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He sighed. ‘Another judge would probably have rubber-stamped it without any issue. We were unlucky that ours landed on the desk of a judge who took issue with it. We’ll never know his real reasons why—he passed away four years ago. How did you not know the annulment was declined?’
‘I never received the letter.’ Her mother had probably thrown it away unopened in a fit of pique.
‘You’ve already said that, but why didn’t you chase it? It seems strange that you didn’t call or do something to find out where the confirmation was.’
‘The same could be said for you,’ she retorted, removing her gaze from the sunset to look at him. ‘Didn’t you think you would receive something too?’
‘Hardly. I live on the other side of the world. You said you would handle it. As I recall, you insisted.’
‘How long have you known?’ she asked tightly.
‘Just over two weeks.’
She clenched her fists to stop herself from lashing out at him. ‘You’ve waited that long to tell me?’
‘I was trying to work out the best way forward. I only looked into it because I was hoping to bury the annulment so the press wouldn’t find out.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘The press are digging into every aspect of my life. I knew it would only be a matter of time before they stumbled onto it. I thought it best to bury it completely before they found it and used it as additional ammunition to hit me with. My family don’t know about us...’
‘You never got round to telling them? What a surprise.’ She didn’t bother hiding her sarcasm. My family will never approve of or accept you.
She hadn’t told her own family either but that had been for entirely different reasons. She hadn’t been ashamed of Xander. She’d just been too humiliated and heartbroken to speak of it. She couldn’t have endured hearing her mother’s condemnation and her father’s fake concern on top, then the fights as they tried to find ways to blame the other for it. Because it was always about them, never about her.
‘Things are hard for us at the moment without having to deal with all the press intrusion,’ he said.
‘Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?’ He’d been engaged to another woman. He’d used her and lied to her and then dumped her in the cruellest way possible.
‘You’re not supposed to feel anything. I’m just telling you how it is.’
‘But you had to fly me all this way to tell me? You could have told me in New York—you could have told me anywhere. It seems particularly cruel to bring me to the island we were married on just to discuss our divorce. Well, you have nothing to worry about. I have more to lose than you if our marriage comes out and I want it buried just as much as you...’
‘If I wanted a divorce I would have been in touch two weeks ago.’
Shaking off the fresh dread crawling up her spine at his words, Elizabeth said tightly, ‘You went through the court records specifically to bury our marriage.’
‘That was my original intention,’ he agreed easily although his eyes remained hard. ‘Learning we were still married changed things.’
The dread had lodged into her throat, suffocating her vocal cords so all she could do was plead with her eyes. Don’t say it. Whatever you do, don’t say it.
‘I need us to rekindle our marriage.’
CHAPTER THREE (#u38623b7b-9958-53da-ab3c-95efb4f64650)
HIS MEANING HIT Elizabeth immediately, no initial instant of uncomprehending shock, no moment of bewilderment. ‘Not in a million years.’
‘You’re a matchmaker, Elizabeth,’ he said calmly. ‘You arrange marriages...’
‘For other people,’ she interjected.
‘I want to employ you to rekindle ours. It won’t be for ever, a few months at the most.’
A passing waiter noticed they hadn’t touched their food. ‘Is everything all right? Can I get you anything?’
‘I’d like a cab to the airport,’ Elizabeth said.
Bemusement spread over the waiter’s face. ‘The airport’s closed now.’
She’d completely forgotten flights were forbidden on or off the island after sundown.
‘We’ll have two coffees,’ Xander cut in smoothly while she eyed him furiously.
‘Cappuccino, latte...?’
‘Two filter coffees will be fine.’
As the waiter drifted back inside, Elizabeth leaned forward and glared at Xander. ‘Is that why you brought me here? So I couldn’t escape?’
‘Partly. I had a number of reasons.’
‘Well, guess what? I don’t care what your reasons are. Keeping me here overnight isn’t going to change my mind so you’ve lucked out there. I’m not doing it. Period.’
If he was perturbed by her vehemence, he didn’t show it. Xander was treating the bombshell he’d just thrown at her as dispassionately as if he were conducting a business deal. She could be anyone to him, whereas for Elizabeth...
