Ruthless Magnate, Convenient Wife

The louder Alexa’s angry voice got, the paler Alissa became and she sat down heavily again. ‘I’m not looking down on you in any way. You’re right. You have pulled off something that I couldn’t have and, yes, we are desperate for money—’

Her sister clasped her hand in a fierce plea for understanding. ‘Don’t I deserve to be happy?’

‘I’ve never doubted it.’

‘But I never thought I’d be happy again after Peter died. I thought my life was over, that I might as well have died in that car with him and Stephen,’ Alexa confided in a pained tone. ‘But now I’ve met Harry and everything’s different. I love him and I want to marry him and have my baby. I’ve got my life back again and I want to enjoy it.’

Touched to the bone by that emotive speech, Alissa clasped both her hands round her sister’s in a warm gesture of understanding. ‘Of course you do…of course you do…’

‘But Harry won’t want anything more to do with me if he finds out what I signed up for-it will destroy us!’ Alexa sobbed, swerving from furious defensiveness and drama to a noisy bout of self-pitying tears. ‘He would never understand what I’ve done or forgive me for being so mercenary. He’s a very straightforward, honest man.’

All of a sudden, Alissa was feeling as though she was on old familiar ground. When they were children, Alexa had often got into tight corners and Alissa had usually got her out of them. More than once Alissa had shouldered the blame for Alexa’s wrongdoing, as even then she had dimly grasped that she might be the less adventurous twin but she was the stronger and the least likely of the two to break down when life became difficult. Alexa might be more daring, but she was also surprisingly fragile and could never cope once she made a mess of things.

‘Surely Harry doesn’t have to know about all this?’ Alissa said, even though she felt guilty for suggesting that Alexa keep secrets from her future husband.

‘Listen, Allie,’ Alexa breathed. ‘If I don’t show up and marry the Russian, I’ll have to repay the money and I can’t. Do you honestly think a guy like Sergei Antonovich is going to let me get away with defrauding him of that amount of cash?’

‘Sergei Antonovich? The Russian billionaire?’ Alissa queried in consternation. ‘He’s the guy who wants to hire a wife? For goodness’ sake, he’s always knee-deep in supermodels and actresses. Why would he have to pay a woman he doesn’t know to marry him?’

‘Because a long time ago he was married and it didn’t work out. This time around he wants a marriage of convenience on a strict business basis. I don’t know any more than that,’ Alexa replied, her eyes swerving abruptly from her sister’s questioning gaze to rest fixedly on the table instead, her whole face taut and shuttered. ‘That was what the lawyer told me and he said I didn’t need to know any more and that it was just a job; maybe a little different from other jobs, but a job nonetheless.’

‘A job,’ Alissa repeated, widening her expressive eyes in emphatic disagreement.

‘If you marry Antonovich instead, I’ll be able to go ahead and marry Harry, we’ll keep the money and Mum’s life will go back to normal. You know, the Russian hasn’t met me yet, so he won’t know we’ve switched and he’s never going to guess that you’re not the woman who was selected—’

‘It doesn’t matter…it’s crazy and I couldn’t do it,’ Alissa framed unevenly, feeling the weight of the pressure her twin was heaping on her shoulders and firmly resisting it.

‘I applied in your name,’ her sister reminded her. ‘It’s you the lawyers will come after if you don’t follow through on that contract.’

Alissa, usually slow to lose her temper, was finally getting angry. ‘I don’t care what you did—I didn’t sign any contract!’

‘Well, you might as well have done because I forged your signature,’ Alexa informed her wryly. ‘I’m sorry, but we’re both involved in this up to our throats. Short of a lottery win, we can’t return the money and why would you want to anyway? We’ve no other way of saving this house for Mum. At the moment, it’s impossible to get a loan—’

‘But Mum couldn’t have afforded to pay it back anyway. And now there’s not even anything left to sell,’ Alissa acknowledged.

The few valuable pieces of furniture and jewellery that had been in the family had already been sold to shore up her mother’s finances. The cottage had long been mortgaged up to the hilt when Jenny had borrowed against the property to buy premises in the village and open up a coffee and craft shop there. Although the cottage was currently for sale, there had been few viewers and little interest shown; times were hard and the property was definitely in need of modernisation.

In the uncomfortable silence that stretched, Alissa stood up. ‘It’s raining—I promised I’d pick Mum up if it was wet.’

Alissa climbed into the elderly hatchback car that belonged to her mother and drove off. As she pulled into a parking space outside the shop, she saw a curvaceous brunette emerging and unfurling a bright yellow plastic umbrella. She wore a skirt short enough to shock a burlesque dancer. At the sight of her, loud alarm bells rang with Alissa because the woman was her father’s girlfriend, Maggie Lines. As Maggie sped on down the street Alissa scrambled out of the car in haste and knocked on the shop door when she found it locked.

‘What was that woman doing in here?’ she demanded of the small blonde woman who let her in.

