Chapter Ten #2
Which should have reassured her, but it really didn’t.
She was starting to realise that Dante was someone who wanted to fix everything and that included his grandmother’s happiness.
She knew it to be true. She’d used it as a bargaining chip.
To motivate him to agree to this. But what if he was prioritising his grandmother’s happiness above his own?
What if this whole arrangement was actually a huge mistake for him?
She was using him to get what she wanted and she’d known just which lever to pull to get him to agree. How could she not regret that now?
‘Yes, but I can give it back,’ she said, hating that her voice wobbled slightly to her ears. ‘We don’t have to do this. I can find someone else to play my fake husband.’
His eyes closed, as if he was physically rejecting that idea, but Charlotte knew that not to be the case.
‘I’m serious, Dante. This wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. I just chose you because you were there. We were sleeping together. It made sense.’
He made a noise then, one she couldn’t interpret.
‘It’s just pretend,’ she said, wishing she believed herself one hundred per cent. ‘Fakery, like you said.’
His eyes opened then, lancing her with their intensity. ‘You are very, very good at it.’
Why did that sound like an insult? She shrugged one slender shoulder. ‘So are you.’
His smile was ice cold, totally lacking in the warmth she’d seen that afternoon, and her heart hurt.
Hurt in a way she was terrified of. Hurt in a way she ran a mile from.
In fact, that’s exactly what she wanted to do.
To pack her bag and get out of there. Tell Allegra it had all been a big mistake and just go home.
Forget she was a Papandreo. Forget the fact her father had ignored her for her entire life.
But how could she?
The most important thing in her world was the acquisition of her father’s company. Righting a wrong that had been perpetuated against her, time and time again, and also against her mother. Wasn’t revenge worth almost any cost?
And if Dante were to become collateral damage? A voice in the back of her mind demanded.
Only, he wouldn’t. She’d make sure of it. After all, they’d been sleeping together for six months and had no difficulty in keeping things simple and easy—in making sure their feelings didn’t enter the equation. They’d just keep doing the same thing now.
‘Dante, we don’t need to talk. We don’t need to dig deeper, to share secrets. Remember? That’s our rule and it’s a good one. If this is going to work, and we’re both going to emerge unscathed, we need to keep things compartmentalised.’
‘And those compartments are?’
‘Well, I would like to think we can keep doing this,’ she said, lowering a hand and brushing it over his pants, dragging—somehow—a flirtatious smile up from the pits of her belly.
No mean feat when she felt as though her insides were being shredded.
‘But as for the marriage, it’s really just a professional relationship.
We struck a deal. We know what the requirements are.
Neither of us want the lines to get blurred, right?
We’ve said that before and we both still think it? ’
‘Are you asking me, or telling me?’
She hesitated. Great question. Of course. ‘Telling you,’ she insisted, even though the insistence was more a case of bravado than anything else.
‘Okay.’ He took a step backwards, his expression totally unreadable. The second he put physical space between them, her whole body trembled with a deep and profound sense of loss. Of need. Of grief.
She spun away, terrified all of a sudden by whatever was happening.
Because despite what she’d just said, Charlotte was not sure she could even find the lines they’d initially drawn, let alone keep to them.
Which was all the more reason to pretend, she reminded herself.
She had to pretend until it became second nature and everything felt normal again.
‘Why don’t you freshen up while I finish getting ready?’ she suggested, her voice almost totally normal seeming. ‘You grandmother will be expecting us.’
He left the room without another word.
* * *
If there was one thing Dante hated in this world above all others, it was a sense of having lost control.
He had always been able to bend things—including people—to his will.
Through hard work, determination, charm, intelligence and the fact he’d always had money at his disposal, he’d been able to make pretty much any situation work to his advantage.
Of course, having lost his parents and grandfather the way he did had shown him that control was not always possible—or he would have somehow found a way to bring them back to life.
He had no delusions of God-like grandeur, but for the most part, he exercised discipline over all aspects of his life.
His marriage had been a notable exception.
No matter what they’d tried, which doctors they’d consulted, they had never been able to conceive. It hadn’t mattered what reassurances he’d given Jamie, their lack of fertility had destroyed her and ultimately their marriage.
Though not on the same scale, a similar sense of spinning wildly off course was hurtling through him now and had been all evening.
He’d gone to the pool house with every intention of telling Charlotte about his marriage, the divorce and their reasons for it. But she’d stone-walled him straight off the bat, making him wonder if his instincts to confide in her—to enable them to play their roles more easily—was wide of the mark.
She’d seemed brittle, though. She said one thing, but he felt something else coming from her, he just couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
And whatever it was, whether ambivalence or regret, or something else entirely, there was no sign of it now.
From the moment Allegra had welcomed them back to the main house, Charlotte had sparkled.
There was no other word for it. She’d smiled and laughed, amused and charmed.
He found it impossible to look away from her. She simply shone.
Allegra saw it, too, he was certain of it.
His grandmother was someone else who shone, and always had, and it was like two bright, buzzing fireflies had found each other.
