Marrying His Runaway Heiress

by Therese Beharrie

  The light in her room was bright and clear, allowing him to see every nuance of her expression. Naked emotions stalked across her face leisurely, as if it were a hot summer’s day and they were prancing around the pool. She didn’t try to hide them, and he could see the battle between guardedness and a desire to tell him. She met his gaze, but didn’t speak. The rawness in her eyes made him want to pull her into his arms and tell her it was okay. She would be okay.

  ‘We don’t speak much these days,’ she started. ‘Me and my father, I mean. Contact mostly came from me, anyway, and when I got old enough for self-preservation to win out over my desire to...’ She trailed off. ‘Anyway, he called me to his office. He never did that, and there was just this...hope inside me. Foolish,’ she scoffed at herself. ‘He wouldn’t call me to his office to apologise for the years of neglect or for using me when he needed me. He only called to use me again.’

  She leaned back against the window frame, her gaze now shifting to outside. ‘When I got there, he told me about a mining accident that had killed two John employees. I already knew, of course. It was all over the news and it’s my job to know the news.’ She dropped his hand and folded her arms. ‘He said stock was tanking and he needed something else for the media to focus on. And he’d found a way.’

  ‘Marriage.’

  She gave a curt nod. ‘To the heir to a rival mining company. The company would be strengthened because of the combined power and the society wedding would be all anyone would talk about. Romeo and Juliet, minus the part where I kill myself.’

  ‘But you’d kill a part of yourself.’ He could see it in her eyes.

  She tilted her head. ‘It’s meant to be a business arrangement. A publicity stunt. We pretend to be a couple, but we live as though we aren’t married.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  She shrugged. ‘We would have to move to the same house, but other than that, everything would stay the same. I’d have my separate life. He’d have his.’

  ‘He’d have mistresses.’

  ‘So would I. Well, misters.’ Her mouth lifted. ‘Sounds great, doesn’t it?’

  ‘You’re not married yet,’ he reminded her. ‘You’re not even engaged. It’s not too late.’

  She didn’t answer him for a long time. It made him wonder if he’d misinterpreted her ‘great’ as sarcasm. Maybe she wanted to marry this Jameson man. Why else would she agree to her father’s suggestion?

  Had it been a suggestion though? Perhaps it had been a command. But why would she obey it? What was the worst thing that could happen if she didn’t?

  ‘Elena,’ he said softly. ‘What are you not telling me?’

  She looked at him, and what he saw there told him not to prod. So he waited. When the waiting spanned minutes, he reached out and took her hand. As the minutes ticked by, he shifted closer. By the time she spoke, they were standing a breath apart.

  His heart was thumping, and he was afraid their proximity would mean she could hear it. Or worse, feel it. Either way, she would know how much this was affecting him. How much the fact that she’d taken the last two steps towards him meant to him. They were sharing an intimacy he hadn’t shared with anyone else in their conversation. He was drawn to her physically unlike anyone else. He wanted to kiss her. To share more with her.

  He didn’t want her to marry that man.

  ‘He threatened my job,’ she said hoarsely. She was staring up at him with big brown eyes that told him as much as her words did. She was scared. ‘He didn’t say it outright, but he didn’t have to. My father... He’s powerful.’

  Anger pulsed through his body. ‘So am I. I’ll get you another job.’

  ‘I don’t want another job.’ She bit her lip. ‘I want this job. My job that I worked for, for years. The job that brought me here.’ Her voice caught. ‘It’s not fair.’

  He slid an arm around her waist, taking great care to be gentle and not give in to the emotion that told him to throw her over his shoulder and run away with her.

  ‘And now there’s this stupid engagement party in four days. Four days, Micah. I didn’t even agree, but my father’s invited everyone to it and the media’s latched onto the whispers exactly as my father intended.’

  ‘He’s trying to strong-arm you into doing this.’

  ‘Yes.’ She let out a shaky breath. ‘Along with threatening the one thing he knows means the world to me, he’s pulling out all the stops to get me to agree.’

  ‘Has he done this before?’

  ‘Not to this extent.’

  ‘That’s why you stopped using his money. Why you put distance in your relationship.’ She nodded, though he was really confirming more than asking. ‘Why did you go to his office that day? You said hope, but for what?’

  She rested her hands on his chest. ‘If your mother called you and asked you to do something for her, without warning or context, would you do it?’

  And finally, he saw. He understood. She’d hoped for a relationship, for the love of a parent. She worried that if she didn’t do this, she would lose not only her job, but that chance of love. As someone who’d spent his entire life searching for that love, doing what he thought he had to in order to get that love, he couldn’t judge her. It was an impossible situation for a child. His heart broke for her even as he hated her father for putting her in that situation in the first place.

  She cracked the first real smile she’d given since they started talking. ‘You understand now why I jumped at the chance to be here. To escape it.’

  She gently pulled away from him and walked towards the bed.

  ‘Besides, you know, it being a wonderful opportunity. Writing a cover story is career gold for me. Or it was,’ she said, narrowing her eyes at him. ‘Now that I know I wasn’t asked because of my skill, the ask has been tainted.’

