Sexy Billionaires

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘He’s not breathing; I don’t think his heart’s beating.’ Looking up, she surveyed the stunned and horrified crowd. She had wrongly expected some sort of reaction to her statement, for someone to snap to attention, for some assistance. But no one was moving.

  No one except Zavier. Kneeling astride his father, after a momentary pause he took control in an instant. ‘Someone call an ambulance—is anyone a doctor?’ Bending forward, he pinched his father’s nose and gave him the kiss of life, nodding briefly as Tabitha leant on the lifeless, still chest and pushed as she had seen on the television, berating herself over and over for her lack of knowledge, for the awkward giggles expended in that first aid course when she really should have listened.

  ‘Can I help?’

  The oldest man Tabitha had ever seen was being pushed forward by a tearful Marjory, his old bones leaning heavily on a walking stick, small eyes magnified by the thickest glasses imaginable.

  ‘Gilbert’s the family doctor,’ Marjory sobbed.

  A smile that was absolutely out of place tugged at the corner of her lips as she registered Zavier’s horror, and, most amazingly of all, when his eyes briefly met hers he returned her smile.

  ‘We’re doing fine,’ Zavier clipped between breaths. ‘Perhaps Gilbert could ring Melbourne, line up Dad’s cardiac doctor.’

  Her hair was plastered to her head with sweat, her arms aching with the sheer exertion of keeping Jeremy’s heart pumping, and she knew she couldn’t go on for much longer.

  ‘Aiden, help me here.’ She looked at the stricken face of her dearest friend and her heart went out to him, but she needed his help. ‘Aiden?’ she pleaded.

  But all Aiden could do was stand and weep. ‘Please, Dad, breathe,’ he begged, tears streaming down his face as she worked on the inert body of his father.

  ‘Do you want to swap?’ Zavier offered, but Tabitha shook her head, knowing Zavier was working just as hard as her and that seconds lost in moving would be seconds Jeremy needed.

  On she worked, the hot sun on the back of her neck, her eyes blurry from sweat and make-up and mascara that clearly wasn’t as waterproof as it said on the tube, almost weeping with relief when finally the sound of sirens in the distance permeated the sultry afternoon air.

  Exhausted, she leant back on her heels as the paramedics took over, clipping endless monitors to the still lifeless body, pushing oxygen into his mouth through a bag. Tabitha tried to move back on cramped legs that wouldn’t obey her.

  ‘We’re going to shock him,’ the paramedic said sombrely, and Tabitha knew that it was now or never. ‘Everybody back.’

  Strong arms lifted her out of the way, and without looking she knew instinctively it was Zavier.

  The defibrillator paddles were placed on Jeremy’s chest and they all stood back as the paramedic delivered an electric shock in an attempt to restore the chaotic rhythm of Jeremy’s heartbeat.

  ‘Again. Everybody back.’

  Her legs were trembling so violently she thought she might sink back to the floor. But Zavier’s strong arms were still around her, holding her tightly as they stared transfixed at the monitor. Her mind was on Jeremy, willing him to live, and yet with Zavier’s arms around her she couldn’t help but draw from his strength, couldn’t help but lean on him slightly. Never had she felt closer to him.

  Surely now there must be a chance for them?

  A loud blip emanated from the monitor, and they watched as the flat green line flickered once, then twice, and then again, the blips becoming more frequent. An audible sigh of relief filled the room as Jeremy’s heart reverted to a stable rhythm.

  ‘Thank God,’ Tabitha muttered, more to herself than anyone else, but for some reason her words seemed to incense Zavier. As if suddenly conscious that he was touching her, holding her, he dropped her out of his arms as if he was holding hot coal.

  ‘Why the relief?’ he snapped, his eyes full of hatred, contempt. ‘Were you worried you mightn’t get the second instalment?’

  With horror, Tabitha swung to face him, her optimism of a moment before, the slim belief that now there might be a chance for them, evaporating in the heat that radiated from his eyes. But there was no time to argue the point. Jeremy Chambers had to take precedence here.

