A British Bride by Agreement

by Stenzel, Therese

  “This is Mrs. Peterson.”

  He groaned.

  “I need to know the caterer and the orchestra you have scheduled for the concert. You know you can’t burn a candle at both wicks. You need to organize your schedule better. Time and time, waits for no man—”

  “Jonathan.” His father strode into his corner office, his face lined in frustration.

  Jonathan clicked off the answering machine and snatched his feet off his desk. “What are you doing here?”

  His dad folded his arms. “I’m here to congratulate the director of the Steller Foundation on his whirlwind media blitz. Do you know we’ve been on all the local stations and we were picked up by the one of the national news?” He laughed out loud. “I knew you’d do well here. Because of your efforts today, we may be able to sponsor that new children’s research hospital.”

  For a moment, Jonathan’s chest swelled at his father’s praise. But he dropped his gaze. The only reason the day was a success was because of Emma and Dede, but he could hardly tell his father that. “Thanks, Dad. That means a lot. Also, I was thinking…it’s irresponsible for me to be driven to my charity meetings in a limo. What do you think about the charity getting a smaller car? Show some fiscal responsibility?”

  “I never would have thought of that. Great idea.”

  But instead of satisfaction, Jonathan sank further in his chair. That was Emma’s suggestion. “Good, I’ll have it traded it in on Monday.”

  “Great.”

  “And I’ve upped the monies to the Kinder AIDS Group. I visited their facility and they needed more funding.”

  “Your mother and I are—well the decisions that you’ve made lately and how hard you’ve worked on the charity—this is a tough business. Lots of hurting people out there, but you have risen to the occasion. Maybe this is where you belong and not the corporate side.”

  “No,” Jonathan jumped to his feet. “This charity work is not for me. Look, you asked me to do this and I’m doing what I can, but I don’t want to be stuck here. I want to be back as the head of product development.”

  His dad chuckled. “The head? You have some lofty goals.”

  “I want to run this company someday.”

  “Are you ready to put me out to pasture?” His dad’s voice rose.

  “No, but I will not stay here any longer than I have to.”

  “Grandchildren.”

  Jonathan rubbed his forehead. “What?”

  “Your mother wants grandchildren. And it would certainly be feather in your cap if you produced the next generation of Stellers. If I knew there was a child on the way, I might look favorably—”

  “You are holding my promotion hostage for grandchildren?”

  “If you want to look at it that way. You have a beautiful wife. It shouldn’t be that difficult of a request. And, frankly, it would comfort me to know that our three generation Steller Corporation will have a fourth.”

  Jonathan’s head pounded so hard he sat down.

  His dad stood in the doorway. “One more thing. Whatever happened to that orphanage in Belize?”

  Jonathan rubbed his forehead. He’d forgotten all about sending a report to his father. “It seems that, after much research—and I still have people looking into this, but it…twenty thousand. Gone. I may need to make a trip down there.”

  His father nodded slowly without looking at him. “One of the hardest things is weighing the motives of people. The most innocent person can surprise you sometimes.”

  Jonathan barely moved, his head hurt so bad. He’d neglected to inform his father about the flood relief organization in Pakistan that turned out to be bogus, too. After his father left, Jonathan drove back to his home with a rock in his gut. So far, he’d nearly led the charity towards insolvency, misled his father, and alienated his wife. Maybe if he worked harder, longer hours, he could live up to his father’s expectations of him, but what about Emma? He’d grown to care for her more than he’d ever planned. Where was God in all this? What was the point in having faith if help wasn’t there when you needed it?

  Ignoring the tug on his heart, he shifted his mind back to business. It was a choice between his career and his family, and he knew which he would choose.

  ***

  Emma dipped further down into colder recesses of her bed and pulled the covers to her chin as she heard Jonathan’s footsteps in the entry. What had she done? She had let him down, all because of her panic. She thought she was over that. But after years of performing with the piano, she just couldn’t do it anymore. Her mind drifted back to when, at seventeen, the panic attacks became so bad she refused to play. It had been a huge fight with her parents, who accused her of not being grateful for the life they had provided. The life I and my brother provided. She rolled over and buried her head under a pillow. Her parents berated her for months, but she was firm in her decision. Relief didn't come until she left for college in America.

  Footsteps outside her door grew louder. Jonathan was coming to talk to her. She had let him down. She couldn’t fail at this marriage, too.

  “Em?” Her door opened, sending in a shaft of light.

  Emma’s heartbeat raced as she sat up.

  Jonathan strode in and sat on the edge of her bed. “I’m sorry.”

  “I let you down—”She reached for his hand.

  He pressed his finger to her lips. “No, I let you down.”

  The remorse in his voice touched a chord way down deep in her soul. Did he have any idea how drawn she was to him? You might be in trouble, Duckie. Clasping his hand, she savored its warmth. “I can’t perform in front of others. I guess I could tap dance very badly, but piano playing…”

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it.”

  “I feel like I owe you an explanation.”

