Page 184 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

‘Past tense,’ she said firmly, stiffening her spine against the onslaught to her senses. ‘We’re not good together now or evermore.’

He looked down at her intently, at her eyes, at her mouth, lingering way too long on her lips. He let go of her hair and didn’t touch her again. He didn’t have to. She felt him in her peaked nipples and the humming vibration between her thighs.

‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that I’m paying an awfully hefty sum for this arrangement.’

‘You’re paying me to play your wife. You’re not paying for the right to sleep with me. You want this marriage easy to unwind? Not consummating it will make it a piece of cake.’

A nerve in his cheek twitched. His eyes grew colder. ‘You’re absolutely certain about this?’

‘Dead certain.’

‘Well,’ he said, his eyes still hard but with a smile that could only be described as a challenge accepted. ‘We’ll see.’

She threw him her own smile in return. ‘Won’t we just?’

Arrogant man. Mari stewed all the way to her flat. Stewed while she changed out of her suit and into jeans, a clean T-shirt and pulled on a navy blazer. She gathered up the rest of her belongings she might need in a suitcase. She wasn’t sure what Dom had meant about someone else taking care of her clothes, but she wasn’t about to leave packing them to someone else. With her suitcase packed and her peace lily, the one indoor plant she’d never quite managed to kill, tucked under her arm, she closed the door. Her flat would take care of itself while she was gone, there was enough money in her account for the rent to be paid. It was leaving her sister that worried her the most.

‘Suzanne, hi!’ said Mari ten minutes later as her sister opened the door.

Her sister looked from Mari’s face to the pot plant in her arms. ‘This is a surprise. Did you get the afternoon off?’

She leaned down to give her sister a hug. ‘Something like that. How are you?’

‘You know,’ she said, wrapping one arm around Mari’s shoulders, the slur in her voice more pronounced today. ‘The same. What’s happening in your world?’

I just agreed to pretend to be someone’s wife.

‘Oh, you know,’ Mari said, dodging the question until she could work out a way to share the bizarre events of the day. Where would she even start?

‘God, we’re a boring pair, aren’t we? Come on,’ said Suzanne, struggling to negotiate a three-point turn in her wheelchair to turn around, ‘let’s have a cup of tea.’

Mari’s heart broke as her sister’s electric chair carried her into the kitchen. The house had originally been Marianne’s, but she’d swapped it for the unit Suzanne had bought five years ago when she’d moved to Melbourne to be close to her sister. The home swap had seemed a good idea at the time, but the layout of the two-bedroom house was less than ideal when you factored an electric wheelchair into the space, and as Suzanne’s disease progressed and her condition deteriorated it would become increasingly problematic. Soon, though, if she could carry out her end of the deal, Mari should be in a position to provide her sister with something more suitable. All she had to do was complete this deal with the devil.

Simple.

Mari sucked in a breath. If only. She was under no illusions that these next few weeks were going to be the hardest she’d ever endured. Even harder than those godawful weeks and months when she’d paid the price for falling in love with Dominico Estefan.

In the kitchen it was Mari who filled the kettle and turned it on. Mari who found the mugs and teabags and found the milk in the fridge. Mari knew that, on a good day when her pain levels were low, Suzanne could do it, but still she hated her guests waiting for minutes for her to do things that would take them seconds.

‘Actually,’ Mari started as she sat down opposite her sister, mugs of tea and an open packet of biscuits between them, ‘something did happen today. Eric Cooper sold the company.’

Suzanne frowned as she wound the fingers of one hand around her mug’s handle. She knew what Mari’s job meant, not just to Mari, but to them both. ‘So that’s why you’re not at work. But what does that mean?’

‘It means the buyer is keeping the lab staff on, but he’s bringing in his own team to cover administration.’ Mari held up one hand. She could see Suzanne adding up A and B and coming up with C, when the answer was actually D. ‘The good news is that he offered me another role in the business.’

‘Wow, what a relief. How lucky is that?’ She reached for a biscuit. ‘What’s the new job, then?’

‘Less accounting. More of a support role for the boss,’ she said, massaging the position. Instantly she berated herself. Do not think about massaging. Do not think about positions.

There would be no positions.

‘The annoying thing is it’s going to take me overseas for a little while. That’s why I was hoping you could look after my peace lily.’

Her sister looked at the plant and back to Mari. ‘How long will you be gone?’

‘I’m not entirely sure. It could be a few weeks, but I’ve been told no more than a couple of months.’

Suzanne frowned. ‘Are you sure about this? It sounds a bit dodgy to me.’

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