Billionaire Brides: An Anthology

by Connelly, Clare

  “Why do you think?” She murmured.

  He snapped his zipper to the top and spun around to face her. “No.”

  “No?” She mouthed the word with shock. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

  He stared at her long and hard, and then walked slowly towards her. “I mean that I am not going to let you do it.”

  “Are you kidding me?” She stared at him as though he’d turned into a Martian. “I’m not your prisoner. You can’t actually keep me here.”

  “No,” he agreed. “But nor can I let you continue to ruin my sister’s marriage.”

  The words hung between them like tiny little bullets. They sat heavy in the air and then flew swiftly towards Sophie. She staggered back as though she’d been hit, and reached for the edge of the bed. She sank into it weakly. “What are you talking about?”

  Alex could have strangled himself, if it were at all physically possible. He had not intended to say so much to his wife, and yet it had simply blurted out. Now? What choice did he have but to have this discussion? Perhaps, if warned off, Sophie might choose not to go after Eric.

  “I know about you and Eric.”

  She stared at him with a host of emotions storming across her face. “What do you know about me and Eric?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  He refused to feel sorry for her. The obvious discomfort was because of her actions and culpability, not his.

  “I know that you and Eric, my friend, a man I trusted and cared for, have been having an affair. It is making Helena miserable. I will not allow it to continue.”

  Sophie wrapped her arms around her waist, as realisation after realisation continued to explode in her brain. There was no affair, but she was chasing after him, down a rabbit hole into the bizarre reality she now realised he’d been inhabiting. “How would you stop it?” She wondered aloud. “I mean, you did stop it, didn’t you? By marrying me… That’s what you think?” She closed her eyes. “Oh my God. Am I the most gullible idiot in the world or what?” She stood up but swayed a little on her legs and had to sit back down again.

  His mouth was grim. “I needed to remove you from the situation.”

  She felt as though she was about to be sick, but she had no intention of letting him see how completely he’d devastated her.

  “You married me because you believed Eric and I were having an affair and you wanted to end it. Right?”

  His temper spiked. “I married you because I knew you and Eric to be engaged in an affair.”

  “How did you know?” She pushed, her body limp-feeling.

  “That is hardly relevant.”

  Sophie nodded slowly. “I guess not.” Tears sparkled in her eyes. She steeled herself to find a hidden reserve of strength, and tried to stand again. When she spoke, her words were little more than a whisper, but he heard them clearly. “Except that you were wrong. Completely wrong.”

  “Even now, you lie to me? When I know the truth?”

  “You don’t know the truth,” she said thickly. “But I’m glad I finally do.”

  A sob was threatening in her chest. She swallowed it back, but it made her throat ache.

  His voice was a soft plea – unusual for a man like Alex. “You will ruin her life if you continue this.”

  Sophie was numb to her core. “I’m not involved with Eric. He loves your sister.”

  “Bullshit. He loves you. I’ve seen the two of you together. I saw him come from your room late at night. I heard you speaking to him on the phone a few weeks ago. Talking about the secret you must keep from me, because Helena and I could never forgive the two of you. Do not make me think worse of you now, Sophie, by failing to own up to what you have done.”

  Her laugh was bitter. “You’re sick, do you know that?” She moved to her wardrobe on autopilot and scanned it for her more practical clothes. She grabbed things at random. Jeans. A shirt. A dress. Shoes. And then, her arms full, she threw them onto the bed while she hunted around for a bag.

  “I have already told you that I am protective of Helena. She was miserable about the affair. She begged me to help.”

  Sophie sniffed as she stuffed her clothes into the suitcase. Everything would need to be ironed again, and she hated ironing, but packing neatly would take time, and she couldn’t stay in the house a moment longer.

  “There was no affair,” she said again, zipping the suitcase up ferociously. It snagged her nail and she swore.

  “Then what secret are you and Eric huddling over so conscientiously. What were the ‘late night sessions’ you spoke of engaging in with him?”

  Sophie thought about lying to Alex, to protect Eric further, but in that moment, she hated Eric and Helena almost as much as she did her husband.

  With a voice that was surprisingly calm, and eyes that were devoid now of feeling, she faced her husband and said, “Your sister isn’t well. I believe she has severe depression. Eric is beside himself with worry. We would meet secretly to discuss what we had noticed and plan a way to help her.”

  Alex was as still as a statue. Only a muscle that ticked in his cheek showed that he felt any emotion. “Another lie.”

  “No.” She continued in the same tone. “I would never lie about something like this.” She swallowed another sob. “Helena needs help. But Eric was worried that if he told you, you’d go all crazy and act like an overbearing bastard. Actually, he clearly had a point.” She lifted the bag over her shoulder.

  “Where are you going?” He demanded.

  “Away.”

  “Where?”

  She laughed, a harsh, jangling sound. “Nowhere you’ll be able to find me. I need time to myself.”

  “Sophie, you need to tell me what you mean about Helena.”

  “No, I don’t. I don’t need to do any damn thing you say.” She pulled the bag over her shoulder. She moved towards the door, a strange emptiness spreading through her. “Did you really marry me just for the sake of your sister?”