  “I know you never wanted to play in front of a crowd again. I guess I didn’t fully grasp why.”

  She pulled her knees up and hugged them to her chest. “When I was three or four, my parents discovered I could play piano and read music without ever having been taught. So they had me tested, and eventually, I was labeled a musical genius or some such nonsense. My parents saw my talent as a way to make money, thus I performed in concert halls, churches, schools, anywhere that paid. Eventually, they discovered my brother was also musically talented, so he played classical guitar alongside me. For years we toured all over England.”

  “So you’re like, famous?” The beam of light lit up the curve of his lips.

  “With the older folks I was a shattering success. And at first, it was fun. As a little girl, I liked the clapping and the praise. My mother would always buy me a new frock to wear. But after a while, even the sweets she bribed me with weren’t enough. And when their financial situation got more desperate, threats followed, if I didn’t play well or practice enough.”

  “How long did you do this?”

  “We were on the road five to six months a year up until a few months before I left to go to university in the States.”

  “Wow. Did you get to play sports or ride horses?”

  “No, lest I hurt my hands.”

  He rubbed his temples. “I had no idea.”

  “Performing became harder and harder. At one point, my mother took me to a doctor who prescribed some calming medicine. I tried it once or twice, but it made me feel like a zombie so I never took it again. I haven’t played publically since I left England—”

  “Until your insensitive husband forced you into a corner.”

  “At first, I thought I could do it. I thought I might be over my fright.” Her throat tightened. She ached to please him.

  He rubbed his forehead again.

  She sat up further and clicked on her bedside lamp. “Are you all right?”

  He winced at the light. “Bad headache.”

  Emma immediately threw back the covers and took him by the arm. “Do you need a cup of tea?”

  He managed a grin. “You English think everything is solved by
tea.”

  The hope in her heart welled. “Almost everything.”

  She dug in the kitchen drawer for migraine medicine and once he’d taken the glass of water and pills, she set the kettle to boil. “Did you come straight from the hospital?”

  His brow furrowed. “I stopped by the office and talked with my dad.”

  “Was he upset with how things went today?”

  He ran his hand over his mouth as if wrestling with telling her something.

  Please, please open up to me.

  “No, he was pleased about tonight, but the truth is…the charity has been swindled out of some money by a couple of fake aid organizations.”

  She took a sharp, quick breath. “Surely that’s not your fault.”

  “I didn’t do a thorough enough background check and was taken in by a couple of sad stories.”

  “Can you recover the money?”

  “I need to go to Belize. To see if I can find any more information on what happened.”

  The kettle whistled and Emma kept busy making the tea, her heart hopeful he would continue talking about this upsetting event.

  “My father thinks I’m doing a terrible job, but judging the motives of people and the truth behind their stories is much harder than I thought. It’s near impossible to spot a trickster.”

  Emma avoided his gaze as she set the tea in front of him. She knew a lot about con artists. She wanted to tell him to watch for stories that change every time they tell it. Be sensitive to odd feelings when you spend time in their presence. Follow peace and be suspicious if their plans for the money varies.

  Her father was excellent at swindling people out of money in investment and real estate deals, was quite proud of it, in fact. He used to brag he was as smooth as chocolate mousse. She took a sip of her tea. She could never tell Jonathan about her parents. And she could never tell her parents about Jonathan.

  “My father brought up one other thing.”

  She sipped her tea again relishing the fact that he cared enough about her to share his heart with her.

  “Children.”

  The gulp of tea caught in her throat, sending her coughing.

  Jonathan took the mug from her hands. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded before she could catch her breath. “Sorry, it just went down the wrong way.”

  “My parents are anxious, that is, they’d like to see…er, hold a grandchild.”

  Butterflies battled in her stomach. She wasn’t ready. Her gaze fell. Did he see this marriage as nothing more than for making children? Did he care for her at all? She had agreed to the bit about having kids, but what if she couldn’t? After the miscarriage, her doctor assured her there was nothing amiss with her body, and that miscarriages were very common in first pregnancies. But what if the doctor was wrong?

  “We hardly know each other. I don’t feel ready to—”

  “Em, we need to talk about this.” He reached out to touch her hand.

  She pulled her hands back and gripped them. Was that why he’d opened up to her? So he could broach the subject of children? Like she was some kind of vending machine? “We’re not… were not even close. I need more time to get to know you. I can’t—”

  “I’m sorry. I just thought we should discuss it. Maybe come up with a time table.”

  Her jaw dropped open as a cold wave stole over her once-tender feelings toward him. A time table? “This is all just a business deal to you. I’m just another employee who needs to improve her performance.”

  His brow creased. “That isn’t what I meant. It’s just something in our future.”

  “Well, for now, I’m going to have to be one great big disappointment to you.” She strode to her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. Holding back a sob, she buried her face in her hands. The pain of the possibility of another unhappy marriage tore at her heart. She paced her room. How did a woman win her husband’s affections? Make herself more important than his career? Show love to a man who held her at arm’s length most of the time?

