‘Fun!’ She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
‘It’s no big deal.’
‘But it is for me.’
‘It’s about time that you grew up, then.’
She had never expected him to be cruel, but she had no idea what she was dealing with. Niklas could be cruel when necessary, and today it was.
Very necessary.
He could not look at her. She was sitting on the bed in tears, pleading with him, and also, he noted, growing increasingly angry. Her voice rose as she told him that he was the one who needed to grow up, that he was the one who needed to sort out his life, and her hands were waving. Any minute now he thought she would rise and attack him. He wanted to catch her wrists and kiss the fear away, wanted to feel just for a moment her body writhing in anger and to reassure her—except he had nothing he could reassure her with. He knew how bad things would be shortly, so he had to be cruel to be kind.
‘What did you have to marry me for?’ she shouted. ‘I was clearly already going to sleep with you…’
She was about to lunge at him, Niklas knew. She was kneeling on the bed, still grabbing the sheet around her for now, but in a moment it would be off. Her green eyes were flashing, her teeth bared and with his next words he knew he would end this.
‘I told you yesterday.’ He went to the bedside and flicked a few foil packets to the floor. ‘I don’t like condoms.’
He took the clawing to his cheek, stood there as she sprang towards him, then caught and held her naked fury by the arms for a moment. And then he pushed her back on the bed.
And as simply as that he was gone.
* * *
A minute ago the only things on her mind had been breakfast and making love with her new husband.
Now they were talking annulments and settlements.
Or rather they weren’t talking.
He was gone.
He had left with cruel words and livid scratches on his cheek and she just lay there, reeling, her anger like a weight that did not propel her, but instead seemed to pin her down to the bed. It was actually an achievement to breathe.
A few minutes later Meg realised she was breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth, as she had done on the plane during take-off. Her own body was rallying to bring her out from the panic she now found herself in. Still she lay there and tried to make sense of something there was no sense to be made of.
He had played her.
Right from the start it had all been just a game to him.
Except this was her life.
Maybe he was right. Maybe she did need to grow up. If a man like Niklas could so easily manipulate her, could have her believing in love at first sight, then maybe she did need to sort herself out. She curled into herself for a moment, breathed for a bit, cried for a bit, and then, because she had to, Meg stood.
She didn’t have breakfast.
She ordered coffee instead, and gulped on the hot sweet liquid in the hope that it would warm her, would wean her brain out of its shock. It did not.
She showered, blasting her bruised, tender body with water, for she could not bear to step into the bath where they had kissed and so nearly made love.
Sex, Meg reminded herself. Because as it turned out love at first sight had had nothing to do with it.
She dressed quickly, unable to bear being in a room that smelt of them, and then she looked at the rumpled and bloodstained sheet on the bed where he had taken her and thought she might throw up.
Within an hour she was at the airport.
And just a little while later she was sitting on a plane and trying to work out how to get her life back to where it had been yesterday.
Except her heart felt as bruised and aching as the most intimate parts of her body, and her eyes, swollen from crying, felt the same.
Meg ordered a cool eye mask from the attendant. Before putting it on she slid off her wedding ring and put it on a chain around her neck, trying to fathom what had happened.
She couldn’t.
She did her best with make-up in the toilet cubicle just before they came in for landing. She lifted her hair and saw the bruise his mouth had left on her neck and felt a scream building that somehow she had to contain. She covered her eyes with sunglasses and wondered how she would ever get through the next few hours, days, weeks.
‘Thank God…’ Her mum met her at the baggage carousel. ‘The car’s waiting. I’ll bring you up to speed on the way.’ She peered at her daughter. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Just tired,’ Meg answered, and then she looked at her mum and knew she could never, ever tell her, so instead she forced a smile. ‘But I’m fine.’
‘Good,’ said her mum as they grabbed her case and headed for the car. ‘How was Vegas?’
CHAPTER SIX
MEG STOOD IN her office, looking out of the window, her fingers, as they so often did, idly turning the ring that still, almost a year later, lived on a chain around her neck.
She wasn’t looking forward to tonight, given what she had to tell her parents.
It had nothing to do with Niklas. There had been eleven months of no contact now. Eleven months for Meg to start healing. Yet still she didn’t know how to start.
She couldn’t bear to think about him, let alone tell anyone what had happened.
And even though she could not bear to think about him, even though it actually hurt to do so, of course all too often Meg did.
It hurt to remember the good bits.
The bad bits almost killed her.
Surprisingly, she couldn’t quite work out if she regretted it.
Niklas Dos Santos, for the brief time he had appeared in it, had actually changed her life. Meeting him had changed her. Hell did make you stronger. This was her life and she must live it, and Meg had decided that she was finally going to follow her dreams and study to be a chef. Now she just had to tell her parents. So in a way tonight did in fact have something to do with him.
The strange thing was, she wanted to tell Niklas about her decision too—was fighting with herself not to contact him.