  This was no time to tell him she loved him.

  ‘Is there anything else I can do?’ Ashen, trembling, she offered her assistance to the paramedics as Zavier organised the guests to clear chairs and prepare a makeshift landing pad.

  ‘The best thing you can do is to have a large brandy, love. Not the nicest thing to happen at your wedding, is it? We’re waiting for the helicopter to arrive. We’re going to take him direct to Melbourne.’

  Aiden, shouting into a mobile phone, came over then. ‘The doctors are on standby.’

  ‘I’m coming with him.’ Marjory’s affected tearful tones carried across the garden.

  ‘Sorry, love.’ The paramedic shook his head. ‘He’s really too sick.’

  ‘I’m coming,’ Marjory said resolutely, her voice void of hysteria now. There was an air of authority and a strange dignity as she knelt beside the stretcher and took Jeremy’s lifeless hand. Turning briefly, she looked the paramedic square in the eye. ‘I won’t get in the way; you have my word. If my husband is about to die I want to be with him.’

  ‘I’ll look after her.’ Aiden was grey himself, trembling violently, his teeth chattering noisily. ‘She ought to be with him.’

  The whirring chopper blades heralded the arrival of the transfer team. Everyone was moved back as it landed, its whirring blades buffeting the marquee, ladies’ hats and dresses flapping as the noise drowned out any conversation.

  As they loaded Jeremy into the back Aiden turned to Tabitha, squeezing her hands tightly. ‘I’ll see you at the hospital.’

  But Zavier had other ideas. ‘You’ll do no such thing. I’m taking her back to her house and then I’ll meet you at the hospital.’

  ‘But she ought to be there,’ Aiden argued.

  ‘What for?’ he snapped. ‘We both know she’s not the caring daughter-in-law to be. Mum and Dad are the only concern here. Look after them and I’ll meet you there just as soon as I can.’

  The paramedics were ready to go now, and there was no time to debate the issue.

  ‘Keep your chin up, Aiden.’ Tabitha kissed him fondly on his tear-streaked cheek. ‘Everything will work out.’

  If only she could believe her own words.

  He stood over her as she packed, not saying a word, his dark eyes watching her every move as Tabitha piled her possessions into her suitcase.

  ‘Could you leave me alone for just five minutes?’

  She desperately needed to go to the bathroom, to peel off her dress, undo her hair, to somehow remove every trace of the awful charade she had engineered. Dressed in her best, she seemed to embody the hard-faced bitch Zavier assumed she was, and suddenly it seemed imperative he saw her as she was, not as the sleek, sophisticated woman of earlier.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere. Just hurry up, will you?’

  ‘Are you scared that I might run off with a few choice items?’

  ‘It did enter my head.’

  His patience snapped then. It was almost as if he couldn’t bear to watch her a moment longer; couldn’t stand being in the same room any longer than absolutely necessary. Pulling out the top drawer of the dresser, he tipped the contents into her case. She watched with mounting trepidation as he strode over to the wardrobe, grabbing her dresses and piling them into the case without even bothering to take them off their hangers.

  Her underwear drawer was the next recipient of his simmering anger. Grabbing handfuls of lingerie, his face livid with unvented rage, he tossed them on top of her dresses before snapping the case firmly closed.

  ‘Anything that’s been left behind I’ll have sent on to you. Now come on.’

  ‘Please, Zavier, can I just come to the hospital? Surely your mother will expect me to be there?’

&
nbsp; ‘My God, you just don’t give up, do you? It’s over, Tabitha. The wedding is off—we don’t have to pretend any more.’

  ‘I didn’t mean for that. I just want to see how Jeremy is—how you all are…’ The thought of going home without knowing if Jeremy had lived or died was unbearable, but more to the point she wanted to be there for Zavier, to help him through what would undoubtedly be the worst night of his life.

  Because that was what lovers did: they were there for each other.

  But Zavier had other ideas. ‘Save the crocodile tears; I’m taking you home, Tabitha.’

