Brazilian Escape: Playing the Dutiful Wife / Dante: Claiming His Secret Love-Child. Carol Marinelli

happened between there and here?’ She pointed to the lounge he had come from. ‘Who changed your mind?’

      ‘I did.’

      ‘What? Did you suddenly remember you had a fiancée?’ Meg shouted. ‘Or a girlfriend …?’ She was starting to cry. ‘Or five kids and a wife …?’ It was starting to hit home how little she knew about him.

      ‘There’s no wife …’ he shrugged ‘… except you. I will speak with my legal team as soon as I return to Brazil, see if we can get it annulled. But I doubt it …’

      He didn’t even sit on the bed to tell her it was over, and she realised what a fool she had been, how easily he had taken her in.

      ‘If it cannot be annulled they will contact you for a divorce. I’ll make a one-off settlement,’ he said.

      ‘Settlement?’

      ‘My people will sort it. You can fight me for more if you choose, but I strongly suggest that you quickly accept. Of course if you are pregnant …’

      He stood there with the sun streaming through the curtains behind him, and all she could see was the dark outline of a man she didn’t know.

      ‘It might be a good idea to think about the morning-after pill.’

      And then there was a knock on the door and it was a bellboy to take his case.

      ‘I’ve asked for a late check-out for you, if you want to reschedule your flight. Have breakfast …’ he offered, as if this was normal, and then he tipped the bellboy, who left with his luggage.

      ‘I don’t understand …’ She was turning into some hysterical female, sitting screaming on a bed as her one-night stand walked off.

      ‘This is the type of thing people do in Vegas. We had fun …’

      ‘Fun!’ She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

      ‘It’s no big deal.’

      ‘But it is for me.’

      ‘It’s about time that you grew up, then.’

      She had never expected him to be cruel, but she had no idea what she was dealing with. Niklas could be cruel when necessary, and today it was.

      Very necessary.

      He could not look at her. She was sitting on the bed in tears, pleading with him, and also, he noted, growing increasingly angry. Her voice rose as she told him that he was the one who needed to grow up, that he was the one who needed to sort out his life, and her hands were waving. Any minute now he thought she would rise and attack him. He wanted to catch her wrists and kiss the fear away, wanted to feel just for a moment her body writhing in anger and to reassure her—except he had nothing he could reassure her with. He knew how bad things would be shortly, so he had to be cruel to be kind.

      ‘What did you have to marry me for?’ she shouted. ‘I was clearly already going to sleep with you …’

      She was about to lunge at him, Niklas knew. She was kneeling on the bed, still grabbing the sheet around her for now, but in a moment it would be off. Her green eyes were flashing, her teeth bared and with his next words he knew he would end this.

      ‘I told you yesterday.’ He went to the bedside and flicked a few foil packets to the floor. ‘I don’t like condoms.’

      He took the clawing to his cheek, stood there as she sprang towards him, then caught and held her naked fury by the arms for a moment. And then he pushed her back on the bed.

      And as simply as that he was gone.

      A minute ago the only things on her mind had been breakfast and making love with her new husband.

      Now they were talking annulments and settlements.

      Or rather they weren’t talking.

      He was gone.

      He had left with cruel words and livid scratches on his cheek and she just lay there, reeling, her anger like a weight that did not propel her, but instead seemed to pin her down to the bed. It was actually an achievement to breathe.

      A few minutes later Meg realised she was breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth, as she had done on the plane during take-off. Her own body was rallying to bring her out from the panic she now found herself in. Still she lay there and tried to make sense of something there was no sense to be made of.

      He had played her.

      Right from the start it had all been just a game to him.

      Except this was her life.

      Maybe he was right. Maybe she did need to grow up. If a man like Niklas could so easily manipulate her, could have her believing in love at first sight, then maybe she did need to sort herself out. She curled into herself for a moment, breathed for a bit, cried for a bit, and then, because she had to, Meg stood.

      She didn’t have breakfast.

      She ordered coffee instead, and gulped on the hot sweet liquid in the hope that it would warm her, would wean her brain out of its shock. It did not.

      She showered, blasting her bruised, tender body with water, for she could not bear to step into the bath where they had kissed and so nearly made love.

      Sex, Meg reminded herself. Because as it turned out love at first sight had had nothing to do with it.

      She dressed quickly, unable to bear being in a room that smelt of them, and then she looked at the rumpled and bloodstained sheet on the bed where he had taken her and thought she might throw up.

      Within an hour she was at the airport.

      And just a little while later she was sitting on a plane and trying to work out how to get her life back to where it had been yesterday.

      Except her heart felt as bruised and aching as the most intimate parts of her body, and her eyes, swollen from crying, felt the same.

      Meg ordered a cool eye mask from the attendant. Before putting it on she slid off her wedding ring and put it on a chain around her neck, trying to fathom what had happened.

      She couldn’t.

      She did her best with make-up in the toilet cubicle just before they came in for landing. She lifted her hair and saw the bruise his mouth had left on her neck and felt a scream building that somehow she had to contain. She covered her eyes with sunglasses and wondered how she would ever get through the next few hours, days, weeks.

      ‘Thank God …’ Her mum met her at the baggage carousel. ‘The car’s waiting. I’ll bring you up to speed on the way.’ She peered at her daughter. ‘Are you okay?’

      ‘Just tired,’ Meg answered, and then she looked at her mum and knew she could never, ever tell her, so instead she forced a smile. ‘But I’m fine.’

      ‘Good,’ said her mum as they grabbed her case and headed for the car. ‘How was Vegas?’

       CHAPTER SIX

      MEG STOOD IN her office, looking out of the window, her fingers, as they so often did, idly turning the ring that still, almost a year later, lived on a chain around her neck.

      She wasn’t looking forward to tonight, given what she had to tell her parents.

      It had nothing to do with Niklas. There had been eleven months of no contact now. Eleven months for Meg to start healing. Yet still she didn’t know how to start.

      She couldn’t bear to think about him, let alone tell anyone what had happened.

      And even though she could not bear to think about him, even though it actually hurt to do so, of course all too often Meg did.

      It hurt