A Convenient Marriage

‘You wanted to talk. Was it something in particular?’

Spying a weatherworn bench near a thick clump of hedgerow, Javier jerked his head towards it. ‘Perhaps it would be better if we sat down?’

For some reason, Sabrina’s heartbeat thundered in her chest as she sat down beside him. Where previously they’d been companionable, something in the air had shifted perceptibly and there was a new tension emanating from the big, handsome man sitting next to her. Once again Sabrina shivered, but this time not with the cold.

‘I can help you with your business,’ he said without preamble.

‘What did you say?’ She’d heard but couldn’t begin to make sense of such a statement.

‘I will give you the money—whatever the amount—as well as my expertise and knowledge to help you modernise the business and bring it into the twenty-first century.’

Sabrina’s pale hand curled tightly round the wrought-iron arm rest of the bench. ‘What’s all this about, Javier? I don’t understand.’

CHAPTER THREE

HIS expression couldn’t have been more serious. Dropping his head briefly into his hands, he drew them back and forth through his thick, dark hair. ‘I am also involved professionally in travel. I have a very successful internet business that I have been running for the past six years. I believe I know exactly what it is you need to do to turn East-West Travel around. If you will let me I would like to help you.’

‘I’m sorry but you’ll have to give me a couple of minutes here.’ Completely bewildered, Sabrina considered Javier with stunned blue eyes as if he had suddenly grown fangs and an extra head. ‘Am I hearing you right? You are in the travel business and you would be willing to lend me money and your expertise to expand my company? Why? Out of the goodness of your heart? Forgive me if I sound cynical, Mr D’Alessandro, but I’m not as green as I’m cabbage-looking!’

Frowning, Javier tried to make sense of her words. ‘I’m afraid you have lost me.’

‘You are no more lost than I am, that’s for sure!’ Her heart beating wildly inside her chest, she folded her arms tightly across her coat and glared at him. ‘Is that why you were looking in the window that day? Did you already know about my circumstances? Were you hoping to buy me out for a song, because if you are I can tell you right now, you’re on an awfully sticky wicket!’

Javier groaned. His head hurt trying to keep up with her colourful outpouring of injured pride.

‘I do not want to buy you out, Sabrina. That is the first thing. It was pure chance that had me standing outside your window that day. I had a lot on my mind and needed to walk and think. I’m staying at my brother-in-law’s house, which is not so very far away from you. I suppose I naturally gravitate towards anything to do with travel—like you, I am passionate about it. That’s why I happened to glance in your window when you ran into me.’ He paused to gaze into her pale, anxious face, hoping that his words had reassured her that he wasn’t some opportunistic shark waiting to snatch her beloved business out of her grasp.

Her heartbeat returning to a more normal cadence, Sabrina released an audible sigh. ‘OK. Go on. I take it there’s more?’

He nodded briefly, his long brown fingers linking together on his lap. ‘If you agree to let me help you, there is something I would ask of you in return. Something that is not altogether an easy thing for me to ask.’

He didn’t have to tell her that. Sabrina guessed whatever it was was causing him great concern and difficulty. As for his incredible offer—the answer to her prayers, no less—well, she wasn’t about to jump up and down with joy just yet. She had a natural tendency to be naïve about a lot of things but not this—not her precious livelihood.

‘Ask away. I’m listening.’ Two pigeons landed a few feet away, picking hopefully around in the leaves for a bite to eat. When they found nothing they simultaneously flew off into the trees in a brief flurry of wings and foliage. Sabrina pulled up the lapels of her coat around her ears and prayed she wasn’t going to be crushingly disappointed by whatever Javier had to say. Already she was beginning to like this man too much for her peace of mind and she couldn’t pretend she wouldn’t be sorry if she never saw him again.

‘I told you I have a niece? Angelina.’ Sabrina heard the love in his voice and something warm stirred in the pit of her stomach, something that her heart suddenly ached for. ‘She means everything to me. Especially since her mother—my sister, Dorothea—died eight years ago. Now her father, Michael, is ill. Dangerously ill. His prognosis, they tell me, is not good. I would do anything to help Angelina, to keep this terrible hurt from her, a hurt she has already experienced once before in her young life.

‘Michael would like me to adopt her. There lies my problem. I do not have permanent residency in this country and, although I can more or less come and go as I please, the courts will not be favourable to my application if I cannot offer Angelina a permanent home here. She is too anglicised to want to live in Argentina, though of course she has grandparents there, family. Plus she would not wish to be separated from her friends. To get straight to the point, Sabrina, I need a British passport to stay here and adopt her. The only way I see I can get that quickly is to marry someone from this country.’

Frowning as the meaning of his words began to sink in, Sabrina let out a long, slow breath and tucked some windswept strands of honey-brown hair behind her ear. ‘You’re asking me to—to marry you?’