As painful as it was to remember, as brutal as his departure had been, still a part of her was grateful for the biggest mistake of her life and, fiddling with his ring as she so often did, Meg felt tears sting her eyes.
That was the only thing that was different today.
She hadn’t cried for him since that morning. Actually, she had, but it had only been the once—the morning a couple of weeks later when she had got her period. Meg had sunk to her knees and wept on the toilet floor, not with relief, but because there was nothing left of them.
Nothing to tell him.
No reason for contact.
Apart from the paperwork it was as over as it could be.
So for the best part of a year she had completely avoided it. Had tried not to think of him while finding it impossible not to.
Every day had her waiting for a thick legal letter with a Brazilian postmark and yet it had never arrived.
Every night was just a fight not to think.
Sometimes Meg was tempted to look him up on the internet and find out more about the man who she could not forget—yet she was scared to, scared that even a glimpse of his face on her computer screen would have her picking up the phone to beg.
That was how much she still missed him.
Sometimes she grew angry, and wanted to contact him so that they could initiate the divorce, but that would be just an excuse to ring him. Meg knew she didn’t need to speak with him to divorce him, yet she had not even started the simple process, because once she started down that path it would stop being a dream—which sometimes she thought it must have been…
Then her fingers would move to the cool metal of his ring and she’d find out again it was real.
She looked up at the clock and saw that it was time for lunch. Grateful for the chance of some fresh air while she worked out exactly how to tell her parents she was leaving the family business, Me
g was tempted to ignore the ringing phone.
She wished she had when she answered it, because some new clients had arrived and were insisting that they be seen immediately.
‘Not without an appointment.’ Meg shook her head. She was fed up with pushy clients and the continual access she was expected to provide. ‘I’m going to lunch.’
‘I’ve told them that you’re about to go for lunch.’ Helen sounded flustered. ‘But they said that they would wait till you get back. They are adamant that they see you today.’
Meg was sick of that word—everyone was adamant these days, and because there wasn’t much work around her parents insisted more and more that they must jump to potential clients’ unreasonable demands.
‘Just tell them that they need to book,’ Meg said, but as she went to end the call she froze when she heard a certain name.
A name that had her blood running simultaneously hot and cold.
Cold because she had dreaded this day—dreaded their worlds colliding, dreaded the one mistake in her crafted life coming back to haunt her—but at the same time hot for the memories the name Dos Santos triggered.
‘He’s here?’ Meg croaked. ‘Niklas is here?’
‘No,’ Helen answered, and Meg was frustrated at her own disappointment when she heard that it wasn’t him. ‘It’s regarding a Mr Dos Santos, apparently, and these people really are insistent…’
‘Tell them to give me a moment.’
She needed that moment. Meg really did.
She sank into her chair and poured a drink of water, willed herself to calm down, and then she checked her appearance in the mirror that she kept in her drawer. Her hair was neatly tied back and though her face was a touch pale she looked fairly composed—except Meg could see her own eyes were darting with fear.
There was nothing to fear, Meg told herself. It wasn’t trouble that had arrived. It had been almost a year after all. No doubt his legal team were here to get her signature on divorce papers. She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself, but it didn’t help because all she could see was herself and Niklas, a tangle of legs and arms on a bed, and the man who had taken her heart with him when he left. Now it really was coming to an end.
She stood as Helen brought her visitors in and sorted out chairs for them. Then Helen offered water or coffee, which all three politely declined, and finally, when Helen had left and the door was closed, Meg addressed them.
‘You wanted to see me?’
‘First we should introduce ourselves.’
A well-spoken gentleman started things off. He introduced himself and his colleague and then Rosa, a woman whom Meg thought might be around forty, took over. It was terribly difficult to tell her age. She was incredibly elegant, her make-up and hair completely immaculate, her voice as richly accented as Niklas’s had been, and it hurt to hear the familiar tone—familiar because it played over and over each night in her dreams. But she tried not to think of that, tried to concentrate on Rosa as she told Meg that they worked at the legal firm Mr Dos Santos used. She went through their qualifications and their business structure, and as she did so Meg felt her own qualifications dissolve beneath her—these were high-end lawyers and clearly here to do business. But Meg still didn’t understand why Niklas had felt it necessary to fly three of his most powerful lawyers all the way to Australia, simply to oversee their divorce.
A letter would have sufficed.
‘First and foremost,’ Rosa started, ‘before we go any further, we ask for discretion.’
They were possibly the sweetest words that Meg could hope to hear in this situation.
‘Of course’ was her response, but that wasn’t enough for Rosa.
‘We insist on your absolute discretion,’ Rosa reiterated, and for the first time Meg felt her hackles rise.
‘I would need to know what you’re here in regard to before I can make an assurance like that.’
‘You are married to Niklas Dos Santos?’
‘I think we all know that,’ Meg said carefully.
‘And do you know that your husband is facing serious charges of embezzlement and fraud?’
Ice slid down her spine. Her hackles were definitely up now, and Meg thought for a moment before answering, ‘I had no idea.’
