Ruthless Magnate, Convenient Wife

‘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…

Chapter Two

FROWNING, Sergei surveyed the studio photo for at least the tenth time that morning. Taken feature by feature, Alissa Bartlett was very attractive but regrettably she didn’t do anything for him.

Sergei, who had never suffered from indecision, was fighting a galloping attack of cold feet. Having noted that his lawyers hadn’t done much research into his bride-to-be’s background, he had already resolved to have that omission rectified before he went any further. But, if he was honest, his main objection to her was a good deal more basic: in a nutshell, the skinny blonde turned him off big time.

He had read the transcripts of her interviews and studied her psychological profile and, the more he found out about her, the less he wanted to marry her, even temporarily. The trouble was that she did tick all the boxes he had demanded be ticked. In that respect, his staff had done an excellent job. He could not deny that she was attractive, educated, sophisticated and elegant. But then he had failed to lay down the right criteria for the role. He had thought too much about what was on the outside and not enough about what was on the inside, for it was plain Alissa was also selfish, extremely vain, rather stupid in spite of that education and cold as ice in the emotional department.

However, since when had he wanted emotion involved in a relationship with a woman? Sergei asked himself with derision. But then, never before had he been confronted in advance by so many unpalatable facts about a woman’s character. Furthermore, Yelena was nobody’s fool and was almost certain to spot the ugly truth below the pretty surface show of such a wife. That was why Sergei had decided that he had to meet his chosen bride in the flesh rather than risking compounding his mistake by marrying her sight unseen in a week’s time. He didn’t want to leave anything to chance. He could always cancel the contract if she didn’t come up to scratch in the flesh. He cursed under his breath, wondering if all his carefully laid plans were about to come to nothing…

‘This just isn’t me,’ Alissa sighed, studying her reflection in the mirror with critical and uneasy eyes.

‘You’re not supposed to be you, you’re supposed to be me—at least to look at!’ Alexa argued vehemently. ‘And you can’t show up in some cut-price dreary outfit when I was supposed to choose a new wardrobe in time for the wedding and given the money to do it. I’m going to have to give you almost all my clothes to go through with this masquerade.’

Recognising the resentful note in her twin’s voice, Alissa breathed, ‘I don’t want your clothes because they’re not my style—’

‘You don’t have a style,’ her more fashionable sister retorted tartly. ‘You wear cheap comfy clothes and that’s not what a rich man expects. If you’re going to carry this pretence off, you have to get the image right.’

‘If you added a set of wings I’d look just like a fairy off a Christmas tree!’ Alissa exclaimed in mortification, twirling so that the short skirt of the black dress flew out and exposed the cerise-pink layers of net edged with lace beneath. The net was scratchy and uncomfortable and the towering pink peep-toe shoes she also wore forced her to walk in little mincing steps. Plus, she was a good deal curvier than her sister and her breasts were straining against the snug fit of the bodice. ‘This dress is too small for me!’

‘It’s fine. I have a much slimmer figure. You can’t expect the dress to look anything like as good on you as it does on me. Try to remember that it’s not cool to stuff yourself if there’s food around,’ Alexa reprimanded her. ‘You’re welcome to my clothes. After all I am pregnant and they won’t fit me much longer. Make sure you don’t lose that coat by leaving it down somewhere. There are thieves everywhere.’

A towering man, who was as tall as he was broad, came to the door of Alexa’s apartment to announce that a car was waiting downstairs for Alissa. Alexa was careful to stay out of sight. He had a heavy accent and minimal English at his disposal, so Alissa’s initial chatty efforts to find out what his name was, how long he had worked for his employer and where she was going fell on stony ground. During the journey, however, he turned in the front passenger seat, eased open the partition and pointed carefully to himself. ‘Borya,’ he told her, having worked out what she wanted to know.

‘Alissa,’ she responded cheerfully, striving not to surrender to the nervous chill steadily spreading through her.

