Playing the Dutiful WifeExpecting His Love-Child

by Carol Marinelli

  They did not.

  ‘Marrying Niklas was the biggest mistake of my life,’ Meg stated. ‘I have no intention of revisiting it and I’m certainly not…’ She shook her head. ‘No. We were a mistake.’

  ‘Niklas never makes mistakes,’ Rosa countered. ‘That is why we know he is innocent. That is why we have been working behind our own principal’s back to ensure justice for him.’ She looked to Meg. ‘You are his only chance, and whether or not it is pleasant, whether or not you feel it is beneath you, this must happen.’

  She handed her an envelope and Meg opened it to find an itinerary and airline tickets.

  ‘There is a flight booked for you tomorrow night.’

  ‘I have a life,’ Meg flared. ‘A job, commitments…’

  ‘A visit has been approved for Thursday. It is the only chance to make contact with him before the pre-trial hearing in two weeks’ time. After you have seen him you can go to Hawaii—though we might need you to go back for another visit in three weeks, if things don’t go well.’

  ‘No.’ How else could she say it? ‘I won’t do it.’

  Rosa remained unmoved. ‘You may want this all to go away, but it cannot. Niklas deserves this chance and he will get it. You will see, when you check your bank account, that you are being well compensated for your time.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Meg was furious. ‘How dare you? How on earth did you…?’ But it wasn’t about how they had found out her bank details. It wasn’t that that was the problem right now. ‘It’s not about money…’

  ‘So it’s the morality of it, then?’ Rosa questioned. ‘You’re too precious to sleep with your own husband even it means he has to spend the rest of his life behind bars?’

  Rosa made it sound so simple.

  ‘For the biggest mistake of your life, you chose rather well, did you not?’ Rosa sneered. ‘You are being paid to sleep with Niklas—it’s hardly a hardship.’

  Meg met her eyes and was positive that he and Rosa had slept together. They both stared for a moment, lost in their own private thoughts. Then Rosa stood, a curl on her lip, and another sassy Brazilian gave her opinion of Meg as she upended her life.

  ‘You need to get over yourself.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WHEN THEY HAD GONE, Meg did what she had spent a year avoiding.

  She looked up the man she had married and found out just how powerful he was—or had been before he had been charged. She understood now that the Niklas Dos Santos she was reading about would be less than impressed to find himself in business class. And then she read about the shock his arrest had caused. Niklas might have a reputation in business as being ruthless, but he had always seemed honest—which was apparently why it had made it so easy for him to con some high-flying people into parting with millions. They had believed the lies that had been told to them. His business peers’ trust in him had made them gullible, and despite Rosa’s and her colleagues’ protestations of his innocence, for Meg the articles cast doubt.

  She knew, after all, how effortlessly he had read her, how easily he had played her. Meg had seen another side to Niklas and it wasn’t one she liked.

  And yet, as Rosa had pointed out, he was her husband, and she was apparently his one hope of receiving a fair trial.

  And then Meg clicked on images and wished she had not.

  The first one she saw was of him handcuffed and being bundled into a police car.

  There were many more of Niklas, but they were not of the man she knew. The suit was on and the tie was beautifully knotted, the hair was as she remembered, but not in one single image did she see him smiling or laughing. Not one single picture captured the Niklas she had so briefly known.

  And then she found another image—one that proved the most painful of all to see.

  His arrogant face was scowling, there were three scratches on his cheek that her nails had left there, and a deep bruise on his neck that her mouth had made. Meg read the headline: Dos Santos vira outra mulher! Meg clicked for a translation. She wanted to know if he had returned that morning and been arrested—wanted to know if that was the reason he had been so cruel to her. Had he known he was about to be arrested and ended it to protect her? She waited for the translation to confirm it, held her breath as it appeared: Dos Santos upsets another woman!

  And even in prison, even locked up and a world away, somehow he broke her heart again.

