Fiancee for One Night

by Trish Morey

‘It makes perfect sense!’

  ‘No! It makes no sense at all! Why are you doing this? Because of a nightmare, because you accidentally lashed out and struck me?’

  He walked stiffly up the bed, his chest heaving. ‘Don’t you understand, Evelyn, or Eve, or whoever you are, if I can do that to you asleep, how much more damage can I do when I am awake?’

  And despite the cold chill in his words, she stood up and faced him, because she knew him well enough by now to know he was wrong. ‘You wouldn’t hit me.’

  ‘You don’t know that!’ he cried, ‘Nobody can know that,’ giving her yet another hint of the anguish assailing him.

  And Eve knew what she had to say; knew what she had to do; knew that she had to be brave. She moved closer, slowly, stopping before she reached him, but wanting to be close enough that he could see the truth of her words reflected on her face in the moonlight, close enough that she could pick up his hand and hold it to her chest so that he might feel her heart telling him the same message.

  ‘I know it, because I’ve been with you Leo. I’ve spent nights filled with passion in your bed. I’ve spent days when you made me feel more alive than I have in my entire life. And I’ve seen the way you pulled my child from the sea when you saw him fall into the surf before I did. I know you would never harm him.’

  She shook her head, amazed that she was about to confess something so very, very new; so very, very precious and tender, before she had even time to pull it out and examine it for all its flaws and weaknesses in private herself.

  ‘Don’t you see? I know it, Leo, because—’ She sucked in air, praying for strength in order to confess her foolishness. Because hadn’t he warned her not to get involved? Hadn’t he told her enough times nothing could come of their liaison? But how else could she reach him? How else could she make him understand? ‘Damn it, I know it because I love you.’

  He looked down at her, his bleak eyes filled with some kind of terror before he shut them down, and she wondered what kind of hell she would see when he opened them again.

  ‘Don’t say that. You mustn’t say that.’ His words squeezed through his teeth, a cold, hard stiletto of pain that tore at her psyche, ripping into the fabric of her soul. But while it terrified her, at the same time she felt empowered. After all, what did she have left to lose? She’d already admitted the worst, she’d already laid her cards on the table. There was nothing left but to fight for this fledgling love, to defend it, and to defend her right to it.

  ‘Why can’t I say it, when it’s the truth? And I know it’s futile and pointless but it’s there. I love you, Leo. Get used to it.’

  ‘No! Saying I love you doesn’t make everything all right. Saying I love you doesn’t make it okay to beat someone.’

  But he hadn’t—

  And suddenly a rush of cold drenching fear flooded down her spine along with the realisation that he wasn’t talking about what had just taken place in this room. And whatever he had witnessed, it was violent and brutal and had scarred him deeply. ‘What happened to you to make you believe yourself capable of these things? What horrors were you subjected to that won’t let you rest at night?’

  ‘The nightmares are a warning,’ he said. ‘A warning not to let this happen, and I won’t. Not if it means hurting you and Sam.’

  ‘But Leo—’

  ‘Pack your things,’ he said simply, sounding defeated. ‘I’m taking you home.’

  Melbourne was doing what it knew best, she thought as they touched down, offering up a bit of everything, the runway still damp from the latest shower, a bit of wind to tinker with the wings and liven up the landing and the sun peeping out behind a gilt edged cloud.

  But it was so good to be home.

  He insisted on driving her—or rather, having his driver drive them—and she wondered why he bothered coming along if he was going to be so glum and morose, unless it was so he could be sure she was gone.

  And then they were there. At her house she had until now affectionately referred to as the hovel and never would again, because it was a home, a real home and it was hers and Sam’s and filled with love and she was proud of it.

  ‘Let me help you out,’ Leo said and she wanted to tell him there was no need, that the driver would help unload and that she could manage, but there were bags and bags and a child seat and a sleeping Sam to carry inside, and it would have been churlish to refuse, and so she let him help.

  Except what was she supposed to do with a billionaire in her house?

  She had Sam on her hip, heavy with sleep, head lolling and clearly needing his cot while Leo deposited the last of her bags and her car seat, looking around him, looking like the world had suddenly been shrink wrapped and was too small for him. What on earth would he think of her tiny house and eclectic furniture after his posh hotels and private jet?

