by Lynne Graham
But, unfortunately, nothing was that simple or straightforward, particularly when feelings got involved, Tansy conceded ruefully. Posy might not be Tansy’s daughter, but Tansy had become as deeply attached to her baby sister as any new mother. Calvin had asked Tansy to stay on to look after Posy and enable him to return to work and she had agreed to that, but she had soon begun to feel taken for granted as an unpaid childminder, and then her stepfather had begun dating again. While acknowledging that Calvin was only in his early thirties, having been considerably younger than her mother, Tansy had still thought his interest in other women had returned tastelessly soon, but she had minded her own business when Calvin’s lady friends had begun to stay over for the night. Only when Calvin had begun to pressure his regular girlfriend, Susie, into taking over Posy’s care and replacing Tansy had Tansy interfered, because it had quickly become painfully obvious that Susie was too irresponsible to take charge of a baby.
One afternoon Susie had actually gone out and left Tansy’s little sister alone and unattended in the house when something more entertaining than childcare had been offered to her. There had been other incidents as well, incidents that bordered on child neglect, which had stoked Tansy’s growing concern for her sister’s welfare.
It was not as though she could trust Posy’s father to look out for his child’s welfare. In fact, Calvin Hetherington hadn’t the smallest interest in being a father to his motherless daughter, nor did he seem to have developed any natural affection for his child. He had married Tansy’s mother, Rosie, a successful businesswoman in her mid-forties, and the last thing he had expected out of that union was to become a parent. Rosie might have been overjoyed by her unforeseen pregnancy, but Calvin had been aghast and his wife’s death had not made him any keener to take on a paternal role. He might live in the same household but he behaved as though his daughter did not exist. That was why Tansy had stayed on to look after her sister even though her stepfather had recently made it rather obvious that he thought it was time she moved out.
In her will, her mother had left both her home and her beauty salon to her second husband. Had it not been for her infant sibling and her impoverished state Tansy would immediately have moved out because she felt very much surplus to requirements in Calvin’s home life now that he was entertaining other women.
‘Is the kid in bed?’ Calvin checked as Tansy walked into the spacious lounge. ‘Look, sit down. We have to talk.’
‘What about?’ Tansy enquired defensively, standing straight and stiff, instinctively distrustful of the vain, shallow and selfish man her mother had chosen to marry. She had to force herself to sit down and act relaxed and pleasant, which she had learned to do around her stepfather.
‘I’m going to be totally honest with you. I’m facing bankruptcy proceedings in the near future,’ the slim blond man informed her as he stood at the window.
Tansy froze and paled. ‘That’s not possible. For goodness’s sake, you only sold Mum’s business a couple of months ago,’ she reminded him.
Calvin Hetherington sighed. ‘The beauty parlour was up to its neck in debt—’
‘It was a thriving business!’ Tansy argued in startled disagreement.
‘Was being the operative word, Tansy. Your mother was off work for months during her pregnancy and the business went downhill, even though you tried to pick up the slack. Any money your mother made, she spent on extending the property, hiring more staff or buying new equipment,’ Calvin enumerated impatiently. ‘There were no savings, nothing put by for leaner times. I had to sell, and the price was swallowed by the debts the business had accrued. Then there’s the mortgage on this house.’
Tansy frowned in consternation. ‘There’s a mortgage on this house?’
‘The price of all the improvements your mother insisted on making. I could lecture you for an hour on the financial cost of your mother’s passing. I’m afraid we always lived above our means, juggling overdrafts and debts,’ Calvin admitted grudgingly. ‘I’m sure that you realised that your mother really only liked the finer things in life?’