  He stared at her long and hard; his silence, though, spoke volumes.

  “Okay.” She could no longer stop the tears that were moistening her eyes from falling. She turned around and walked back to him. She tilted her face up to his. “You need to know that I married you because I loved you completely. You need to know that, because one day, you’re going to realise that I’m telling the truth. And on that day, you deserve to feel as guilty as hell for using me like this.” She saw the shock on his face with some satisfaction. “I don’t love you anymore. In fact, I don’t think I ever really knew you.” Her cheeks were wet and her chest was heaving with the pain of breathing. “Goodbye.”

  “You cannot leave like this. We have to discuss …”

  “I beg your pardon.” She paused just outside the door. “We have nothing to discuss. Everything we were was a lie.”

  Downstairs, in the long hallway, she pulled her credit cards out of her wallet and left them on the mantle. Her ring she added to the pile of things she no longer needed. They belonged to Alex’s wife, and Alex’s wife had just been some poor sucker who’d allowed herself to be manipulated into believing in love.

  That woman was not Sophie anymore.

  She would never believe in love again.

  Chapter 9

  “I am afraid I do not comprehend what you are saying.” Alex sat down in his leather office chair with a gnawing sense of disbelief. Could this be some kind of trick? Had Sophie fooled her replacement into spreading these lies?

  “I’m sorry, sir, but you asked me to report anything untoward to you.”

  Yes, he had, but he’d meant a secret love affair between Eric and Sophie. Not this, of all things.

  Elaine continued, when Alex didn’t speak. “I believe your sister needs to see a specialist. Perhaps even to be admitted to hospital for a time.”

  “And on what do you base this conclusion?”

  “I have seen it before. The sense of disconnection is a hallmark. Your sister is … vacant … even when she is with the children.”
<
br />   “She’s not maternal,” he countered firmly.

  “This is different, sir.”

  He stared out of the window. Sophie had warned him. And he’d ignored her. He hadn’t wanted to believe that she might have been right.

  Sophie. Had she really been gone three weeks already? He lifted her ring from his desk without noticing that he was doing it. It was a constant reflex with him these days. He would stare at it and remember the way her face had looked at it in complete confusion, the first time he’d shown it to her. The way she had insisted it was far more than she needed. The way she’d said she loved it, because he’d chosen it.

  His gut twisted.

  Everything in the house reminded Alex of Sophie. Everything. She was everywhere he looked, and yet she was nowhere.

  “Are the children affected?”

  “On some level, certainly. There is a wariness with them. An obvious preference for their father and me. They try to orchestrate outings that exclude their mother, as though they’re attempting to form a family unit with me and Eric.”

  Alex had seen all this before. Only he’d blamed Sophie. He’d blamed Sophie and Eric. “And what do you do?”

  “I do as they wish, of course. Their emotional wellbeing is my primary goal. I do, however, think you need to enable support for your sister.”

  “I see.”

  He lifted the ring to his cheek. Where was Sophie? He knew only that Harry had taken her to the airport, and that she hadn’t touched his bank accounts since leaving.

  He didn’t know where she was living, and on what money she was surviving. Did she have savings? Did she have a job? Did she have a comfortable home? The thought of Sophie in discomfort or squalor flooded him with anger.

  “Elaine, I’m going to come to London. Do not mention this to Eric until I arrive. I will … require an element of surprise.”

  His mind made up, he set about organising the logistics. For a man like Alex, this was not difficult. With an army of staff and a jet at his disposal, it was only a matter of hours before he was back in London; staring at the house he’d first seen her. Sophie.

  Then, he’d come to London to help his sister.

  And now, he was there on the same chore, but with a far different goal in mind.

  How long had this been going on? How long had Eric suspected? And why hadn’t he taken Alex into his confidence? What had Sophie said? Eric had been afraid Alex would take over. Well, he was damned right about that. Alex had every intention of helping his sister, to hell with what Eric thought.

  In the end, Eric was actually relieved that Alex had swept in and taken over. Helena, too, seemed finally glad that someone was telling her what to do in order to feel better. An exceptional facility accepted her immediately – another benefit of being Alessandros Petrides – and the day after she’d left, Alex found himself sitting on the sofa, a scotch in one hand, and an expression of despair on his face. It was the same sofa he’d first seen Sophie scrambling under and he wished he could reach back through time to that moment and slap himself for not seeing her as she really was.

  “Eric, I need to know.”

  “To know what?” The other man was similarly bleak.

  “About you and Sophie.”

  “What about me and Sophie?” He was distracted, staring at the floor.

  Alex ran a hand over his stubbled chin. “Helena believed the two of you were having an affair.”

  That caught Eric’s attention. “She … what?”

  If Alex needed any further confirmation of just how badly he’d got it wrong, his friend’s expression offered it. He spoke matter-of-factly. “Helena called me. Two months ago. It is why I came to London. She asked me to intervene.” The words tasted horrible in his mouth. Everything about it was disgusting to him.

  “I can’t believe it. Poor Helena.”

  “Poor Helena?” Alex shook his head. “Poor Sophie.”

  “Why? Why poor Sophie?” Eric swirled his glass; the ice clinked against its edges.