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, her heart heavy, not wanting to say goodbye but not wanting to delay the inevitable as clearly he looked for an exit. ‘For everything.’

  ‘It wouldn’t work,’ he offered, with a thumb to the place he knew he’d hurt her. ‘It couldn’t.’

  She leaned into his touch, trying to hold it for as long as she possibly could, trying to imprint this very last touch on her memory. ‘You don’t know that,’ she said. ‘And now you’ll never know.’

  ‘There are things—’ he started, before shaking his head, his eyes sad. ‘It doesn’t matter. I know there is no way…’

  ‘You know nothing,’ she said, pulling away, stronger now for simply being home, by being back in her own environment, with her own bookshelves and ancient sofa and even her own faded rugs. ‘But I do. I know how you’ll end up if you walk out that door, if you turn your back on me and my love.

  ‘You’ll be like that old man in the picture in your suite, the old man sitting hunched and all alone on the park bench, staring out over the river and wondering whether he should have taken a chance, whether he should have taken that risk rather than playing it safe, rather than ending up all alone.

  ‘You will be that man, Leo.’

  He looked at her, his eyes bleak, his jaw set. He lifted a hand, put it one last time to Sam’s head.

  ‘Goodbye, Evelyn.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  EARLY summer wasn’t one whole lot more reliable than spring, Eve reflected, as she looked up at the patchy blue sky, determined to risk the clothes line rather than using the dryer. Any savings on the electricity bill would be welcome. She’d picked up a couple of new clients recently, but things were still tight if she didnt want to dip into her savings.

  Although of course, there was always the ring…

  She’d taken it off in the plane, meaning to give it back to Leo but she’d forgotten in those gut wrenching final moments and he’d always said it was hers. Every day since then she checked her emails to see if he’d sent her some small message. Every time she found a recorded message, she punched the play button hoping, always hoping.

  And after two weeks when he’d made no contact, out of spite or frustration or grief, she’d taken the ring to a jewellery shop to have it valued, staggered when she found out how much it was worth.

  She wouldn’t have to scrimp if she sold it.

  But that had been nearly a month back and she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it.

  Six weeks, she thought, as she pegged the first of her sheets to the line. Six weeks since that night in his suite, since that weekend in paradise. No wonder it seemed like a dream.

  ‘Nice day,’ called Mrs Willis, from over the fence. ‘Reckon it’ll rain later though.’

  She glanced up at the sky, scowling at an approaching bank of cloud. ‘Probably. How’s Jack lately?’

  ‘Going okay since they changed his meds. Sister reckons he’s on the improve.’ Her neighbour looked around. ‘Where’s Sam?’

  ‘Just gone down for a nap,’ Eve said, pegging up another sheet. ‘Should be good for a couple of hours work.’

  ‘Oh,’ the older w
oman said. ‘Speaking of work, there’s someone out the front to see you. Some posh looking bloke in a suit. Fancy car. Says he tried your door, but no answer. I told him I thought you were home though. I told him—’

  Something like a lightning bolt surged down her spine. ‘What did you say?’ But she was already on her way, the sheets snapping in the breeze behind her. She touched a hand to the hair she’d tied back in a rough ponytail, then told herself off for even thinking it. Why did she immediately think it could be him? For all she knew it could be a courier delivery from one of her clients, although since when did courier drivers dress in posh suits and drive flash cars? Her heart tripping at a million miles an hour, nerves flapping and snapping like the sheets on the line, she allowed herself one deep breath, and then she opened the door.

  There he stood. Gloriously, absolutely Leo, right there on her doorstep. He looked just as breathtakingly beautiful, his shoulders as broad, his hair so rich and dark and his eyes, his dark eyes looked different, there was sorrow there and pain, and something else swirling in the mix—hope?

  And her heart felt it must be ten times its normal size the way it was clamouring around in there. But she’d had hopes before, had thought she’d seen cracks develop in his stone heart, and those hopes had been dashed.

  ‘Leo,’ she said breathlessly.

  ‘Eve. You look good.’

