The Wedding Bargain

“Oh, really. Perhaps it was more accurate that she would never have been happy with you. She saw that you wouldn’t, or perhaps more accurately couldn’t, offer her what she needed, the way I did. The way I’m doing for Shanal now.

“Shanal, are you coming?” Burton changed tack, his voice once again sickly sweet. “Don’t let him trick you any longer, darling. I’ll forgive you for this episode if you come with me now. Trust me, this was more about his need to poke at me than any real desire for you. I’m prepared to overlook that and forget all about this if you’ll come back where you belong.”

Shanal threw Raif a silent plea to refute those poisonous words. What he’d suggested, that Raif had taken her away only to get back at Burton, was nothing but spite on the part of a man thwarted in his goals, surely. When Raif said nothing, she had to ask him.

“Revenge, Raif? Seriously? Was that what all this was about?”

He stood stoic and strong, his eyes not budging from Burton, as if he didn’t trust the man one inch. “No.”

“But you thought of it, didn’t you?” she asked, desperate to know the truth.

“Far as I know, a man can’t be condemned for his thoughts.”

But he could be condemned for his actions. Had everything about these past couple days been a lie? Had their night of loving been no more to him than a means to an end, driven by rivalry with Burton rather than real feelings for her? Shanal didn’t want to believe it was true, but Raif said nothing to tell her differently. He seemed more determined to continue the now silent standoff between the men than to assure her he hadn’t been using her.

“Shanal, come with me,” Burton instructed. “I promise you, if you come now, everything will be as it was before. I have a message for you, too. From your father. He’s counting on you.”

Shanal almost got whiplash from the speed at which she spun her head to look at him. The threat implied in his words was clearer than anything he’d ever said before.

“What’s he talking about?” Raif asked.

“Nothing,” Shanal said automatically, so used to keeping her father’s shameful secret that she couldn’t bring it out into the open now. The time for confidences in Raif was gone. She cast one more look at him, silently begging him to contradict Burton’s accusations—to be someone she could trust again. But even if he did, she was still caught between a rock and a hard place. A helpless sense of the inevitable seeped like a dark fog into her mind.

“Remember just how much you have hanging on this,” Burton reminded her in an undertone. “Your job, the roof over your parents’ heads. And if you think your father’s still worried about his reputation, I can only imagine how he’d feel to see yours raked through the muck along with his.”

Shanal bit the inside of her mouth to hold back the cry of protest that instinctively rose. The writing was on the wall. If she didn’t go back with Burton, she wouldn’t have a job or a reputation left. It would be no hardship for him to use his extensive network and power to ensure that she didn’t find work again in Australia. Possibly even overseas, as well. Anyway, seeking work overseas was a moot point with her parents needing her so much and her father’s illness progressively getting worse. But without the income from her job, how would she be able to take care of her parents?

“I’m losing patience,” Burton said with an ugly twist to his mouth. “Figure out what you want, darling. You are running out of time.”

It was what he left unsaid that drove her to her decision. She knew he wouldn’t hesitate to act. To make both hers and her parents’ lives hell. There was only one thing left she could do.

“I’m coming, but let me say goodbye to Raif—alone,” she added, when Burton made no move to get back into his car.

“Two minutes, no more,” he conceded.

The second his car door was closed Raif caught her by her arms. “You don’t have to do this,” he said urgently.

She looked into his eyes and knew this was the end of what they’d shared together. “Yes, I do. Look, whatever your reasons for helping me, I am grateful at least for the fact you got me away from a situation I wasn’t comfortable with.”

“What about us?”

“Good question.” She dived on his words. “What Burton said about you wanting to hurt him, that was true, wasn’t it?”

“I can’t lie, Shanal. Not to you. There’s bad blood between us and yes, it did cross my mind and give me a certain amount of pleasure to know that spiriting you away would drive him crazy.”