.’
His slate-grey eyes gleamed with an icy fury. Was he starting to regret the deal he’d made with her? Because that would almost be amusing. If it hadn’t been for the money she’d be walking away with, that would make two of them.
She stalked into the room that was apparently assigned to her and was met by a gaggle of women and an overdose of perfume. Racks of designer clothes lined the walls. An empty rack sat waiting for what Mari presumed were her purchases. Somewhere under a vast display of shoes in the centre of the room, Mari guessed there was a king-sized bed.
The door snicked shut behind her, while a posh, matronly voice announced, ‘Our client is here, ladies. Let’s get to work.’ And then she looked at Mari. ‘I’m Audra Valentina,’ she said, offering a high school prefect’s smile, ‘from Audra’s of Melbourne. And today is your lucky day. You can get undressed now, my dear.’
‘What?’ Mari looked around. The women looked like they’d come stamped out of the same factory from wherever Audra had been fashioned. Stick thin, highly varnished and all standing to attention, their hands clasped meekly before them. All but one young woman, who was standing to one side looking uncomfortable. ‘What is this?’
The older woman preened. ‘I am your style consultant and I believe we only have a short window of time. But I can only help you if you are prepared to help me. Now,’ she said, her ruby lips narrowing, ‘don’t be shy. Please take off whatever it is that you’re wearing.’
‘I don’t think so. I don’t want this. I don’t need—this circus.’
‘Nonsense. What girl doesn’t want to play dress-ups?’
‘This woman , that’s who.’
‘But Mr—Senor Estefan—’
‘Might like to think he’s Richard Gere playing in a remake of Pretty Woman , but this woman has other ideas. Now, he told me you have a list of what I need. Give it to me and I’ll find the outfits myself.’
‘But…’ her eyes raked over Mari’s casual outfit ‘…you’ll need expert help.’
The woman could have saved her breath. Mari had read the sentiment in her eyes.
‘Then leave her,’ Mari said, pointing to the young woman who seemed to be the outsider. ‘She can help me choose.’
‘But she’s not qualified. She’s only here to observe.’
‘Then she can get some on-the-job training. Everyone else can leave.’
The woman stalled. ‘Well, this is highly irregular.’
‘There you go, I knew we’d find something to agree on.’ She pulled open the door. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure your young colleague will help me spend lots of Dominico’s lovely money.’
‘We’ll wait in Melba’s, Ella,’ she said. ‘Let me know when you’re finished.’ And then, with pursed lips, the woman handed over a list and marched her team minus one from the room.
‘Relief,’ Mari said, her back to the closed door. ‘That was all kinds of a freak show.’
The young woman hid a smile under her hand. ‘I don’t think that’s ever happened to Madame Valentina before.’
Mari smiled. ‘I’m sure she’ll get over it eventually. And now, Ella,’ she said, putting the list Dom had supplied down on the only part of the bed not covered in shoe boxes, ‘it looks like we’ve got work to do. First item on the list is a wedding dress—Las Vegas suitable.’ She regarded the young woman seriously. ‘Hmm, do you think Audra has anything in the Elvis Presley impersonator line?’
The next two hours passed in a blur of colours, fabrics, but best of all, laughter. It turned out Ella was a great choice of consultant and Mari was glad she hadn’t banished everyone from the room. She might be the work experience girl, but Ella had an eye for design, colour and fit, and for making an outfit stand out, from the right foundation garments right through to the accessories.
When a knock came on the door to inform her that the hairstylist had arrived, Mari was back in her jeans and T-shirt going through the list with Ella, doing a final check that they’d covered all the bases. The once empty rack was now filled with hangers, the rack below covered with shoe boxes. Mari couldn’t imagine how much it would all cost, the total of her purchases had to be an eye-watering amount, but if Dom wanted her to look like someone he wanted to be with— like someone he wanted to marry —then he’d just have to pay the price. That was his problem.
In a way, she mused, as her hair was given ‘sun-kissed highlights’, she should be grateful to Dom. She’d never be able to afford designer clothes made from such fabulous fabrics and it would be a treat to wear them for however long this charade lasted.
She should be grateful to Dom.
Except no amount of couture clothing, no amount of pampering, could ever make up for Dominico’s betrayal all those years ago. Nothing would ever compensate her for the pain he’d put her through.
Nothing.