He unlinked his hands to push his fingers through his hair. ‘It would be—what do you call it?—a marriage of convenience. Only on paper, no more. Of course, we would have to live together for a reasonable amount of time to please the courts, but after that…’ He shrugged as if it was the most reasonable proposition in the world. ‘After that I would, of course, not contest a divorce. You would be a free woman once again.’

‘And if I agree to this—this “marriage of convenience”—you agree to help me with the business?’ Her whole body felt suddenly terribly cold. A wave of vulnerability settled on her shoulders like a heavy coat. The first man she’d met in the longest time that she’d felt even remotely attracted to and all he wanted from her was a cold-hearted business proposition. Well, that just about summed her personal attributes up nicely, didn’t it?

‘Sí. Yes. You have my word.’ Of course. He had to be a man of honour—young as he was. Even on such brief acquaintance, that was never in doubt in Sabrina’s mind.

Feeling ridiculously like crying, she got slowly to her feet, turned to Javier and smiled in spite of the fact that her face felt like a block of ice with no movement in it at all.

‘I’m sorry, Javier. I couldn’t do it.’

‘What is it you want in return? How can I persuade you to change your mind? I will double any figure you care to come up with. I am a very wealthy man, Sabrina. You can check me and my company out on the internet. You say you rent your flat? I will buy you a house of your own for you to keep after we are divorced.’

He was only making it worse. Her heart ached at the thought of that possibly soon-to-be-orphaned little girl—Angelina—but Sabrina couldn’t agree to such a bizarre proposition for her sake only…could she? Even if what he had offered her in exchange seemed like the solution to all her worries.

Recognising the anxiety on her face, Javier told himself to ease back—not to push. She would need time. He could see that. She was not the sort of woman who would grab at such an opportunity with no thought of what it might mean to her personally other than the help she needed to expand her business. No. Sabrina Kendricks clearly had a lot of good qualities. Qualities like warmth, tenderness and integrity…He cut himself off short. He wasn’t looking for a lifetime partner so such qualities hardly mattered. Nor was he in the market for the kind of marriage that his parents and grandparents and—up until eight years ago—his sister and Michael had enjoyed. What was the point in setting yourself up for potential disaster and misery? He’d seen what love could do. Love could rip away your soul just as soon as your back was turned. That wasn’t for him. Instead he would pour all the love he had in his heart into caring for Angelina. If he could do that, then his life wouldn’t be wasted.

‘I’m really sorry about your niece. It must be terrible to be faced with losing both parents—at any age, never mind eleven years old. But I couldn’t do it, Javier. Please understand. I’m just—I’m just not like that.’

‘But you are an astute businesswoman, no?’ Pushing himself off the seat, he towered over her.

‘How could you throw away the perfect opportunity to save your business? You already told me the bank manager turned you down for a loan. Where else are you going to get the money from, Sabrina?’

‘That’s my problem.’ Flinching from the cold whipping round her ankles, she seriously wondered if it was the perfect opportunity. Surely she owed it not just to herself but to Jill and Robbie to do all she could to save their jobs? If Javier D’Alessandro could look on the whole thing as purely a business merger, why couldn’t she?

Sensing the conflict that was raging behind those bright blue eyes, he shook his head and decided to go for broke.

‘It wouldn’t have to be a problem at all if we agreed to make a deal. I’m not asking you to engage your emotions here, Sabrina. It is an emotive issue, I know that, but I am speaking to you as one businessman to another—we have both something to gain; it makes sense, sí?’

‘I’ll think about it.’

Without another word she turned on her heel and hastened back down the path, through the sea of dead leaves, back the way they had come.

Javier stayed where he was for a long time after she had left. He returned to the park bench and stayed there with his head in his hands, his mind working overtime and his gut churning until finally the raw bite of the increasingly cold wind made it impossible for him to stay there any longer. She would think about it. It didn’t mean she would agree. His heart heavy, he headed back to the house, preparing himself to hear the worst and cursing every fate known to man for the predicament he found himself in.

‘I’ve been ringing you for two days now with no answer. Jill told me you were home with a cold. Why haven’t you been answering your phone?’ With baby Tallulah on her hip, her light blue eyes unusually fierce, Ellie McDonald barged her way past Sabrina, only noticing that her sister was still in her dressing gown when she plopped herself down on the couch and settled Tallulah against a pile of velvet cushions with her rattle. Not only was Sabrina in her dressing gown but also the room was almost unbearably hot, with the radiators obviously turned up to maximum heat.

Slowly Sabrina came towards her. Pressing her handkerchief to her reddened nose, she smiled uncharacteristically feebly. ‘I have got a cold,’ she said defensively. ‘I’ve been in bed. That’s why I didn’t answer the phone.’