Tansy pinned her parted lips mutinously closed. While it was true that she had often thought her mother had rather extravagant tastes she had also never heard Calvin complain about their comfortable lifestyle or seek to cut back on the expenses of their fancy cars and even flashier holidays. ‘Bankruptcy though?’ she breathed starkly, avoiding a pointless exchange of bestowing blame for the debts he had mentioned. ‘That’s a very serious step—’
‘Yes and, unfortunately, this house will have to be sold as well. I don’t want to see Posy deprived of her only home.’ Calvin sighed heavily. ‘But there is another option…a rather strange and unexpected option that has literally dropped right into our laps and which could be the answer to all our problems.’
Tansy sat forward, her green eyes locked to him with brimming curiosity. ‘What option would that be?’
‘My firm’s richest client needs a wife for business purposes, and he’s prepared to pay a lot of money to the right candidate.’
‘What kind of business purposes?’ Tansy pressed suspiciously.
‘I’m not in possession of that information. Jude Alexandris is a very private man. He doesn’t explain his motivations to his solicitors,’ her stepfather told her.
‘Does he need a British passport or something?’
‘I very much doubt it. But I do know that he needs a fake wife. It would be a marriage of convenience. Sign up for it and the sky will be the limit for you,’ Calvin told her with a sudden surge of enthusiasm. ‘Not only will he pay a large sum of money up front if you agree to marry him, but he will also make a very substantial settlement on you after the divorce and ensure that you never have to work again.’
‘That sounds like a winning scheme for a gold-digger,’ Tansy pointed out sweetly. ‘But I’m not that way inclined. Of course, I can see the appeal from your side of the fence. Presumably if I agree to this nonsense, you would get the large sum of money upfront to settle your debts and retain your lifestyle.’
‘Think of the benefits for Posy,’ her stepfather urged speciously.
‘Calvin, you don’t give two hoots about Posy or her needs. You’re only thinking about saving your own skin,’ Tansy countered ruefully.
Calvin frowned. ‘You know that’s not true. I love that little girl.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Tansy said with regret. ‘You live in the same house and you haven’t bothered to even see her in over a week. I’m not judging you for that. I accept that not everyone wants to be a parent but what worries me the most is that you don’t care about her welfare either.’
‘And how do you make that out?’ Calvin riposted, angry colour spotting his cheeks at that criticism.
‘Well, you keep on pushing Posy off on your girlfriend even though it’s perfectly obvious that Susie hasn’t an ounce of interest in acting as her substitute mother.’
‘Posy is my daughter,’ her stepfather reminded her with lethal timing. ‘Allow me to decide what’s best for her. Now what about this proposition? Don’t ignore the fact that there would be substantial benefits in the marriage for you as well.’
‘But nothing that I value. Yes, money would make it easier for me to move on with my life and possibly return to university,’ Tansy conceded reluctantly, ‘but it wouldn’t sort out the problem of who is to care for Posy. Right now, I think I’m the best person to look after my sister because I love her. Why can’t you sign over custody of Posy to me?’
Calvin studied her in indignant disbelief. ‘And what would people think of me if I did something like that? Handing my own flesh and blood over to a girl barely into her twenties?’
‘Is that all you care about? What other people think?’ Tansy viewed him with helpless contempt. ‘At the end of the day what should matter to you is what makes Posy happy and secure.’
‘Well, it certainl
y won’t be you when you’re broke and living under my roof at my expense,’ her stepfather reminded her crushingly. ‘You have no means of supporting a child, no income, no home—’
Tansy jumped to her feet with knotted fists. ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep Posy!’ she snapped back at him angrily. ‘Given a little time I could find us a home and I could find a job—’
‘Marrying Jude Alexandris would give you a home and an income,’ Calvin pointed out persuasively. ‘You just said that there’s nothing you wouldn’t do to keep Posy. Did you mean it? If you agree to marry Alexandris, I’ll consider giving you custody of Posy. In those circumstances, nobody would question me handing her over to you because you would be in a position to offer her so much more than I ever could. The Alexandris family are one of the richest in the world—’
‘Are you serious?’ Tansy gasped in complete astonishment at the suggestion that should she be willing to agree to such a marriage he might be willing to surrender his rights to her sister.
