The Bride Who Wouldn't

by Carol Marinelli

  The Bride Who Wouldn’t

  a honeymoon novella

  Carol Marinelli

  Tule Publishing Group

  The Bride Who Wouldn’t

  Copyright © 2014 Carol Marinelli

  Kindle Edition

  The Tule Publishing Group, LLC

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  ISBN: 978-1-940296-51-7

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Available Soon

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  “There is a gentleman here to see you.”

  Kate knew, even before Jasmine said his name, just who was here to see her and she felt like correcting the receptionist.

  Isaak Zaretsky was no gentleman.

  The Zaretsky brothers featured regularly in the business sections of the financial spreads but it was their playboy reputation that had women flocking to the magazine racks whenever Isaak or Roman graced their covers.

  Kate had guessed that it would be Isaak that would come and see her. Roman’s reputation had been tamed by his marriage and more recently the death of his wife.

  Yes, she had known it would be Isaak—notorious, ruthless, and now he had the power to crush Kate and her family in the palm of his hand.

  “I’m about to start a class,” Kate said, winding a long dark curl around her finger and trying to keep the nervousness from her voice. “I shan’t be available for another hour.”

  Kate knew too what the response would be as she tried to delay the inevitable, and she closed her eyes as Jasmine relayed the message to the formidable man downstairs. “He says that he’ll wait.”

  Kate ended the call but instead of heading out to her class she took a moment to look Isaak up on her laptop, hoping that maybe, just maybe, she could find something about him that did not make her insides fold in terror. But no, unlike his uncle, Ivor, it would appear that Isaak did not have a benevolent bone in his body.

  There were scorned women galore lamenting their loss but that wasn’t what Kate was interested in and she searched for business articles praying to stumble upon what she didn’t quite know but the word that came up over and over was ruthless.

  The Zaretsky brothers circled over failing businesses like vultures, swooping in just prior to them declaring bankruptcy and making a majority shareholder offer—invariably resurrecting the ailing company but with the addition of the Zaretsky name.

  There was a knock on her door and Kate jumped but it was just Taylor, a colleague, who reminded Kate that her class should have started ten minutes ago.

  A historian, Kate’s passion was genealogy and she held classes at the library, helping people to trace their families back generations.

  It was how she had met Ivor Zaretsky and the reason she now found herself in this mess.

  “Thanks Taylor, I’ll be there in just a moment,” Kate said but just before she went to close her laptop and head across the hall, she clicked on a photo. Isaak’s black hair was always cut short, almost cropped, sometimes he was clean shaven, often he wore a few days growth but always he was immaculate and always, always he seemed to be scowling.

  She clicked on another photo and took a sharp inward breath. His handsome chiselled features she would soon confront. His eyes were a deep navy and as cold and uninviting as the ocean at night.

  And Kate owed him a million.

  “Why did you have to die, Ivor?” Kate asked out loud but of course, she got no answer.

  Kate blinked back tears and let out a breath, telling herself that she must not break down here; her students would already be upset.

  Kate stepped in to the room where she held her classes and solemn faces greeted her. “I’m sorry I’m late…” she looked around the room, Michael, one of the students must just have been told because he was dabbing his eyes and his shoulders were shaking. “I know that we’re all devastated to hear about Ivor…”

  For more than a year, he had been a part of their lives, sharing a bit of his history, making the class laugh with his wit and humour.

  He would be missed so.

  The class started late and finished late too. Her hour of grace avoiding Isaak was already up but, when Michael asked a question, instead of concluding the class, Kate chose to answer.

  Isaak would just have to wait.

  “When you and Ivor went to Russia, did he find the answers he was seeking?”

  The class knew a little of Ivor’s story though Kate knew far much more.

  He had trusted Kate with his secrets and in turn, she had trusted Ivor with secrets of her own.

  “No.” Kate shook her head. “We did find some paintings in a museum where a woman was wearing a ring that looked similar, perhaps from the same designer and we were going to examine those paintings more closely. I’ll do that myself now.”

  “Did you find anything in the death records?” Michael asked.

  “A few leads,” Kate said. “But it is going to be a painstaking process.” She gave the class a smile. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s someone I need to meet with and I’m already late.”

  *

  Isaak glanced at the ancient clock on the library wall, inwardly seething. He had arrived before midday and it was now well after one. Kate Edwards was pushing him beyond the limit of his patience.

  He waited for no one—usually it was the other way around, but as he sat in the old London library Isaak had no thought of leaving.

  He would outstay her.

  Still, the surroundings he now found himself in had come as a surprise. Isaak had expected his uncle’s tart’s workplace to be a brothel or a strip club certainly not this magnificent building.

  How had Kate Edwards done it? How had this woman managed to get his astute uncle to sign over the last of his fortune?

