The Wedding Night Debt. Cathy Williams

it to be the other way around.

      He had set his sights on Robert Bishop and his company a long, long time ago. He had covertly kept tabs on it, had seen the way it had slid further and further into a morass of debt and, like any predator worth his salt, he had bided his time.

      Revenge was always a dish best eaten cold.

      He just hadn’t banked on the daughter. One glimpse of Lucy and her innocent, ethereal beauty and he had altered his plans on the spot. He had wanted her. She had touched something in him with her innocence and, cynic that he was, he had fallen hook, line and sinker.

      He hadn’t banked on that complication, had thought that she would hop into bed with him, allowing him to get her out of his system before he concluded business with her father. But, after a few weeks of playing a courting game that wasn’t his thing at all, he had concluded that he wanted more than just a slice of her.

      Only thing was...nearly a year and a half later and their marriage was as dry as dust. He still hadn’t touched that glorious body, leaving him with the certainty that, whilst he had thought he had the upper hand, she and her conniving father had actually played him for a fool. Instead of swinging the wrecking ball to the company and setting the police on Robert Bishop—who had been embezzling for years—he had ended up saving the company because he had wanted Lucy. He had wanted her at his side and in his bed and, if saving the company came as part of the deal, then so be it. Course, he had saved it and made money from it, ensuring that Robert Bishop was firmly locked out with just enough pocket money to teach him the joys of frugality, but still...

      He had been unwittingly charmed by her open, shy, disingenuous personality. When she had looked at him with those big, grave brown eyes, her face propped in the palm of her hand, her expression enraptured, he had felt as though he had found the secret of eternal life and it had gone to his head like a drug.

      She’d led him on. God knew if her slime of a father had kick-started the idea but that didn’t matter.

      What mattered was that they had got what they wanted while he had certainly missed out on what he had banked on getting.

      She was shaking her head at the offer of a drink and he ignored her, fetching himself a glass of whisky and a glass of wine for her.

      ‘Relax,’ he said, pressing the glass on her and then retreating to the bay window where he sipped his drink and watched her in absolute silence. She had made it crystal clear on their wedding night that theirs was not a real marriage. No sex, no chit-chat, no getting to know one another. So he’d taken over her father’s company but that didn’t mean that she came as part of the package deal and, if he thought he’d been short-changed, then that was too bad.

      He hadn’t asked how she knew, what her father had said or what she had been told. He’d been duped and that was the end of the story.

      The thought of having any kind of soul-searching conversation about the quality of their marriage had never crossed Dio’s mind. He had made no effort to talk things through. And no one could ever accuse her of not being the ‘perfect wife’. She certainly looked the part. Willowy, blonde, with a devastating prettiness that conveyed an air of peculiar innocence underneath the polished exterior. It was a quality that no model or socialite could replicate. She looked like someone waiting for life to happen and people fell for it. She was the greatest business asset a man could have. The woman, Dio had often thought, had missed her career as an Oscar-winning actress.

      ‘So, if you’re not in Paris, it’s because something’s wrong with the apartment. You should know by now that I don’t get involved with the nitty-gritty details of my houses. That’s your job.’

      Lucy stiffened. Her job. That said it all. Just what every young girl dreamed of...a marriage completely lacking in romance which could be described as a job.

      ‘There’s nothing wrong with the Paris apartment. I just decided that...’ she took a deep breath and gulped down some wine ‘... I decided that we needed to have a talk...’

      ‘Really? What about? Don’t tell me that you’re angling for a pay rise, Lucy? Your bank account is more than healthy. Or have you seen something you’d really like? House in Italy? Apartment in Florence? Buy it.’ He shrugged and finished the remainder of his whisky. ‘As long as it’s somewhere that can be used for business purposes, then I don’t have a problem.’

      ‘Why would I want to buy a house, Dio?’

      ‘What, then? Jewellery? A painting? What?’

      His air of bored indifference set her teeth on edge. This was worse than normal. Usually, they could manage to be polite for the five minutes they were forced to spend in one another’s company—cooped up in a taxi, maybe, or else waiting for his driver to take them to some opening or other; or else back in one of their grand houses, removing coats and jackets before disappearing to opposite ends of the house.

      ‘I don’t want to buy anything.’ Restively she began walking, stopping to look absently at some of the expensive artefacts in the room. As with all their houses, this one was the last word in what money could buy. The paintings were breath-taking, the furniture was all hand-made, the rugs were priceless silk.

      No expense was ever spared and it was her job to ensure that all these high-end properties with their priceless furnishings ran like clockwork. Some were used by him, if he happened to be in the country at the time; occasionally they both found themselves in one at the same time. Often he arranged for clients to have use of them and then she had to oversee all the arrangements to make sure that his client left satisfied, having experienced the last word in luxury.

      ‘In that case,’ Dio drawled, ‘why don’t you get to the point and say what you have to say? I’m having a night in because I need to get through some work.’

      ‘And of course, if you’d known that I would be waiting here like a spare part,’ Lucy retorted, ‘you would have made sure you didn’t bother returning.’

      Dio shrugged, allowing her to draw her own conclusions.

      ‘I feel...’ Lucy breathed in deeply ‘...that circumstances between us have changed since...since dad died six months ago...’

      He stilled and dropped his empty glass on the side table next to him, although his silver-grey eyes remained on her face. As far as he was concerned, the world was a more pleasant place without Robert Bishop in it. Certainly a more honest one. Whether his wife would agree with him, he didn’t know. She had been composed at the funeral, her eyes hidden behind over-sized sunglasses and, since then, life had carried on as normal.

      ‘Explain.’

      ‘I don’t want to be shackled to you any more, and there’s no longer any need.’ She did her best to get her thoughts in order but the cool intensity of his gaze was off-putting.

      ‘You also happen to be shackled to a lifestyle that most women would find enviable.’

      ‘Then you should let me go and you should find one of those women,’ she retorted, her cheeks burning. ‘You’d be happier. I’m sure you would because you must know that I’m...not happy, Dio. Or maybe,’ she added in a lowered voice, ‘you do know and you just don’t care.’ She sat and crossed her legs but she couldn’t meet his eyes. He still did things to her, could still make her feel squirmy inside, even though she had done her best over time to kill that weak feeling. It was inappropriate to be attracted to a man who had used you, who had married you because you happened to be a social asset. That didn’t make sense. Yes, when he had pretended to be interested in her, she could understand how she had been hot for him, so hot that she had spent her nights dreaming about him and her days fantasising about him. But not when she had found out the truth, and certainly not now, after all this time of cold war.

      ‘Are you telling me that you want out?’

      ‘Can you blame me?’ She answered a question with a question and finally met those cool, pale grey eyes. ‘We don’t have a marriage, Dio. Not a real one. I don’t even understand