He had once been her world. Being with him again brought everything back. All of it. The delirious happiness followed by pain so sharp she had never allowed herself to get close to feeling either emotion again. They went hand in glove. If she hadn’t known the joy she would never have suffered so much in the aftermath.
But it hadn’t killed her. It had made her stronger and she would hold on to that strength.
‘You don’t even need a wife,’ she said in a much calmer tone than the explosion her tongue wanted to fire. ‘Your business has been completely unaffected by the Celebrity Spy! scandal...’
‘It has nothing to do with my business.’
The waiter wandered back to them with their coffees, eyeing their still untouched plates with obvious confusion.
Once alone again, Xander stirred a spoonful of brown sugar into his cup and then fixed his eyes on her. ‘My sister-in-law is an alcoholic. She’s recently been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. If she doesn’t stop drinking she will be dead within five years.’
‘You’re talking about Katerina?’ Elizabeth asked, shocked at this revelation.
His brow furrowed. ‘You remember her name?’
Feeling her body heat under his narrow-eyed scrutiny, she took a hasty sip of her coffee.
How embarrassing to remember the name of a woman she’d never met who had probably been mentioned only the once, and in passing at that. But she remembered every conversation between them, had committed to memory the names of his family members. She’d looked forward to meeting them and being a part of their lives.
‘Yes. I’m talking about Katerina,’ Xander continued when Elizabeth didn’t bother to answer his question. ‘I don’t know what will happen to her or if she will be able to stop drinking. I just don’t know. But what happened to her has acted as a wake-up call to my brother. I have been begging him for years to get help for his addictions.’ He gave a small tight smile. ‘Yanis’s poison of choice is cocaine, but he’s not fussy. If it comes in white powder form he’ll snort it. If it comes in liquid form he’ll inject it.’
Now he reached for his coffee and cradled the cup in the same manner Elizabeth was cradling hers.
‘Yanis admitted himself into a specialist lockdown facility in America ten days ago.’
The facility in Arizona was supposed to be one of the best in the world. Xander hoped with all his heart it could help his brother. If not...
He didn’t want to witness his brother’s coffin being lowered into the cold ground. He’d watched Ana’s body be lowered and the grief and guilt had almost sliced him in two. He couldn’t go through the same with his own flesh and blood, the only adult in his family he felt any affection for.
‘That’s good,’ Elizabeth said in a softer tone. The stoniness of her eyes had softened a little too.
‘It is. Very much so. He’ll be in rehab for around two months. As Katerina is unlikely to leave hospital any time soon and will not be in a position to look after their son, Yanis left Loukas in my care.’
‘Loukas is your nephew?’
Xander nodded. ‘He’s eight. Despite all the crap he’s had to put up with, he’s a great kid.’ And now he’d come to the real reason he needed her. ‘My parents have hired a lawyer to go for custody of him.’
Elizabeth’s brows drew together. ‘Custody of Loukas?’
‘Yes. Full custody. They’re saying Yanis and Katerina are unfit parents.’
He could see her brain whirling before she tentatively said, ‘Is giving them custody really a bad thing? What, with the way your brother and Katerina are...?’
‘It is the worst thing,’ he stated flatly. ‘My brother, when he’s not high, is a good father. He’s doing everything he can to straighten himself out so he can care properly for his son. My parents have made this move knowing full well that neither Yanis nor Katerina are in a position to fight it, so I must fight on their behalf.’
‘But...’
‘Elizabeth, I will not allow my parents to take custody of him. I wouldn’t allow it even on a temporary basis.’
‘Where’s Loukas now?’
‘At my home. I have a court order granting me temporary custody for two more weeks and then there will be another hearing. Now they know they’re fighting me, my parents will go for the jugular. They will paint me as an unfit guardian too.’
‘Why?’
‘To stop me from winning. This scandal couldn’t have come at a worse time. It’s painting me as someone debauched and without any morals. The only way I’ll be able to convince the court to let me keep guardianship of Loukas and fight Yanis’s corner is if I can prove I have a stable home for him, and that’s why I need us to rekindle our marriage. Having you as my wife will prove I’m a stable influence and kill my parents’ plans.’
‘It’s that simple?’
‘Sure.’ He took a sip of his coffee. ‘My country is still inherently conservative with a bias towards female carers. With you as my wife, they will see two people able to care for Loukas until his parents are well enough to take him back. If my parents get custody, they will never give him back.’
