Chapter 58

And now she knew that it was a job she could never, ever fulfil. Alexander had been willing to pay a fortune for a discreet woman, willing to give him a child and then walk away without any hassle. What did that say about him? Her soft mouth trembled and she dug her fingers tightly into her palms. Not a guy who thought much of a woman’s maternal instincts or even of a child’s need for a mother. Not a guy who thought much of women as decent people full stop, she reckoned painfully. And all she had done was give him even more justification for his cynical attitude towards her sex!

Her eyes stung with tears and she blinked rapidly and sniffed, furious that her emotions were still out of her control. But she really did feel wretched and ashamed at what she had let herself get involved in. She was thinking about the man who had impassively admitted putting his alcoholic mother to bed every night as a child. Even his loving grandmother had not managed to alter Alexander’s bleak view of family life. He’d had dreadful parents. And one bad marriage had evidently ensured that he was not prepared to give any woman a second chance.

Certainly not one who had already been exposed as a liar and a cheat, Miah  told herself doggedly. She mopped her face and blew her nose and struggled to pull herself back together to deal with life as it was, not as she would have liked it to be.

The phone rang while she was getting dressed.

It was not her sister as she had hoped, but Alexander. ‘I’ll see you downstairs in twenty minutes,’ he informed her.

Miah  anchored her hair in a ponytail and stonily studied her reflection. She hadn’t bothered with make-up and had pulled on jeans and a sweater. Her own clothes, not the borrowed glamour of the designer garments that Alexander had purchased for her. The transformation was complete and she looked ordinary again. But what was the point of gilding the lily for his benefit? Surely that would only make her feel as if she were still trying to pretend to be her more fashionable twin? She checked her mobile phone. Mirabella had still not responded to her text. Impatient to talk to her sister, Miah  rang her direct and had to leave a message when the call wasn’t answered.

‘…good morning.’ Alexander surveyed his bride with sardonic cool when she appeared in the doorway of the elegant library he used as an office. ‘Are the jeans your equivalent of sackcloth and ashes? I’m not impressed.’

Stung by his acerbic mockery, Miah  folded her arms in a defensive movement. Her struggle to maintain her composure was not assisted by the truth that, while her troubled sleep had left her pale and drawn with heavy eyes, Alexander looked as breathtakingly handsome and vibrant as a man who had enjoyed a full eight hours of undiluted rest. The leap of attraction and erotic response that slivered through her treacherous body mortified her pride. ‘I hardly think that what I wear today makes any difference,’ she said flatly. ‘I don’t feel that those clothes you bought are rightfully mine and that I should wear them.’

‘Such a little puritan…’ Alexander released a derisive sound of amusement that grated against her nerves in the tense silence. ‘Let me see—you can marry me in a church in front of hundreds of people and allow me the freedom of your beautiful body, but your principles are too fine to allow you to wear the clothes I bought you?’

As he spoke a deep flush of humiliation slowly rose below Miah ’s pale skin and washed up over her face, highlighting the sea-blue shade of her beautiful eyes. She was squirming. ‘I didn’t mean it like that—’

‘Oh, I think you did but, as I have discovered, there’s often a wide gulf between your principles and your actual behaviour.’

‘Is this why you asked me to come down here? Just so that you can insult me some more?’

Alexander elevated an ebony brow. ‘I don’t do small talk. Or were you expecting praise for what you’ve done?’

Miah  drew in a sharp little breath and held it before shaking her head in grudging agreement on that point. Her gaze evaded his.

Satisfied to have put her out of countenance, Alexander lounged back against the edge of his desk to study her. Dressed like a teenager with her face bare of cosmetic enhancement, she looked outrageously youthful and innocent. He paid no heed to the aura of shame and worry that clung to her, for he was in no mood to trust such a show. He was no longer surprised that she had contrived to fool him. The greatest misogynist would have been challenged to pick her out as the calculating con artist she was, he conceded grimly. Hadn’t he been taken in? Hadn’t his lawyers been fooled by her sister? And hadn’t he wanted Miah  so much that he had stifled his misgivings and cancelled the background check that would certainly have revealed that she was one half of a matching pair?

‘What we both need to know now is—where do we go from here?’ Alexander spelt out.

‘I couldn’t possibly meet the terms of that contract!’ Miah  shot at him in a nervous rush. ‘I had no idea that conceiving a child was part of the agreement. I was willing to act as your wife—’

‘And share my bed with enthusiasm,’ Alexander inserted silkily. ‘Let’s not forget that angle.’

Miah  flung her head back, her golden ponytail bouncing, her eyes very bright and reproachful. ‘That just happened, for goodness’ sake!’

Alexander dealt her an unimpressed look as hard as polished steel. ‘In this scenario that is very difficult to believe. Sex oils so many wheels. When a man wants a woman he’s more careless about the little things that don’t add up.’

