Contract for Marriage

by Barbara Deleo

Christo hesitated then frowned, weighing up how much to tell her. The power and passion in her voice caused him to hesitate. “It won’t change anything.”

  “I need to understand. Maybe if I understand what’s led us here I can find a way out.”

  He leaned back in his chair, surveying her, and the desperation in her soft face unbuckled a part of him that had been locked down for years. “Your father knew about your mother’s affair. He was blackmailing her by threatening that if she didn’t stay with him he’d publish an exposé on her brother’s crooked business dealings, Lorenzo’s links to gambling dens, and corporate embezzlement.”

  Ruby fell against the back of the chair as if his words had been a physical force. Her voice dipped. “Mum stayed with him to protect Uncle Lorenzo?”

  “And to protect you.”

  She watched him warily. “How would that protect me?”

  “Are you sure you want to know this? After all this time?”

  She looked at him without flinching. “Tell me everything, Christo. I need to know.”

  He nodded once, satisfied she was ready. “He said you’d never be able to work in publishing back here if your uncle was exposed. Your mother was desperate for you to come back and would have done anything to make it happen. Your father knew that if the scandal came out, not only would he have no chance at the local government career he wanted, you’d have no future in Auckland either.”

  She shook her head. “Why didn’t my mother tell me any of this? My father’s been dead for over a year. Surely she could have told the truth after that.”

  Christo shrugged. “She knew you idolized him. And since she believed everything was lost between you, she thought it was better for this to be left unsaid.”

  Ruby stared at a watermark on the table where her bottle had sat. “I don’t know whether to feel more sorry for Mum, or Dad. To go to those sorts of lengths, Dad must’ve been desperate to stay with her.”

  Christo scoffed. “Desperate to keep his own public persona squeaky clean.” The injustice of being banished seared hot in his memory. “Your father had a procession of girlfriends. The night before he kicked me out, he’d seen me at a society polo match. I saw him with a couple of much younger women. That was the real reason he threw me out. He didn’t want you to know.”

  …

  Ruby fought the nausea climbing in her throat. She didn’t want to revisit that night right now or listen to Christo’s excuses. The news about her father blackmailing her mother was enough to cope with. “Did my mother have a procession of lovers as well?”

  Christo shook his head. “Just one. For fifteen years.”

  “Fifteen?” An ache of confusion burned behind Ruby’s eyes. “Does that mean…she was still with him when she died?”

  He nodded slowly and she scoured her mind as to who it might’ve been. “One of her friends? Someone I knew?”

  “Someone you knew very well. Someone who lost his home about the same time I did.”

  Ruby’s heart stopped beating. “David? The gardener, David?” She remembered the quiet man with the gentle smile. As a little girl she’d taken his hand as they’d walked the flowerbeds, and he’d recited the names of the roses her mother had loved so much. She’d helped him bring bunches of them to fill the house with vibrant color, sweet perfume. Things her mother had held so dear.

  “He was the love of her life. He left for Europe when your mother died.”

  Like a wave building from the depths of the ocean floor, Ruby realized what had happened all those years ago and tears began to sting.

  Christo spoke her thoughts. “Your father didn’t want the shame of your mother having an affair with the hired help. He didn’t want that from you either. Both revelations would’ve tainted his shiny public image.”

  Ruby slumped back in her chair as Christo’s announcements spun a web around her. “Did he care about it that much?”

  “He was standing for council. His reputation as a big shot publisher should’ve stood him in good stead. If the fact that both his wife and daughter had been having affairs with the lower classes got out, it might’ve affected voters. As would a scandal where his wife left him for the gardener.”

  Ruby sat in stunned silence for what seemed like an eternity. Christo waited, sipping his drink, giving her the time she needed to gather together all the scattered pieces. One thought pushed above all the others.

  “You knew all this when he kicked you out and you didn’t tell me?” It was a betrayal—keeping information about her own family from her, as if he knew what was best.

  Christo gave a cold laugh. “You didn’t want to know the truth, Ruby. About me or your mother.”

  She couldn’t help bitterness slipping into her voice. “You’re saying you weren’t dating other women? That being at that polo match was for the enjoyment of the game and nothing more? I asked you for an explanation back then, but you couldn’t get away quickly enough.”

  For a moment, his mask dropped and he looked at her with frank honesty. “I was nineteen, Ruby. Cancer free and ready to meet the world head on. A boy who could suddenly see the full implications of the difference between the haves and have-nots. Before you and I became close, I had offers and propositions, women who said they could take me places. I won’t deny being at that polo match to develop connections for my business ideas, but I wasn’t dating anyone else. As we began spending time together, you were all I could think about.”

  A flush swept her body. Was he speaking the truth?

  It didn’t matter. His charm was part of what had made her fall so heavily for him before. The fact that he could use it to suit any need, or any person—honorable or not—was what made him so untrustworthy. Whether he’d cheated on her or not, he was using her for his own gain back then and he was still doing it now. “All I knew from that time is that you didn’t want to communicate with me after my father told you to leave. I waited for an explanation but you gave me nothing. Instead of finding me and answering my questions, you left and never returned. I didn’t serve your purpose anymore.”

