Brazilian Escape

That was how much she still missed him.

Sometimes she grew angry, and wanted to contact him so that they could initiate the divorce, but that would be just an excuse to ring him. Meg knew she didn’t need to speak with him to divorce him, yet she had not even started the simple process, because once she started down that path it would stop being a dream—which sometimes she thought it must have been …

Then her fingers would move to the cool metal of his ring and she’d find out again it was real.

She looked up at the clock and saw that it was time for lunch. Grateful for the chance of some fresh air while she worked out exactly how to tell her parents she was leaving the family business, Meg was tempted to ignore the ringing phone.

She wished she had when she answered it, because some new clients had arrived and were insisting that they be seen immediately.

‘Not without an appointment.’ Meg shook her head. She was fed up with pushy clients and the continual access she was expected to provide. ‘I’m going to lunch.’

‘I’ve told them that you’re about to go for lunch.’ Helen sounded flustered. ‘But they said that they would wait till you get back. They are adamant that they see you today.’

Meg was sick of that word—everyone was adamant these days, and because there wasn’t much work around her parents insisted more and more that they must jump to potential clients’ unreasonable demands.

‘Just tell them that they need to book,’ Meg said, but as she went to end the call she froze when she heard a certain name.

A name that had her blood running simultaneously hot and cold.

Cold because she had dreaded this day—dreaded their worlds colliding, dreaded the one mistake in her crafted life coming back to haunt her—but at the same time hot for the memories the name Dos Santos triggered.

‘He’s here?’ Meg croaked. ‘Niklas is here?’

‘No,’ Helen answered, and Meg was frustrated at her own disappointment when she heard that it wasn’t him. ‘It’s regarding a Mr Dos Santos, apparently, and these people really are insistent …’

‘Tell them to give me a moment.’

She needed that moment. Meg really did.

She sank into her chair and poured a drink of water, willed herself to calm down, and then she checked her appearance in the mirror that she kept in her drawer. Her hair was neatly tied back and though her face was a touch pale she looked fairly composed—except Meg could see her own eyes were darting with fear.

There was nothing to fear, Meg told herself. It wasn’t trouble that had arrived. It had been almost a year after all. No doubt his legal team were here to get her signature on divorce papers. She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself, but it didn’t help because all she could see was herself and Niklas, a tangle of legs and arms on a bed, and the man who had taken her heart with him when he left. Now it really was coming to an end.

She stood as Helen brought her visitors in and sorted out chairs for them. Then Helen offered water or coffee, which all three politely declined, and finally, when Helen had left and the door was closed, Meg addressed them.

‘You wanted to see me?’

‘First we should introduce ourselves.’

A well-spoken gentleman started things off. He introduced himself and his colleague and then Rosa, a woman whom Meg thought might be around forty, took over. It was terribly difficult to tell her age. She was incredibly elegant, her make-up and hair completely immaculate, her voice as richly accented as Niklas’s had been, and it hurt to hear the familiar tone—familiar because it played over and over each night in her dreams. But she tried not to think of that, tried to concentrate on Rosa as she told Meg that they worked at the legal firm Mr Dos Santos used. She went through their qualifications and their business structure, and as she did so Meg felt her own qualifications dissolve beneath her—these were high-end lawyers and clearly here to do business. But Meg still didn’t understand why Niklas had felt it necessary to fly three of his most powerful lawyers all the way to Australia, simply to oversee their divorce.

A letter would have sufficed.

‘First and foremost,’ Rosa started, ‘before we go any further, we ask for discretion.’

They were possibly the sweetest words that Meg could hope to hear in this situation.

‘Of course’ was her response, but that wasn’t enough for Rosa.

‘We insist on your absolute discretion,’ Rosa reiterated, and for the first time Meg felt her hackles rise.

‘I would need to know what you’re here in regard to before I can make an assurance like that.’

‘You are married to Niklas Dos Santos?’

‘I think we all know that,’ Meg said carefully.