  He winced. ‘I’m sorry. But regardless of how the opportunity came about, you’re here, right? You do a good job, it won’t matter how you got here.’

  She opened her mouth, but no sound came out for a while. ‘That’s a good point.’

  ‘That hurt, didn’t it?’

  She smirked. ‘Maybe.’

  He studied her, but her expression was as closed a book as it had been open earlier. He thought about pushing, but it didn’t feel right. So he simply said, ‘They wouldn’t have agreed for you to write the story if you hadn’t earned it, Elena.’

  ‘I believe you. What?’ she said in response to his surprise. ‘You have pull with a demographic we’ve been struggling with for some time. Millennials. A solid portion of who will find you attractive. They need this story to be good.’

  His face burned. ‘We weren’t talking about me.’

  ‘No, we weren’t.’ She smiled. ‘It’s cute that you’re flustered by people finding you attractive.’

  ‘Why couldn’t you just take the compliment and leave it at that?’ he grumbled.

  Her smile widened. ‘Thank you for your compliment.’ She put a hand on her hip. ‘You know, I came here to forget. Not to rehash all of this.’ She shook her shoulders. ‘I needed an Italian escape with a tycoon, not an Italian confession with one.’

  ‘You’re strange, you know that?’ Her laugh warmed the parts inside him he hadn’t realise had gone cold during her story. ‘But you have a point. I can’t do much about your decision, but I can distract you. Have you made any plans for Venice yet?’

  ‘Some.’ She closed the space between them. ‘Nothing that can’t be cancelled.’

  ‘I’ll work around them.’

  Tentatively, he opened his arms. She immediately stepped into them. Rested her head on his chest. It was comfortable. Warm. It felt exactly right.

  ‘We’ll make these the best days of your life.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He couldn’t resist the kiss he pressed to her forehead in reply.

/>   CHAPTER TEN

  WHEN ELENA WOKE the next morning, she asked herself whether she’d dreamed the night before. Micah had apologised and opened up to her about his family. In turn, she had told him about the impossible situation with her father. Now, they were going to spend the remaining days in Italy exploring Venice.

  It was wild. But her life had, over the last month, been wild. Unrecognisable. One day she’d been living the life she created for herself, the next day she was contemplating marriage to a stranger. She hadn’t paid attention to how little she’d liked the disruption. She had simply been focused on getting through it.

  Micah forced her to think about it though. Spending time with him, being attracted to him, talking to him. It made her think about how she didn’t like what her father was doing. It made her realise the full capacity of what Cliff was asking her to sacrifice.

  It wasn’t so much marriage itself, since the institution was easily escapable, as her parents’ marriage had shown. If the marriage was based on normal things, that was. Love or respect or mutual admiration. Things that might fade over time. But her marriage would be a business contract. Those were harder to get out of. Business contracts with her father would be impossible to get out of. Was a job, however much she loved it, worth sacrificing her freedom for? Was the chance—the chance—of her father’s love and approval worth giving up her future?

  It caused her chest to ache, that thought. The knowledge. She knew that her father wouldn’t change simply because she’d done what he’d asked. She’d had years and years of experience that told her that wouldn’t happen. He would go back to ignoring her—or, worse, using her again and again because she was more accessible to him. It would break her. But now the question was whether giving up the hope of a proper relationship with her father would break her more than that would.

  The emptiness and hurt echoing in her body reminded her why she hadn’t examined her feelings about the situation. She shut them down, took a shower, and prepared for her day with Micah. He would ensure that she’d forget her problems, at least for the next few days. Her eagerness for him had nothing to do with him though. Things might have shifted slightly between them the night before, but this? This was all about forgetting her situation. It had nothing to do with him.

  Her heart begged to differ when she got to breakfast. It skipped a beat when Micah looked up from his tablet and smiled. His teeth were white against his brown skin, bouncing off the white of the linen shirt he wore. When he stood, she saw he’d paired the shirt with dark blue chinos and white sneakers that could have been brand new, they were so immaculate.

  ‘You look pretty hip,’ she said, taking a seat opposite him.

  ‘I had to look decent since I was spending the day with you.’

  She pinched her thigh under the table so she wouldn’t swoon at those words. ‘What did you look like before?’

  ‘A businessperson.’

  ‘Ah, yes, and we both know businesspeople don’t look decent.’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘I wanted to look appropriately tourist-like.’

  ‘You absolutely succeed.’ She gestured around them. ‘As you can see, most of the tourists here look as if they’ve walked off the catwalk.’

  ‘Elena,’ he said, expression pained, ‘would you like me to change?’

  ‘I was teasing.’ She shook her napkin out and set it on her lap. ‘You should have known that, since I was clearly complimenting you. Are you nervous about how you look or something?’

  ‘No.’

  He said it too quickly. He was nervous, so much so that he didn’t want to talk about it. She had questions: Was it because the clothes were new? Did he never dress casually? Had he never simply been a tourist before? Were all his experiences overseas business?

  She asked none of it. Because he’d clearly tried, for her benefit, and that was sweeter than she knew how to articulate.

  ‘I think there was a compliment in there for me, too,’ she said instead. ‘Clearly you’re aspiring to my fashion sense and I appreciate that.’

