Playing the Dutiful WifeExpecting His Love-Child

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘It could last…’ She pulled her head away and opened her mouth to argue, but he spoke over her.

  ‘I don’t want to wait for the rows and the disenchantment to kick in. I don’t want to do that to us because what we have now is so good. But, no, it cannot last…’

  Which was why she’d accept his kisses—which was why, tonight, she would shut out the fact that this was temporary. Because tonight maybe she just needed to escape, and maybe he did too.

  And even if he wouldn’t admit it, even if he chose not to share his feelings, Niklas felt as if he’d just stepped out of hell’s inferno into heaven as his mouth met hers.

  Her mouth was bruised, but very gently he kissed it. Her cheek was hurting and her legs were grazed where she’d fallen. She knew she could never keep him, that for now guilt and fear would drive his kisses, and that later this man she didn’t really know would return to a life she had never really been in. This wasn’t love they were making. It was now.

  Over and over she told herself that.

  She thought he’d make love to her in the water, but he took her wet to the bed and dried her with a towel, every inch of her, and then he kissed her bruises, up her legs, and he kissed her there till she was crying and moaning in frustration. His hand was over her mouth again, because there were still guards outside, but she wanted him—wanted all of him. Then he slipped inside her, and it was incredibly slow, a savour in each thrust, but the words she needed were not in her ears. She bit down as she came, and gave him her body while trying to claim back a heart this man didn’t want but already had.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MEG WOKE IN the night, crying and scared, and Niklas held her tightly before he made love to her again.

  And he would have had her again in the morning—was pulling her across the mattress when the phone rang to tell them that Rosa was on her way up.

  ‘Later!’ he said, and kissed her. ‘Or just really, really quickly now?’

  She looked into black eyes that smiled down at her and simply could not read him—couldn’t be his sex toy any more.

  ‘Later,’ Meg said, and climbed out of bed.

  She let Rosa in. She had brought fresh clothes for both of them. Surprisingly, she gave Meg a hug and told her that she would accompany them to the police station.

  ‘I am very sorry for the way I spoke to you,’ Rosa said.

  ‘What way?’ Niklas checked.

  She looked at Niklas. ‘I gave her a hard time.’

  ‘You weren’t the only one,’ Meg said, and then went purple when Rosa laughed. God, was that the only place minds went in Brazil? ‘What I meant,’ she said in her best cross voice, ‘was that I do understand why you said what you did.’

  ‘I am grateful,’ Niklas said to Rosa. ‘To all three of you, but especially to you. I will repay you just as soon as I get my assets back.’

  ‘Hopefully it won’t be long now,’ Rosa said, and then smiled as she scolded, ‘But did you have to drink the most expensive champagne in the fridge? I just paid your room bill.’

  ‘You paid?’ Meg blinked. She wasn’t talking about the champagne. ‘That was your money?’ Meg had assumed it came from Niklas’s funds, but of course she now realised that while he was being investigated they would all be frozen.

  ‘I put up my home,’ Rosa said. ‘I believed in him.’

  ‘You’re the richest one of us in the room,’ Niklas said to Meg, and even Rosa laughed.

  ‘I’ll buy you all a coffee on the way to the station.’ Meg smiled, but it was strained. She headed to the bathroom to get changed and thought about Rosa’s belief in Niklas. It was clear to Meg that in the past Rosa and Niklas had slept together, but it wasn’t that fact that riled her. It was the friendship they had that ate at her—a friendship that would not waver, one that would always last.

  It was the longevity that riled her.

  Meg opened the bag of fresh clothes and noticed that Rosa had chosen well for her. There was a skirt that was soft and long and would cover the grazes on her legs, a thin blouse and some gorgeous, albeit completely see-through, underwear. Meg inspected the underwear more closely and saw that there wasn’t an awful lot of it, and when she pulled the knickers on she was silently mortified to realise that there was a hole in the middle—which was intentional. They were the most outrageous things she’d ever worn, but she could hardly complain to Rosa.

