Bride of Convenience

Chapter 17

The limo arrived and drove her to his home. He met her at the door.

“I have somewhere between two hundred and two hundred and fifty people. What’s your list like?” Damn, she didn’t want to do this now. How do you tell someone with so many people on his list that you only have two guests? He wouldn’t understand, and he would think she was anti-social or something.

“Show me yours, and you can read over mine.” He handed her the list.

“I don’t have a list.” He looked frustrated with her.

“What? We don’t have a lot of time Julia. I thought I told you last night to do it. We need to plan fast. What did you do when got home? Look, let’s just start and plan one now.” He stormed off to the study. He seemed very upset wait till she tells him the truth. He walked off and a minute later returned with paper in his hands. She stood very still, and he looked at her in anticipation.

“Who’s first?” She felt her heart beat a little faster and she was trying to choke back the tears.

“Kate.”

“Ok, but I already accounted for her. Will she be your only bridesmaid or do you have others you would like us to fly in from Australia?”

“Stacey.”

“Ok great. Next”

“That’s it.”

“Yeah I get that, but now we will just make a list of others you want to attend. I mean I know a lot of them might not be able to fly over, but you still invite them, so no one gets their nose out of joint. Of course for your closest friend’s I’m happy to send one of the private jets over to collect them.” He just kept going. Why couldn’t he understand what she was trying to say? This was hard enough.

“Harrison, Shut up!” He stopped dead. His brow creased as he frowned. He did not look happy. “Excuse me. What did you say?”

“I said shut up alright. Understand this when I say Kate and Stacey are the only ones. That means they are the…only…ones!” She said it slowly like he was a three-year-old child. “I don’t have any friends or family.” There she said it, and she sounded utterly desperate and lonely. Who has no friends! Tears welled in her eyes, and she turned away so he wouldn’t see. He must have been mortified to realise his soon to be wife hasn't any friends. She smelt his aftershave before she felt him. He put his hands on her shoulders and gently rubbed her spine. It was very soothing.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you. I just… I” She didn’t know what else to say. Maybe he had changed his mind and didn’t want to marry her. What did she think he didn’t really want to marry her anyway?

“It’s ok. We don’t have to have a lot of guests we could make it a small wedding with just us and a couple of groomsmen and bridesmaids.” He didn’t care. He would change his wedding, so it didn’t make her look like she didn’t have anyone to invite. She was taken by surprise.

“You would do that?” She asked.

“Of course this just isn’t my fake marriage it’s yours too. Anyhow the smaller the wedding, the more desperate people become to see you in the society pages.” He laughed. He made her feel at ease.

“Ok let’s work on your first cooking lesson shall we?” They went into the kitchen, and he started pulling ingredients from the cupboard.

“Tonight we are going to do a very simple spaghetti bolognese. It’s simple, and most people like it.” He grabbed a little diary from the bag on the bench. He passed it to her. “You now have a recipe book. Right, the ingredients and the instructions.” She was amazed at how beautiful it was. It was a black leather book, trimmed with gold edges. She was taken back, what a wonderful gesture. They started chopping ingredients, and Harrison gave her directions and lit tips along the way. Once again he had poured some wine for them, and they were onto their second glass, and Julia was feeling a little tipsy. She started to loosen up a little.

“Do you think I’m strange cause I don’t have any friends?” She asked as she was stirring the tomatoes sauce they had made. He came over and held her hand stirring the tomatoes together. She felt those strange feelings flowing through her again. Will it ever stop? You think she would be used to his touch by now.

“That’s looking good. No, I don’t think you’re strange. Some people just like to keep to themselves.”

“It’s actually not that. I had a lot of friends before I lost my job they just seemed to fall off the planet once I had no money to join them in their party. You see I tend to be really shy and most people mistake it for snobbishness. So they don’t approach me, and I could never approach them. So I just don’t make friends easily. One of the things I enjoy is when we walk into a room, you’re so confident, and people just merge towards you. They love being in your presence. I could never have that confidence.”

“Sure you could, I could help you. You’ve grown so much since you have been here. Already even the other night when I left you by yourself you walked up and talked to people. You started conversations with complete strangers.”

“How did you know about Adrian?” She needed to ask and the more she drunk, the less she could control her thoughts from just popping out as questions.

“I had you investigated. Before I accepted Kate’s idea to bring you here, I had to have you checked out. I didn’t want to be stuck married to a Looney.” He laughed a little.

“So what do you know about me. Tell me all you know about me.” For some reason, she wasn’t even offended that he had her looked into.

“I know you grew up with your dad and not your mum.”

