Bride Behind The Billion-Dollar Veil

‘I can ask if they will serve you sandwiches?’ he teased and her heart skipped a beat.

‘That would be lovely.’ She winked to show she was joking.

Thanos grinned, dismissing the waiter with a few words in Greek, before taking the seat opposite her. She felt an unwelcome burst of nerves, and did her best to quell them.

In the office, his proposition had been surprising. On the helicopter, she’d been overawed by the glamour and completely unusual turn of events. But here, in a romantic, secluded restaurant, sitting across from one of the world’s wealthiest men—to say nothing of his personal charms and physical appeal—Alice’s pulse was trembling unstoppably.

‘Relax,’ he murmured, apparently intuiting her panic.

‘I’m sorry, it’s just not every day I get proposed to,’ she said with a sardonic smile.

‘But this is not a real proposal,’ he reminded her smoothly, his eyes intent on hers. ‘It is a business proposition.’

‘You’d know more about that than I do.’

He nodded. ‘Let me explain it for you,’ he offered. ‘Just like in business, we would have a contract to protect both of our interests.’

‘A pre-nuptial agreement?’

‘A divorce settlement,’ he corrected. ‘I would have our divorce papers confidentially drawn up and filed by my personal lawyer, on terms we will agree to now.’

‘What kind of terms?’ she asked quickly, her heart racing.

He examined her thoughtfully, then shrugged. ‘What would you like?’

Alice’s stomach swooped to her toes. ‘You want me to choose?’

‘In a negotiation, it is normal for one party to come in with a list of demands. You know what I need from you, so tell me, Alice, what do you need from me?’

She chewed on her lip, the possibilities endless. ‘I want not to worry about my mom,’ she said, simply. ‘She needs to be in a home. A good one. Somewhere with kind staff where she can be as…comfortable as possible.’ Alice’s voice cracked. ‘Somewhere I can go and see her often.’

Thanos nodded. ‘Fine. What else?’

It was on the tip of Alice’s tongue to say that was everything she needed, but when she thought of her overburdened credit cards, the threatened bankruptcy, she decided she might as well go for broke. ‘I’d need to continue earning my temp salary,’ she said, tilting her chin to show she was serious. ‘I presume in order to make this seem legitimate, I wouldn’t be able to work, but I’d need to continue earning so I could cover rent for as long as we were married. That way, I’ll have my apartment to come back to,’ she tacked on, when he didn’t speak.

He remained silent, staring at her for so long and so hard that she wondered if she’d pushed it too far.

And then he laughed, a cracking sound that reverberated around the room.

‘What?’ Heat spread through her cheeks.

‘Your old apartment? Dio, Alice.’ He shook his head, laughter lines still creasing the corners of his eyes. ‘I can see that of your many strengths, negotiating is not one of them.’

Her heart rate notched up a gear. She knew the cost of a bed in a good nursing home wasn’t cheap. It would be half a million dollars, easily, to buy an ongoing position.

‘So tell me what you want to pay me,’ she said instead.

‘I am asking you to walk away from your life, to pretend to be my wife—which is not likely to be a walk in the park, let me tell you. You would be photographed, and I would expect you to attend events with me often, in order to sell this as real. You will need to completely overhaul your way of life. And you ask for only your salary?’

Her jaw dropped. ‘And my mother’s care.’

He waved a hand in the air, dismissively.

‘I wasn’t sure what you had in mind.’

‘Alice, you should not undervalue yourself like this.’

‘Well, what do you suggest?’

‘For starters, an apartment in New York. You can choose what you like. I have several, but if none of them is to your liking then feel free to contact a realtor.’

Her jaw dropped lower.

‘A cash settlement. I was expecting you to ask for twenty million dollars, to which I intended to counter ten, and settle on perhaps fifteen after some back and forth. So shall we just save ourselves the trouble and say fifteen million dollars?’

‘Fifteen million dollars? In cash?’

‘Alice, I’m a very wealthy man, and if you marry me, you’ll be enabling me to buy a business that is worth more to me than anything else. Yes. Fifteen million dollars.’

‘And a home in New York. And my mother’s care.’

‘And health insurance,’ he seemed to add as an afterthought. ‘Starting immediately.’

Alice gaped. It was too much.

‘But I could just pay for that myself with the money…’

He laughed again. ‘Your negotiation skills are really quite poor.’

‘I don’t want to feel like I’m scamming you.’

Surprise crossed his face, but he covered it quickly. ‘You’re not.’

‘It feels a lot like I am.’

‘It’s a job.’

‘A ridiculously over-paid job.’

‘I’m already paying above the odds for the company.’ He shrugged. ‘This is just another expense to factor into its reacquisition.’

‘It means that much to you?’

His eyes glittered like black gemstones and in response he simply dipped his head forward.

‘Petómeans everything to me.’

‘Because it used to be yours?’