  There was a knock at the door. Her mother didn’t wait for an answer, just opened it and came in. ‘Helen said you had visitors?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘Friends.’

  She saw her mum purse her lips and knew she would not leave until she found out who her friends were and what they wanted. Even without the arrival of her visitors Meg remembered she had been due for a difficult conversation with her parents today, and now seemed like a good time to get it over with.

  ‘Can you get Dad…?’ Meg gave her mum a pale smile. ‘I need to speak to you both.’

  * * *

  It didn’t go well.

  ‘After all we’ve done for you’ was the running theme, and the words Meg had expected to hear when she told them that she had chosen not to continue working in the family firm.

  She didn’t mention Niklas. It was enough for them to take in without giving them the added bonus of a son-in-law! And one in prison too.

  It should have been a far harder conversation to have, yet she felt as if all her emotions and fears were reserved for the decision that was still to come, and Meg sat through the difficult conversation with her parents pale and upset, but somehow detached.

  ‘Why would you want to be a chef?’ Her mother simply didn’t get it—didn’t get that her daughter could possibly want something that had not been chosen for her. ‘You’re a lawyer, for God’s sake, and you want to go and work in some kitchen—?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly what I want to do,’ Meg broke in. ‘I don’t even know if I’ll be accepted…’

  ‘Then why would you give it all up?’

  And she didn’t know how to answer—didn’t know how to tell them that she didn’t feel as if she was actually giving up anything, that she was instead taking back her life.

  Just not yet.

  She told them she was taking a holiday, though she still wasn’t sure that she was, but even without Niklas looming large in her thoughts taking a few weeks off while her parents calmed down seemed sensible.

  ‘And then I’ll come back and work for a couple of months,’ Meg said. ‘I’m not going to just up and leave…’

  But according to her parents she already had.

  Later, as she sat on the balcony of her small flat and looked at the stunning view, Meg thought about her day. What should have been a difficult conversation with her parents, what should have her sitting at home racked with guilt and wondering if she’d handled things right, barely entered her thoughts now. Instead she focused on the more pressing problem looming ahead.

  Quietly she sat and examined the three things she had that proved her relationship with Niklas had actually existed.

  She took the ring from the chain around her neck and remembered the certainty she had felt when he had slipped it on—even though he had told her it could never be for ever, somehow she had felt it was right.

  And then she picked up the marriage certificate she had retrieved from her bedside table and examined the dark scrawl of his signature. Niklas Dos Santos. She saw the full stop at the end of his name and could even hear the sound his pen had made as he’d dotted the document.

  Finalised it.

  And then she examined the third thing, the most painful thing—a heart that even eleven months on was still exquisitely tender.

  There had been no one since, no thought of another man since that time. She felt dizzy as she peered into her feelings, scared as to what she might find. The truth was there waiting and she hadn’t wanted to see it. It hurt too much to admit it.

  She love
d him.

  Or rather she had.

  Absolutely she had, or she would never have married him. Meg knew that deep down. And, whether or not he had wanted it, still that love had existed. Her very brief marriage with him had for Meg been the real thing.

  And, as Rosa had pointed out, they were still married.

  It was getting cool, so Meg went inside and read the itinerary Rosa had handed her. Then she looked up the prison he was being held at and could not believe that he was even there, let alone that on Thursday she might be too.

  Would be.

  Meg slid the ring back on her finger.

  A difficult decision, but somehow easily made. Yes, Rosa was right. In legal terms he was still her husband.

  But it wasn’t in legal terms only that she made her choice. There was a part of herself that she must soon sort out, must work out how to get over, but for now at least, in every sense, Niklas was still her husband.

  * * *

  Though her hotel and flights had been arranged, any problems had to be dealt with by the travel agent, Rosa had told her. Meg must not, under any circumstance, make contact with them. She must not be linked to them in any way—not just to protect them, or even Niklas, they had warned her, but to protect herself.

