important to me.’
‘No. I don’t understand. Explain it to me.’
‘I’d like to help.’
‘By playing King Cophetua to my beggar maid?’ She flushed and stared down into her coffee dregs. ‘I’m sorry. That was ungracious of me.’
‘But it’s how my proposition makes you feel?’
Her chin jerked up at that and she met his gaze, startled. ‘Yes. It does. You understand.’
‘That it’s a lot harder to take than to give? Yes. I know that.’
‘And I know nothing about you.’
‘Peta, I come from a background where there was nothing to do but take,’ he told her. His eyes held hers, steady and strong. Telling her he was speaking a truth that was important to him. ‘We had no choice. My mother was a welfare recipient and I had to fight anyone and everyone to get where I was-and accept help from all sorts of people I’d rather not be indebted to. So… I’ve spent a lifetime getting to the other side of that divide and now I’m in a position to give. It doesn’t mean, though, that I’ll expect gratitude or undying devotion. Just a simple thank you and then we’ll get on with our lives. And one day when you’re on the other side of the divide you might be able to do the same for someone else.’
‘Like…take a good deed and pass it on?’
‘Something like that, yes.’
‘It’s some good deed!’ She was sounding a bit hysterical, she decided, but then she thought, why shouldn’t she sound hysterical? Maybe she was hysterical.
‘Peta…’
‘Mmm?’
‘Let’s just marry and move on.’
‘How on earth can I marry you?’
‘Easy. We get ourselves a licence and we marry. There are formalities we need to go through but I’d imagine if I throw a bit of money and power at those formalities they’ll disappear. I don’t have the best legal team in New York for nothing. You said we have until Wednesday.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘That’s the day after tomorrow. No sweat. We can do the thing easily.’
‘You sound like you do it once a week.’
‘I haven’t. I’ve never married.’
‘And if you meet the bride of your dreams next week?’
‘That won’t happen.’
‘Why ever not? Are you gay?’
That stopped him in his tracks. He very nearly dropped his coffee and, when he recovered, his mouth quirked upward in a grin.
‘No, Peta, I’m not gay.’
‘You needn’t sound so patronising,’ she told him crossly. ‘I can’t tell. You hardly wear a sign or something. What other reason can you have for not marrying?’
He hesitated. Considering. He was about to indulge in confidences, Peta thought, and she also thought: that’s something this man seldom does. What was it about him that made her know that he kept himself to himself? Entirely.
But he was breaking his rules now and his voice, when he spoke, had a reluctance that told her he didn’t have a clue why he was doing it.
‘My mother married four times,’ he told her. ‘Four times! And for every ceremony she was your traditional bride. She dressed me up as a pageboy, she glowed with excitement and she told me it’d be a happy-ever-after ending. But she chose losers. Every wedding threw us deeper into trouble. So I stood at the last of those ceremonies and I told myself it would never happen to me. I’d never take those vows. Some things are ingrained, Peta. I’m not about to change my mind now.’
She thought about that but it didn’t make sense. ‘So your mother wasn’t very good at getting married,’ she said gently. ‘I’m sorry. But there’s still a whole bunch of people in the world who think marriage is a very good idea.’
‘There were other things. Getting attached… I learned early that independence is better.’
‘Easier?’
‘Probably easier,’ he admitted, and she stared into his face and saw he really meant what he said.
Maybe it was the truth. Independence had a lot going for it. She’d heard. She’d never, ever had it.
But now wasn’t the time to be thinking regretfully about an independence she’d never had and was hardly likely to have. Now she had a man sitting in front of her offering her a possible way out of the difficulties that were threatening to overwhelm her.
She didn’t know anything about this man. His offer was ludicrous.
Marry him?
He was watching, waiting for an answer. Where on earth was an answer when you needed one?
‘I don’t even know you.’
‘You don’t need to know me.’
‘You might be a con artist.’
‘Yeah. About to scam you out of half your farm. That gives you a choice. It seems that you either trust me and risk losing half your farm or you definitely lose half your farm to Charles.’
‘You can’t be serious?’
‘I am serious.’
‘But… I can’t.’
‘Why not? Is there anyone else that you want to marry?’
She thought about that for a whole two seconds. The concept was crazy. ‘No, but-’
‘But there you are. Take it or leave it. I’m offering. I’m not really sure why I’m offering but it seems sensible. Will you marry me, Peta? For better or worse. Until distance does us part? Until at least Friday?’
She looked blankly at him-stunned.
‘You really are serious.’
‘I really am serious.’
Her mind was going in a thousand different directions. A million. But overriding all… Overriding all was the thought that maybe somehow she could keep the farm.
Her head was spinning. Her ankle was throbbing. She felt so near the edge that any minute now she’d topple over. To make such a momentous decision…
‘Peta.’ His hand gripped hers and held, hard. ‘Peta, you don’t need to understand. You can’t, because I hardly understand myself. All you have to do is trust. Just say yes.’
Easy to say. Will you marry me?
Maybe it wasn’t momentous at all, she thought wildly. People were divorced every day. What was the marriage? A simple document that could be annulled at any time. And the boys would be safe.
She bit her lip. She stared into Marcus’s calm grey eyes and he stared back. Still Marcus held her hand. Still Marcus watched her, waiting.
And in the end it was easy. There was nothing else to say.
‘Okay,’ she whispered. ‘Okay, Marcus. Thank you very much. I have no idea why you’re wanting to do this but I’m very grateful. So yes, I’ll marry you. As soon as possible.’
Marcus Benson, in organisational mode, was a man to be reckoned with. Peta was put into Robert’s care and taken back to her hotel with instructions to rest her ankle. Marcus moved on to the wedding.
He’d told Peta he could organise this by Wednesday. In truth it was a guess. He had no idea if it was possible.
A man with no idea turned naturally to his assistant. In crisis, find Ruby. Fast.
Ruby was summoned peremptorily from the boardroom where she’d been putting things on hold because of
