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

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘I’m going to lunch.’

      ‘I’ve told them that you’re about to go for lunch.’ Helen sounded flustered. ‘But they said that they would wait till you get back. They are adamant that they see you today.’

      Meg was sick of that word—everyone was adamant these days, and because there wasn’t much work around her parents insisted more and more that they must jump to potential clients’ unreasonable demands.

      ‘Just tell them that they need to book,’ Meg said, but as she went to end the call she froze when she heard a certain name.

      A name that had her blood running simultaneously hot and cold.

      Cold because she had dreaded this day—dreaded their worlds colliding, dreaded the one mistake in her crafted life coming back to haunt her—but at the same time hot for the memories the name Dos Santos triggered.

      ‘He’s here?’ Meg croaked. ‘Niklas is here?’

      ‘No,’ Helen answered, and Meg was frustrated at her own disappointment when she heard that it wasn’t him. ‘It’s regarding a Mr Dos Santos, apparently, and these people really are insistent …’

      ‘Tell them to give me a moment.’

      She needed that moment. Meg really did.

      She sank into her chair and poured a drink of water, willed herself to calm down, and then she checked her appearance in the mirror that she kept in her drawer. Her hair was neatly tied back and though her face was a touch pale she looked fairly composed—except Meg could see her own eyes were darting with fear.

      There was nothing to fear, Meg told herself. It wasn’t trouble that had arrived. It had been almost a year after all. No doubt his legal team were here to get her signature on divorce papers. She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself, but it didn’t help because all she could see was herself and Niklas, a tangle of legs and arms on a bed, and the man who had taken her heart with him when he left. Now it really was coming to an end.

      She stood as Helen brought her visitors in and sorted out chairs for them. Then Helen offered water or coffee, which all three politely declined, and finally, when Helen had left and the door was closed, Meg addressed them.

      ‘You wanted to see me?’

      ‘First we should introduce ourselves.’

      A well-spoken gentleman started things off. He introduced himself and his colleague and then Rosa, a woman whom Meg thought might be around forty, took over. It was terribly difficult to tell her age. She was incredibly elegant, her make-up and hair completely immaculate, her voice as richly accented as Niklas’s had been, and it hurt to hear the familiar tone—familiar because it played over and over each night in her dreams. But she tried not to think of that, tried to concentrate on Rosa as she told Meg that they worked at the legal firm Mr Dos Santos used. She went through their qualifications and their business structure, and as she did so Meg felt her own qualifications dissolve beneath her—these were high-end lawyers and clearly here to do business. But Meg still didn’t understand why Niklas had felt it necessary to fly three of his most powerful lawyers all the way to Australia, simply to oversee their divorce.

      A letter would have sufficed.

      ‘First and foremost,’ Rosa started, ‘before we go any further, we ask for discretion.’

      They were possibly the sweetest words that Meg could hope to hear in this situation.

      ‘Of course’ was her response, but that wasn’t enough for Rosa.

      ‘We insist on your absolute discretion,’ Rosa reiterated, and for the first time Meg felt her hackles rise.

      ‘I would need to know what you’re here in regard to before I can make an assurance like that.’

      ‘You are married to Niklas Dos Santos?’

      ‘I think we all know that,’ Meg said carefully.

      ‘And do you know that your husband is facing serious charges of embezzlement and fraud?’

      Ice slid down her spine. Her hackles were definitely up now, and Meg thought for a moment before answering, ‘I had no idea.’

      ‘If he is found guilty he will probably never be released.’

      Meg ran her tongue over her lips and tasted the wax of the lipstick she had applied earlier. She could feel beads of sweat breaking out on her forehead and felt nauseous at the very thought of a man like Niklas confined and constricted. She felt sick, too, at the thought of what he must have done to face serving life behind bars.

      ‘He is innocent.’ The man who had first introduced them spoke then, and Meg couldn’t help raising one of her eyebrows, but she made no comment.

      Of course his own people would say that he was innocent.

      They were his lawyers after all.

      She didn’t look at Rosa when she spoke. Instead she examined her nails, tried incredibly hard to stop her fingers from reaching for her hair. She did not want to give them any hint that she was nervous.

      ‘We believe that Niklas is being set up.’

      What else would they say? Meg thought.

      ‘I really don’t see what this has to do with me.’ Meg looked in turn at each of the unmoved faces and was impressed by her own voice when she spoke. She possibly sounded like a lawyer, or a woman in control, though of course inside she was not. ‘We were married for less than twenty-four hours and then Niklas decided that it was a mistake. Clearly he was right. We hardly knew each other. I had no idea about any of his business affairs. Nothing like that was ever discussed …’

      Rosa spoke over her. ‘We believe that Niklas is being set up by the head of our firm.’

      It was then that Meg started to realise the gravity of the situation. These people were not just defending their client, they were implicating their own principal.

      ‘We have had little access to the case, which in something as big as this is unusual, and without access to the evidence we cannot supply a rigorous defence. For reasons we cannot yet work out, we believe Miguel is intending to misrepresent Niklas. Of course we cannot let our boss know that we suspect him. He is the only one who has access to Niklas while he is being held awaiting a trial date.’

      ‘He’s in prison now?’

      ‘He has been for months.’

      Meg reached for her water but her glass was empty. Her hands were shaking as she refilled it from the jug. She could not stand the thought of him locked up, could not bear to think of him in prison, did not want those thoughts haunting her. She didn’t like the new nightmares these people had brought, and she wanted them gone now.

      ‘It really is appalling, but …’ She didn’t know how she could help them—didn’t know the Brazilian legal system, just didn’t know why they were here. ‘I don’t see how it has anything to do with me. As I said, I’m not involved in his business …’ And then she started to panic, because maybe as his wife she had a different involvement with Niklas that they were here to discuss.

      ‘We СКАЧАТЬ