Chapter Five
It was not a call he relished making, which explained why he’d put it off for as long as he could.
In the two days since agreeing to marry Charlotte, Dante had had the prenuptial agreements drawn up and given notice of their intention to marry at the registry office, whereby setting the clock ticking on the twenty-nine-day waiting period until they were legally eligible to marry.
He hadn’t told his grandmother yet, but he’d arranged to visit her for a week and told her he wouldn’t be alone. The less she knew in advance, the better—he wouldn’t put it past her to turn up on his doorstep demanding answers if he informed her, ahead of time, that he was bringing a woman.
He’d done just about everything he needed to do and the wedding was now hurtling towards him like an asteroid from which there was no escape.
Not that he’d want to escape, anyway. He’d given Charlotte his word and he would never renege on that.
Which meant there was just one thing left to do, and it could no longer be put off.
Not if there was a chance someone at the registry office might tip off the press about Dante San Marino’s impending marriage.
As one of the richest men in the world, there was a not inconsequential amount of speculation surrounding his private life—something he’d guarded even more fiercely once he and Jamie had split.
Jamie.
His gut rolled with the complex emotions he felt whenever he thought of her, reaching for his phone and pressing her name before he could back out of this.
The thought of Jamie hearing about his wedding from anyone but him sat inside him like a lead balloon.
He’d already hurt her enough for ten lifetimes.
She answered on the fourth ring.
‘Hey, stranger.’
As always, her voice pulled at something in his chest. He cleared his throat. ‘Jamie, hi.’
‘You sound cross. Is everything okay?’
Jamie knew him better than anyone on earth. The fact she could correctly deduce his mood after hearing just a couple of syllables showed that to be true.
‘Do you have a minute?’
‘For you, I have five minutes, at least. What’s up?’
He stood, prowling towards the window, bracing an elbow on the glass and staring down at London, the Thames writhing through it like a big, pewter snake.
‘There’s no easy way to tell you this. I’m getting married.’
Her sharp intake of breath might as well have been a whip against his flesh. He winced, wishing he could take back the words. Wishing, no matter what he’d just told himself a minute ago, that he could renege on this whole stupid deal.
Nothing on earth was worth hurting Jamie for.
‘Oh. Erm, congratulations.’
She sounded like she was about to cry.
‘Listen, Jamie,’ he began, aware that his accent had thickened, as it always did when he was battling the depth of his emotions. His failures where his ex-wife was concerned.
‘It’s okay.’ She cleared her throat. ‘We’re divorced. I didn’t expect you’d be single forever.’
Silence fell, a staticky, heavy silence that, to Dante’s ears, was prickly with accusations, no matter how kindly she was letting him off the hook.
‘I did,’ he said, simply. ‘You know that.’
‘Yes.’ Another clear of her throat. ‘So, who is she?’
He thought of Charlotte and something fizzed in his gut for a whole other reason. Where everything with Jamie was heavy and charged with dreadful guilt and grief, Charlotte was the exact opposite. When he thought of her, he felt levity and lightness, happiness and simplicity.
‘No one you know,’ he said, though perhaps that wasn’t true. After all, they all moved in similar circles. ‘Charlotte Shaw.’
‘Never heard of her,’ she said.
Dante suspected that would change. Not just with their marriage, but when the truth of her parenthood came out and she took possession of the Papandreo Group.
‘What’s she like?’
‘She’s—,’ he searched for the right words, and drew a blank. What could one say to their ex-wife about their future wife? ‘You’d like her,’ he finished, after a beat.
‘I’ll take your word for it,’ Jamie said, a little wistfully. The implication was clear: we’ll never meet.
More silence. He smothered a sigh. They’d divorced and that was for the best, but the guilt over how he’d failed Jamie followed him still.
He wished he could have given her what she wanted.
She had deserved better. He shifted his weight to the other foot, pressed his palm to the glass, feeling the cold smoothness and picturing Jamie.
‘Do you love her?’ It was barely a whisper, the softest words, a question into the darkness.
He closed his eyes on a wave of feeling. Panic, regret, remorse, guilt.
‘Never mind. I shouldn’t have asked—,’
‘No,’ he said, because he’d failed Jamie so often, so many times, and at least he could give her this.
He had told Charlotte that this would be their secret, that it was imperative that nobody else knew the truth, but Jamie, he realised now, had to stand outside of that bubble. ‘We’re not in love, Jamie.’