  She didn’t look good. She had circles under her eyes, her hair was a mess and Mrs Willis had been on at her about losing too much weight. ‘You look better.’ And she winced, because it sounded so lame.

  He looked around her legs. ‘Where’s Sam?’

  ‘Nap time,’ she said, and he nodded.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Oh.’ She stood back, let him in. ‘Of course.’

  He looked just as awkward in her living room. ‘I’ll make coffee,’ she suggested when he grabbed her hand, sending an electrical charge up her arm.

  ‘No. I have to explain something first, Eve, if you will listen. I need you to listen, to understand.’

  She nodded, afraid to speak.

  He took a deep breath once they were sitting on the sofa, his elbows using his knees for props as he held out his hands. ‘I was not happy when I left you. I went to London, threw myself into the contract negotiations there; then to Rome and New York, and nowhere, nowhere could I forget you, nothing I could do, nothing I could achieve could blot out the thoughts of you.

  ‘But I could not come back. I knew it could not work. But there was something I could do.’

  She held her breath, her body tingling. Hoping.

  ‘I hadn’t seen my parents since I was twelve. I had to find them. It took—It took a little while to track them down, and then it was to discover my father was dead.’

  She put a hand to his and he shook his head. ‘Don’t feel sorry. He was a sailor and a brutal, violent man. Everytime he was on leave he used my mother as a punching bag, calling her all sorts of vicious names, beating her senseless. I used to cower in fear behind my door, praying for it to stop. I was glad he was dead.’

  He dragged in air. ‘And the worst part of it—the worst of it was that he was always so full of remorse afterwards. Always telling her he was sorry, and that he loved her, even as she lay bruised and bleeding on the floor.’

  Eve felt something crawl down her spine. A man who couldn’t let himself love. A man who equated love with a beating. No wonder he felt broken inside. No wonder he was so afraid. ‘Your poor mother,’ she said, thinking, poor you.

  He made a sound like a laugh, but utterly tragic. ‘Poor mother. I thought so too. Until I was big enough to grow fists and hurt him like he hurt my mother. And my mother went to him. After everything he had done to her, she screamed at me and she went to him to nurse his wounds.’ He dropped his head down, wrapped his arms over his head and breathed deep, shaking his head as he rose. ‘She would not leave him, even when I begged and pleaded with her. She would not go. So I did. I slept at school. Friends gave me food. I got a job emptying rubbish bins. I begged on the streets. And it was the happiest I’d ever been.’

  ‘Oh, Leo,’ she said, thinking of the homeless child, no home to go to, no family…

  ‘I left school a year later, went to work on the boats around the harbour. But I would not be a sailor like him, at that stage I didn’t want to be Greek like him. So I learned from the people around me, speaking their languages, and started handling deals for people.

  ‘I was good at it. I could finally make something of myself. But even though I could escape my world, I could not escape my past. I could not escape who I was. The shadow of my father was too big. The knowledge of what I would become…’ His voice trailed off. ‘I swore I would never let that happen to me. I would never love.’

  She slipped a hand into one of his, felt his pain and his sorrow and his grieving. ‘I’m so sorry it had to be that way for you. You should have had better.’

  ‘Sam is blessed,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Sam has a mother who fights for him like a tigress. His mother is warm and strong and filled with sunshine.’ He lifted her hand, pressed it to his lips. ‘Not like…’

  And his words warmed her heart, even when she knew there was more he had to tell her. ‘Did you find her then? Did you find your mother?’

  His eyes were empty black, his focus nowhere, but someplace deep inside himself. ‘She’s in a home for battered women, broken and ill. She sits in a wheelchair all day looking out over a garden. She has nothing now, no-one. And as I looked at her, I remembered the words you said, about an old man sitting on a parkbench, staring at nothing, wishing he’d taking a chance…’

  ‘Leo, I should never have said that. I had no right. I was hurting.’

  ‘But you were right. When I looked at her, I saw my future, and for the first time, I was afraid. I didn’t want it. Instead I wanted to take that chance that you offered me, like she should have taken that chance with me and escaped. But my father’s shadow still loomed over me. My greatest fear was turning into him. Hurting you or Sam. I could not bear that.’