  There were sandals too, because hers had broken yesterday.

  She dressed and brushed her teeth, and combed her hair, and looked in the mirror and examined her solemn face. She should be happy and celebrating, except she couldn’t quite rise to it. Memories of yesterday were still too raw, and she didn’t understand how Niklas and Rosa could be smiling and chatting.

  Didn’t understand how Niklas could just turn his pain off.

  But she had to learn how to, because soon she had to go home.

  Had to.

  She could not hang around and watch as his guilt for what he had put her through and the attraction he clearly had for her faded. She couldn’t bear the thought of his boredom setting in as she waited for the news that she was to be dismissed from his life.

  If Niklas didn’t want for ever, then she couldn’t carry on with it being just for now.

  ‘Ready?’ Niklas checked, looking over as she walked out of the bathroom.

  ‘I guess so.’ There was nothing to pack, after all.

  ‘Do you want me to take your clothes and have them cleaned?’ Rosa offered.

  ‘I’ll bin them.’ Meg headed back to the bathroom to do so. ‘I never want to see them again.’

  ‘Okay.’ Rosa hitched up her bag and headed off. ‘I’ll go and make sure the car is ready.’

  When she’d left Meg picked up all the clothes from the wet bathroom floor and took them through to the bin in the lounge, but as she went to throw them in he stopped her.

  ‘Not those.’

  She looked at the denims he was retrieving and he turned and smiled.

  ‘You might want me to shave my head again one day…’

  She wasn’t smiling back.

  ‘It’s all a game to you, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, Meg.’ He shook his head, and he wasn’t smiling now. ‘It’s not.’

  But as they took the lift down she noted that he was holding a bag. He hadn’t binned the denim clothes he’d worn in prison.

  He pulled her into him and shielded her from the press as they left the hotel, did it again when they got to the police station, but she was actually shielding herself from him. He gave her a thorough kiss before she headed in to give her statement, but all it did was make her want to cry, because she wanted more than just sex from him.

  ‘You’ll be fine.’ He wiped a tear with his thumb. ‘Just tell them what happened. Rosa will be there…’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s nothing to be scared of,’ he said. ‘And then I’m going to get you right away from here—just us…’ He smiled as he said it, gave her another kiss to reassure her.

  She returned neither.

  The statement was long and detailed, and she felt as if she were going over and over the same thing.

  No, she had never met Miguel, and nor had Emilios mentioned him.

  She didn’t know who had called Emilios, but it had been after that call that he had suggested they go for a walk.

  ‘They ask,’ Rosa said, ‘when did you realise it was not Niklas?’

  ‘I never realised,’ she said again.

  ‘But you said you started to panic long before you saw the gun?’

  She nodded, but Rosa told her she had to answer. ‘Yes.’

  They made her go over and over it, and she tried to explain things but it was so hard. It was hard to understand herself. She didn’t want to say in the police station that she was surprised he hadn’t taken her to bed, that perhaps that had been the biggest clue that it wasn’t Niklas—which for Meg just rammed home how empty their relationship really was.

/>   ‘So what made you panic?’ Rosa checked again.

  ‘I realised what a mistake I’d made marrying him,’ Meg said, in a voice that was flat as she relived it. ‘That there was no real basis for a relationship, that he’d always said it wouldn’t last. All I wanted was to be away from him.’

  ‘From Emilios?’

  She shook her head. She remembered her swollen eyes and flinging things in a suitcase, the pleasure and pain of the last year, mainly the pain, and still, still he delivered it.

  ‘From Niklas.’ As she said it she saw Rosa’s slight frown.

  And then they took her further back, to her first meeting with Niklas on the plane and their late-night conversation.

  ‘I asked how he’d been orphaned and he said he wasn’t sure.’

  ‘You asked if he had ever tried to look for his family?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what was his response?’

  ‘He said that he had got Miguel, his lawyer, onto it, but he had got nowhere.’