‘Yes, you agree to marry Alexandris and hand over that initial sum of money to me and I will agree to relinquish my paternal rights in your favour. But, mind you, it won’t be that easy,’ Calvin told her, switching into cool, curt business mode. ‘You would have to impress Alexandris first and you won’t do that by mouthing off to him the way you do to me. He will have a low tolerance level for insolence because he’s not accustomed to dealing with it. I wouldn’t suggest telling him about Posy in advance either as he will only see a young child accompanying you as a problem and a burden. He wants a yes-woman who will do as she’s told, nothing more demanding.’
Tansy let his words wash over her while she breathed in deep and slow. A yes-woman, well, she supposed she had been a weak yes-person for much of her life, constantly striving to please and impress her mother and never quite managing to make the grade. From childhood, Tansy had been a disappointment to Rosie Browne. She had cried when her mother had entered her in beauty pageants, come over all shy when she’d got her a booking as a child model and had failed utterly in the drama and ballet classes that had followed.
It was that sad history, that awareness of past failure, that had made Tansy take time out of the radiography degree her mother had denigrated and come to the older woman’s aid when she had asked for her help while she was pregnant. Just for once, Tansy had wanted to succeed in winning her mother’s approval because she had badly needed the comfort of believing that in spite of everything she could still be a good daughter. Regrettably, she had no memory whatsoever of her father, who had died when she was a baby, and by the time her mother had married Calvin, she had been fifteen years old. He had had no desire to take on a stepfather role and she and Calvin had pretty much avoided each other until she went to university. Currently, she struggled to deal with Calvin without her mother around because everything about superficial, smooth-talking, selfish Calvin irritated her.
‘You will be seeing Alexandris tomorrow morning at ten for an interview,’ Calvin informed her, startling her with that announcement. ‘I’ll organise Susie to look after the baby.’
‘Tomorrow?’ Tansy gasped.
‘We have no time to lose and neither has he. He’s on a tight timeline. I need to coach you on what Alexandris expects so that you’ll impress him as a viable choice,’ her stepfather decreed, disconcerting her even more.
Tansy was taken aback by the concept of being ‘coached’ by Calvin in anything. Was she even willing to go through some marriage ceremony with a stranger for money? Put that baldly, it struck her as a proposition that only a greedy, unscrupulous woman would even consider, and she was neither of those things. On the other hand, if agreeing to that proposition gave Tansy the right to ensure that her little sister was never again left screaming, hungry and unwashed in her cot, she had to think again about what she was ready to sacrifice to achieve a greater good.
‘Will you promise me that if this guy agrees to marry me, you will hand over Posy?’ she pressed worriedly. ‘Because that would be the only reason I am even prepared to consider this idea.’
‘So you say,’ Calvin jibed with a curled lip. ‘But I refuse to accept that the cash and the lifestyle Alexandris could give you doesn’t feature in your decision.’
‘If this works and you get the money for me doing this, are you willing to sign over custody of Posy to me?’ Tansy demanded a second time, needing that reassurance.
‘Tansy, if you can pull this off, I’d sign my soul over to the devil, never mind give up Posy,’ Calvin admitted with unusual honesty. ‘Right now, I’m facing disaster and I’ll do anything to avoid it…’
CHAPTER TWO
TANSY AVERTED HER gaze from her reflection in the mirrored lift wafting her up to the penthouse apartment. She was still a little shaken by the elaborate security checks she had had to undergo to prove her identity on the ground floor and gain access to the building. She was now in a special lift that travelled only to the penthouse apartment, a luxury that impressed her to death with its sheer exclusivity. In truth, getting permission to even enter the presence of Jude Alexandris felt like an achievement of no mean order.
