She should have found someone new, offered them money in exchange for marriage, and had them sign a watertight non-disclosure agreement. Not that it would have mattered, anyway. The lawyers hadn’t stipulated that the marriage had to be a love match. Just a marriage, in the legal sense of the word. She could have married any guy off the street to meet the terms.
Another groan, as she pushed the shower screen open and reached for a large, fluffy white towel, wrapping it around herself and patting her skin dry.
She glanced at her reflection in the mirror, amazed when the face that stared back at her looked so completely like herself. There was no hint of her remorse and inner turmoil on the familiar arrangement of her features. Outwardly, she just looked like Charlotte Shaw.
Fakery indeed.
She pushed open the door that joined the ensuite bathroom and the bedroom and startled because Dante was sitting on the edge of the bed, legs spread wide, elbows pressed into his thighs.
She made a sound of genuine surprise and he looked up, but slowly. Or maybe it was that everything was moving in slow motion, all of a sudden?
A gentle breeze brushed over her skin, courtesy of one of the open windows.
He looked at her with those dark eyes that saw too much, but Charlotte wasn’t really sure he was seeing anything.
‘Good,’ she said, brightly, with more of that perfect fakery. ‘We need to get to your grandmother’s.’
‘Yes,’ he said, nodding once. ‘But first, we should talk.’
Her stomach dropped to her feet.
Talk.
Fear gripped her heart; ice flooded her veins. This was all getting too complicated. Too hard. Too...real. She didn’t want him to bare his soul to her, even when a part of her did want precisely that. And she sure as heck didn’t want him to say he was sick of the ‘fakery’ and that they should end this. Either way, talking wasbad. It was everything she avoided. And him, too, she wanted to remind him.
She swallowed quickly. ‘That’s not necessary,’ she assured him, looking around for the dress she’d discarded earlier. Dante had moved it, from the bed to the back of a nearby chair. ‘There’s nothing to talk about.’
He frowned, but she turned away at that moment, dropping her towel and reaching for some underwear from the drawers.
She felt his eyes on her but more than that, she felt the pull of his doubts. She felt the part of him that wanted to explain why he’d snapped like that, and she felt the part of him that just wanted to accept her easy rationale.
Her dress was next. She slipped it over her body, then turned to face him. He was sitting right where he’d been a moment earlier, but his head had angled to follow her. Only when he looked at her, Charlotte had the feeling he was hardly seeing her at all.
‘Dante, do you still want to go through with this?’ She asked the question with a tummy ache of doubt and worry. If he said no, she’d have to fly straight back to London, to start husband hunting. She could find someone else. She would have to.
So why did the very idea leave her ice cold? Was it because Allegra had been so warm and welcoming, and Charlotte hated the idea of the older woman learning that it had all been a deception? Or did it have more to do with Dante and the idea of never seeing him again?
He dragged a hand through his hair and stood, walking towards her then. She was reminded, powerfully and overwhelmingly, of their size difference.
He pressed his palm to her cheek, cupping it, angling her face to his, so their eyes met, and the breath in her lungs seemed suddenly too hot. ‘I gave you my word,’ he said, simply.
Which should have reassured her, but it really didn’t. She was starting to realise that Dante was someone who wanted to fix everything and that included his grandmother’s happiness. She knew it to be true. She’d used it as a bargaining chip. To motivate him to agree to this. But what if he was prioritising his grandmother’s happiness above his own? What if this whole arrangement was actually a huge mistake for him? She was using him to get what she wanted and she’d known just which lever to pull to get him to agree. How could she not regret that now?
‘Yes, but I can give it back,’ she said, hating that her voice wobbled slightly to her ears. ‘We don’t have to do this. I can find someone else to play my fake husband.’
His eyes closed, as if he was physically rejecting that idea, but Charlotte knew that not to be the case.
‘I’m serious, Dante. This wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. I just chose you because you were there. We were sleeping together. It made sense.’
He made a noise then, one she couldn’t interpret.
‘It’s just pretend,’ she said, wishing she believed herself one hundred per cent. ‘Fakery, like you said.’
His eyes opened then, lancing her with their intensity. ‘You are very, very good at it.’
Why did that sound like an insult? She shrugged one slender shoulder. ‘So are you.’
His smile was ice cold, totally lacking in the warmth she’d seen that afternoon, and her heart hurt. Hurt in a way she was terrified of. Hurt in a way she ran a mile from. In fact, that’s exactly what she wanted to do. To pack her bag and get out of there. Tell Allegra it had all been a big mistake and just go home. Forget she was a Papandreo. Forget the fact her father had ignored her for her entire life.