  ‘He said that?’ the police officer checked via Rosa. ‘He definitely said that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The officer looked long and hard at her, and then Rosa asked if Meg was sure, as this was from a conversation a year ago. ‘He asks if you are sure this is not the conversation you had with Niklas last night.’

  Meg blinked.

  ‘I told the police.’

  ‘You remember this conversation exactly?’ the officer checked, and she said yes, because she had been replaying every second of their time over and over for close to a year now.

  ‘Exactly.’ She nodded. ‘And then I asked what it had been like, growing up in an orphanage, but he didn’t respond,’ Meg said. ‘He told me he didn’t want to speak about that sort of thing.’

  But the police weren’t interested in that part.

  Only Meg was.

  She went over and over everything again. She said that, no, she hadn’t been aware she was being followed at the time, and looked to Rosa for explanation, but she gave a brief shake of her head. Then her statement was read back to her. She listened and heard that basically they had had an awful lot of sex and just a few conversations, but he had definitely mentioned that he had asked Miguel to look for his family. She signed her name to it.

  ‘That is good,’ Rosa said as they walked out. ‘You have a good memory. They will jump on that part in court if Miguel denies that he was asked to find Niklas’s family,’ she warned. ‘Just stay with that.’

  ‘Am I free to fly home?’ Meg asked. She saw the brief purse of Rosa’s lips. ‘My family’s worried about me.’

  ‘It might be better for Niklas’s case if you were here.’

  ‘What case?’ Meg asked. ‘It’s clear he’s innocent.’

  ‘To you,’ Rosa said. ‘And it is to me. But dead men can’t speak.’ She gave a thin smile. ‘I correct myself. When I said that Niklas never makes mistakes, he has made one—he hired Miguel, and he is a brilliant lawyer. He might say it was both of them that were conning people. He might insist he believed it was Niklas giving him instructions, or that the directions came from both of them…’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes,’ Rosa said. ‘I will fight it, but it might look better for Niklas if his wife was here beside him—not back home, counting the money his legal team has placed in her account.’

  ‘You know it isn’t like that.’

  ‘Tell the judge,’ Rosa said, and she was back to being mean. ‘I get that your family is worried about you, but if you can pretend for a little while longer that Niklas is a part of your family…’

  ‘Niklas doesn’t want me to,’ Meg retorted. ‘Niklas doesn’t want a family…’

  ‘He doesn’t even know what one is!’ Rosa shouted. ‘Yet he has done everything right by you.’

  ‘Everything right by me?’ It was Meg who was shouting now. ‘Are we talking about the same man?’

  It wasn’t the best choice of words, given the circumstances—especially as Niklas appeared then.

  ‘My mother had triplets, maybe?’ he quipped.

  It was her poor choice of words, perhaps, but his response was just in bad taste. She did not understand how he could be so laid-back about it. How could he have his arm around her and be walking out of the police station as if the nightmare of the last year hadn’t even happened?

  It was the same circus of cameras as before, and then they left Rosa to give the press a statement. A car was waiting for them. It’s driver handed the keys over to Niklas, who sat behind the wheel as Meg sat in the passenger seat. The moment she was seated Niklas accelerated away at speed—away from the crowds of press. After a while the car slowed, and the drive was a long one, taking them out of the city and through the hills. There was little conversation, just an angry silence from Meg, whereas with every mile the car ate up Niklas seemed more relaxed.

  ‘You’re quiet,’ he commented.

  ‘Isn’t that what you want me to be?’

  Sulking didn’t work with Niklas. It didn’t bother him a bit. He just carried on driving, one hand on the wheel, the other out of the window. Any minute now he’d start whistling, just to annoy her further. She was still bristling from Rosa’s words. The first thing she would do when she got back to Sydney was send back all the money that she had been paid.

  He looked over at her tense profile. ‘We’ll be there soon.’

  She didn’t answer him.