  He didn’t even wait for her to put on her seat belt, accelerating out of the drive as if the devil himself were chasing them. She sat there shivering and stunned, staring out of the side window, watching the dark inky ocean whizzing past as his car hugged the bay road.

  The drive to Lorne had taken hours, probably because she had wanted to get there. But now she didn’t want to leave suddenly time seemed to be moving faster, the shimmering night skyline of Melbourne drawing ever nearer. She dreaded arriving. However strained the silence, however huge the loathing emanating from him, any contact, however painful, was better than none. The bleak empty wilderness of her life stretched before her: a life without Zavier.

  This had never been part of the game, had never been the intended prize; love had come when everyone had said it would: when she was least expecting it.

  And losing it for ever hurt like hell.

  He pulled over into a lookout, a move that surprised Tabitha, who sat staring ahead as he opened the door and without a word left the car. Idly staring into the night sky, his profile strong in the moonlight, he stood motionless.

  Unsure, she sat a moment in the car, memorising every last detail of him. As if sensing her longing, he turned his head, raising his hand to beckon her to join him.

  ‘It’s all right.’ His lips hardly moved as he spoke. ‘I’m not about to throw you in.’

  She managed a shallow laugh as she teetered towards him, her high heels no match for the sandy inlet. ‘Thank goodness. I’d sink like a stone with all the cutlery I shoved down my bra.’

  The tiny spark of humour between them shifted the mood away from the volatile anger of before; he looked sad now—jaded, perhaps, but infinitely more approachable.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be getting to the hospital?’ she ventured.

  ‘I don’t want to go,’ he replied simply.

  Honestly.

  She didn’t know how to respond; hearing the break in his voice tore at her heart.

  ‘I just need a moment; it’s going to be pretty messy when I get there.’ He swallowed hard and she realised then the pain he was in. How hard it must be for Zavier at times like this. How hard it must be to always be the strong one, to have everyone leaning on you, turning to you for every last thing. The lynchpin of the family, the breadwinner, the organiser, and sometimes the adjudicator.

  ‘He might make it.’ She tried to inject some hope into her voice, tried to give him something to cling to, something to sustain him, but miracles seemed in short supply today.

  Zavier shrugged helplessly. ‘It doesn’t look great, though, does it? I know that really there’s no chance, that this surely must be it. Tabitha, what I said to you about the contract—I really didn’t mean it. I’m truly sorry for my words. You were amazing back there, and if my father does live he owes his life to you.’

  Tabitha knew then that this was her only chance. If she didn’t say it now, couldn’t be there for him, to support him through what was undoubtedly about to come, then there wasn’t much point.

  Maybe Zavier was right, maybe her grandmother’s affliction was hereditary, for she was about to take the biggest gamble of her life.

  ‘I didn’t do it for money.’ The words were out now, and she swallowed, watching closely for his reaction.

  ‘I know, and I had no right to imply that you did. I just saw red all of a sudden. I thought he was dead…’

  ‘I’m not talking about your father’s heart attack.’ Her teeth were chattering as badly as Aiden’s had been, but she forced herself to take a deep breath and calm down. ‘I love you, Zavier. I always have. I wasn’t marrying you for money.’

  She heard the hiss of his breath as he exhaled loudly, stepped back as she watched his face darken, jumped as she heard the venom of his attack. ‘My God, I wondered how long it would take you to play your last card.’

  She’d never expected him to take her in his arms, to accept her words without question, but the pungent delivery of his statement was a million miles away from any scenario she had tentatively imagined.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Her arms shot out to him, as if somehow by touching him she might reach him, might make him hear the truth in her words. ‘I love you, Zavier. I honestly love you.’

  ‘Please.’ He flicked her hand away, cruelly, dismissively. ‘Have you any idea how many women have said that to me? “Oh, Zavier, this has nothing to do with money.’” His voice simpered in a derisive generalisation of the female population, then returned to its harsh reality. ‘This has everything to do with money, Tabitha. That was all it was ever about. And do you know what the saddest part is—the saddest bloody part of this whole charade?’ He was shouting now, and she shook her head dumbly, shocked and stunned at the anger her declaration had unleashed. ‘Believe it or not, I actually loved you.’