  She wondered if he knew how much relief was in his smile.

  ‘You do look...er...decent today. I like the crown.’

  She smiled and touched the arrangement of flowers on her head. ‘I bought it in a shop nearby. It’s ridiculously extra, but I like it. Plus, it makes me look like a silly tourist and I kind of like that.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I know it’s silly. Who wants to look like a tourist? It’s like putting a target on my back. Or on my forehead. But I don’t know, I guess...’

  She trailed off at the way he was looking at her. ‘What?’

  ‘You’re rambling.’

  ‘Micah,’ she said slowly, ‘I know you’re not an expert on social interactions, but pointing things like that out isn’t polite.’

  ‘I thought you wanted me to be honest?’

  She had nothing to say to that. Because yeah, she wanted him to be honest. But how did she tell him there was a thing like being too honest?

  His chuckle drew her out of her confusion.

  ‘Oh, you think this is funny?’

  ‘It is.’ He grinned. ‘Payback is always fun.’

  ‘Payback... Oh, for your clothes?’ At his nod, she laughed. ‘Haven’t you heard the phrase “Revenge is a dish best served cold”?’

  ‘I’ve never been a big believer of that. Personally, I think revenge is best served as soon as possible so neither party forgets.’

  ‘Your brain is a wonder,’ she said, shaking her head.

  ‘Thank you.’

  She rolled her eyes at that response. ‘So. What’s on the agenda today?’

  She stole his coffee as he went through their day, interrupting occasionally to ask a question or tease him. He made it so easy. He often said something that could be understood in several different ways, and she would purposely understand the wrong meanings. That frustrated him, or annoyed him, which made her laugh, then he would laugh, and it all made her breathe more easily than she had in a long time.

  It was leaps and bounds away from how she’d perceived him before. He was still charming, but that charm came from him being himself. From his mistakes, his laughter. The way he wasn’t performing a persona. She didn’t think he’d appreciate if she announced it to the world, but he didn’t mind being that way with her. She felt touched. And warm. That warmth was so precious that she held it close, like the only light in a room of darkness.

  That metaphor was alarming, even to her.

  * * *

  ‘I know that I shouldn’t be this excited to go on a boat since I’ve done it before, but this makes me so happy.’

  Elena did a little stomp with her legs, before twirling in a circle. It made the skirt of her dress whirl around her. Micah tried to focus on the top half of her, but there was a delay in the shift of his gaze—he couldn’t help it—and he got a glimpse of full brown flesh. It was as enticing as the rest of her. She wore a bright yellow dress, as if she’d realised how much sunlight she’d brought to his life. With her flower crown, she looked like a summer goddess.

  It worried him how badly he wanted to worship her.

  ‘It isn’t a boat. It’s a gondola.’

  ‘My mistake,’ she said blandly, and made him smile. She did that a lot. And he was smiling more than he ever had before. That worried him, too. But it didn’t stop him from smiling at her. Or from thinking about how different she was now, when she wasn’t thinking about the decision she had to make.

  What if she didn’t have to make it?

  He couldn’t pay attention to the thought when the gondolier called for them to get in. He did, using the man’s help, then gently nudged him aside to help Elena. She smiled brightly, and it became obvious why he’d wanted to help her. Apparently, he would do anything to get that smile. To keep it there, too.

  It stuck as they sat down and the gon
dola began to float down the canal. It was a bright, sunny day, and the blue-green of the water around them sparkled as it stretched between buildings. A gentleman began to sing, rich and deep, and Elena sighed at his side. She snuggled closer, not intentionally, he didn’t think, but it made him hold his breath.

  That might not have been the right description of it. It was more like someone was squeezing his lungs, so he had less capacity to breathe. He’d felt that way the entire day. When they’d been exploring the stores around St Mark’s Square. Or when Elena had insisted on feeding the pigeons, then got alarmed when more and more of them came.

  ‘What is it with you and pigeons?’ he’d asked. ‘I told you this wouldn’t end well.’

  ‘I thought you were exaggerating. You exaggerate.’

  ‘You live in Cape Town, Elena. You’ve been to the Waterfront. You know what pigeons are like.’

  ‘I thought European pigeons would be different.’

  He’d laughed, harder when she hid behind him. She’d ended up giving the bag of seeds to a kid before running away, causing the pigeons to scatter. They’d eaten pasta and chocolate crêpes and taken pictures. Once, Elena had photobombed another couple, then apologised profusely and taken about twenty pictures of them alone to make up for it. Now they were here, on the canal, having someone sing to them.

  It was a lot to process. Not the experience, but the emotions that accompanied it. And the thoughts. Those insidious thoughts that had popped into his mind all day, then scurried away before he could put his finger on what they were suggesting. They all pooled together now though, growing into an idea that stole his breath.

  It was based on never wanting to see Elena as tortured as she had been the night before. To keep her as happy as she was now, as she had been all day. It was built by the memories of how she’d elevated his business banquet that night in Rome because she fitted so perfectly into his world. She went head to head with him when he did something stupid, forced him to think about the way he treated people, and made him feel more like himself than he ever had. If he’d ever encountered his equal, she was it.