‘But you never get colds!’ Ellie sounded cross.

‘You’re usually disgustingly healthy. What’s up, Sabrina? Something must be wrong.’

‘Nothing’s wrong, other than I’ve got the mother of all colds.’ Crossing to an armchair littered with books and a half-eaten plate of toast, Sabrina weakly cleared away the mess and flopped down, her blue eyes watery. She’d been suffering for a week now, ever since she’d left Javier in the park, contemplating the fate of his beloved Angelina. Racked with guilt and remorse, she’d had three badly sleepless nights before waking up one morning with a head that seemed as though every bell in Canterbury Cathedral was clanging through it, and a mouth so dry it felt as if it were stuffed with straw. Every muscle ached when she moved, and throbbed when she didn’t move, and it was all she could do to struggle out of bed and get herself something to drink. She was sick and miserable and, if it was true that there was light at the end of the tunnel, right now she couldn’t see anything but a very big black hole.

‘Sounds more like flu to me.’ Ellie’s voice softened. ‘Got any paracetamol?’

‘In the cupboard in the kitchen.’

‘When was the last time you took some?’

‘About seven.’

‘This morning?’ Ellie tucked a couple more cushions around the smiling Tallulah and jumped up, glancing at the clock on the wall as she did so. ‘Did you know it’s nearly five o’clock? If you’re going to get better you need to look after yourself properly.’

‘Stop behaving like my mother.’

‘Well, here’s news for you, darling. In her absence I am your mother. She’d kill me if she knew you were in such a state and I did nothing. Don’t worry, I don’t have to rush back. I’ve left Henry and William with her and promised I wouldn’t come away until I was sure you were all right.’

A hot drink cupped in her hands and the cold medicine duly taken, Sabrina leant back in the armchair and smiled at the gurgling baby nursing in her mother’s arms.

‘Thanks, Ellie. I’m not usually so disorganised. It’s just that this thing has knocked me for six.’

‘I can see that! In a minute I’m going to heat you up some chicken soup. Thank God you had some tins in the cupboard—but not much else, as far as I can see. I’ll have to do you a shop before I leave.’

‘You don’t have to—’

‘I do have to! Stop pretending you don’t need any help, sis; it’s not a sign of weakness, you know. Sometimes we all need a bit of help.’

Javier needs help…my help, Sabrina thought bleakly. What could it hurt to agree to his proposition? There was no one on her side to object, after all. No adoring boyfriend waiting in the wings to protest. Her family—Ellie and her parents—might have something to say about it, but at the end of the day it was her decision. She was thirty-seven years old and answerable to no one but herself. Just as soon as she was better she would get in touch and tell him. But how? She had no telephone number for him. But there was always the internet. Maybe if she got in touch with someone at his company, they might have a mobile-phone number for him? She could only pray they had because unless he contacted her there was no other way forward. Her mind made up, she made a cooing noise at the baby, then paused to sneeze several times in quick and noisy succession so that Ellie sighed and told her to go back to bed; she would see to everything while she slept. Too weak to disagree, Sabrina did as she was told.

It had rained at the funeral and not for the first time that day Javier heard someone make a pithy comment about it ‘only raining on the just.’ Whatever that meant. If it meant that Michael Calder had been a good man then they were right. He’d been a doting father and a skilful surgeon and his sister had adored him from the moment she’d set eyes on him. Initially reluctant to let their beloved only daughter settle in a foreign country far away, Javier’s parents had eventually come round to the fact that Dorothea was head over heels in love with her new husband so what could they do? There was still a strong thread of chauvinism in the culture, and they believed emphatically that, when all was said and done, a woman’s place was with her husband.

A week after the funeral, Javier was never far from Angelina’s side, Michael’s mother Angela and the distraught Rosie doing their level best to run the house around them. At night, when Angelina at last fell into an exhausted but troubled sleep, Javier continued to monitor his business from the UK, using Michael’s office and computer. Although exhausted by grief and worry himself, he welcomed the distraction of work to help him get past the ever-present problem of gaining a British passport and starting adoption proceedings. In spite of the fact that she was obviously unwilling, Javier found he couldn’t regret the proposition he’d made to Sabrina. Maybe one day she would understand what had driven him to make such a desperate request. Perhaps he should send her some flowers with a brief note of apology? He truly hoped he hadn’t offended her. She was a nice woman. A good woman. The kind of woman he was sure could help Angelina smile again, given time. Sighing, he switched off the computer and sat drumming his fingers on the desk. Staring down at the cup of coffee that Rosie had made him an hour ago and was now congealed and cold, he picked up the phone without further thought and dug around in his wallet for her telephone number at home.

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