Chapter One #2
‘Oh…’ Violet’s tension drained away and she dropped down into an armchair with a sigh. ‘What’s up?’
Tabitha winced and then darted off to the bathroom in haste where her sister heard her be sick. Frowning, Violet followed her and stilled in the doorway. ‘What’s wrong? Have you caught a bug?’
‘Get me a glass of water while I freshen up,’ her twin urged.
Violet poured a glass of water and handed it over when her wan sister appeared back in the snug little sitting room. The apartment was a rabbit warren of small rooms because Isabel and her partner had put their money into improving the bakery rather than their living accommodation.
‘It’s not a bug,’ Tabitha shared tautly, her lovely face troubled and embarrassed. ‘I wouldn’t be visiting if I had anything contagious. No, the truth is that I’m pregnant.’
‘Pregnant?’ Violet gasped in disbelief. ‘But how? I mean—’
‘Not a virgin anymore,’ Tabitha cut in somewhat bitterly. ‘You have to remember me saying that there was no way I was going into this marriage a virgin and staying that way for another three years!’
Violet frowned. ‘Yes. Of course I remember that but I didn’t see why it should be a problem when this marriage is a business deal rather than a normal one. Nobody’s expecting you to sleep with the wretched man!’
‘So you assumed but who knows?’ Tabitha asked.
‘And even if he doesn’t push the sex idea, it means that I can hardly be an unfaithful wife while I’m with him, and I couldn’t stand the idea that I would be trapped in celibacy as well for the next three years.
So, I decided I would get rid of the problem. ’
Violet groaned out loud. ‘It’s not a problem, not something you should think of in terms of getting rid of.’
‘I’m only doing what you did,’ Tabitha condemned with flushed cheeks. ‘Didn’t you sleep with your high school boyfriend because you thought it was time?’
Violet turned scarlet with embarrassment but the less said about that unwise decision of hers the better, when she had never come clean with her sister about what a disaster that had proved. ‘So, if you’re pregnant, who’s the father?’ she asked instead.
Tabitha grimaced. ‘Someone I met at work who was just passing through. I thought he would be perfect as I’d never see him again but my birth control let me down.’
Her twin studied her with sympathy. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘It’s more a question of what you are going to do,’ Tabitha stated, turning the question back on her.
‘After all, I can’t marry Tore Renzetti now that I’m pregnant.
It would be a breach of the contract I signed and I can’t hide it, so I’ll have to fess up and then the marriage won’t go ahead and that means we don’t get the money up front. ’
Violet slumped in horror. ‘Oh, good heavens…’ she whispered, aghast at that prospect for they were depending on that money for their mother’s benefit.
In recent years, Lucia Blessington, Tomaso Barone’s only child, had had every cancer treatment available in the UK and her health was still failing.
But there was a clinical trial of a new experimental drug taking place in America that could save their mother’s life.
Unfortunately, it took serious money to win a place on such a trial, and the Blessingtons were poor as church mice.
Through their grandfather’s lawyer, Tabitha had agreed to reduce the length of the agreed marriage to a three-year maximum and in return had demanded a very large up-front payment of cash.
With that safe in the bank there would be sufficient money to fund her mother’s place on the trial, and there would also be enough for her mother and her lifelong best friend to live on while she received treatment.
That was the only reason both sisters had been willing to marry Tore Renzetti, because their grandfather had agreed to help his daughter and had then backed out on the agreement.
Either twin would have done virtually anything to give their mother even that slender chance of survival.
Their childhood might have been pretty miserable, but throughout it all their mother had been a beacon of love and support.
‘Now it’s your turn to step up,’ Tabitha remarked with a guilty grimace. ‘And we dare not tell Tore Renzetti in advance in case he refuses to do a swap.’
‘But why should he? He couldn’t be bothered meeting either of us!’ Violet reminded the blonde tartly. ‘He doesn’t care who we are or what we look like or if we come with dependents. His lawyers never asked, did they?’
‘No, they didn’t, but it’s going to be a headache getting the relevant paperwork changed in time from Tabitha to Violet.
