Playing the Dutiful Wife

He spent a lot of time in France, he told Meg, especially in the South. Meg asked him where his favourite place in the world was. He was about to answer S?o Paulo—after all, he was looking forward to going back there, to the fast pace and the stunning women—but he paused for a moment and then gave an answer that surprised even him. He told her about the mountains away from the city, and the rainforests and the rivers and springs there, and that maybe he should think of getting a place there—somewhere private.

And then he thanked her.

‘For what?’

‘For making me think,’ Niklas said. ‘I have been thinking of taking some time off just to do more of the same …’ He did not mention the clubs and the women and the press that were always chasing him for the latest scandal. ‘Maybe I should take a proper break.’

She told him that she too preferred the mountains to the beach, even if she lived in Bondi, and they lay there together and rewrote a vision of her—no longer a chef in a busy international hotel, instead she would run a small bed and breakfast set high in the hills.

And she asked about him too.

Rarely, so rarely did he tell anyone, but for some reason this false night he did—just a little. For some reason he didn’t hold back. He just said it. Not all of it, by any means, but he gave more of himself than usual. After all, he would never see her again.

He told her how he had taught himself to read and write, how he had educated himself from newspapers, how the business section had always fascinated him and how easily he had read the figures that seemed to daunt others. And he told her how he loved Brazil—for there you could both work hard and play hard too.

‘Can I get you anything Mr Dos Santos …?’ Worried that their esteemed passenger was being disturbed, the steward checked that he was okay.

‘Nothing.’ He did not look up. He just looked at Meg as he spoke. ‘If you can leave us, please?’

‘Dos Santos?’ she repeated when the steward had gone, and he told her that it was a surname often given to orphans.

‘It means “from the Saints” in Portuguese,’ he explained.

‘How were you orphaned?’

‘I don’t actually know,’ Niklas admitted. ‘Perhaps I was abandoned, just left at the orphanage. I really don’t know.’

‘Have you ever tried to find out about your family …?’

He opened his mouth to say that he would rather not discuss it, but instead he gave even more of himself. ‘I have,’ he admitted. ‘It would be nice to know, but it proved impossible. I got Miguel, my lawyer, onto it, but he got nowhere.’

She asked him what it had been like, growing up like that, but she was getting too close and it was not something he chose to share.

He told her so. ‘I don’t want to speak about that.’

So they talked some more about her, and she could have talked to him for ever—except it was Niklas who got too close now, when he asked if she was in a relationship.

‘No.’

‘Have you ever been serious about anyone?’

‘Not really,’ she said, but that wasn’t quite true. ‘I was about to get engaged,’ Meg said. ‘I called it off.’

‘Why?’

She just lay there.

‘Why?’ Niklas pushed.

‘He got on a bit too well with my parents.’ She swallowed. ‘A colleague.’ He could hear her hesitation to discuss it. ‘What we said before about worlds being too small …’ Meg said. ‘I realised I would be making mine smaller still.’

‘Was he upset?’

‘Not really.’ Meg was honest. ‘It wasn’t exactly a passionate …’ She swallowed. She was so not going to discuss this with him.

She should have just said so, but instead she told him that she needed to sleep. The dimmed lights and champagne were starting to catch up with both of them, and almost reluctantly their conversation was closed and finally they slept.

For how long Meg wasn’t sure. She just knew that when she woke up she regretted it.

Not the conversation, but ending it, falling asleep and wasting the little time that they had.

She’d woken to the scent of coffee and the hum of the engines and now she looked over to him. He was still asleep, and just as beautiful with his eyes closed. It was almost a privilege to examine such a stunning man more intently. His black hair was swept back, his beautiful mouth relaxed and loose. She looked at his dark spiky lashes and thought of the treasure behind them. She wondered what language he was dreaming in, then watched as his eyes were revealed.

For Niklas it was a pleasure to open his eyes to her.

He had felt the caress of her gaze and now he met it and held it.

‘English.’ He answered the question she had not voiced, but they both understood. He had been dreaming in English, perhaps about her. And then Niklas did what he always did when he woke to a woman he considered beautiful.

It was a touch more difficult to do so—given the gap between them, given that he could not gather her body and slip her towards him—but the result would certainly be worth the brief effort. He pulled himself up on his elbow and moved till his face was right over her, and looking down.

‘You never did finish what you were saying.’

She looked back at him.

‘When you said it wasn’t passionate …’

She could have turned away from him, could have closed the conversation—his question was inappropriate, really—only nothing felt inappropriate with Niklas. There was nothing that couldn’t be said with his breath on her cheek and that sulky, beautiful mouth just inches away.

‘I was the one who wasn’t passionate.’

‘I can’t imagine that.’

‘Well, I wasn’t.’

‘Because you didn’t want him in the way that you want me?’

Meg knew what he was about to do.

And she wanted, absolutely, for him to do it.

So he did.

It did not feel as if she was kissing a stranger as their lips met—all it felt was sublime.

His lips were surprisingly gentle and moved with hers for a moment, giving her a brief glimpse of false security—for his tongue, when it slipped in, was shockingly direct and intent.

This wasn’t a kiss to test the water, and now Meg knew what had been wrong with her from the start, the reason she had been rambling. This thing between them was an attraction so instant that he could have kissed her like this the moment he’d sat down beside her. He could have taken his seat, had her turn off her phone and offered his mouth to her and she would have kissed him right back.