‘And do you know that your husband is facing serious charges of embezzlement and fraud?’

Ice slid down her spine. Her hackles were definitely up now, and Meg thought for a moment before answering, ‘I had no idea.’

‘If he is found guilty he will probably never be released.’

Meg ran her tongue over her lips and tasted the wax of the lipstick she had applied earlier. She could feel beads of sweat breaking out on her forehead and felt nauseous at the very thought of a man like Niklas confined and constricted. She felt sick, too, at the thought of what he must have done to face serving life behind bars.

‘He is innocent.’ The man who had first introduced them spoke then, and Meg couldn’t help raising one of her eyebrows, but she made no comment.

Of course his own people would say that he was innocent.

They were his lawyers after all.

She didn’t look at Rosa when she spoke. Instead she examined her nails, tried incredibly hard to stop her fingers from reaching for her hair. She did not want to give them any hint that she was nervous.

‘We believe that Niklas is being set up.’

What else would they say? Meg thought.

‘I really don’t see what this has to do with me.’ Meg looked in turn at each of the unmoved faces and was impressed by her own voice when she spoke. She possibly sounded like a lawyer, or a woman in control, though of course inside she was not. ‘We were married for less than twenty-four hours and then Niklas decided that it was a mistake. Clearly he was right. We hardly knew each other. I had no idea about any of his business affairs. Nothing like that was ever discussed …’

Rosa spoke over her. ‘We believe that Niklas is being set up by the head of our firm.’

It was then that Meg started to realise the gravity of the situation. These people were not just defending their client, they were implicating their own principal.

‘We have had little access to the case, which in something as big as this is unusual, and without access to the evidence we cannot supply a rigorous defence. For reasons we cannot yet work out, we believe Miguel is intending to misrepresent Niklas. Of course we cannot let our boss know that we suspect him. He is the only one who has access to Niklas while he is being held awaiting a trial date.’

‘He’s in prison now?’

‘He has been for months.’

Meg reached for her water but her glass was empty. Her hands were shaking as she refilled it from the jug. She could not stand the thought of him locked up, could not bear to think of him in prison, did not want those thoughts haunting her. She didn’t like the new nightmares these people had brought, and she wanted them gone now.

‘It really is appalling, but …’ She didn’t know how she could help them—didn’t know the Brazilian legal system, just didn’t know why they were here. ‘I don’t see how it has anything to do with me. As I said, I’m not involved in his business …’ And then she started to panic, because maybe as his wife she had a different involvement with Niklas that they were here to discuss.

‘We have made an application of behalf of Niklas for him to exercise his conjugal rights …’

Meg could hear her own pulse pounding in her ears as Rosa continued speaking and she drained her second glass of water. Her throat was still impossibly dry. Her fingers moved to her hair and she twirled the strand around one finger, over and over.

‘Niklas is entitled to one phone call a week and a two-hour conjugal visit once every three weeks. He is being brought before the judge in a fortnight for the trial date to be set and we need you to fly there. At your visit with him on Thursday you are to tell him that only when he is in front of the judge he is to fire his lawyer. Before that he is to give no hint. Once he has fired Miguel we will step in for him.’

‘No.’ Meg shook her head and pulled her finger out of her hair. She was certain of her answer, did not need to think about this for a moment. She just wanted them gone.

‘The only way we can get in contact with him is through his wife.’

‘I’ll phone him.’ It was the most she would do. ‘You said that he was entitled to a weekly phone call …’ And then she shook her head again, because of course the calls would be monitored. ‘I can’t see him.’ She could not. ‘We were married for twenty-four hours.’

‘Correct me if I am wrong …’ Rosa was as tough with the truth as she was direct. ‘According to the records we have found you have been married for almost a year.’

‘Yes, but we—’

‘There has been no divorce?’

‘No.’

‘And if Niklas was dead and I was here bringing you a cheque would you hand it back and say, No, we were only married for twenty-four hours? Would you say, No, give this to someone else. He had nothing to do with me …?’