The vehicle came to a halt outside a nightclub where a sizeable gathering of stylish people were already queuing for entry. A protective presence by her side, Borya swept her in past the doormen. Mindful of her twin’s strictures about the coat she wore, Alissa came to a halt at the cloakroom check and removed the garment, determined to take no risks with it. Borya broke into a voluble speech but she was none the wiser as to what he was telling her and she passed over the coat.

‘Are you feeling all right?’ she asked the attendant, who was coughing into a handkerchief and shivering in the corner behind the counter.

‘I’ve got a rotten cold and it’s freezing in here,’ the girl spluttered miserably and Alissa felt desperately sorry for her; while she had been a student she had often worked in low-paid part-time jobs to make ends meet.

Surrounded by his aides and his entire security team, Sergei was in a private room watching football on a giant wall television plasma screen. But the instant his bride-to-be walked through the door backed by Borya, he shook himself by totally forgetting the game. Indeed unfamiliar words like exquisite and dazzling briefly shone a glow of inspiration over Sergei’s more usually prosaic thoughts. He was initially off-balanced by the reality that Alissa did not seem to bear much resemblance to her photo. In the flesh she was so much more than merely attractive. In fact she was incredibly feminine with a beautiful heart-shaped face, delicate features and aquamarine eyes as blue-green and mysterious as the sea. Long golden blonde hair tumbled halfway down her back. She was also tiny, the dress drawing attention to her minuscule waist and the pouting upward swell of the surprisingly full curves above it. His attention rested on her lush Cupid’s bow mouth and the firm rounded globes of her breasts. The tightness at his groin shifted into the heaviness of solid arousal and his galloping attack of cold feet just vanished there and then. Somehow the photo had lied: she was gorgeous and very beddable.

When Alissa saw the big dark male sprawled on the sofa, she fell still and had to be urged forward. In slow motion he came fluidly upright, well over six feet of long, lean, powerfully built masculinity unfolding before her intimidated gaze. He was a stunningly handsome guy. Black hair was brushed back from his lean bronzed face, which was dissected by the arrogant blade of his nose and complemented by high carved cheekbones and an aggressive jaw line. Her ability to swallow and breathe was arrested while she stood there staring. He was blatantly male in an age when that primal attribute was becoming more and more rare. Glittering, very dark eyes flared down into hers and her heart succumbed to a nervous bounce behind her ribcage.

‘Come and sit down,’ Sergei murmured, his accent purring over syllables that took more concentration than usual to pronounce. ‘I’m watching my club play. Do you follow football?’

‘No, not at all,’ Alissa admitted, scanning his appearance. He wore a black striped designer shirt, the sleeves of which he had pushed up his arms, and well-cut black trousers. The jacket of his business suit lay in a heap and his silk tie was in the process of falling off the coffee table onto the floor. She could tell at a glance that he was untidy and that he most probably had a low tolerance threshold for any kind of restriction. His tightly leashed energy hummed in the air like a building storm while he automatically took up a strong stance of authority.

Sergei, who was accustomed to women who raved about football for his benefit, was stunned by that careless response. ‘You don’t like football?’ he repeated, giving her another chance to reconsider and ingratiate herself.

‘I’ve never thought about it one way or the other. I wasn’t one of the girls who wanted to play it at school anyway,’ Alissa confided as she lifted his jacket, folded it and set it neatly aside so that she could sit down. The tie on the floor irritated her but she struggled not to pick it up. After all, she wasn’t his maid. ‘I wasn’t the sporty type.’

She was small-boned and fragile and the idea of her on a football pitch struck him as ludicrous. He snapped imperious fingers like a potentate presiding over a court and the waiter hovering by the door hurried over to take his order for pink vodka. A tall bottle arrived and drinks were poured. Alissa accepted a glass and wished she were able to ask some of the dozen questions brimming on her lips, but she could not afford to expose her ignorance and risk blowing her cover. Trying not to wince at the strong taste of the drink, she sipped.

