The Bride Who Wouldn't (3 page)

“You need to make an appointment to see me,” Kate said and started to walk quickly. “I don’t discuss my business on the street.”

“Then I buy you dinner.”

“No thank you.”

“A drink then…” Isaak suggested.

“I said no thank you!” He caught her wrist and she gave in then for this six-foot-two Russian was not going to be gotten rid of so easily and so she stood and faced him.

“I have a solution,” he said.

“Really!”

“As you said, business should not be discussed on the street, we go to my club.”

“Club!” Kate’s lips curled in distaste. “On the eve of your uncle’s funeral?”

He said nothing just nodded to his car where the driver was holding open the door and Kate knew there was no getting out of it.

As they were driven past Hyde Park and to Mayfair, Kate could have kicked herself, especially when they pulled up outside a very esteemed private club. The car was bathed in gold by a street lamp and she actually offered an apology.

“When you said club, I thought you meant a night club.”

His eyes skimmed over her attire, the thick stockings and cardigan and for the first time since meeting her, he actually smiled at the thought of her in a nightclub, though he made no comment.

Kate had never seen a smile change someone’s features so. His stern mouth softened and there was a small fan of lines around his eyes like rays of the sun coming out and Kate was suddenly nervous but for different reasons for she had never truly been attracted to a man.

“Come,” Isaak said. “I need to eat.”

As he signed her in, a woman at the desk offered her condolences to Isaak.

“Thank you.”

They walked through the elegant building and another gentleman came over and shook Isaak’s hand.

“He will be terribly missed.” The man turned and raised a glass and Kate looked over and there, on the wall behind them, was a portrait of Ivor. Seeing his kind face smiling down on them made Kate let out a little cry of surprise.

“Excuse us,” Isaak said to his friend and guided Kate to a table.

“We are both members here,” Isaak explained. “Or he was,” Isaak corrected. “I am struggling with my tenses. Usually my English is excellent but…”

“It’s fine,” Kate said, “I think we all struggle with that type of thing when someone we care for dies.”

Isaak nodded to one of the waiting staff to come over.

“I don’t want to have dinner,” Kate said because she wanted this over with quickly.

“You’re sure?” Isaak checked.

“Very.”

“I don’t need the menu then.” He nodded to the waitress. “I’ll have the Beef Wellington, please.” He looked to Kate. “What would you like to drink?”

Oh God, she was seriously hungry but no, she was not going to share a meal with him, Kate decided, and how rude of him to sit and eat in front of her! She would have one drink and then go. “A brandy,” Kate said, hoping it might douse the butterflies in her stomach.

“I used to come here with my uncle,” Isaak explained. “When I first came from Russia I discovered how much I liked English women and so I kept missing my English classes. I thought Ivor didn’t know but he brought me here and insisted I order—I remember sweating as I read the menu…” Isaak watched as her generous mouth started to stretch into a smile and it was enough of a reward for him to continue. “To my left I heard someone say to his partner, in a very posh voice, that the Beef Wellington was
marvellous
here and so I ordered it.” He started to laugh a little as he recalled it. “Now, every time we come, that is what I have.”

“Did he know you were faking it?”

“Of course,” Isaak said as their drinks were delivered—a large glass of red wine for Isaak and a brandy that Kate took one look at and knew, if she finished it, that any butterflies would be more than doused, they’d be knocked unconscious.

“They’re very generous serves,” Kate commented taking a sip.

“Enjoy,” Isaak said. “Are you sure you don’t want to eat, I hear the Beef Wellington is
marvellous
.” He mimicked a posh English accent again and she smiled as she shook her head.

“Really no,” Kate said, wishing she could just say yes and not just because her stomach was growling. He really was good company but then she remembered her debt and knew she hadn’t been brought here on a whim. “You said you had a solution,” Kate started.

“I do,” Isaak said. “You would have heard about the death of my brother’s wife.”

“I did,” Kate said. “Ivor was devastated, especially when Roman told him about…” she halted and saw Isaak’s eyes widen briefly in shock.

“About what?”

“I…” Kate flustered, and took another sip of her drink unsure whether to tell him what she knew but Isaak wasn’t letting her off the hook.

“About what?” Isaak demanded.

“The baby.”

“What about the baby?” Isaak said slowly, more than a little stunned because he had assumed she would have read about the accident in the papers, not that Ivor might have discussed the details with Kate. “Please, Kate, tell me.” He looked around to make sure no one could hear them and leant closer in. “Quietly.”

Kate leant in too, her heart hammering at being so close to him as she whispered what she knew. “That there was no baby.”

“He
told
you that?” Their eyes met and held as he tried to wrestle with this information.

“He was devastated for Roman,” Kate said. “I don’t think he even wanted to tell me but he broke down…”

“He trusted you.”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Kate said and then leant back, the near contact making her slightly dizzy or was it that she had finished her drink?

There was a small break in the conversation as his meal was delivered and her drink was replaced with another.

“I’ll have a coffee please,” Kate said. “I really do need to get home, Isaak.”

“Of course.”

He loaded his fork with a delectable looking piece of beef and added pastry and then some of the creamiest, buttery mashed potato and Kate licked her lips. He popped the fork into his mouth and gave a small groan that had her stomach fold, though not in hunger—there was something so carnal to his pleasure. “So good,” Isaak said and loaded his fork with the same care he had before and then held it out to her. “Taste?”

“No!”

Isaak startled at her frown and her shrill decline but then gave a low laugh. “Sorry, I forget I am with a lady, usually I like to taste from the other’s plate, you know…”

No, Kate didn’t know.

She wanted to though.