Meg’s face was red as she fought for an answer, but she did not know that truth—not that it stopped Rosa.

‘And because you have not screamed annulment I am assuming consensual sex occurred.’

Meg felt her face grow redder, because sex had been the only thing they had had between them.

‘If you had found yourself pregnant, would you not have contacted him? Would you have told yourself it did not count as you were only married for twenty-four hours? Would you have told your child the same …?’

‘You’re not being fair.’

‘Neither is the system being fair to my client,’ Rosa said. ‘Your husband will be convicted of a crime he did not commit if you do not get this message to him.’

‘So I’m supposed to fly to Brazil and sit in some trailer or cell and pretend that we’re …?’

‘There will be no pretending—you will have sex with him,’ Rosa said. ‘I don’t think you understand what is at stake here, and I don’t think you understand the risks to Niklas and his case if it is discovered that we are trying to get information in. There will be suspicions if the bed and the bin …’

Thankfully she did not go into further detail, but it was enough to have Meg shake her head.

‘I’ve heard enough, thank you. I will start preparing the paperwork for divorce today.’ She stood.

They did not.

‘Marrying Niklas was the biggest mistake of my life,’ Meg stated. ‘I have no intention of revisiting it and I’m certainly not …’ She shook her head. ‘No. We were a mistake.’

‘Niklas never makes mistakes,’ Rosa countered. ‘That is why we know he is innocent. That is why we have been working behind our own principal’s back to ensure justice for him.’ She looked to Meg. ‘You are his only chance, and whether or not it is pleasant, whether or not you feel it is beneath you, this must happen.’

She handed her an envelope and Meg opened it to find an itinerary and airline tickets.

‘There is a flight booked for you tomorrow night.’

‘I have a life,’ Meg flared. ‘A job, commitments …’

‘A visit has been approved for Thursday. It is the only chance to make contact with him before the pre-trial hearing in two weeks’ time. After you have seen him you can go to Hawaii—though we might need you to go back for another visit in three weeks, if things don’t go well.’

‘No.’ How else could she say it? ‘I won’t do it.’

Rosa remained unmoved. ‘You may want this all to go away, but it cannot. Niklas deserves this chance and he will get it. You will see, when you check your bank account, that you are being well compensated for your time.’

‘Excuse me?’ Meg was furious. ‘How dare you? How on earth did you …?’ But it wasn’t about how they had found out her bank details. It wasn’t that that was the problem right now. ‘It’s not about money …’

‘So it’s the morality of it, then?’ Rosa questioned. ‘You’re too precious to sleep with your own husband even it means he has to spend the rest of his life behind bars?’

Rosa made it sound so simple.

‘For the biggest mistake of your life, you chose rather well, did you not?’ Rosa sneered. ‘You are being paid to sleep with Niklas—it’s hardly a hardship.’

Meg met her eyes and was positive that he and Rosa had slept together. They both stared for a moment, lost in their own private thoughts. Then Rosa stood, a curl on her lip, and another sassy Brazilian gave her opinion of Meg as she upended her life.

‘You need to get over yourself.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

WHEN THEY HAD GONE, Meg did what she had spent a year avoiding.

She looked up the man she had married and found out just how powerful he was—or had been before he had been charged. She understood now that the Niklas Dos Santos she was reading about would be less than impressed to find himself in business class. And then she read about the shock his arrest had caused. Niklas might have a reputation in business as being ruthless, but he had always seemed honest—which was apparently why it had made it so easy for him to con some high-flying people into parting with millions. They had believed the lies that had been told to them. His business peers’ trust in him had made them gullible, and despite Rosa’s and her colleagues’ protestations of his innocence, for Meg the articles cast doubt.

She knew, after all, how effortlessly he had read her, how easily he had played her. Meg had seen another side to Niklas and it wasn’t one she liked.

And yet, as Rosa had pointed out, he was her husband, and she was apparently his one hope of receiving a fair trial.

And then Meg clicked on images and wished she had not.

