The Secret Wife

‘Would it give you a bigger kick to walk in and announce yourself as her late husband’s mistress?’

Frustration filled her. ‘I was not Anton’s mistress—’

‘The mistress who has now become the offensive equivalent of a daughter-in-law? Thespina deserves neither the pain nor the humiliation of that kind of truth,’ Constantine countered with fierce emphasis.

The limousine drew up in front of a large, elegant town house. Rosie climbed out into the heat of midafternoon, feeling hot, crumpled and sick with nerves. While Constantine spoke to the manservant who had hurried out to greet them, she hung cravenly back behind him.

He swung round and

expelled his breath in a stark hiss of pent-up tension.

‘Thespina is not here. She flew out to Brazil this morning to stay with friends. Apparently she tried to contact me to let me know her plans but she was unable to reach me.’

A simply huge tide of relief engulfed Rosie. She scooted back into the limousine at speed.

‘Now what?’ she asked almost brightly.

Constantine frowned. ‘It is unlikely that she will hear news of our marriage before her return. Her friends live on a coffee plantation in a remote area.’

‘You could phone her.’

‘I will wait until I see her. One does not make that sort of announcement on the telephone ...’ His strong face shuttered.

‘So what do we do now?’

Constantine ignored the question. He was in a filthy mood again, Rosie registered. It was not the time to share with him her belief that deception only dug deceivers into a deeper hole. She tried to be fair, tried to ask herself what she would have done in his position. Their secret wedding, designed only to meet the terms of Anton’s will, was now a matter of public record. And Constantine’s response to that hideous unforeseen development was simply to pretend that he had nothing to hide, indeed that their marriage was a genuine marriage ...

As that belated acknowledgement finally dawned on Rosie, she turned pale. Earlier in the day, Constantine’s fury, her distress over that wretched newspaper article and concern for Maurice and Thespina had blinded her to her own predicament. Now she focused on her companion in open shock. ‘You’re expecting me to pretend to be your wife?’ she whispered in shock.

‘You are my wife,’ Constantine reminded her with driven emphasis.

‘Legally speaking, I suppose,’ Rosie conceded weakly. ‘But—’

‘The fiction will have to be maintained for a couple of months at least.’

‘I’m a rotten actress. We don’t even like each other. People aren’t so stupid that they’re not going to see that!’ she protested.

Constantine ignored her again. She hated it when he did that. He closed her out as if she weren’t there. It made her feel like an irritating fly he couldn’t be bothered to swat.

‘I couldn’t live with you for one week, never mind a couple of months!’

Constantine shot her a look of naked derision. ‘Who do you think you’re kidding? You’re about to enter bimbo paradise! I have no choice but to keep you in the lap of luxury. But the prospect of rewarding you for your treachery and guile disgusts me!’

Hot-cheeked and seething with resentment, Rosie started practising ignoring him. If he fondly imagined she intended to hang around eating humble pie and imitating a wall fixture for the next couple of months, he had another thought coming!

But two hours later, a truly enormous and absolutely delicious meal having brought her back from the edge of starvation, Rosie had a remarkably sunny smile on her formerly disgruntled face. She was lying back in the Jacuzzi in the fabulous bathroom attached to her allotted bedroom. Constantine lived in a breathtakingly beautiful walled estate outside the city. His vast palatial villa swarmed with servants, wondrously keen to ensure that she didn’t have to lift a finger to help herself. It was like staying in a five-star luxury hotel.

Admittedly, she had been most uncomfortable when Constantine had introduced her as his blushing bride to the domestic staff. But she had been delirious with delight when she had understood the ramifications of his care in explaining the internal phone system to her. He had informed her that if she had to speak to him she was to dial a certain number. He would grow old and grey waiting for her to call. And in a house this size she was sure to get hold of a phone with an outside line to contact Maurice soon. Constantine could not be everywhere simultaneously.

She hated him. And he despised her. So how could she possibly be attracted to him? Surely that amount of animosity ought to be a complete turn-off? And why was that extravagantly gorgeous face of his somehow etched behind her eyelids like a burr under a saddle? And why, even though she was frantically glad to finally be free of his company, could she think of very little else but Constantine? Rosie frowned over that conundrum. She felt oddly dislocated...as if she had lost something, as if she was missing out on something... what, another fight?

But, much as it went against the grain, she had to give him points for some virtues. He clearly adored Thespina. Seemingly there was nothing that Constantine would not do to keep her in happy ignorance of her late husband’s last will and testament. And greed had nothing to do with it. Rosie flushed uncomfortably. Constantine was every bit as filthy rich as Maurice had said he was. His private jet, his fantastic home and his lifestyle spoke for themselves.

He had loved her father too, Rosie conceded reluctantly. Yet they had been such different men with diametrically opposed personalities. Anton had always been cracking jokes and grinning, looking on the bright side of every problem and, if possible, cheerfully ignoring the problem altogether.

Was it easier for Constantine to believe that Anton had gone off the rails for a young and pretty face? The truth, she suspected, would be far more damaging. Anton had kept a big, dark secret from his family for over twenty years. But then her father had wanted what he could not have: he had wanted his daughter without hurting his wife.

And although he had often talked about confessing all to Thespina he hadn’t been able to grasp that nettle even when he was contemplating his own death. How could her father have demanded that Constantine marry her? Rosie shook her head and sighed. Even had Constantine accepted that she was Anton’s daughter, her father had had no right to demand such an outrageous sacrifice from his ward.