  Alex had successfully kept news of his separation from reaching his sister and her husband. But now, as Eric regarded his old friend carefully, something like suspicion moved within him.

  “Alessandro? What are you talking about?”

  He swallowed, so that his Adam’s apple moved visibly. “It does not matter. It’s my problem to resolve.” He fixed his friend with a serious stare. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” If only Eric had confided in him! So much of this could have been avoided.

  “No offence, mate, but you’re the last person I would have told.” He lifted a hand to silence Alex’s imminent objection. “Helena wouldn’t even acknowledge she had a problem. It was a bloody nightmare. I didn’t want you to think I couldn’t look after her.” His eyes were haunted. “I worried you might think I couldn’t make her happy.”

  Alex blanked out his feeling of pain.

  “Sophie was wonderful,” Eric sighed heavily. “You know what she’s like. Such a gem. She became a part of our family instantly. She had only been here two days when she realised what was going on.”

  “How?” His voice was raspy; his heart was hammering heavily in his chest. “How did she know, when I, Helena’s own brother, never realised anything was amiss?”

  “Don’t beat yourself up. I was slow on the uptake too.”

  “I do not understand how Sophie realised though. Helena held it together so well.”

  “Not when you spent a lot of time with her. The cracks were there.”

  “But Sophie didn’t know her before.”

  “No. But her sister Ava had post-natal depression after her daughter was born. As you no doubt know, it was a very harrowing time for Sophie and she was able to spot the symptoms easily.”

  Alex shifted his weight and sipped his scotch because he couldn’t meet his friend’s eyes.

  “I saw you coming out of her room that night.”

  “What night?” Eric queried diffidently.

  “The night I proposed to her. It was late. She was hardly dressed.”

  “Oh. Wasn’t she?” His gaze narrowed. “You can’t seriously think I’d cheat on your sister? And with our nanny?”

  “Sophie is more than just a nanny,” Alex retorted angrily. “She’s beautiful. She’s … I thought … I presumed you would have found her irresistible.”

  “Like you did?” Eric queried with a disappointed smile.

  Alex nodded warily.

  “I’m telling you, mate, she’s a stunner, but I’ve only ever had eyes for your sister.”

  “But you were in her room.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “She borrowed money.”

  Alex stared at him, silently prompting Eric to continue.

  “I told her I’d give it to her, but she insisted she wanted it to be a present for the kids, from her.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what she wanted the money for. To buy tickets to a show for the kids.” He shook his head. “Your wife’s all heart.”

  Alex nodded. His wife, all heart or not, was missing. And he could no longer keep it to himself, because he needed his friend’s help.

  * * *

  Sophie had fine drops of paint splattered down the front of her shirt, and her blonde hair had copped a fair few spots of it too. She ran a hand over it and grimaced. It didn’t matter. It was just paint.

  London was, at any time of the year, her favourite place in the world. But now, in the lead up to Christmas, it was more beautiful than anything she’d ever seen. The streets of Mayfair were decked out in sparkly fairy lights overhead, and even now, in the early evening, it glistened with magic, snow and pale cream moonlight.

  The bar was underground. Sophie paused at the top of the stairs while she slipped her gloves off and pushed them into her handbag, and then she began to move downward.

  It was absolutely packed with the after-work crowd. Sophie weaved through the people determinedly, heading for the shining wooden bar.

  She
ordered a bottle of wine, though she didn’t feel like drinking, and took up a table near the window. The associations gave her a bad case of nerves, but she couldn’t wait to see Eric again, and to hear about the boys. She stared at the table top, and tried to relax. But the feeling of merriment that surrounded her was absolutely at odds with her deep well of grief.

  Christmas would be here soon. And she would spend it alone. No Liv, for she seemed to have disappeared into technological thin air. Ditto Ava, who was probably trying to work out just how the hell to conceal Milly from Cristiano while he was physically on the same property as them.

  And no Alex.

  She pushed aside the well of pain.

  It was only one year, and truly, it was just another day. What did it matter that she’d always loved the festive season? That it was a highlight of her year to decorate the tree and make mince pies and pudding?

  None of that mattered.

  A man jostled behind her and Sophie smiled up at him blandly then stared back at her empty glass. She might as well at least pour some wine, so that it was obvious she was waiting for someone.

  She lifted the bottle at the exact moment Alex cleared into her view, and she would have dropped it to the floor had he not reached for it with lightning fast reflexes.

  “Alex.” Her voice was barely there. She cleared her throat and tried again. “What are you doing here?” She stared at him hungrily. He looked so good. Good enough to eat. But he was the devil. A bastard in disguise; a man who had hurt her wilfully and knowingly. She squared her shoulders and stared at him coldly. “I’m waiting for someone.”

  “Eric is not coming.”

  Sophie closed her eyes on the wave of despair. Suddenly, the friend she’d been longing to see had evaporated, and in his place was the enemy. “He told you.”

  “Yes.”

  Sophie was furious. Betrayed and angry. She scraped her chair back and stood, then grabbed her handbag from the floor. “Go to hell.”

  He stood up and blocked her from leaving. “I’m there, believe me.”