  ‘You’re not like that,’ she said, tears squeezing from her eyes. ‘You would never do that.’

  ‘I couldn’t trust myself to believe it. Until I was about to leave my mother’s side and she told me the truth in her cracked and bitter voice, the truth that would have set me free so many years ago, but I never questioned what I had grown up believing. The truth that my father had come home after six months at sea and found her four months pregnant.’

  ‘Leo!’

  His eyes were bright and that tiny kernel of hope she’d seen there while he’d stood on her doorstep had flickered and flared into something much more powerful. ‘He was impotent and she wanted a child and I was never his, Eve. I don’t have to be that way. I don’t have to turn into him.’

  Tears blurred her vision, tears for the lost childhood, tears for the betrayal of trust between the parents and the child, the absence of a love that should have been his birthright. ‘You would never have turned into him. I know.’

  And he brought her hands to his lips and kissed them. ‘You do things to me, Eve. You turn me inside out and upside down and I want to be with you, but I just don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I can love the way I should. The way you deserve.’

  ‘Of course you can. It’s been there, all along. You knew what was happening was wrong. You tried to save your mother. You tried to save me and Sam by cutting us loose. Because you didn’t want to hurt us. You would never have done that if you hadn’t cared, if you hadn’t loved us, just a little.’

  ‘I think…’ He gave her a look that spoke of his confusion and fears. ‘I think it’s more than a little. These last weeks have been hell. I never want to be apart from you again. I want to wake up every morning and see your face next to mine. I want to take care of you and Sam, if you’ll let me.’

  She blinked across at him, unable to believe what she was hearing, but so desperately wanting it to be
true. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I can’t live without you. I need you.’ He squeezed her hands, just as he squeezed the unfamiliar words from his lips. ‘I love you.’

  And she flew into his arms, big, fat tears of happiness welling in her eyes. ‘Oh Leo, I love you so much.’

  ‘Oh my god, that’s such a relief,’ he said, clutching her tightly. ‘I was afraid you would hate me for how I treated you.’ He tugged her back, so he could look at her, brushing the hair from her face where it had got mussed. ‘Because there’s something else I need to know. Eve, will you take a chance on me. Would you consider becoming my wife?’

  And her tears became a flood and she didn’t care that she was blubbering, didn’t care that she was a mess, only that Leo had loved her and wanted to marry her and life just couldn’t get any better than that. ‘Yes,’ she said, her smile feeling like it was a mile wide, ‘Yes, of course I will marry you.’

  He pulled her into his kiss, a whirlpool of a kiss that spun her senses and sent her spirits and soul soaring.

  ‘Thank you for coming into my life,’ he said, drawing back, breathing hard. ‘You are magical, Eve. You have brought happiness and hope to a place where there was only misery and darkness. How can I ever repay you?’

  And she smiled up at his beautiful face, knowing he would never again live without love, not if she had anything to do with it. ‘You can start by kissing me again.’

  EPILOGUE

  LEO Zamos loved it when a plan came together. He relished the cut and thrust of business, the negotiations, the sometimes compromise, the closing of the deal.

  He lived for the adrenaline rush of the chase, and he lived for the buzz of success.

  Or at least he had, until now.

  These days he had other priorities.

  He shook Culshaw’s hand, who was still beaming with the honour of walking Eve down the aisle before leaving him chatting to Mrs Willis about the weather. He looked around and found his new bride standing in the raised gazebo where they’d been married a little while ago. She was holding Sam’s hand as Hannah jigged him on her hip, the sapphire ring sparkling on her finger nestled alongside a new matching plain band. Evelyn—Eve—he still couldn’t decide which he liked best, had always looked more like a goddess than any mere mortal, but today, in her slim fitting lace gown, her hair piled high and curling in tendrils around her face and pinned with a long gossamer thin veil that danced in the warm tropical breeze, she was the queen of goddesses, and she was his. She laughed as her veil was caught in the breeze, the ends tickling Sam’s face and making him squeal with delight. And then, as if aware he was watching, as if feeling the tug of his own hungry gaze, she turned her head, turned those brilliant blue eyes on him, her laughter faltering as their eyes connected on so many different levels before her luscious mouth turned up into a wide smile.