Marriage of Convenience

Chapter Eleven

She arrived at the Dexter Securities head office in Great Tower Street still in a state of shock, but as she dismissed Benjamin and the Rolls and walked across the pavement her thoughts began to unlock themselves, tumbling out all over her brain.

In the exquisite delight of recognizing her love for Theo, in the joy they had discovered together during those long golden days and jeweled nights, Leo Isaac, and her reason for needing a husband in the first place, had been pushed from her mind, because garbage like that had no place in the ecstatic, the delicate, the passionate act of falling in love.

She had told Leo they would be away for one week. But Theo had taken two. And Leo hadn't been able to wait. So his greed had taken him to Sam, to spread his poison, make his threats, turn the screw.

Her hands were wet with sweat as she took the lift to Sam’s office. His secretary told her to go right in, her eyes puzzled, sensing something was wrong. Sam was pacing the floor and he shot over to her, slammed the door closed behind her, 'What the hell kind of mess do you think you've got us into? His narrow face was flushed and his hand shook as he took a bottle from cupboard and put two inches of Scotch into a glass. 'He walked in here on Thursday with his oily threats and I've been going spare ever since.' He took a long gulp of the neat spirit and told her, 'He said you'd promised to hand over fifty thousand pounds last week, for withholding certain information. By Thursday he'd decided you were reneging so he came to me.'

'I'm sorry you had to get mixed up in this.' Freya slumped weakly on to a chair. 'I forgot. We didn't get back to London until late yesterday afternoon.'

'Sorry?' Sam bared his teeth in a small smile, his eyes incredulous. 'And how the hell can you forget a thing like that? Or do you have so many blackmailing threats hanging over you that this one just slipped your mind? It wouldn't surprise me,' 'you always did seem too good to be true!'

She wanted to walk out there and then, but couldn't afford the luxury, so she asked, tight-lipped, 'Is this as far as it's gone? Just trying to get the money out of you?'

'He'd be lucky!' His mouth twisted. 'And isn't it far enough? Can you imagine what the kind of publicity he's threatening to put around would do to the company—stuff like that can affect confidence? I can't afford to have that happen. In the state we're in, it could finish us.' He sat down heavily. 'If the money isn't in his hands by tomorrow he threatened to go to Father for it, and if that failed he's seeing some newspaper creep- as bent as he is, no doubt. I would have kicked him out of the door, but I knew he had to be telling the truth about what happened between you, otherwise, you'd never have agreed to pay up in the first place.'

'He told you everything?' Freya felt sick and she almost asked for a drink when Sam got up to pour himself another Scotch. But she needed a clear head to contact her bank and ask them to have the money ready for her to collect in the morning, to arrange a meeting place with Leo.

Sam sat down again, disgust on his face. 'About your affair, the debts he ran up trying to give you a good time, your promise to marry him, the night you spent together at some out of the way hotel just before you gave him the boot.'

And Freya said tiredly, 'It wasn't like that. We did date, but it never got heavy and I soon woke up to the fact that all he wanted from me was a share in the Dexter Millions.'

'So why did you agree to pay up?' Sam sneered. 'If your relationship was that innocent he wouldn't have had a thing to hold over you. You've got to be as guilty as hell. Not that it bothers me,' he added spitefully. 'I couldn't care less if you have to pay him to hold his tongue for the rest of your life. But I don't go a bundle on being personally threatened by a creep like Leo. Anyway,' 'if your relationship was so pure, what about the night you spent together at that Black Knight hotel. He said he could prove you'd shared a room as man and wife.'

'And so he could,' Freya agreed wearily. 'We went for a drive in the country—he'd asked me to marry him, secretly, and I turned him down because by that time I knew he was primarily interested in the money I'd eventually inherit. He seemed to take my refusal well, said he hoped we could still be friends. God, I was green! I didn't know he could be evil. I don't know why I'm explaining all this to you. He booked us in as man and wife and when I found out it was too late to do anything about it. But I spent the night in an armchair. Leo and I have never been lovers--'

'Yet you're willing to pay out that kind of money!'

Freya saw the sneering disbelief in his eyes and she said grittily, 'I can't prove we weren't lovers. He can prove we shared a hotel room for a night. I can't disprove his lies—that I said I'd marry him, made him spend money on me he couldn't afford then walked away when he got into debt. She reached for her black alligator-skin handbag, fitting the fine shoestring strap over her arm. 'I'm paying up because I owe it to your father because he was the only person who cared about me after my parents died. And for no other reason.'