  “And I didn’t serve yours. You’d shocked your father by sleeping with me, as was your plan all along. If you’d had faith in me you wouldn’t have needed an explanation.”

  “Faith is earned through identifiable actions, Christo. Respecting someone enough to move heaven and earth to give them the answers they deserve. Not using people for your own ends.” Pushing their history to the side to think about later, she refocused on her family. “I don’t understand why Mum stayed with Dad. If he was so awful why did she remain in the house?”

  “She had no choice. She’d poured all her own money into rescuing Lorenzo. Your father had control of the house. David had lost his home and his job. Your mother was trapped through blackmail.”

  A vision of her mother, trapped and lonely, filled her mind. She twisted in her seat, body aching with the tension in her limbs. “At least she had the house when he died.”

  He shook his head. “She didn’t even have that. Your father had it tangled up in a complicated trust. Only after she fought through the courts when he died were the house and grounds returned to her name.”

  “If things were that tight, how on Earth did she afford things like the upkeep and your mother’s wages?”

  “I paid for everything.”

  Ruby gasped, but after all she’d discovered in the last day she shouldn’t have been surprised. “Mum was such a proud person. I can’t imagine her accepting your money.”

  His shoulder lifted in a lazy shrug. “She didn’t know it was mine. I arranged it with her lawyer. As far as she knew the cash came from some bonds your father had forgotten to hide from her.”

  Her heart swelled for what he’d done for his mother and hers. “That was an incredibly generous thing to do.”

  “If I hadn’t, the house would’ve fallen into disrepair and my mother would’ve lost the job she held dear, the home she loved.”

  As his declaration sank in, Ruby tri
ed to untangle the ruthless, take-no-prisoners Christo from the man who’d sheltered her mother from more heartbreak. How could she dig beneath his steely exterior to find the softer part of his heart that must beat sometimes?

  “What I don’t understand is why mother did the same thing my father did in his will. Instead of passing the house on to their next of kin, both left it in tangled and complicated circumstances where their family has to fight for it.”

  “Understand this.” His voice had returned to the distant, cold tone she’d heard so often in the last two days. “My mother stood by Antonia through your father’s recriminations and double life, through you abandoning her, through Lorenzo’s shady deals. Antonia wanted to acknowledge my mother, but she wanted to provide for you too. She couldn’t leave the house to my mother outright so she left it to both you and me, knowing I had the wherewithal to buy you out. That way both of you would be taken care of. She hadn’t counted on any resistance from you.”

  “If only I’d known all this, she and I could’ve talked about it, sorted things out. If she’d only given me the chance.” Her heart squeezed. “But now it’s too late.”

  “It’s not too late for your baby. One decision can change everything.”

  Her head spun as she watched him warily. He could so easily push his advantage now if he wanted to—remind her what the letter had said about her mother wanting Stella to have it. But this wasn’t just about the house anymore. Now he wanted so much more from her. He wanted her child.

  “So, how do you know all this?” she asked. “Why would Mum have opened up to you about it?”

  He leaned closer, both hands together only inches from hers. The light from the wall behind him cast shadows across his face, making him look not so very different from the nineteen-year-old boy she’d known a lifetime ago. “Your mother welcomed me back in the house after your father died, and we became closer. She understood that, like her, I’d been maligned and maltreated by your father and by you.”

  She ignored the barb. “I’m glad you were there for her, Christo.”

  “And I’ll be here for you too. Both you and your baby. Marrying me is the only solution.”

  She swallowed. “Even though you now know this was all kept from me, you’ll still fight on?”

  His unrelenting gaze held her motionless. “Now that you understand everything—why your mother felt so indebted to my mother—you must see now that marriage is the only solution. Antonia wanted my mother to have that house. You want it too.”

  “What you’re offering me wouldn’t be a real family. How can I do that to my child?”

  He was so close now she could see each one of his inky black lashes. “It would be a lot healthier than the family you had,” he said. “This baby will have two parents who would do anything for their child. Available parents whose relationship wasn’t diseased by unrequited love or unreasonable expectation. I know you, Ruby, and you know me. There will be no surprises, no emotional roller coasters. We’re both strong, passionate people who’ll put a child first. And when you marry me your child can have a live-in grandmother who would love him like her own.”

  “And parents who don’t share a bedroom.”

  He snared her with a look of simmering desire. “I don’t see why not.”

  She couldn’t disguise her shock. “So you’d want the marriage to be consummated?”

  “Of course. Our marriage would be for life, so what choice would there be? I, for one, couldn’t live with being celibate, and I would never break my vows and look for sex outside the union.”

  Ruby placed both palms flat on the table and stared straight into his hungry eyes as her heart beat out of her chest. “If sex is a requirement of this marriage of convenience then there is absolutely no way I’ll agree. Ever.”

  She’d once loved him with her body, but that had been when she’d also loved him with her heart. She wouldn’t fall back into his bed. He was a different man. Older. Cynical. More calculating. And he still only wanted her for what she could provide. There was something hard and cold inside him now. She couldn’t let herself forget that.