  Nothing made sense: the policeman’s questions had confused her, Rosa had angered her, and as for him… She turned and could not fathom how calm he was after all that had happened. He was fiddling with the sound system now, flicking through channels. She did not need background music, and her hand snapped it off.

  ‘The police said I was being followed. That it wasn’t the police who shot him…’

  ‘It was a bodyguard.’

  ‘Bodyguard?’

  ‘Just leave it.’

  ‘No,’ Meg snapped. ‘I will not.’

  ‘He will not do any prison time. I have my lawyers working for him. I had a couple of people following you when I realised you were still here—when I guessed I had a twin. I did not know exactly what was happening, but I knew you would not be safe, so I arranged to have people protect you.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I owe a favour to a very powerful man,’ Niklas said. ‘He got a message to the outside after you rang me.’

  And then he stopped talking about it, and she felt his hand come to rest on her leg, and she could not understand how easily he dismissed the fact that it was a bodyguard he had arranged who had shot his twin.

  Did nothing get to him?

  He gave her thigh a squeeze, which she guessed meant they were nearly at their destination and would be off to look at another bedroom any time soon.

  ‘We’re here.’

  It was the most stunning house she had ever seen, with dark wood, white furniture and screens on the windows so the sun and the sounds of the mountains could stream in. It was gorgeous and, Niklas said, the place he had dreamt of when he was on the inside.

  ‘You like it?’

  ‘It’s gorgeous.’

  ‘Look…’

  He took her by the hand and led her to the bedroom, then walked and opened huge glass doors, revealing lush grass that rolled towards another mountain. The sound of birds was all that could be heard. In a place like this, Meg thought, you could start to heal.

  ‘There are servants, but I have told them not to come till I call them. They’ve left us lots of food…’

  And there were her things, hanging in the wardrobe, and there were his arms around her, and again he was holding her close.

  She started crying and he didn’t seem surprised at all.

  ‘You’re exhausted,’ he said.

  She was.

  From nearly a year of loving him.

  ‘Are you about to suggest we go to bed?’

  ‘Meg…’ He saw her anger and he didn’t blame her. ‘I
don’t care how cross you are. You deserve to be. If you want to shout, go ahead. I have put you through hell and I am just trying to make you feel better, to say the right thing. I’m probably getting it wrong, but for now you are here, and safe.’

  It was the ‘for now’ part that was killing her, but she wasn’t going to go there again. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong,’ she said. ‘I’m so angry! I’m so confused…’

  ‘It’s shock,’ he said. ‘You were nearly kidnapped. You saw a man shot.’

  ‘I saw your twin shot!’ she shouted. ‘I thought it was you.’

  He did not react—he just held her.

  ‘Shouldn’t it be the other way round?’ She pulled away from him, so angry. ‘Shouldn’t you be the one crying? He was your brother.’

  ‘That’s for me to deal with,’ Niklas said.

  ‘Can’t you deal with it with me?’

  ‘I prefer to do things like that alone.’ He was nothing if not honest. ‘I don’t want to talk about me. Right now I want to be here for you.’

  He said all the right things, but they were the wrong things too. He took all of her, but didn’t give himself back, and maybe she had better just accept it. He felt nothing for anyone, and as she looked out to the mountains she hoped here she might find a little peace before she left him.

  ‘I hope the press don’t find us here.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ Niklas said. ‘I told you that.’

  ‘If they know that you own it they soon will.’ She looked down the mountain and hoped there were no cars loaded with press following them up, because she was beyond tired now, could not face moving again. She just wanted a moment to gather her thoughts. ‘They’ll be going through all your assets…’

  ‘I don’t own it,’ Niklas said. ‘It’s not listed in my assets. This is in your name…’ He lifted up her face and kissed her frowning forehead. ‘I bought this for you before I got arrested. I wanted the divorce, I knew I might be going away for a very long time, and this was to be part of your settlement. The sale went through the day before my finances were frozen…’ He gave her a smile. ‘They could not seize this because it is yours…’