‘You don’t like vodka either?’ Sergei quipped, wondering why she was so uptight, sitting perched on the very edge of the sofa and maintaining a careful distance from him.

At that comment, which strongly suggested that she was not meeting his expectations, Alissa deemed it wisest to tip her head back and down what remained in the glass in one go. It was like swallowing flames and she thought her burning throat would never be the same again. Another bottle arrived with a fresh pair of glasses.

‘Try this one and see if it is more to your taste-it’s made in Scotland,’ Sergei informed her lazily.

‘I’m okay—I don’t drink an awful lot.’ Alissa continued to clutch her empty glass to make it easier to avoid the offer of another.

‘You should enjoy alcohol while you still can,’ he told her.

Alissa wondered what on earth she was supposed to make of that piece of advice. What did he mean? That if she signed on the dotted line as his wife she would no longer be allowed to drink? The sudden outcry from the men in the room accompanied by a full-throated roar from the spectators of the game on the television stole her attention.

‘Oh, someone’s scored, have they?’ she commented brightly, forgetting that odd remark of his in her eagerness to make conversation. Nobody needed to tell her that her sister, Alexa, would not have been sitting there by his side as quiet as a little mouse. ‘How exciting…’

‘Alissa,’ Sergei said gently, ‘it was the other team, not mine, which scored.’

Colour flamed in her cheeks. ‘Oh, dear…’

Sergei closed long fingers round the small hand curling into the sofa by her side and used that connection to propel her across the space separating them.

‘What are you doing?’ Alissa gasped, instant panic flooding through her.

Unperturbed, Sergei drew her right up to him and brushed the golden hair back from her cheeks with confident fingers. All big eyes and fluctuating colour, she was breathing rapidly. It was not the flirtatious or amused reaction he expected to receive from an experienced woman and he was intrigued. ‘What do you think?’ he mocked.

She collided with dark eyes flaring lustrous gold and a tight clenching sensation in her pelvis made her shift uncomfortably in her seat. She gazed up at him, terrified that any attempt to go into retreat or call a halt would have the same provocative effect on his intrinsically dominant nature as a gauntlet thrown down in challenge. As her nipples tightened into stinging prominence she sucked in a ragged breath and pressed her thighs tensely together. She knew what was happening to her and she didn’t like it at all. Her body was attracted to him, not her brain, she told herself angrily. Her brain had nothing to do with the desire that was assailing her in a seductive tide.

‘You’re very sexy,’ Sergei husked, a long finger tracing the voluptuous raspberry-tinted curve of her lower lip while his hungry body reacted with almost painful enthusiasm to the sensual pull of her fragrant body so close to his. ‘Come home with me tonight. Why should we wait?’

Her aquamarine eyes flew even wider and she lowered her lashes hurriedly in self-defence. They had only met a few minutes ago and he actually thought she would be willing to sleep with him tonight? He expected her to sleep with him? He could only be asking why they should wait for the wedding. If Alexa had been sitting beside her at that moment, Alissa would definitely have strangled her twin. Exactly what kind of an arrangement had Alexa signed up for with this man? And how could Alissa challenge his assumptions without revealing her ignorance and running the risk of being unveiled as an impostor?

The atmosphere vibrated like a tautly strung musical instrument. In the midst of the frantic thoughts racing inside Alissa’s head, Sergei tugged her to him and brought his wide shapely mouth crashing hungrily down on hers. It was sweeter than sweet in intensity and hotter than flames. Fireworks of response were set off like a chain reaction of energy snaking through her slender body. She had never before got a charge like that from a kiss and the power of it shocked her. He parted her lips with his tongue and delved sensually deep in the moist interior of her mouth and she shuddered with the wicked, wanton pleasure of it. The smouldering prickle of heat between her thighs raised her temperature even more. Her fingers were lodged in the luxuriant thickness of his black hair, but she craved much closer contact than she already had. She wanted to press herself fully against his lean, hard body.