The first one she saw was of him handcuffed and being bundled into a police car.

There were many more of Niklas, but they were not of the man she knew. The suit was on and the tie was beautifully knotted, the hair was as she remembered, but not in one single image did she see him smiling or laughing. Not one single picture captured the Niklas she had so briefly known.

And then she found another image—one that proved the most painful of all to see.

His arrogant face was scowling, there were three scratches on his cheek that her nails had left there, and a deep bruise on his neck that her mouth had made. Meg read the headline: Dos Santos vira outra mulher! Meg clicked for a translation. She wanted to know if he had returned that morning and been arrested—wanted to know if that was the reason he had been so cruel to her. Had he known he was about to be arrested and ended it to protect her? She waited for the translation to confirm it, held her breath as it appeared: Dos Santos upsets another woman!

And even in prison, even locked up and a world away, somehow he broke her heart again.

There was a knock at the door. Her mother didn’t wait for an answer, just opened it and came in. ‘Helen said you had visitors?’

‘I did.’

‘Who were they?’

‘Friends.’

She saw her mum purse her lips and knew she would not leave until she found out who her friends were and what they wanted. Even without the arrival of her visitors Meg remembered she had been due for a difficult conversation with her parents today, and now seemed like a good time to get it over with.

‘Can you get Dad …?’ Meg gave her mum a pale smile. ‘I need to speak to you both.’

It didn’t go well.

‘After all we’ve done for you’ was the running theme, and the words Meg had expected to hear when she told them that she had chosen not to continue working in the family firm.

She didn’t mention Niklas. It was enough for them to take in without giving them the added bonus of a son-in-law! And one in prison too.

It should have been a far harder conversation to have, yet she felt as if all her emotions and fears were reserved for the decision that was still to come, and Meg sat through the difficult conversation with her parents pale and upset, but somehow detached.

‘Why would you want to be a chef?’ Her mother simply didn’t get it—didn’t get that her daughter could possibly want something that had not been chosen for her. ‘You’re a lawyer, for God’s sake, and you want to go and work in some kitchen—?’

‘I don’t know exactly what I want to do,’ Meg broke in. ‘I don’t even know if I’ll be accepted …’

‘Then why would you give it all up?’

And she didn’t know how to answer—didn’t know how to tell them that she didn’t feel as if she was actually giving up anything, that she was instead taking back her life.

Just not yet.

She told them she was taking a holiday, though she still wasn’t sure that she was, but even without Niklas looming large in her thoughts taking a few weeks off while her parents calmed down seemed sensible.

‘And then I’ll come back and work for a couple of months,’ Meg said. ‘I’m not going to just up and leave …’

But according to her parents she already had.

Later, as she sat on the balcony of her small flat and looked at the stunning view, Meg thought about her day. What should have been a difficult conversation with her parents, what should have her sitting at home racked with guilt and wondering if she’d handled things right, barely entered her thoughts now. Instead she focused on the more pressing problem looming ahead.

Quietly she sat and examined the three things she had that proved her relationship with Niklas had actually existed.

She took the ring from the chain around her neck and remembered the certainty she had felt when he had slipped it on—even though he had told her it could never be for ever, somehow she had felt it was right.

And then she picked up the marriage certificate she had retrieved from her bedside table and examined the dark scrawl of his signature. Niklas Dos Santos. She saw the full stop at the end of his name and could even hear the sound his pen had made as he’d dotted the document.

Finalised it.

And then she examined the third thing, the most painful thing—a heart that even eleven months on was still exquisitely tender.

There had been no one since, no thought of another man since that time. She felt dizzy as she peered into her feelings, scared as to what she might find. The truth was there waiting and she hadn’t wanted to see it. It hurt too much to admit it.

She loved him.

Or rather she had.

Absolutely she had, or she would never have married him. Meg knew that deep down. And, whether or not he had wanted it, still that love had existed. Her very brief marriage with him had for Meg been the real thing.

And, as Rosa had pointed out, they were still married.