‘If he is found guilty he will probably never be released.’
Meg ran her tongue over her lips and tasted the wax of the lipstick she had applied earlier. She could feel beads of sweat breaking out on her forehead and felt nauseous at the very thought of a man like Niklas confined and constricted. She felt sick, too, at the thought of what he must have done to face serving life behind bars.
‘He is innocent.’ The man who had first introduced them spoke then, and Meg couldn’t help raising one of her eyebrows, but she made no comment.
Of course his own people would say that he was innocent.
They were his lawyers after all.
She didn’t look at Rosa when she spoke. Instead she examined her nails, tried incredibly hard to stop her fingers from reaching for her hair. She did not want to give them any hint that she was nervous.
‘We believe that Niklas is being set up.’
What else would they say? Meg thought.
‘I really don’t see what this has to do with me.’ Meg looked in turn at each of the unmoved faces and was impressed by her own voice when she spoke. She possibly sounded like a lawyer, or a woman in control, though of course inside she was not. ‘We were married for less than twenty-four hours and then Niklas decided that it was a mistake. Clearly he was right. We hardly knew each other. I had no idea about any of his business affairs. Nothing like that was ever discussed…’
Rosa spoke over her. ‘We believe that Niklas is being set up by the head of our firm.’
It was then that Meg started to realise the gravity of the situation. These people were not just defending their client, they were implicating their own principal.
‘We have had little access to the case, which in something as big as this is unusual, and without access to the evidence we cannot supply a rigorous defence. For reasons we cannot yet work out, we believe Miguel is intending to misrepresent Niklas. Of course we cannot let our boss know that we suspect him. He is the only one who has access to Niklas while he is being held awaiting a trial date.’
‘He’s in prison now?’
‘He has been for months.’
Meg reached for her water but her glass was empty. Her hands were shaking as she refilled it from the jug. She could not stand the thought of him locked up, could not bear to think of him in prison, did not want those thoughts haunting her. She didn’t like the new nightmares these people had brought, and she wanted them gone now.
‘It really is appalling, but…’ She didn’t know how she could help them—didn’t know the Brazilian legal system, just didn’t know why they were here. ‘I don’t see how it has anything to do with me. As I said, I’m not involved in his business…’ And then she started to panic, because maybe as his wife she had a different involvement with Niklas that they were here to discuss.
‘We have made an application of behalf of Niklas for him to exercise his conjugal rights…’
Meg could hear her own pulse pounding in her ears as Rosa continued speaking and she drained her second glass of water. Her throat was still impossibly dry. Her fingers moved to her hair and she twirled the strand around one finger, over and over.
‘Niklas is entitled to one phone call a week and a two-hour conjugal visit once every three weeks. He is being brought before the judge in a fortnight for the trial date to be set and we need you to fly there. At your visit with him on Thursday you are to tell him that only when he is in front of the judge he is to fire his lawyer. Before that he is to give no hint. Once he has fired Miguel we will step in for him.’
‘No.’ Meg shook her head and pulled her finger out of her hair. She was certain of her answer, did not need to think about this for a moment. She just wanted them gone.
�
�The only way we can get in contact with him is through his wife.’
‘I’ll phone him.’ It was the most she would do. ‘You said that he was entitled to a weekly phone call…’ And then she shook her head again, because of course the calls would be monitored. ‘I can’t see him.’ She could not. ‘We were married for twenty-four hours.’
‘Correct me if I am wrong…’ Rosa was as tough with the truth as she was direct. ‘According to the records we have found you have been married for almost a year.’
‘Yes, but we—’
‘There has been no divorce?’
‘No.’
‘And if Niklas was dead and I was here bringing you a cheque would you hand it back and say, No, we were only married for twenty-four hours? Would you say, No, give this to someone else. He had nothing to do with me…?’
Meg’s face was red as she fought for an answer, but she did not know that truth—not that it stopped Rosa.
‘And because you have not screamed annulment I am assuming consensual sex occurred.’
Meg felt her face grow redder, because sex had been the only thing they had had between them.
‘If you had found yourself pregnant, would you not have contacted him? Would you have told yourself it did not count as you were only married for twenty-four hours? Would you have told your child the same…?’
‘You’re not being fair.’
‘Neither is the system being fair to my client,’ Rosa said. ‘Your husband will be convicted of a crime he did not commit if you do not get this message to him.’
‘So I’m supposed to fly to Brazil and sit in some trailer or cell and pretend that we’re…?’
‘There will be no pretending—you will have sex with him,’ Rosa said. ‘I don’t think you understand what is at stake here, and I don’t think you understand the risks to Niklas and his case if it is discovered that we are trying to get information in. There will be suspicions if the bed and the bin…’
Thankfully she did not go into further detail, but it was enough to have Meg shake her head.
‘I’ve heard enough, thank you. I will start preparing the paperwork for divorce today.’ She stood.
Playing the Dutiful WifeExpecting His Love-Child Page 6