Ruthless Magnate, Convenient Wife

‘Oh, don’t be so mealy-mouthed!’ Alexa urged tartly. ‘Mum loses her son and my boyfriend in a ghastly accident, nurses Dad through his cancer scare and what’s her reward? Dad takes off with a hairdresser young enough to be his daughter!’

‘You just said you’ve got enough money to pay off Dad and more for the bills—how is that possible? You’ve only been away three months.’ Alissa was frowning. She wanted so badly to believe it was possible, but her native wit was telling her that even though Alissa was a terrific saleswoman she still didn’t have that kind of earning power.

‘You could say that I went for a new job with a big cash payment up front. As I said, there’s enough to settle all Mum’s bills and pay off Dad,’ Alexa repeated, keen to make that salient point again.

Alissa was wide-eyed with disbelief. ‘As well as enough to buy that car outside and renew your designer wardrobe?’

Alexa’s smile evaporated as she gave her twin a cool accusing scrutiny. ‘You’ve already noticed the label on my new coat?’

‘No, it just has that look. That sophisticated look that expensive clothes always seem to have,’ Alissa advanced ruefully. ‘What kind of a job pays that much money?’

‘Didn’t you hear what I told you?’ Alexa demanded thinly. ‘I’ve saved our bacon—I have enough money to sort out all Mum’s problems and give her back her selfrespect and security.’

‘That would take a miracle.’ Alissa was convinced that her sister was wildly exaggerating the case.

‘In today’s world, you have to compete and work very hard and make sacrifices to bring about a miracle.’

At that reference to making sacrifices from a young woman who had never demonstrated the smallest leaning in that direction, Alissa stole a troubled glance at her sister. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘As I said, it’s complex. For a start I’m afraid I had to sort of borrow your identity.’

Alissa froze at that announcement. ‘Borrow my identity? How?’

‘You’re the one with the university degree and I needed to use it on my application to meet the criteria,’ Alexa revealed, lifting her chin in defiance of her twin’s shaken stare. ‘And because I had used it to make myself look educated I had to use your name as well. When they checked out my claims they’d soon have discovered that I was lying if I’d applied under my own name.’

Alissa was very shocked at her sister’s casual attitude to what she had done. ‘But that’s…that’s fraud, cheating…’

Alexa’s indifference to what she clearly saw as a minor detail was striking. ‘Whatever. I thought it was worth a try and so it proved, but then I started seeing someone.’

‘You’re dating again?’ Alissa gasped in surprise and excitement. After her sister’s boyfriend, Peter, had died in the same car crash that had taken their brother’s life—a tragedy that had soon been followed by their father’s shocking defection—Alexa had become so angry and bitter that she had sworn off all men. Alissa had understood the level of her sister’s heartbreak for, as their next-door-neighbours’ son, Peter had been as much a part of their lives as any member of the family. ‘Were you too busy looking at the coat to notice this?’ Alexa extended a hand on which an opulent ruby and diamond ring glowed on her engagement finger.

Alissa gaped. ‘You’re engaged…already?’

‘And preggers,’ Alexa confided.

‘Pregnant as well?’ Alissa stared as her sister turned sideways but it was evidently early days for her stomach still looked perfectly flat. ‘My word, and you never said a thing about all this until now?’

Alexa grimaced. ‘I told you that things had got complicated. I was in the running for that job and I didn’t want to tell Harry about it…yes, that’s his name. He’s quite well off—a gentleman farmer who runs his family estate. They’re thrilled about me and the baby, not a bit bothered that I’m not one of the county set. But neither he nor his family would understand what I signed up for before we met…or that I could have accepted all that money for the right reasons.’

Her smooth brow furrowing, Alissa stared. ‘Alexa, what are you talking about? This job? What money did you accept?’

Alexa sat down at the kitchen table and sipped her tea before she replied. ‘I never thought I’d get it. I went through the whole application process out of curiosity. Strictly speaking, it’s not really a job,’ she admitted in an undertone.

Alissa sank down into the chair opposite. ‘Then what is it? It isn’t anything, well…immoral, is it?’

