Page 19 of The Baby Behind Their Marriage Merger

How was she still standing?

And when had she last had a break, some time out? He suspected it was never. A holiday would be way down on her list of priorities, if it featured at all. It was obvious, even to a Neanderthal like him, that she could do with some down time.

‘Still waiting, Jude.’

Right, she’d asked him how he thought their fake marriage would work. ‘After the prenuptial agreement is signed, we marry quietly without fuss or fanfare. I’ll take care of the paperwork.

‘Once we marry—preferably as soon as possible—we carry on as normal, with you in your house, me in mine. You hire a law firm to fight for custody, I’ll pay those costs and I’ll guarantee you a job within the hospitality division of Fisher International, at a higher salary than you are getting now. I will also pay you maintenance and child support, starting immediately. Money will never be a problem for you again, Addison.’ Her breath seemed to hitch, and Jude couldn’t decide whether that was a sigh of relief or a hint that she was scared. Both, maybe?

‘How long do you want us to stay married?’ Addi asked him, turning around to look at him.

‘At least six months after the birth of the baby, more if we can manage it.’ By the end of the following year, he’d have the company, be rid of the trustees and would be free to do what he wanted.

She held his eyes for the longest time, hers bright-blue but dancing with fear, anxiety and more than a little hope. Having her money issue solved was a big deal but he knew that him funding the lawyer’s fees for her upcoming custody battle meant more to her. She just wanted stability, a little room to breathe. He could give that to her and wouldn’t break a sweat—the amount they were talking of was petty change to him. All he required was for her to be legally tied to him for a year, maybe eighteen months.

‘What’s the process?’ she asked. ‘What do we need to get married?’

‘All I’ll require from you is a signature on some documents and then I’ll arrange for someone to marry us. I thought that as soon we are—’ he hesitated and decided to choose different words. ‘As soon as that’s done, we could get back to business and start with the inspection of the Thorpe hotels. I’d like to start with the lodge in Mozambique...uh... Something Bay?’

He wasn’t sure how he was going to cope with the object of all his sexual desires dressed in a bikini, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. All he knew for certain was that they should leave the country as soon as possible, and that in Mozambique he could arrange for her to have a little down time. She definitely needed it.

‘Turtle Bay,’ she corrected him. ‘What about the prenup? How complicated is that going to be?’

He thought about his too-picky lawyer, who was going to have a thousand questions and who’d want to prepare for five thousand possible eventualities. By the time Kara was done, they’d have a fifty-page agreement that would take six years to read through and digest. This was a good arrangement for Addi; she was getting a lot out of this, and she wouldn’t screw him over. It didn’t mean he trusted her—he didn’t trust a woman with anything more than ordering her own meal at a restaurant—but he did understand that she had a lot to lose by not agreeing to his terms.

Kara would scalp him for this...but that didn’t stop Jude from digging out a legal pad from his desk drawer and writing his name, then Addison’s, across the top of the page with the words ‘Prenuptial agreement’ below. Keeping it simple, he wrote a few paragraphs, detailing their agreement and his requirement for secrecy. His sentences didn’t fill up more than half a page. He drew a line for them each to sign, scribbled his name and the date and handed her the paper to sign.

Addison lifted her eyebrows and shook her head. For a minute, he thought she’d crumple it up in her fist, but then she surprised him by shrugging, placing the paper on the edge of his desk and asking for his pen.

She signed her name in a neat script and handed the paper back to him. ‘I’d like a copy of that, please,’ she told him, her tone crisp. Then he caught the amusement in her eyes, and he grinned. They were going to do this. They were going to get hitched.

If someone had asked him a week ago to write a list of the top one hundred things he might be doing the following Monday, signing a handwritten pre-nup would not have featured on his list.

CHAPTER SIX

ADDISTOODINfront of the robed priest in a tiny chapel, the midday sun illuminating the stained-glass window above the altar. She shuffled her feet and, feeling Jude’s eyes on her, lifted her head to meet his eyes. He gave her a reassuring smile and turned his attention back to the tiny priest, who’d insisted on giving them a homily on marriage.

She’d been unsure of what to wear to her wedding that wasn’t really a wedding, so she’d chosen to wear a navy coat-dress with sheer stockings and her highest black heels. She was glad she’d made an effort because Jude looked smart and sombre in his dark-grey suit, white shirt and mint-green tie.

She was about to be married—if she wasn’t already, given the sheaf of documents she’d signed in the chapel’s anteroom. Addi swallowed down a surge of panic. How had it come to this?

Addi felt Jude’s hand surround hers and he lifted it to tuck it under his arm. Thankful for the support, she shuffled closer to him and gripped the crook of his elbow, breathing deeply.

It would be okay...ithadto be okay.

But, damn, she wouldn’t have been human if she hadn’t thought of how different her wedding day could’ve been. And she couldn’t help comparing it to the excitement she’d felt preparing for her wedding with Dean, before the girls had dropped into her life.

She’d been so in love, looking forward to the future, ecstatic about sharing her life with a man whom she’d thought adored her. With Jude, it felt as if all her emotions were super-charged and she knew that, if this had been a proper wedding, something they’d both wanted and looked forward to, she would be the human equivalent of a Catherine wheel. Buzzing, spinning, glowing and glinting...

Would she ever experience that? Probably not. Devastation pierced her pragmatism and for a moment, a step out of time, she wanted it all.Standing there, her arm in his, Addi craved love, security and the stability of being loved by, and committed to, a strong, smart, decent man.

Someone like Jude.

Think about work, Addison. Think about anything else until you can face the thought that you are someone’s—no, Jude’s—wife. With more willpower than she’d thought she possessed, Addi forced herself to turn her thoughts from the priest’s long-winded sermon to work and remembered that she’d received correspondence from Thorpe Industries, London, yesterday.

The memo had stated that Cole Thorpe was in the process of selling the assets he’d inherited from his brother and that, while he would issue severance packages, he suggested his staff consider other employment options.

That meant that Lex, who worked as a part-time driver for Thorpe, would need to look for alternative work. While she didn’t bring in a lot of money, driving for the company did pay for her university modules and exam fees. As his driver, Lex had been spending a lot of time with Cole but, given the craziness of her life lately, Addi hadn’t had much time to connect with her sister. She had asked what Lex thought about Cole but her normally garrulous sister had avoided the question. And blushed. Was something happening between the billionaire and her sister?

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