  And she registered the danger but tried not to dwell on it, just tried to deal with a life that had changed all over again.

  There was another row with her parents—a huge one this time. They had no comprehension as to why their usually sensible daughter might suddenly up and take off to Brazil.

  ‘Brazil!’ Her mother had just gaped. ‘Why the hell do you want to go to Brazil?’

  They didn’t come to the airport to say goodbye. Still, there was one teeny positive to the whole situation: Meg barely noticed the plane taking off. Her thoughts were too taken up with the fact that she was on her way to see Niklas.

  And she barely noticed it a second time, when she transferred at Santiago and knew she was on the last leg of her journey to see him. Shortly after take-off the stewards stood, and after a little while she was offered a drink.

  ‘Tonic water…’ Meg said, and then changed her mind and added gin.

  ‘Off on holiday?’

  She turned to her friendly fellow passenger, an elderly lady who had cousins in São Paulo, she told Meg.

  ‘Yes…’ Meg said. ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Visiting family?’

  ‘My husband.’ How strange it felt to say it, but she was, after all, wearing his ring, and her documents were in her bag, and she might have to say the same thing at Customs, so maybe she’d better start practising.

  ‘Brazil first and then three weeks in Hawaii…’

  ‘Lovely.’ The old lady smiled and Meg returned it. Just as Niklas had that first day, she wished her neighbour would just keep quiet.

  She could hardly tell her the real purpose for her visit!

  Instead she ordered another gin.

  It didn’t help.

  She cried as they descended over São Paulo—she had never seen anything like it. Stretched below her was a sea of city, endless miles of buildings and skyscrapers. The population of this city alone was almost equivalent to the entire population of Australia, and never had Meg felt more small and lost.

  The final approach was terrifying—more so because of all he had told her about it, more so now that she could see just how closely the cars and the planes and the city co-existed, more so because she was actually here.

  Bizarrely, her eyes searched for him after she’d cleared Customs—a stupid flare of hope that this was a strange joke, that he was testing her, that he might be waiting with flowers and a kiss. Perhaps she might once more feel the thorns press into her skin as he teased her about the lengths she’d go to for just a couple of hours with him.

  It wasn’t a joke, though. It wasn’t a game. There was no one here to greet her.

  Meg exited the airport and tried to hire a taxi, but she had never seen a taxi queue like this one. She was exhausted and overwhelmed as once again Niklas pushed her out of her comfort zone.

  The driver’s music was loud, his windows were down, and he drove her through darkening streets into Jardins. Everything was loud there too. The city pulsed with life. There were food stalls on the streets—unfamiliar scents came in through the windows of the car whenever they stopped at traffic lights—and it was more city than she could deal with. Which made sense, Meg thought with a pale smile. After all it was the city Niklas was from.

  All Meg wanted to do was to get to her room.

  Dishevelled, confused, tired, after they pulled up at a very tall hotel Meg paid the taxi driver. The second she stepped inside she knew she was back in his world.

  Modern, cosmopolitan, with staff exquisite and beautiful.

  It was a relief to get to her room and look out of the window at the bewildering streets below, to fathom that she was actually here—that tomorrow she would be taking another taxi to visit Niklas in prison.

  Meg scanned the confusing horizon, wondered as to his direction, wondered if he had any inkling at all that she was even here.

  Wondered all night how she could stand to face him tomorrow.

  ‘Hi, Mum…’ She rang not because they had insisted she did—they were hardly talking, after all—she rang because, despite their problems, Meg loved her parents and wanted the sound of normality tonight.

  ‘How’s Brazil?’ Her mother’s voice was terse, but at least she spoke.

  ‘Amazing,’ Meg said. ‘Though I haven’t seen much of it…’

  ‘Have you booked any trips?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Meg said, and was quiet for a moment. She didn’t like lying, especially to her parents, but she found herself doing it at every turn. Tomorrow she would be ringing her parents again to tell them that she had changed her mind about Brazil and was going to spend the rest of her vacation in Hawaii—how would they react to that?

