The Italian's Token Wife

Magda swallowed. ‘Yes, well,’ she mumbled, ‘I don’t exactly move in those circles…’

‘And the offer I have made you,’ he went on, with that same edge of hauteur in his voice, ‘is exactly what I have outlined to you. There are no hidden clauses, no tricks to deceive you. You may talk everything through with my lawyers if you wish. What is in those papers—’ he gestured with his hand to the documents on the table ‘—is what you will get. Now, tell me, if you please, what is stopping you from signing them?’

You, she wanted to shout. It’s you. She stared at him wildly. I can’t marry a man who looks like you, who’s as rich as you, who’s as gorgeous as you—I can’t marry a man, no matter what for, or how temporarily, who looks as if he’s stepped out of a celebrity mag. It’s absurd. It’s nuts. It’s…

A wail distracted her. Benji, bored with posting shapes, had knocked over the tower and started to howl. Automatically Magda collapsed back on the bed and lifted him up to her knees, hugging his firm little body. The sobs ceased, and Benji twisted round in her lap to pay some attention to the stranger in the middle of the room. Magda’s arms wrapped round him, and she felt his little heart beat against hers.

‘A hundred thousand pounds,’ said Rafaello softly. ‘Think…think…what you could do with it…’

Magda’s body started to rock…Go away, she thought desperately, go away. Take your designer suit and your expensive briefcase and go…go before I give in, before you tempt me like Lucifer himself…

‘You wouldn’t be doing it for yourself. You’d be doing it for your baby.’

She shut her eyes, trying to block out that soft, seductive voice.

‘If I walk out now—never to come back—how will you live with yourself? Knowing you turned down the chance to get your baby out of here, for ever?’

She went on rocking, her arms wrapped so closely around Benji that he began to protest.

‘Four weeks—no more than that—in my family home in Italy, which is very respectable, Miss Jones, I do assure you—and then you’re free.’

‘Benji comes with me.’ Her voice was high-pitched.

Rafaello spread his hands. ‘Of course the baby comes with you—that is essential.’ It wasn’t necessary to spell out to her just why his bride should arrive accoutred with a fatherless child. ‘You just have to sign the papers, that’s all you have to do…’ He slid his hand inside his breast pocket, taking out a gold fountain pen, slipping off the top, proffering it to her. ‘Come—’

There was an imperiousness in his voice she could not resist. Slowly, as if she was sleepwalking, she slid Benji from her lap back on to the bed, ignoring his wail of protest. Slowly, very slowly, she got to her feet. It wasn’t real. None of this was real. She’d wake up in a moment and find it had all been a dream.

He held the pen out to her. Numbly she took it. Numbly she looked down at the table, to where he was turning the documents to the last page and placing one long, lean finger where she should sign.

The ink flowed from the gold pen in smooth, lustrous curves, despite the halting jerkiness of her signature. In the evening light it seemed blood-coloured. As she handed it back to him, standing at her side like a dark, infernal presence, she felt a wave of weakness go through her.

What have I done? Oh, dear God, what have I done?

But whatever it was, it was too late to go back.

Magda sat, staring out of the porthole, at the sunlit cloudscape beyond. Benji was on her lap, asleep. He’d had a bad takeoff, even with sucking on the bottle of juice to ease the pressure on his little eardrums, but now, after half an hour of grizzling, he’d finally fallen asleep.

She glanced covertly across the aisle to where Rafaello di Viscenti was sitting. He was working through a pile of papers laid out on the table in front of him, and so far as he was concerned, she could tell, he might as well have been alone on the plane.

There were no passengers apart from themselves on the luxurious executive jet winging its way across Europe. For Magda, who had never flown in her life, it was an experience she could hardly believe was happening.

But then her whole life since she had signed her name at Rafaello di Viscenti’s arrogant bidding had been completely unbelievable. She knew that if she had thought too much about what she was doing she could not have gone through with it. So she’d just let herself be swept along, let herself be that tin can racing along behind Rafaello di Viscenti’s powerful, unstoppable car taking her into an un-dreamed-of future.