  He arched an eyebrow. “So, you’re saying that without sex you’ll agree to a marriage? That we’ll share the house so our child can grow up in a healthy family? An emotionally stable family?”

  Ruby lifted her chin. There were no more options, no other way to right the wrongs of the past, to give her baby the opportunity to grow up in the home of its ancestors. His point that they knew each other so well, strengths and weaknesses, had touched something in her and she wondered if that might, indeed, be the best environment to bring a baby up in.

  “If we draw up watertight agreements and contracts to safeguard the house, if we agree to a commitment to my child’s future, and if we agree to no sex.”

  Christo leaned fractionally closer. “Let’s start with that,” he said.

  Chapter Six

  “Ready?” Christo asked as he held the sleek door of his convertible open for Ruby.

  Moments earlier they’d glided through enormous security gates, driven down through a densely wooded driveway, and pulled up at a grand entrance staircase. It had been almost twenty-four hours since she’d agreed to marry Christo, but it still felt like a dream. A fantasy. And yet it felt strangely possible. Something had shifted deep inside when Christo had told her the truth about her parents, like a part of her that had been buried was beginning to find the light.

  “I thought you said your mother was in your apartment.” She looked up at the enormous dwelling that blocked the afternoon sun. “This is almost as big as my…” She tripped on the words. “It’s almost as big as the estate.” The modern wooden and steel structure sat magnificently on a plateau overlooking the sparkling waters of Waitemata Harbor. With Rangitoto Island’s volcanic cone in the distance, the view was the same as the view from her own front garden, give or take a few degrees on the compass.

  “Technically, it’s an apartment,” he said, as he shut the car door. “With separate entranceways, but I can make it into a single dwelling if I wish.” Guiding her up the stairs, he placed his palm at the small of her back and immediately a shower of sparks raced through her midriff.

  A primal craving for more of his touch flamed from somewhere within, but she pushed it away and forced herself to listen to him.

  “The penthouse suite at the top is where my mother is. The other apartments below are for family who visit from Greece.”

  “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

  “Not according to my mother.” The pressure of his palm increased as he ushered her through the giant wooden doors, and she had to focus harder on what he was saying. “I bought this a few years ago, hoping to convince her that it would be a great place for her retirement. Sea views and native bush as she’s used to, a cook’s kitchen with a specially planted garden with all her Greek herbs. She wouldn’t hear of it. Wouldn’t think of leaving your mother.”

  Her heart warmed. Ruby had always loved Stella, but all this new knowledge, the lengths she’d gone to for Antonia, made her want to thank Christo’s mother in person. One good thing to come out of all of this was that she would have Stella Mantazis back in her life—as a grandmother to her child.

  Inside, across an expansive marble floor, they reached an elevator and Christo pressed the up-arrow. He slung a hand in the pocket of his pale chinos and looked at her. “I’ve confirmed to the organizing committee at tomorrow’s event that I’ll attend and you’ll be accompanying me.”

  Ruby nodded then tilted her face to his. “So, we’re still playing by the rules of leaving the house together?”

  His broad shoulders straightened. “I’ll inform Tim today about our plans, but until we’re married and the finer print of the contract has been discussed, it’s prudent to follow the terms of the will.”

  Obviously he didn’t trust that she’d stick to their agreement. Despite the intensity of yesterday’s proposal, he was still doing everything to keep her at arm�
�s length. And did that mean she couldn’t leave without his permission?

  She clasped her hands together in front and pushed calm into her voice. “Then that could be a problem.”

  He swung his gaze to her as she continued. “Now I’ve made the commitment to stay in Auckland, I’ll need to return to New York to sell my apartment and make plans for my things to be shipped. I have good friends I want to say good-bye to, but I’ll be back within the week.”

  She’d spent much of the morning making arrangements—handing in her notice at the magazine, putting her apartment on the market. She’d expected to feel apprehensive, that she’d second-guess her decision to stay in New Zealand permanently under these circumstances, but as each tie from her old life was cut, she felt more and more sure she’d made the right decision for her child. And for her. She’d already imagined hunting out her old swing chair to hang back up in the ancient apple tree. And she’d lain awake last night planning which bedroom she could turn into a nursery.

  His dark eyes flared. “A return to New York right now’s impossible. A marriage license takes at least three days to organize and then there’s the venue to arrange, guest lists to draw up. Your trip will wait until we’re married.”

  She paused, and her throat dried. “You’d imagined an elaborate occasion? I couldn’t go through with this sort of marriage in a church. No, it’s not possible.”

  “Our marriage will demonstrate our commitment to the agreement. Something that can be witnessed by your family, and my mother especially. I want there to be no doubt in anyone’s mind that this is a marriage, a commitment to be honored.”

  She swallowed. A traditional ceremony certainly wasn’t what she’d imagined. She’d pictured just enough to tick the official boxes, ensure the security of the house, and a future for her baby. The thought of standing in a church in a pure white gown put a whole different spin on things. “My trip can’t wait, Christo. I owe it to my employer to wrap up my job properly. And I want to ensure I get the best price for my apartment. I need to go as soon as possible.”