  Isaak could guess how!

  The contract in his hand was so revolting Isaak was tempted to curl it in a ball here and now. Isaak did not care about the money; his uncle’s estate was the equivalent of loose change to him. More, he was livid with this woman who had somehow made a usually wise old man her prey.

  “Mr Zaretsky!”

  He had not heard her approach and Isaak looked up from unusual disadvantage for he would have preferred to be standing when they met.

  He rectified that immediately, but not before he got a glimpse of dark stockinged legs in velvet Cuban-heeled shoes and heard the soft, slightly nervous edge to her voice. “You wanted to see me.”

  “I do.”

  As Isaak rose Kate stepped back a fraction for she had not anticipated his height nor just how imposing his actual presence would be.

  She was met by the unshaven version of Isaak today and although he was wearing a suit and his attire was immaculate, somehow he looked as if he had just fallen out of bed. His eyes were bloodshot, though she guessed that it was from excess rather than gr
ieving the loss of his uncle.

  Or was that his reputation clouding her judgement? Kate truly did not know.

  “Should we go somewhere private?” Isaak asked and Kate hesitated. His Russian accent was rich, his voice deep and definitely not soothing. The curt edge to his tone and the way his lip curled in distaste told Kate what he thought of her. “If not,” Isaak responded to her silence, “we can discuss things here. I have no issue with that.”

  A few of her students were walking down the stairs, all looking over their shoulders for a second glimpse of Isaak. They all knew he was Ivor’s nephew but his arrival in the library was curious and his beauty was worth a second look, that was for sure.

  “Your office?” Isaak’s brusque call for a response broke into her thoughts and Kate glanced down to the contract he held in his hand and nodded. Certainly she did not want her business discussed here.

  “Follow me.”

  Her heels made no noise as they walked along the corridor, Isaak noted—the reason for her stealth-like approach.

  Her scent was a contradiction.

  Floral, light, sweet, it trailed her lightly as Isaak followed Kate up the stairs.

  Everything about her was contrary to the image he had conjured. Her figure was subtle, Isaak noted. Well, what he could make of it for her clothes were shapeless, from the heavy skirt to the ill-fitting cardigan. Her long dark curls were worn in a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck.

  And those eyes.

  Isaak could not decide if they were green or hazel—he would find out soon, for she unlocked her office and invited him in.

  “Excuse the mess.”

  It was inexcusable! Isaak glanced at the stacks of books and papers. There were maps and photos and several white boards all filled with scribble. From his neat corporate mind, he wondered how the hell she got anything done. Isaak half expected a cat to jump out as she moved some files to free up a seat.

  He was about to say the same but changed his mind.

  Humour had no place in this conversation.

  “I assume you know the reason for my visit?” Isaak said when she invited him to take a seat.

  “I’m sorry for the loss of your uncle,” Kate offered, the tip of her nose reddening, tears filling her eyes, and still Isaak could not decide on their colour. “He was a wonderful man.”

  “Spare me the tears,” Isaak said, irritated by his own fascination with her. Tossing the contract onto the littered desk, he watched her flinch. “You recognise this I presume?”

  “I do.”

  For the first time she met his gaze, and though nervous, she held it.

  You can do this, Kate, she told herself. Soon this uncomfortable meeting would be over and she would be able to get on with her life.

  Except there was an awful lot of money that she couldn’t repay.

  He watched her attempt to assert herself. How she sat straighter in the chair and attempted to fix him with her gaze and amazing eyes.

  God, but she was stunning. Now he could see how his uncle had been beguiled. There was smatter of freckles on her neat, slightly snubbed nose that told him her creamy, flawless complexion did not come from a bottle and her wide, generous mouth had Isaak briefly wonder what it would look like if she smiled.

  He would not be finding out, Isaak swiftly decided and his eyes abhorred her as she spoke.

  “I’d like to say that just because there was money involved in our relationship I still cared for your uncle.”

  “Please!” Isaak scoffed. “How come he never mentioned you to me?”

  Kate shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “I do,” he retorted. “Because he must have known I would tell him that he was being taken as a fool.”

  “Your uncle was far from foolish. He was a very intelligent man.”

  “So, when were you to announce your engagement?” Isaak asked.

  “We hadn’t decided.”

  “And when was the marriage to take place?”

  “We hadn’t got to that yet,” Kate said and heard Isaak’s hiss of irritation at her vague response.

  “How did you two meet?”

  Kate avoided his gaze and looked to the pile of reference books in front of her, choosing not to answer, for it was Isaak’s history, too, that was up for question. “I don’t have to answer that.”

  His questions were rapid, his impatience mounting at the vague answers she gave. “So you didn’t know when you were going to get the second million?”