Her sigh was a gust down the phone line. ‘Then why?’
‘There are practical reasons for our marriage.’
‘She’s not pregnant, is she?’
He heard the awful, awful fear in those words and wanted to rip out his heart. ‘No.’
‘Okay. I mean, I shouldn’t—I’m sorry—I’m asking things I have no right to ask. I’m just—blindsided.’
‘I should have texted you first, prepared you better.’
‘We’re divorced. I honestly never expected you to stay single, Dante. It’s fine.’
‘This isn’t like what we were, Jamie.’ That was the God’s honest truth.
Jamie and he had been little more than teenagers when they’d met and their relationship had been one of growing up together.
They’d been friends, first and foremost. They’d never had the kind of explosive sex that he and Charlotte shared.
He knew Jamie needed to hear that truth, but he felt something unexpected in saying those words—he felt the sting of having betrayed Charlotte, who deserved better than to be minimised to save another woman’s feelings.
He ground his teeth, hating the complexity of this. It was exactly the kind of situation he’d sworn he’d never again be in.
‘It’s fine,’ she said, again. ‘I’m happy for you.’
She sounded the exact opposite of happy.
‘I just wanted you to hear it from me.’
‘I appreciate it. And I always like to hear from you,’ her voice took on a wistful edge. ‘I have to go now,’ she said, the words quivering a little, as though she were fighting tears. ‘We’ll talk later, okay?’
She disconnected the call before he could respond.
He closed his eyes, trying to picture Jamie, to imagine her face, but it was Charlotte’s eyes that lanced him, clear, inquisitive, endlessly fascinating.
He groaned, dropping his forehead against the glass and staring down at the city, kicking himself mentally, for the hundredth time, for agreeing to this.
* * *
‘This is very comprehensive,’ Lottie said, flicking a glance across the kitchen counter, to where Dante was placing a selection of antipasto on a serving platter.
It was hardly gourmet cooking, but she was still impressed by the way he was assembling antipasti, as though he did such things on a daily basis.
‘The platter?’ he asked, following her gaze.
She laughed. ‘The prenuptial agreement, but the platter too.’
His grin made her stomach twist. ‘Better to be safe than sorry.’
She turned the page and jolted upright.
Section 7—children.
She pressed a finger to it then looked at him again. ‘Children?’ Her voice was a little high pitched.
‘We’re having sex and getting married. It seemed like a wise precaution.’
‘But we’re not having children. I’m on contraceptives.’
‘Sure, but it’s better to be—,’
‘Yes, yes, safe than sorry, I heard you before.’ Her eyes widened and out of nowhere, something clutched in her belly, at the thought of carrying a baby—their baby—to term. She shook her head, panic quickly overtaking it. ‘I don’t want children.’
‘We’ve discussed this,’ he reminded her, putting down a slab of feta cheese and coming to the other side of the counter, bracing his hands on the top.
‘Neither of us wants kids. It’s all good.
But sometimes, accidents happen and the point of a prenuptial agreement is to safeguard against any possible contingency. Okay?’
She returned her attention to the document, moving her finger as she read the stipulations.
There was nothing particularly unexpected, she realised, her nerves calming a little.
Provisions as to custody in the event of a divorce, the fact neither parent could remove the child from the country without written permission of the other, the allocation of a set amount by Dante in a trust, a provision for consultation when it came to matters such as healthcare and education.
She nodded as she continued reading, her throat dry but breathing returning to normal.
‘Okay, that’s all fine,’ she said with a lift of her shoulders, turning the page and landing on the far less controversial question of assets.
By the time she’d finished reading, Dante had moved the platter between them and poured two glasses of red wine. She eyed her glass, the deep, burgundy liquid beautiful to look at.
‘So?’
‘So, it’s fine. Thank you for organising it. Do you want me to sign it now?’
‘No rush. Take it to a lawyer, get a second opinion.’
‘I’m quite capable of understanding a document.’
‘I wasn’t implying otherwise,’ he said. ‘You are always so quick to see the worst in me.’
‘No, I’m not. But I am a lawyer, you might remember, and there’s nothing in here that concerns me.’
‘You are not a family lawyer,’ he continued, in that slightly patronising tone he had, that always made her glad their relationship was purely physical. ‘There might be items your lawyers want included that mine haven’t thought of. There’s no downside in taking some extra advice.’