Her mother’s eyes were reddened and overbright, her level of stress palpable in her fearful expression and trembling hands. ‘She came to talk to me. She said she didn’t like to come to the house and at least she waited for closing time—’

Alissa was rigid with outrage on her gentle mother’s behalf. She felt that it was bad enough that her father had had an affair but it was unspeakably cruel that he should allow his partner in crime to harass the wife he had deserted. ‘You don’t need to talk to Maggie. She’s Dad’s business, not yours, and she should keep her nose out of what doesn’t concern her!’

‘She says that fighting it out between the lawyers is only increasing our legal bills,’ Jenny muttered tautly.

‘What did she want?’ Alissa prompted, carefully removing the dishcloth that her mother was twisting between her nervous hands.

‘Money. What she said is your father’s due,’ the older woman explained in a mortified undertone. ‘And although I didn’t like hearing it, what she said was right. It is the law that he has to get his share of everything, but there’s not a lot I can do when we haven’t even had an offer for the house, is there?’

‘She shouldn’t have come here. You shouldn’t have to speak to her.’

‘She’s a very determined young woman but I’m not scared of her, Alissa. And you shouldn’t be getting involved in all this. Your father may well marry Maggie and start a second family with her. It happens all the time, so it would be wiser if you didn’t take sides right now.’

Her troubled eyes glistening with tears, Alissa gripped the older woman’s hands tightly in hers. ‘I love you so much, Mum. I hate to see you being hurt like this.’

Jenny Bartlett attempted a reassuring smile. ‘In time I’ll get over it, “move on” as Maggie likes to say. But right now it’s all too fresh. I still love him, Alissa,’ she muttered guiltily. ‘That’s the worst thing about all this. I can’t seem to switch off my feelings.’

Alissa wrapped her arms protectively round her slight mother. Her own heart felt as if it were breaking inside her as a swell of memories from happier times engulfed her. It was not right that the mother who had loved and supported her all her life should lose her home and business as well, for it would leave the older woman with absolutely nothing to survive on. ‘Alexa’s home, Mum, and she’s got good news: she’s met a man and it’s serious—’

The older woman turned startled eyes on her daughter. ‘Has she…really?’

‘Yes, and Alexa and I have sorted out something on the money front too,’ Alissa heard herself say with deliberate vagueness. ‘You may not have to sell the house after all.’

‘That’s not possible,’ Jenny exclaimed.

‘Miracles do happen,’ Alissa commented, thinking up fantastic stories of special financial arrangements that could be made and secured on her and her twin’s earning power.

And she was stunned by her own audacity. She was the sensible twin, the one who was never impulsive and didn’t take risks. But family came first and she was desperate to help and bring the ghastly divorce settlement to a dignified conclusion for her mother’s sake. She watched the older woman lock up. So, did that mean she was willing to marry Sergei Antonovich? Or had she just been guilty of offering her mother false hope? During the short drive home Alissa tussled mentally with herself.

A few minutes after she walked through the front door, however, Alexa helped her to make a final decision. ‘I got a call from the Russian’s lawyer while you were out,’ her twin whispered in Alissa’s ear while Alissa was busy preparing supper. ‘Sergei Antonovich has decided to meet me before the wedding. You have to decide whether you’re going to help Mum or not!’

Put on the spot, Alissa thought first about the baby that her twin was carrying and doubted Alexa’s readiness to continue that pregnancy if her relationship with the father ran into trouble. In comparison Alissa had no relationship that such a marriage could interfere with.

A long time ago, she had suffered considerable heartache when she’d secretly fallen for Alexa’s boyfriend, Peter. Since then she had made occasional forays onto the dating scene, only to retreat when she met up with the impatient sexual expectations of the modern male. Those who had failed to press her panic buttons on that score had signally failed to impress her on any other level. Unlike Alexa, who scalp-hunted with almost masculine enthusiasm, Alissa preferred quality over quantity and was more often alone than involved in a relationship.

Indeed her family meant much more to Alissa than anything else in her life. Having had to stand by powerless while that same family had all but disintegrated had tortured her. But now Alexa had put the power to alter that situation into Alissa’s hands. Did she have the strength to go against her every principle and make a mockery of marriage by using it as a means of making money? Did the fact that she had no plans to profit personally make it any less of a sin? And now that she had that option, could she honestly turn her back on the only chance she was ever likely to get to settle most of her mother’s problems?

On the other hand, Alissa reasoned, money would not bring her father home or cure her mother’s pain, but it would certainly help the older woman to adjust to her altered future if it allowed her to remain in her childhood home and retain her business. On that optimistic thought, Alissa squashed the doubts bubbling up frantically to the surface of her mind. Pretending to be some man’s wife would be a challenge, but the return of some semblance of normality to her mother’s life would be worth it. On reaching that conclusion, Alissa came to a swift decision and gave Alexa the answer she most wanted to hear…

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.