Heaven help her, she took another sip of brandy as Isaak finally started to discuss the real reason she was here.

That she knew about his brother appeased him and told him that nothing would go further, for clearly she hadn’t discussed it with anyone but Ivor and himself. “The press are making my brother’s life hell,” Isaak said. “A wedding would be a very good idea.”

“I’m sorry?”

“If I were to marry, the focus would move to me. Roman doesn’t want the press to find out about Ava.”

“I can understand that,” Kate nodded.

“Also, I have been having a few issues with the press myself. I am tired of my own reputation, a year laying low sounds good to me.”

“Laying low?” She was starting—
just starting
—to fathom where this might be leading. “Isaak…”

“Just listen to me for a moment,” he said. “Your family still needs money, I could use a quiet year, and Roman certainly—”

“I’m not marrying you.”

“Why not?” Isaak said, loading his fork again “The terms would be the same as the contract.”

“No.”

“So what’s your solution then?” Isaak asked. “Because you surely need one. I’ve run the contract past my lawyer and his suggestion is that I apply to the court for a freeze on all your family’s assets. This seems a friendlier solution.”

For a moment there he had seemed friendly, now Kate was reminded of the power of the man.

“Is there a ladies room?” she asked and Isaak nodded and pointed to the corridor they had come from.

As Kate got up, Isaak watched her walk just a little unsteadily towards it.

One drink and she was half pissed, Isaak smiled, then glanced at her glass. Make that two drinks, but even so…

She was cute, Isaak decided. Buttoned up, prim but very, very cute. And then he imagined her unbuttoned and smiling at him from the pillow.

Yes, this could be a very pleasant year.

*

Kate was very
grateful for a leather seat in the plush ladies room. She looked in a full-length mirror at her mostly pale face but her cheeks were on fire and her panic was mounting as she called her mother.

“I’ve been speaking with Isaak Zaretsky.” Kate could hardly get the words out, even her voice seemed to be shaking. “He’s talking about freezing assets…”

“What the hell have you done!” Instantly her mother was accusatory, as if this hellish mess was all Kate’s fault. “Your father must be turning in his grave, he loved that business, it was his life.”

“Mum, please, listen…”

“No, Kate, you listen. You got us into this mess, you can get us out.”

“The business was a disaster long before I came up with this,” Kate attempted to point out.

“Of course it was a disaster, thanks to you turning your back when we needed you the most.”

Kate faltered trying to reset the guilt switch that had just tripped, but her mother was relentless. “You’re the one with the history degree, Kate. Your father passed so much of his knowledge on to you, it would kill him again if he knew the business was going under and that you simply walked away—” And then her mother truly panicked. “I’m not losing my home!”

“Isaak says that I can marry him instead,” Kate interrupted and she closed her eyes, silently pleading for her mother to say that was a ridiculous suggestion and she didn’t have to consider it.

“Would you get the next instalments if you did?”

Kate opened her eyes and looked in the mirror. The shock at her mother’s response had caused all the colour to drain from her face. Even her lips were white. “Mum…” Kate’s voice was a soft beg. “I don’t even know the man.”

Silence was her mother’s response.

Kate sat there recalling the most shameful day of her life. A day when her own mother had said that Kate would one day end up as a whore and now she was practically making her one.

“Would you get the next instalment?” her mother asked again.

“Yes,” she croaked and listened to her mother’s sigh of relief. Kate rung off and shakily stood.

She would not let Isaak see her terror, so she took a deep cleansing breath and then walked to the mirror. Her cheeks were bright red now, as if her mother’s cold hands had just slapped them again. Kate looked herself in the eyes and, a decade later, repeated her response to her mother’s filthy prediction. “You’re wrong,” Kate said, mustering the same conviction she had that terrible day. “I’ll never be a whore.”

When she returned a coffee was waiting for her and so too was Isaak.

“So,” Isaak said when she took a seat back at the table. “Will you attend the funeral with me tomorrow as my fiancé?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“You had a choice as to whether or not you signed the contract,” he pointed out.

“I signed the contract with a man I both respected and admired,” Kate said but Isaak ignored the slight and responded in Russian.

“Niznaya brodo, nyeh suizio vwodo.”

“And what does that mean?” Kate challenged, her mind still searching for a way out.

“If you don’t know how deep the river is, don’t step in,” Isaak translated. “There is no getting out of it, you either repay the money or the marriage goes ahead. Anyway, surely I am a better prospect than my uncle.”

“Meaning?”

He just smiled at the blush that spread up her neck and met her rosy cheeks. “I see you have had all the necessary health checks; I shan’t put you through that again. I will go and have the tests.”

“Tests?”

“It will be nice,” Isaak mused, “not having to worry about condoms for once.”

He thought her a whore too.

He had her backed into a corner but what Isaak did not know was that, when backed into a corner, Kate came out fighting in her very own way.

She was no pushover and there
was
a way out. It was then Kate saw it—there was no place in the contract that specified they must have sex. It merely stated that they share a bed while staying at a hotel and Ivor had said it was just for appearances’ sake.

Her head felt as if was spinning as it moved towards giddy relief.

She could pay her family debts one final time and she knew, absolutely she knew, that Isaak would be the one terminating the contract, possibly as soon as their wedding night! When he found out that sex wouldn’t be occurring, he would ask for an annulment, Kate was sure. Even if he didn’t end it that quickly, the clause in the contract that specified no straying would soon prove a problem. Not for Kate—she could very happily survive a celibate year but if Isaak’s reputation was anything to go by, then she would be free from the contract any time soon.

“Could I still work?” She checked, for that had only been a verbal agreement between herself and Ivor. “I love my job and I don’t want to quit.”