‘Before I tell you, you think very carefully about what that money will do for Mum,’ her sister urged sharply. ‘It’s her only hope of rescue and I’ve already paid out most of it on her behalf. All I had to do to get it was agree to marry a very rich Russian and act like his wife.’

‘But why would any man want to pay you for doing that? These days I thought most rich Russians were beating off gold-digging women with sticks,’ Alissa remarked drily.

‘This guy wants it all done on a business basis, with money paid up front, signed contracts and a settlement agreed for the divorce at the end. He wanted an educated attractive Englishwoman and I stepped forward. I almost told his lawyers that he could have two of us for the price of one!’

Alissa wasn’t amused by that rather tasteless joke. ‘So, let me get this straight—you decided you were willing to marry this man just for the cash?’

‘For Mum!’ Alexa contradicted loudly. ‘I was only ever willing to do it for her sake.’

Alissa sat there tautly and thought about this explanation. Everything she herself had done of late, from resigning from her comfortable librarian’s job in London to coming home to help out as best she could, had also been done for her mother’s sake. Both young women adored their parent, who was currently stressed out of her mind and desperately depressed, a mere shadow of the cheerful and energetic woman she had once been.

A kinder and more loving and supportive parent or wife than Jenny Bartlett would be hard to find. Unfortunately, over the past two years, the twins’ once close and contented family circle had been cruelly smashed by a series of disasters. The death of their brother, Stephen, and of Alexa’s boyfriend, Peter, in a car crash one wintry evening had only been the first calamity to strike them. That storm had barely been weathered before their father’s cancer was diagnosed. Long months of anxiety and debilitating medical treatment had followed. Throughout all those events their mother had been the strongest of them all, refusing to allow her family to sink into despair. She could never have guessed then that, within months of his recovery from cancer, her husband of thirty years would desert her for a much younger woman and then claim half of their home and business to finance his new lifestyle. Watching those awful proceedings unfold from the sidelines, Alissa had felt her heart break alongside her mother’s.

Alissa had learned a new insecurity when she had finally realised that she could not even trust her father to be the honest and decent man she had always believed he was. Although he was an accountant on a good salary, he was pursuing his wife for a share of the home that had originally belonged to her parents and of the small business that she had set up and ran entirely on her own. Money and the lust for more of it, Alissa thought fearfully, could turn people into strangers and make them do inexcusable things. Now it seemed to her that Alexa had got caught up in the same dangerous toils.

‘Pay the money back,’ Alissa urged tightly. ‘You can’t marry some foreigner you don’t even know for money.’

‘Well, I can’t marry him now, can I? I mean, I’m carrying Harry’s baby!’ Alexa pointed out flatly. ‘And Harry wants us to get married in the next couple of weeks.’

Alissa nodded, unsurprised by that sudden announcement. Alissa always did everything at supersonic speed. That she had fallen in love and fallen pregnant within months and was racing equally fast into marriage was the norm for her. She had never learnt patience and if common sense threatened to come between her and her goals she would ignore it.

‘You must go ahead and marry the Russian in my place,’ Alexa continued, ‘or I’ll be forced to consider an abortion…’

Shattered by that announcement, Alissa pushed her chair noisily back and leapt upright. ‘What on earth are you talking about? Me marry this weird guy? An abortion? Is that what you want?’

A petulant expression traversed Alexa’s face. ‘No, of course it’s not what I want, Allie, but what choice do I have? I signed a legal binding contract and I accepted a huge amount of money on the strength of it. Most of the money has been spent so I can’t give it back. So where does that leave me?’

Alissa was once again aghast at that admission. ‘Spent?’

‘Mostly on Mum. Okay, so I bought the car and a few other little things. At the time I thought that with the sacrifice I was making in agreeing to marry the guy, I had the right to spoil myself a bit. After all, it was me, not you, riding to Mum’s rescue!’ her twin vented, treating her sister to a scornful appraisal. ‘I mean, here you are, acting all shocked at what I’ve done. But what have you done, but sit here wringing your hands and checking bank statements? It took me to take action, so don’t you dare look down on me for being willing to marry a stranger for money. Money and lots of it is the only real cure for the problems here!’

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.’