They spoke of art and music, discovered a shared love of opera, swapped anecdotes about the performances they’d been to.
Charlotte spoke about her work and the passion she felt for helping people—aware that she came from a privileged background and that she felt a duty to enrich the lives of people who were not so fortunate.
To look at her that night, he wouldn’t have possibly been able to guess that there was even a hint of doubt in her about what they were doing. Nor that she’d seemed somehow uncertain, earlier, in the pool house.
She was a total contradiction.
He was out of control.
And he hated it.
He hated it during the dinner—the more she sparkled, the more he glowered—and he hated it even after they’d left, when Charlotte’s performance slipped and she became herself again, and he sensed the same reservation in her he’d felt earlier, in the pool house.
They walked side by side, down the path to the cottage, in a silence that was not, in Dante’s opinion, companionable. In fact, each step they took only added to his sense of being out of control—and pissed off.
‘You know,’ she said, as they approached the pool house and the lights cast a soft golden glow on them. ‘I really don’t get you.’
He glanced at her, jaw clenched. In that moment, he didn’t get himself, either. ‘No?’
‘You’re the one who brought me here.’
‘Your point?’
‘You could have come on your own and told her about me.’
‘She would have thought that strange.’
‘Okay, fine. But you still could have left me in London. We didn’t have to do this together.’
‘In order to convince her...’
‘There’s no way that lovely woman, who thinks the sun shines out of you, would ever doubt your word, Dante,’ Charlotte hissed. ‘You could have come on your own.’
‘I’m still at a loss as to the point you’re making.’
‘You brought me here and I’m doing my absolute best to be the perfect imaginary fiancé, but you’re not pulling your weight.
’ She jabbed a finger into his chest, then.
‘I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you were like a stone all night tonight.
I had to basically spin plates on my fingers to keep your grandmother from noticing. ’
He grimaced at her fair charge.
‘So? What’s the problem?’
He’d never really seen Charlotte angry before, but she was a passionate woman, and this side of her was just the flipside of that passion.
‘You did a good enough job of convincing her for the both of us.’
‘Not this again,’ she groaned. ‘You really are unbelievable, do you know that?’
‘How so?’
‘You keep accusing me of being good at what you’ve asked me to do, like it’s some kind of failing. This is our deal, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ he agreed, his gut tightening. He hated everything about this, suddenly. Being here, under these circumstances. Fighting with Charlotte. Being her fake fiancé. Knowing that they’d gone too far to undo any of it.
‘Well then, why aren’t you doing your bit?’
He clamped his lips together, searching for a way to explain.
‘God, Dante,’ she threw her hands in the air, frustration obvious. ‘You need to get yourself together or this is never going to work.’ She turned, to walk away, but he reached down and grabbed her wrist, spinning her back to him.
Fire sparked in the depths of her eyes. ‘What?’
Frustration burst through him, like a lightning bolt. Fierce and bright, burning him all over.
‘What?’ she demanded, so he felt her frustration, too.
‘Damn it, Charlotte,’ he said, the words far from cold.
‘Why? Damn what?’
‘You act like this is easy. You act like—,’
‘Like what?’ she shouted, then lowered her voice. ‘I act like we agreed I would act. How you’re supposed to be acting.’
That was true. So why was he finding it so hard to play the part? Why couldn’t he just roll up his sleeves and treat her like a beloved fiancé? Why was it that the more time they spent together, the more he found acting that part impossible?
‘You wanted to make your grandmother happy and I’m trying. Isn’t that what you want?’
What he wanted? He had no idea any more.
It all seemed so stupid. But then he thought of Allegra and how hard she’d found his marriage breakdown, how she’d pined for his happiness ever since.
He thought of how she’d been after her stroke, six months earlier—right before he’d met Charlotte, in fact.
He thought of how hard she’d fought to recover.
All the physical therapy sessions, the cognitive work, so the only lingering sign of her stroke now was the slight limp she carried.
‘You’ve turned to stone again,’ she snapped and pulled her hand free.
‘I’m not stone,’ he muttered.
‘You’re acting like it.’
He moved closer to her, putting his hands on her hips, staring down at her with all of the frustration that had taken up residence in his body.
‘I am more than happy to demonstrate how wrong you are,’ he said.
Suddenly, all he could think about was the physical side of this and how everything made sense when they were together.
How if they made love, he wouldn’t have to think about the confusion inside of him.
Because when they were in bed, he was back in control, driving her wild, mastering her completely.
‘Oh yeah?’ she asked, still angry, but also, breathlessly. The same tug that dominated Dante was clearly throbbing through her, too.
His response was to stare down at her, his eyes probing hers, until her lips parted and her cheeks were flushed.
‘Fine,’ she muttered. ‘Show me.’
He didn’t need to be asked twice. He leaned down and lifted her around the waist, throwing her over his shoulder, ignoring her sound of surprise. Suddenly, he was all neolithic cave man, and she was his conquest. Nothing mattered but this.
Afterwards, he’d face the music, whatever it might be, but for now, he just wanted to be with her and make the rest of the world, his questions, doubts, uncertainty, be utterly, completely silenced.