“Hmmph, everyone knows that about me,” She said laughing and sipping more wine. “I hope that’s not all you found out otherwise, you wasted your money.” She smiled at him and realised she was flirtatious with him.

“No, Julia that is not all. I found out about the embezzlement. I found out you lived alone in a rented apartment. I found out your savings had been exhausted. Your car was reposed just after you lost your job. I found out you had an eviction notice on the way and that you and Adrian had a relationship. There is some stuff I don’t know, but that is the information I paid for.” Wow, he knew a lot, didn’t he?

“So what don’t you know that you want to? I am an open book ask me anything.” Wow, she thought, this wine tastes great. Maybe she should slow down a bit she felt not quite herself. A little on the fuzzy side.

“What happened to you and Adrian?” He asked observing her.

“Well, we dated for about six months. Adrian and I met at work obviously. The company had a code for the computers that they changed weekly. It was the access code to their banking accounts offshore. It was called into me each week, and I kept it at home I memorised it every week. It was only four digits. I never revealed the codes to anyone. Adrian and I never talked about work. He seemed to really love me. I wanted a man just like my daddy.” She smiled at that, and he thought how disappointed she would have been when she discovered this man was not anything like her daddy. “I wanted a kind soul that put others first, and he was at the beginning. Anything I wanted he would give to me, nothing was too much trouble. Then a couple of months into the relationship his temper started getting the better of him. He would just snap, we could be anywhere having a good time and then suddenly, bam, he was frustrated cranky and nasty. A lot of his problems seemed to be connected to money. He was short of cash all the time, we would have just been paid, and he would be broke. I couldn’t work it out. Sometimes we would be out at a restaurant, and he would say he had forgotten his wallet, but I knew he just didn’t have any money and didn’t want me to know. Soon debtors were calling him at all hours of the day and night. He was always angry after the call and wouldn’t tell me at first, slowly he started letting me know bits and pieces. I lent him some money from my savings, but it didn’t seem enough. Sometimes if we had a few too many drinks, he would get a bit nasty. He hit me once, right across the cheek. It hurt like hell but he apologised and beg me for forgiveness.” Harrison felt anger rise in him. How could anyone take a hand to a woman and a woman who had given him everything? What more did he expect from her? He watched her as she continued. “Of course I did forgive him. He was my everything. I thought he couldn’t possibly do it again, he loved me, right? Wrong, I often wondered if he had planned it, you know from the beginning. Realised who I was and just thought it would be easy to take from me.” Her face was sad as she remembers the pain. Harrison’s hands were in a fist at his sides. He couldn’t believe anyone would treat someone as amazing as Julia like that. “Oh, where was I, oh yes, I figured he probably planned the whole damn thing and then one night we had dinner plans, and he didn’t show. We had planned it two days before, we were going to have a romantic night in. He said he had a surprise for me, I had seen some travel brochures on his desk the day before, and silly me thought he must be planning a trip away for us. Oh, there was a trip it just didn’t include me, I called and called, I waited for hours before coming to the conclusion he wasn’t coming. That was a Thursday night. The next day at work the whole place was filled with investigators he took half a mill, I think. Even when they were all there telling me what happened, I still was protecting him, saying it wasn’t something he could do, I truly didn’t believe he could. They grilled me for hours, where did he go, who did he talk to regularly, how were his friends outside of work. It wasn’t until then that I actually realised I didn’t know him at all. I couldn’t answer one of their questions about his background. I felt humiliated. Anyway, they never caught him, and after weeks of investigating me, they decided I was not to blame. They were nice enough not to let the information out about my relationship with him trying to protect my image. However, as you probably found out no one wanted me. Not the places that had sent me letters begging me to come and work for them, not the few friends I had at that time. Christ, I couldn’t even get a reception job. I was done. If your offer hadn’t come when it did. I don’t know what I would have done.” She had tears beginning to show. She laughed and turned from him and wiped her tears. “Listen to me blubbering on and on. See what drink does to me. I really shouldn’t be drinking this much.” Harrison was heartbroken that someone could hurt her so much. He wanted to reach out and hold her and let her know everything was going to be all right. In the same breath, he was frustrated feeling that way. Why did he feel a need to protect her? She was a kind and straightforward person that’s all it was.

“Anyhow that was the past. I’m now engaged to be married to a guy I barely know so I could get a job. Makes me sound a little sad and desperately doesn’t it?”

“No, you just cared about someone, and they let you down. Just because you put your trust in someone doesn’t make you the fool, Adrian is the fool because he abused that trust.” Dinner was cooked, and they sat down to eat. They chatted about lighter things. The evening ended, and she was back at her apartment before she knew it. She sat there wondering why she had shared so much with Harrison. What must he think of her?