‘Look, stop trying to make everything worse than it already is. I didn’t use sex to do anything! I may have slept with you and I wish I hadn’t,’ she declared heatedly, ‘but let’s leave it at that. What are you going to do about all this?’

‘If I do what my lawyers want me to do, I will prosecute you and your sister for fraud. One word of complaint from me and Mirabella will be arrested. It is a criminal offence to deliberately sign a contract to defraud anyone of their hard-earned cash.’

Miah  met his contemptuous dark golden eyes in a horror-stricken collision. ‘You can’t do that!’

‘I think you’ll find that as the wronged party in this set-up I can do whatever I like.’

Desperation assailing her, Miah  was thinking frantically hard. ‘But you wanted discretion and if you start prosecuting people it’ll get into the newspapers. Surely you can’t want that to happen?’

Alexander was impressed by the speed with which she had brandished her only possible weapon. ‘Why should I care? Ysabelle doesn’t read newspapers and it is very unlikely that anyone close to her would find out about a legal case taking place in the UK. I have done nothing wrong and nothing that I am ashamed of and publicity, bad or otherwise, isn’t a matter of concern to me. Throwing you and your sister to the wolves on the other hand would at least give me some satisfaction.’

Miah  was paralysed to the spot by that blunt speech. Stone cold fear chilled her tummy, for she knew he was capable of launching a prosecution. Hard enough, vengeful enough, ruthless enough to hit back hard and hurt. Her mind kept on dropping stupidly back to the candlelit bath and the chocolates and the change in him cut through her like a knife. The day before might never have been.

‘But nothing would satisfy me quite as much as the fulfilment of the original contract, milaya moya,’ Alexander informed her smoothly. ‘You assure me that that is out of the question, but tight corners have a habit of pushing back the boundaries of what people find acceptable—’

‘Nothing you could do or say would persuade me to give up my own child!’ Miah  snapped back at him with not an ounce of hesitation.

‘I will make you an offer, then. If the money is returned in full and you agree to maintain the marriage for at least a year, I will put all thought of contacting the police on hold for the moment.’

Return the money? Of course he would want the money back, a little voice cried inside her head. She shifted position uneasily. ‘From what I understand, a fair proportion of it has already been spent—’

‘From what you understand?’ Alexander repeated very drily. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you don’t have access to that money?’

‘Mirabella has it, but obviously I’ll speak to her.’

Alexander surveyed his bride with burning disbelief. ‘Your sister set up the scam, took the money and left you to deliver on the contract and face the music? And you let her do that to you? Evidently I got the dim twin, rather than the cunning, greedy one!’

Highs spots of colour burnished Miah ’s cheeks. ‘It wasn’t like that. I’ll admit that Mirabella can be reckless and extravagant but she’s not a thief—why won’t you listen to me?’

‘You’ve yet to say anything that either makes sense or is of interest to me.’

‘There was no scam!’ Miah  proclaimed in fierce protest.

‘Then what was it? Where’s my money? Or alternatively where’s the woman I believed had signed a binding contract with me?’ he countered harshly. ‘Your sister used your name, backed out last minute and took off with the cash. You’re the only hostage I’ve got. Isn’t it time that you stopped disclaiming all responsibility and accept that you’re in this up to your throat?’

In receipt of that blistering advice, Miah  swallowed hard and painfully. A tension headache was tightening like a band of steel round her brow. ‘I’ll try to get the money back—’

‘I don’t want “try”, I want will,’ Alexander emphasised. ‘And don’t try selling anything I’ve given you to pay me back with my own money.’

Miah  stiffened even more at that warning. ‘I wouldn’t do that. I know you probably won’t believe me but I’m not a dishonest person.’

Alexander subjected her to an astringent appraisal. He was wondering if it was possible that her sister had duped her as easily as she had evidently duped his lawyers. He could see that Miah  was still in shock. He could see that she hadn’t slept well. He could see that she was trembling and upset. His angular jaw line clenched and he averted his attention from her slight figure. He would have no pity for anyone who cheated him. She was in shock because she was being called to account and distressed because she feared punishment. And naturally she would want to awaken his sympathy.

Alexander straightened to his full commanding height. ‘Do not doubt that I am prepared to bring the police into this.’

‘I don’t doubt it. But you did say that you wanted me to agree to stay as your wife for the next year,’ she reminded him anxiously.

‘I refuse to upset Ysabelle with the immediate breakdown of our marriage,’ Alexander said coldly.

‘Okay…I’ll stay,’ Miah  mumbled, feeling that it was the least she could do in the circumstances.

‘My priorities have changed, though.’ Alexander studied the faithful fit of her sweater over the swell of her rounded breasts before raising his darkly appreciative gaze to the wide soft fullness of her mouth. Desire was already roaring through him like a hurricane force and he marvelled at the reality that he wanted her as fiercely now as he had wanted her before he had consummated their marriage. He was amazed by her continuing pull on his libido.