  He stopped then, as stunned as she was by the admission.

  It was Tabitha who broke the silence. ‘You love me?’ she gasped, her voice choked with wonder. But he broke in quickly, shattering her one second of salvation.

  ‘Loved you,’ he corrected. ‘Past tense, Tabitha. That’s all you’ll ever be to me. I’ve spent my whole life wondering how my father could have been so weak, how he could have stayed with my mother knowing that she didn’t love him, knowing she was only there for the life he could give her.’ Finally his eyes found hers. ‘And then you came along, Tabitha…’

  She stood there transfixed, listening with tears streaming down her face to his revelations.

  ‘And suddenly I didn’t think my father was so weak any more. I actually understood him. That first night we met, my intention was to get you to my room—a kiss, perhaps, just enough to prove what I already knew—that you didn’t love Aiden—to shame you into staying away from him. It was never my intention to…’ He closed his eyes fleetingly. ‘I don’t think I need to remind you what happened, but in case you missed it I fell in love that night—fell so hard it hurt. I spent the next five days trying to work out how I could see you again, how to be with you, how to stop you taking up Aiden’s offer of marriage.’

  ‘I was never going to accept it,’ she pleaded, but it fell on deaf ears.

  ‘I could have married you knowing it was a business deal. I even figured that once you’d had a taste of the high life you might hang around—we could even have made it to forty years, like my parents. Yesterday, when you told me it wasn’t your debt, I felt sick, physically sick at the prospect of losing you. I felt like the biggest heel in the world for still making you stick to the contract, but it was nothing compared to the terror I felt when you realised you could pay me back. I didn’t want to lose you, Tabitha.’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ she argued, tears coursing down her cheeks, begging for him to listen, to finally understand. But her tears didn’t move him, didn’t sway him an inch from the lonely moral high ground he was taking.

  ‘I could almost have lived with it. Knowing you were with me for the lifestyle didn’t seem to matter so long as I had you in my arms at night. But I knew the one thing I wouldn’t be able to bear was you pretending that you loved me; the one thing I wouldn’t be able to stand was hearing you lie to me.’

  ‘I’m not lying now, Zavier. You have to believe me…’

  ‘You’re a con-artist, Tabitha.’ The venom returned to his voice then, his words ripping at her very core. ‘You’ve beguiled each and every one of us at every turn. First
you’re Aiden’s girlfriend, then a gambler, then you change your story when it suits you so your grandmother’s the one with the problem—and then, when it all falls through, when there’s no chance I’ll marry you, you throw in the fact you supposedly love me in an attempt to win me round.’

  ‘But I do love you,’ she pleaded. ‘I have since that first night…’

  ‘I might be weak where you’re concerned but I’m not a fool. How can I ever believe a word that you say?’

  The full magnitude of her loss hit her then—a loss of insurmountable proportions. This sophisticated, strong, beautiful man had loved her. This aching, gaping void, which would surely be her life now, was the price of her deception.

  What had started as a silly game had cost her dearly.

  There was no point arguing over the small details, no point pleading her case; she was guilty as charged, and though the sentence was harsh there was nothing to gain from an appeal.

  Just the hell of agony prolonged.

  The tears that had started at the outlook flowed unchecked as they drove on, the ocean too quickly replaced by the freeway, the city drawing closer and closer and closer, until finally it was upon them. The car slowed down as it drove through the empty late-night streets. Every light was green, of course, as if the whole world was conspiring to ensure the imminent ending was a swift one.

  Popping the boot, he stayed in the front, clenching the steering wheel as she hauled her suitcase onto the street and up the path, her heels clipping noisily as she dragged the case along. But he didn’t drive off; she had known he wouldn’t. Ever the gentleman, despite his wrath, he would see her safely inside.

  It only took a second of rummaging through her bag for her to realise that her keys weren’t where they should be.