'And you married Theo to get your hands on your inheritance? I thought the whole thing was a bit sudden.'

Sam got to his feet as she made for the door and she told him icily, barely turning her smooth, silvery head, 'I married Theo because I love him.' And it was the truth. She had been falling in love with Theo for a long time, but love was an emotion she had learned to live without. When it had happened it had taken her a long time to recognize it. But that was no business of Sam’s.

'So you'll get in touch with Leo?' Sam was just behind her as she reached the door, and he sneered, 'If it weren't for the trouble that kind of publicity could give Dexter Securities I'd happily pay Leo to spread the dirt.'

'You'd what?' Freya went cold. 'I don't believe I'm hearing this!'

'You heard,' he drawled, his mouth curling. Freya knew he'd always resented her, but she hadn't realized that over the years the resentment had deepened to hate.

'Why?'

There was enough pious fuss from my father when he'd had his attention drawn to that relatively harmless piece about me,' he said bitterly. 'It was even said that it caused his latest heart attack. So I'd like him to know ' that Wonder Girl isn't as perfect as he thought she was. It might just put your nose out of joint. He's always holding you up as an example.'

Freya’s mouth went dry as she stared at the cousin she had thought she knew, realizing that she didn't know him at all. 'You'd want that, even though you know what it would do to your father? He damn near died when he read about the brawl you got yourself involved in. You can't think anything of him at all—you selfish bastard!'

 She felt slightly sick and tremble as she slid into her seat at the table Theo had reserved for them at Clipstone.

'You're looking tired,' he said after he'd handed back the menus and given their order. Concern clouded the vivid blue of his eyes. 'Bad morning shopping? Or did your visit with Sam upset you for some reason?'

It had been a bad morning, and how, but she couldn't tell him why so she shrugged, putting on a smile, 'So- so,' then, wondering, 'How did you know I'd gone to see Sam?'

'I called home. Mary told me Benjamin had driven you to Great Tower Street.  A simple deduction.' He looked amused and he leaned his elbows on the small linen- covered table-top, trailing the fingers of one hand softly down the curve of her cheek. 'Pretty—pretty and soft,' he murmured, and her heart lurched over with love for him. And as the feathering caress moved over her mouth she parted her lips, closing them over his fingertip, nipping gently, then drew back, her face hot. Never in a million years would she have imagined herself and the chief executive of Dylan Dexter making such a public display of themselves!

'Why did you try to reach me?' she asked then, creditably cool, trying to get things back on a more manageable level because if she didn't, and he kept eating her with his eyes, then she would certainly end up making an even more public display of her love for him! She needed him, needed his tenderness, after the battering she'd taken this morning.

And Theo removed his elbows from the table, leaning back as their first course arrived.

'No particular reason. I just needed to hear your voice.' And that made her feel good, so very good, and it melted away some of the distaste which had been produced by this morning's conversation with Sam.

Then, without knowing why, because she and Theo never talked about the circumstances of their marriage, she asked lightly, toying with a forkful of chicken in a light wine sauce, 'Why did you agree to marry me, Theo?'

'Because, as you pointed out, I would always be in the happy position of knowing you hadn't married me for my money. Call me a cynic if you like, but I've never been able to distinguish between people who liked me for what I am and those who just like the smell of wealth.'

It was a flippant reply but it told her he was probably as far away from loving her as he had been when she'd proposed. And that was daunting, but she wasn't going to let it worry her too much. And at least he'd had the sensitivity not to mention the shares because although they had probably been his first consideration when agreeing to marry her, she didn't want to hear him say as much. It would put what they did have together down on the level of a purely commercial agreement.

She didn't know why she had asked that question, and she didn't know what she'd expected him to say. She hadn't really hoped he would tell her he'd suddenly realized, over that weekend he'd taken to think it over, that he was madly in love with her, had she?

Of course, she hadn't. She didn't believe in miracles, and she knew that if he were ever to grow to love her then the process would take time. So why was she now feeling so empty inside?

And he smiled at her lazily, as if they'd been discussing nothing more important than the state of the weather, and lifted the bottle the waiter had left in the cooler at the side of the table. 'Let me give you some wine. I think you'll like it.'

And she smiled, just slightly, because suddenly smiling was difficult. 'Thank you.' She knew that, for him, although their marriage of convenience was working out well so far, it would remain just that, a marriage of convenience, for some long time to come.

Because, if he didn't, her life might well become unbearable.