Her eyes clouded. ‘Are they really likely to do that?’
‘Without doubt. My family has been at war for years and my parents think they finally have a chance of winning a battle.’
Elizabeth removed her shades from the top of her head and folded the bows, her eyes distant, not looking at him, clearly weighing up everything he’d just shared.
‘It really is quite simple,’ he said. ‘You and I announce our marriage to the world and stay together long enough for Yanis to get straight. With any luck, Katerina will make the road to recovery too.’
‘And what if Yanis gets straight but then relapses?’ she challenged. ‘Will I be expected to act as your wife again?’
He shook his head. ‘As soon as he’s released from his facility, I’ll get the steps put in place that I am to be Loukas’s legal guardian in the absence of his parents. You and I will stay married until this has been done. Yanis will agree. If we’d known our parents would take this action we would have done it before but neither of us imagined even they would stoop so low. They hardly know Loukas.’
They should have imagined it, Xander thought grimly. His parents were a law unto themselves. They treated family life as they treated business: as a sport in which there could only be one winner.
‘As I said, it’s a simple matter of us rekindling our marriage. I appreciate it’s asking a lot of you...’
‘A lot?’ she exclaimed, blinking furiously. ‘My business will be finished. Everything I’ve worked for...gone. It works on discretion, remember? And what about the rest of my life?’
‘What life, Elizabeth? All you do is work.’
At the darkening of her features, he figured he might as well get everything out in the open and deal with it all in one go. ‘I had you investigated. There’s no significant other in your life. You have some friends you socialise with occasionally and you take yoga classes when time allows, but there is nothing else. So tell me, what will you be giving up to help me?’
Now her face was ablaze with outraged colour. ‘You went digging into my life? Well, that explains how you discovered Leviathan Solutions.’
He was unrepentant. ‘I learned about your business when searching for our annulment. I had a deeper search made to be sure you had nothing in your past that could be used to paint you as an unsuitable guardian for Loukas.’
As it was, his investigations hadn’t revealed anything. If she had skeletons in her closet, they were tucked too far out of reach for discovery. If she’d dated anyone unsavoury, that was hidden away too. Indeed, he hadn’t found evidence of a link with anyone, not even a fling, never mind anything approaching a committed relationship. Whatever relationships she’d had in the past decade, they’d been conducted discreetly and that was all that mattered.
‘I don’t care what excuses you make, that’s a gross invasion of my privacy,’ she raged. ‘It’s inexcusable.’
‘If you were in my position you would have done the same.’
‘If I were in your position I wouldn’t need to—your private life is splattered on the front page of every red top for the whole world to see.’
‘I can assure you the vast majority of it is highly exaggerated, the rest of it lies,’ he said icily.
‘Of course it is.’ Her sarcasm was delivered with extra bitterness.
His temper rising, Xander finished his coffee and carefully set the cup on the table before pointing to the beach. ‘Do you see the man with the camera round his neck?’
She followed his gaze.
‘That man is a paparazzo, tipped off by my assistant that we’re here.’
Her face contorted into such anger she looked ready to explode.
‘He has your name. He knows about Leviathan Solutions and the service you provide. He knows we’re married. What the story that accompanies his pictures tells is for you to decide.’
Elizabeth listened to Xander’s words and knew her world was crumbling around her.
He’d set her up.
Whatever happened between them, pictures of one of the Casanovas from the Celebrity Spy! scandal pictured in a Caribbean paradise with a woman purported to be his wife would beam around the world. It would be headline news.
‘I can’t believe you would do this.’ She was so angry she could hardly breathe. ‘You say your parents have stooped low...you are exactly like them.’
He was unrepentant. ‘I regret I’ve had to take these steps but everything I’m doing is for my nephew. If you say no to my proposal I have nothing left to play. I have nothing left to lose. My reputation can’t be damaged any more than it already has been. Say yes and you’ll be financially set for life. Thirty million dollars for you, and I’ll pay off your staff too.’
Elizabeth listened with the feeling of talons being dragged over her skin and her head swimming in cold sludge.
Her business was finished. Her life—everything she’d built for herself—was over.