  She paused at her reflection in the mirror. Why did she react so badly when he brought up the idea of having children? She knew this was part of the agreement. Maybe deep inside she was afraid she couldn’t have a baby. Should she have told him up front about the miscarriage? Would he accuse her of fraud if she brought that up, now? Her heart stilled. If there were no children, then there would be no marriage. And no husband to love.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Emma fingered the note from Jonathan taped to her door. Charity meeting today at two p.m. Please come. I’d like your input. She crushed in monogrammed paper in her hand, embarrassed by her actions last night. She couldn’t fail at another thing. No longer able to perform musically, and not ready for children, maybe if she helped Jonathan in the charity she could prove that she was a success at something.

  Dressing in a red jacket, a white, collarless shirt, black skirt and black heels, she remembered to add the pearls Jonathan had bought for her on their honeymoon. As she pulled her car into the parking lot at the Steller Foundation, she hoped he would see the significance in her jewelry. She tugged the rear view mirror closer to add a dash of lipstick and check her hair. Still unsure how he felt about her, she hoped he at least found her attractive. Her cell phone rang with an unknown caller.

  “Hello?”

  “Emma, dear.”

  Emma froze. “Mum.”

  “You didn’t return my call.”

  The muscles in Emma’s shoulders tightened like a snake gripping its prey. “What do you want?”

  “We weren’t expecting an invitation to the wedding, Duckie, but a postcard from your honeymoon would have been nice. Was it Paris? Monte Carlo?”

  Emma gripped the cell phone, reigning in her frustration at her mother’s manipulative tone. “Munich, if you must know.”

  “Sounds expensive.”

  Tension knotted Emma’s stomach. She glanced at her watch. The meeting started in two minutes. “I’ve got to go, mum.”

  “Off to pick out a new manor house?”

  Undoing her seatbelt, Emma threw her keys in her purse. “Did you need something?”

  “I’m sorry, Emma. I would have liked to have been invited, but that’s not why I’m calling. I need…I need one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Your father’s made a bad deal. A very bad deal, and the man who lent us the funds is threatening to harm David if we don’t pay him back.”

  David? Emma’s insides clenched. Her brother had long forsaken his parent’s wayward ways, but he still lived in London and kept in contact with them. “How do I know this isn’t one of your schemes?”

  “Would you even miss it? How many millions are the Stellers worth these days?”

  Emma gripped her cell phone harder. She hated that singsong lilt to her mother’s voice. “When do you need it?”

  “By the end of the week.” Her mother’s voice cracked.

  Emma stilled. Her mother never cried. “Nothing has happened yet, I hope?”

  “No, but it will if you don’t help us,” her mother’s voice broke again. “I’m sorry, Emma. I wasn’t going to call you. You’re newly married and you deserve some happiness after marrying that dreadful fop—”

  “Let me think about it.” Emma paused, trying to sense if this was a con. “I’m going to call David.”

  “Please do. He is furious with your father, and he’s quiet distraught about the threats.”

  “I will contact you later.” Emma ended her call and laid her head back against the headrest. Could she trust her mother? Was this just a ruse? She tried dialing David’s phone number but it went straight to voice mail. Very unlike him.

  At the charity meeting, it was all Emma could do to stay focused on the topics discussed. Her mind kept drifting to her childhood. All the times on the road when she leaned on her brother for companionship. The way he kept her spirits up after a scolding from her mother. And how distraught he was when she left for the States. Their relationship had never
been the same.

  After the meeting, Emma joined Jonathan’s staff at a posh restaurant and returned back to the office.

  Jonathan walked her to her car. “You seemed kind of distracted at lunch.”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “What do you think about coming with me to Belize?”

  Her heart sped up. She could just picture them strolling hand-in-hand on the beach. “Oh, lovely.”

  “We’d only be there for three days, and I’ll be fairly wrapped up in business, but I’m sure we could squeeze at least one day together.”

  His words were like balm to her fretfulness. She set a smile on her lips. “I’d enjoy that very much.”

  “I know last night’s discussion was way out of line—”

  “No, it’s what your parents expect. You just surprised me.”

  He took her hand. “I understand how you feel. We need more time.”

  She warmed to his words. “Perhaps, we should plan a few date nights. We could start tonight.”

  “As soon as things calm down at work.” His eyes clouded.

  Her shoulders sagged. His work came first. “Sure. I see.”

  “I’ve got another meeting scheduled. I’d better go.” He glanced at his watch. “See you later.”

  She paused, wanting to confide in him about the call from her mother. But what could she tell him, her parents were probably swindling their own daughter? Goons were after her brother? “See you—” her voice died. She would have to endure another night alone at home.

  As soon as Jonathan entered his building, she phoned her brother again. This time he answered.

  “Emma,” his voice sounded strained.

  “David.”

  “Thank goodness you’ve called. Has Mum rung you?”

  “Yes, it’s true then?”

  “I’m afraid so, Duckie. Things really got mucked up this time.”

  By his heavy sigh, she grew suspicious. “You were involved with the scheme?”