  More than anything Meg just wanted tomorrow over with, so that she could lie on a beach and hopefully heal once and for all. She hadn’t dared risk putting her divorce application in her luggage in case it caused questions at Customs, but the second she landed home it would be posted.

  Her heart couldn’t take any more of him.

  ‘How’s Dad?’

  ‘Worried,’ her mum said, and Meg felt her heart sink—because she hated that they were worried about her. ‘It’s going to cost an arm and a leg to hire a new lawyer…’

  Meg knew her mum didn’t mean to hurt her, but unintentionally she had. The business was always the biggest thing on their minds.

  ‘I’ve told you that I’ll work for a couple of months when I get back. You don’t have to rush into anything. And you don’t need a full-time lawyer; you can contract out. We’ll go through it all properly when I get back.’

  ‘You are coming back?’

  And Meg gave a small unseen smile, because maybe it wasn’t just about the business. As difficult as they could be at times, they did want what they thought was best for her, and they did love her—that much Meg knew.

  ‘Of course I am. I’m just taking a few weeks to sort out my head—I’ll be back before you know it.’

  It was impossible to sleep. She was dreading tomorrow and seeing him again, dreading the impact of seeing him face to face. It was emotionally draining just thinking about him, let alone seeing him.

  Let alone having sex with him.

  If Meg slept, she didn’t sleep much, and she was up long before her alarm call. She ordered breakfast, but her stomach was doing somersaults and she could hardly manage to hold down a small piece of bread and grilled cheese.

  The coffee she was more grateful for.

  Had she not loved him, she doubted she could do this.

  But had she not loved him she would not have married him in the first place and wouldn’t be in this mess.

  Except she remembered his cruel words from that morning long ago and knew that love had no place in this.

  She g
ave up on breakfast and lay in the bath, tried to prepare herself for what lay ahead, but had no idea how. As she picked up a razor and shaved her legs she did not know if her actions were for his pleasure or for her pride. It was the same with the body oil she rubbed in. She wore simple flesh-coloured underwear and an olive green shift dress with flat leather sandals. Her hand was shaking too much to bother with make-up so she gave in.

  Rosa had given her the name of a good car company to use, rather than getting a taxi, and the desk rang to tell her that her driver was here. As she left the room she glanced around and wondered how she would feel when she returned. This time tomorrow she would be on a plane on her way to Hawaii. This time tomorrow it would be done—for despite what Rosa had said she would not be returning to him.

  Once was enough.

  Twice might kill her.

  So she looked at her room and tried not to think too much about what had to happen before she returned.

  They drove through the most diverse of cities, passed the Court of Justice, where in two weeks Niklas would be, and in daylight Meg saw more of this stunning city. There was beauty and wealth, and such poverty too. She thought of Niklas growing up on the streets, and of how much he had made of himself only to fall. She didn’t know enough to believe in his innocence. She might be a fool for love, but she wasn’t a blind fool. Still, he deserved a fair trial.

  Meg had never known such fear in her life as they approached the jail. The sight of the watchtower, the sounds when she entered, the shame of the examination… Her papers were examined and her photograph taken and she was told her rights—or rather her husband’s rights. She could return in three weeks; she could ring him once a week at a designated time and speak for ten minutes. And although Meg took the paper with the telephone number on it, she knew that she would never use it.

  Then a female guard examined her for contraband and Meg closed her eyes, thinking she would spit at her if she ever faced Rosa again, before being allowed to pull her knickers back up. Maybe she did need to get over herself, but as she was led through to an area where two guards chatted she heard the Dos Santos name said a few times, and even if Meg didn’t understand precisely what they were saying she got their lewd drift. As she stood waiting for Niklas to arrive Meg knew that, yes, she might have to get over herself—but right about now she was completely over him.