Maybe she didn’t look quite fancy enough to impress, she conceded ruefully. Maybe she should have tailored her appearance to exactly what Calvin had advised and trowelled on the make-up and used every beautician trick known to her to ensure the ultimate polished finish. Unfortunately, that extremely groomed look wasn’t Tansy and never had been. Although her mother had ensured that her vanity-resistant daughter was taught every cosmetic skill available, Tansy had never enjoyed the artificial aspect of presenting herself as someone she felt she was not.
For that reason, Tansy was only wearing light make-up, but she was also, at Calvin’s behest, wearing a dress and shoes she felt would have been more suitable for clubbing than a supposed interview. The last time she had worn the short green dress and perilously high heels had been to dance at her friend Laura’s wedding and she had been a different girl back then, she thought sadly.
Only eighteen months ago, she had still been at university studying radiography and looking forward to the hospital career she had planned. And then without warning everything had gone pear-shaped. Her mother’s pregnancy had been problematic from the outset and when Rosie had found herself struggling to run her beauty salon it had been her daughter she had turned to for help and support. At the time, Tansy had assumed she would only need a couple of months out of her course and that once her sibling was born she would be free to return to her studies. Yet even now, when she accepted that that miscalculation had concluded her education, nothing could make her regret her sister’s birth, she conceded fondly. Sometimes life demanded sudden changes of direction and she had simply had to come to terms with the different path that had opened up ahead of her. And if that meant marrying some weird, rich foreigner, she would cope if it was for Posy’s essential benefit.
With a soft bell tone, the lift doors whirred back and exposed a vast expanse of marble floor flooded by light from the glass roof overhead. A single metal sculpture took pride of place to one side of a glass hall table. It was very stark décor, but it also struck a highly sophisticated note. Tansy stepped out of the lift just as an older woman in a severe black dress appeared from a doorway.
‘Miss Browne, please come this way,’ she urged, leading the way into a breathtaking reception area flooded with light and surrounded by fabulous panoramic views of London.
Indeed, so spectacular was that space that Tansy didn’t even notice that the older woman had abandoned her or that, as she pirouetted round on one high heel to better appreciate what lay beyond the wall of window glass, a tall man had strolled in off the roof terrace behind her.
Jude studied his visitor with appreciative eyes. She was a beauty and a surprisingly unusual one, distinctly different from the common herd. Broadly speaking, she had blond hair, but it was streaked in shades that ran from light
brown to gold to pale honey and it looked as natural as her delicately pointed features. Her hair fell halfway down her back in a thick mass of rather messy waves. She wore a raincoat over a dress that revealed legs that in shape and length would not have shamed a Las Vegas showgirl. Slender in build, she was of medium height. Against her creamy skin, her almond-shaped green eyes glowed as clear as emeralds above her full soft pink mouth.
‘Jude Alexandris…’ Jude murmured, thinking, yes, she would fit his purpose, more than match and make possible that extra dimension to the marriage that he had originally planned with Althea.
After all, why go to all the trouble of getting married to satisfy and silence his grandfather’s demands and not take advantage of that legal union? It would make sense to try to have a child with the woman he married and, in so doing, shift his cantankerous grandfather into long-overdue retirement, which would leave Jude free to live his life and run the Alexandris empire exactly as he liked without interference from anyone. When Althea had bowed out, he had given up on the idea of a child but why should he do that? A woman prepared to marry for money would probably have little compunction about providing him with a child in return for an even richer payday.
At the unexpected sound of another voice, Tansy flinched and jumped and spun round, her coat flying out to catch on the small table beside her and toppling it. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she began in incredulous embarrassment, wobbling on the high heels that she had not worn in well over a year, one foot semiskidding on the tiled floor, making her lurch clumsily to one side.
Jude caught her upper arm with a powerful hand to steady her before she could fall and picked up the table with the other. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he drawled.
Tansy froze as his hand dropped from her arm again and he backed off several feet. ‘I got lost in the view. I was picking out landmarks like a total tourist,’ she confessed unevenly, because in reality even contriving to breathe that close to such a perfect vision of masculinity challenged her.