I’ve already committed you,’ her twin announced, throwing her a remorseful glance.
‘I had to sign the prenup this morning to ensure that that cash payment was transferred in time, and I panicked and forged your signature.’
Violet paled. ‘But that’s against the law.’
Her more impulsive and less careful sister shot her a silencing glance. ‘So? We can’t take the risk at this stage that Renzetti will back out.’
‘But would he? He must want those shares pretty badly to agree to this in the first place. And how am I supposed to pretend to be you when I’m six inches shorter and as dark-haired as you’re fair? His legal team has seen you,’ Violet reminded her in dismay.
‘For the wedding, we’ll stick you in high heels and a blond wig with a veil on top. We can swing it if we try hard enough,’ Tabitha declared with characteristic fortitude.
Violet surveyed her twin with a sinking heart but not a word of argument could she come up with.
How could she argue? Tabitha had been willing to sacrifice three years of her life, and it went without saying that Violet should be equally willing.
Just because she was the less daring twin, didn’t mean she had to be useless, did it?
It could work. It would have to work, wouldn’t it? She would bring Belle into this stupid fake marriage and since Tore was based in London, she would keep on running the bakery as usual. As Tabitha was already telling her, no problem was insurmountable.
Violet felt sick on the way to the wedding. Actually being alone with her bad-tempered, sour grandfather was a source of stress. He was virtually a stranger. Indeed, they had only met once before and she was now pretending to be her sister, hence the wig and the veil that screened her face.
‘I realise you’ve got a cold but can’t you talk at all?’ her grandfather queried peevishly, his low tolerance threshold challenged by her ongoing silence. ‘You’ll have to speak to give your responses at the altar.’
‘Yes,’ she said gruffly. ‘I’ll manage.’
She sat shivering in the fancy wedding dress, which had been bought to fit Tabitha.
On Violet, it was too tight over the bust and too long.
Those differences had forced her to wear six-inch heels, which she could barely walk in and a blond wig because she was a brunette.
All she had to do, she reminded herself, was get through the ceremony without anyone realising that she was the original imposter bride.
And then Tore Renzetti would make that all-important up-front payment, and they would be home and dry.
It didn’t matter how he behaved or what he said afterwards once he realised he hadn’t gotten the sister he had expected: She could take it.
Of course, she could take anything the horrible man handed out in punishment!
Her heart hammered inside her too-tight bodice, and her narrow shoulders braced.
The entire deception would have been much easier had her grandfather not insisted on a church wedding with the accompanying guests.
There were too many people who would recognise that the bride was not the woman she was supposed to be.
Shy, socially awkward Violet was cringing in horror at the threat of a public scene and of being exposed in public by an irate man.
He might not have bothered to meet either twin but ultimately, he was sure to spot the difference between a five-foot-five-inch blonde and the less than five-foot-nothing brunette who had literally stepped into her sister’s shoes.
She could only be grateful that her grandfather, Tomaso Barone, barely knew her or her sister, having disowned their mother long before they were even born.
And anyway, what did any of it ultimately matter? Tore Renzetti and her grandfather wanted this marriage, and it was immaterial to both of them which sister he wed. Tabitha would’ve been a stranger, too.
‘The full veil is a little theatrical,’ her grandfather complained.
‘I don’t want anyone to notice if I cry,’ Violet declared defensively.
‘Why would you cry? You’re marrying a hugely wealthy man with high-society status and the blessing of your family.
You’ll never want for anything again. It’ll be a big change for you.
No outstanding debts and the very best of everything.
You’ve got it made. You should be thanking me for setting this up for you! ’
Violet winced. Tomaso Barone was proud as punch of selling her off like a product because he was delighted that she was marrying into wealth and class.
This wedding meant something to him while it meant nothing to Violet or her sister.
Although that was an actual lie, she adjusted with a pang of discomfiture as she thought of her mother’s frail health and wondered if they were chasing windmills while inwardly praying for a good outcome for the older woman.
Even if the treatment were only to grant Lucia a couple of extra years rather than cure her, she reasoned heavily, it would be worth it.