It was getting cool, so Meg went inside and read the itinerary Rosa had handed her. Then she looked up the prison he was being held at and could not believe that he was even there, let alone that on Thursday she might be too.

Would be.

Meg slid the ring back on her finger.

A difficult decision, but somehow easily made. Yes, Rosa was right. In legal terms he was still her husband.

But it wasn’t in legal terms only that she made her choice. There was a part of herself that she must soon sort out, must work out how to get over, but for now at least, in every sense, Niklas was still her husband.

Though her hotel and flights had been arranged, any problems had to be dealt with by the travel agent, Rosa had told her. Meg must not, under any circumstance, make contact with them. She must not be linked to them in any way—not just to protect them, or even Niklas, they had warned her, but to protect herself.

And she registered the danger but tried not to dwell on it, just tried to deal with a life that had changed all over again.

There was another row with her parents—a huge one this time. They had no comprehension as to why their usually sensible daughter might suddenly up and take off to Brazil.

‘Brazil!’ Her mother had just gaped. ‘Why the hell do you want to go to Brazil?’

They didn’t come to the airport to say goodbye. Still, there was one teeny positive to the whole situation: Meg barely noticed the plane taking off. Her thoughts were too taken up with the fact that she was on her way to see Niklas.

And she barely noticed it a second time, when she transferred at Santiago and knew she was on the last leg of her journey to see him. Shortly after take-off the stewards stood, and after a little while she was offered a drink.

‘Tonic water …’ Meg said, and then changed her mind and added gin.

‘Off on holiday?’

She turned to her friendly fellow passenger, an elderly lady who had cousins in São Paulo, she told Meg.

‘Yes …’ Meg said. ‘Sort of.’

‘Visiting family?’

‘My husband.’ How strange it felt to say it, but she was, after all, wearing his ring, and her documents were in her bag, and she might have to say the same thing at Customs, so maybe she’d better start practising.

‘Brazil first and then three weeks in Hawaii …’

‘Lovely.’ The old lady smiled and Meg returned it. Just as Niklas had that first day, she wished her neighbour would just keep quiet.

She could hardly tell her the real purpose for her visit!

Instead she ordered another gin.

It didn’t help.

She cried as they descended over São Paulo—she had never seen anything like it. Stretched below her was a sea of city, endless miles of buildings and skyscrapers. The population of this city alone was almost equivalent to the entire population of Australia, and never had Meg felt more small and lost.

The final approach was terrifying—more so because of all he had told her about it, more so now that she could see just how closely the cars and the planes and the city co-existed, more so because she was actually here.

Bizarrely, her eyes searched for him after she’d cleared Customs—a stupid flare of hope that this was a strange joke, that he was testing her, that he might be waiting with flowers and a kiss. Perhaps she might once more feel the thorns press into her skin as he teased her about the lengths she’d go to for just a couple of hours with him.

It wasn’t a joke, though. It wasn’t a game. There was no one here to greet her.

Meg exited the airport and tried to hire a taxi, but she had never seen a taxi queue like this one. She was exhausted and overwhelmed as once again Niklas pushed her out of her comfort zone.

The driver’s music was loud, his windows were down, and he drove her through darkening streets into Jardins. Everything was loud there too. The city pulsed with life. There were food stalls on the streets—unfamiliar scents came in through the windows of the car whenever they stopped at traffic lights—and it was more city than she could deal with. Which made sense, Meg thought with a pale smile. After all it was the city Niklas was from.

All Meg wanted to do was to get to her room.

Dishevelled, confused, tired, after they pulled up at a very tall hotel Meg paid the taxi driver. The second she stepped inside she knew she was back in his world.

Modern, cosmopolitan, with staff exquisite and beautiful.

It was a relief to get to her room and look out of the window at the bewildering streets below, to fathom that she was actually here—that tomorrow she would be taking another taxi to visit Niklas in prison.

Meg scanned the confusing horizon, wondered as to his direction, wondered if he had any inkling at all that she was even here.