  “No.”

  “But you knew it was coming.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the third million would come when you divorced…” His fingers jabbed at a clause on the contract. “I am aware of marriages of convenience but even I am taken aback by the cold details of this contract—you agree to share his bed for four nights during your honeymoon in Paris? You agree to be affectionate towards him but only in public? The list goes on and on, so please don’t attempt to tell me this was about anything other than money.”

  It had been, though.

  She and Ivor had hatched this plan on their trip to Russia, when Kate had confided to Ivor the shocking state of her family’s business. Their trip had been about unearthing secrets and Ivor had told her one of his own. His playboy reputation now exhausted him.

  Late one night, after an arduous day spent searching museums, Ivor had told her he had once known the love of his life and that the other women he had been linked with over the years had meant little.

  “I doubt I’ll ever know the love of my life,” Kate had admitted and she had told him her dark truth.

  Yes, in most parts of her life she had it together. She adored her career and had stepped away from the family business when she did not approve of their dealings, she had a close circle of friends, and was paying off her home. Yet she was frigid, a twenty-six-year-old virgin with serious issues, but she was determined to work on that.

  The old man had merely smiled.

  From there the plan had hatched for a sexless marriage.

  She would be his wife for a year with no hint of scandal from either party. Ivor had laughed and said that if he slipped up then it would be a very expensive mistake.

  Kate looked over to Isaak. There was no way she could explain how the contract had transpired for she would not be discussing her sex life, or lack of it, with him.

  “You need to repay the money,” Isaak said. “The contract states that if the marriage does not go ahead, for whatever reason, then all monies are to be returned.”

  “Surely it’s not my fault…” Kate’s breathing was starting to trip up her words. “Surely there’s a clause that covers this.”

  “You signed the contract.” Isaak pointed out, although he too was surprised that something so basic had not been more adequately covered. “It states you are to pay back the money or a suitable arrangement can be made at my discretion…”

  “Then we need to come to a suitable arrangement because I can’t give it to you.” Kate said. “It’s already gone.”

  “That’s a considerable amount to have spent in…” he glanced at the date on the contract, “just over a week.”

  “It went to my family’s business.”

  “They know about this contract?”

  Kate nodded and Isaak cussed in Russian under his breath at a family that would sell their daughter to an old man.

  “Were all the payments going to them?”

  “They were.” She closed her eyes for a moment in shame, not for herself but for her mother and brothers’ greed—their only reaction to Ivor’s death had been questions about money and how they were going to cope without the next instalment.

  She looked at his nephew, here to recoup a million.

  Did anybody care about the man?

  “Why would you do this for your family?” Isaak asked.

  “Duty.” Kate gave a tight shrug. “Obligation, guilt…”

  Isaak shifted a touch uncomfortably, for the first time
her words reached him in a place he knew well.

  Isaak had every reason to loathe his father. He had made his mother’s and children’s lives a living hell and yet, now an old, very sick man, still living in Russia, the brothers paid for him to have the very best care in his final years, and when Kate spoke again this time it was Isaak who looked away.

  “This arrangement gave me a chance to finally turn my back on them guilt free. I had decided that this was the last thing I’d ever do for them.”

  Isaak swallowed; yes, he understood her language. “It doesn’t end that easily though.” He gave her a very tight smile. “I’m not talking about the contract.”

  “I know!” Kate rolled her eyes. “You’re right of course, it won’t it end it but I thought it might buy me some time.”

  Green, Isaak decided. Her eyes were more green than hazel and yes, he would like to see her smile.

  “Where is the ring?” Isaak asked, dragging his mind back to business. “It states it is to be returned on termination of the marriage.” That part of the contract had confused Isaak too, for it had described the ring as a family heirloom. There were no heirlooms; the Zaretskys had been dirt poor.

  Kate stood and went to the safe. “Here.”

  It was stunning.

  A white gold setting, there was a diamond that had even Isaak’s expensive eyes widen and it was encrusted with rubies and emeralds. It truly was a work of art.

  “That must cover some of it,” Kate said hopefully.

  “It was always to be returned.”

  “I could have said that I lost it.”

  “Then you would have seen me in court.” His voice gave her no room to manoeuvre; it told her that he very much had the upper hand in this.

  “There are earrings too,” Kate said. “Your uncle gave them to me as a gift. They’re worth a considerable amount, perhaps fifty thousand.” She took them from the safe and placed them on the desk.

  “Which leaves you nine hundred and fifty thousand pounds short,” Isaak pointed out. “You will repay it.”

  “I can’t.”

  Isaak closed his eyes for a moment and reminded himself how angry he was with Kate and told her a part of why. “You realise he was giving you the last of his fortune.”