A Scandalous Marriage

CHAPTER ONE

MIKE was grimly silent during the taxi ride from Mascot to his apartment in Glebe. He wasn’t at all happy with the way his business trip to the States had turned out, or the course of action he’d rather impulsively decided to take.

But it was too late to change his mind now. He was locked in.

Once home, Mike stripped off the Italian business suit that he’d bought for his meeting with Helsinger and headed for the bathroom. After a shower and shave, he pulled on blue jeans and a T-shirt, then set about cooking himself a decent breakfast. The breakfast they’d served him on the plane as they’d approached Sydney hadn’t touched his sides.

Mike ate the plate of bacon and eggs out on the sun-drenched balcony, which was north-facing and had a great view of Sydney’s inner harbour.

The balcony was one of the reasons Mike had bought this particular apartment. Water relaxed him, he’d discovered. He liked nothing better than to sit out here in the evening after a hard day’s work on the computer, sipping a glass of whisky whilst the water distracted and calmed his mind.

Nothing, however, was going to calm his mind at this moment.

He ate quickly, his aim just to fill his stomach before driving into the city to meet with his best friend—and banker. As Mike scraped the leftovers into the garbage disposal he wondered what Richard’s reaction would be.

Mike suspected he’d be supportive of his rather unconventional decision. Richard might look conservative, but underneath he was anything but. You didn’t get to be CEO of an international bank before the age of forty by being meek and mild. Richard had his ruthless side, especially when it came to making money. And as crazy as Mike’s scheme might sound, if it succeeded, it was going to make both of them very wealthy men.

Five minutes later, Mike slipped on his favourite black leather jacket and headed for the front door. Half an hour later, he was sitting in Richard’s office.

‘What do you mean you didn’t see Helsinger?’ Richard’s tone was more confused than angry. ‘I thought you’d lined that meeting up before you left Sydney.’

‘Unfortunately, Chuck was called out of town the day I arrived in LA,’ Mike told him. ‘He left his apologies. A family emergency.’

‘Hell, Mike. That was bad luck.’

‘No sweat. I met with his managing director, instead. He assured me Comproware were still very interested in my new anti-virus, anti-spyware program.’

‘Yes, I’m sure they are,’ Richard said drily. ‘It’s brilliant.’

Mike wholeheartedly agreed with Richard. It was brilliant, especially the way it could track back to see where the virus—or the spy—came from, then deliver a counter-strike of its own. Mike had known, right from the first day he’d started work on the ground-breaking program, that his own relatively small, Australian-based software company didn’t have the power to do such a product justice. He needed an international company with marketing clout to launch it, worldwide.

After doing some indepth research, he’d come up with Comproware, a relatively new American software company that had great marketing flair, and which also had a reputation for offering generous contracts to the creators of new programs and games, paying royalties instead of a flat sum.

After some not-so-successful negotiating via the internet and the telephone, Mike had flown to Comproware’s head office in America to meet the owner face to face. He’d expected to pin Helsinger down to a contract during his two-day stopover. He certainly hadn’t expected what had transpired, or the path he’d now set himself upon.

‘I didn’t get a contract,’ he admitted. ‘What I did get, however, was the offer of a possible partnership.’

‘A partnership!’ Richard exclaimed excitedly. ‘With Chuck Helsinger? You’ve got to be kidding. That man’s a retail legend. Everything he touches turns to gold. A partnership with him has to be worth millions.’

‘Actually, Rich, more like billions. If I can close this deal, your fifteen per cent of my little company is going to make you an even richer man than you already are. Reece is going to be pretty pleased with his fifteen per cent, too.’

And my seventy per cent share means I’m going to be able to do all those things I’ve always wanted to do, Mike thought, not for the first time. A boys’ club in every city and big town in Australia. Lots more summer camps. And scholarships.

The possibilities were limitless!

If he got the partnership.

Richard shook his head in amazement. ‘I can’t believe it. This is incredible.’

‘There was one small catch. But I can fix that.’

Richard immediately looked wary. ‘What catch?’

‘Chuck Helsinger has a hard-and-fast rule about the men he goes into partnership with.’

‘What rule is that?’

‘They have to be married. Settled men with solid family values.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘Nope.’

Richard groaned, then leant back in his leather office chair, his elbows on the padded arm-rests, his hands steepled together in front, his dark brows drawing together. ‘And how, pray tell, are you going to fix that?’

‘I’ve already started. I immediately emailed Chuck that I’d recently become engaged to a wonderful girl and that we were getting married before Christmas.’

Richard’s eyebrows formed a sardonic arch. ‘That was very inventive of you, Mike, but I don’t think that’s going to cut it. A man like Chuck Helsinger is sure to have any prospective business partner of his thoroughly investigated. He’ll soon find out that you lied to him.’

‘I did think of that. But it’s not going to be a lie for long.’

Richard shot forward on his chair. ‘You mean you’d actually get married!’

Mike could understand his friend’s shock. Mike was, after all, a confirmed bachelor. He’d told Richard many times that marriage would never be on his agenda.

Still, he’d never anticipated a deal such as this coming his way. Sometimes, a man had to do what a man had to do.

But on his own terms, of course.

‘If I want this partnership,’ Mike said matter-of-factly, ‘I’m going to have to. And as soon as possible. Helsinger is going to be in Sydney on the fourth of December to pick up a luxury yacht he’s having built here. It’s a Christmas present for his family. He and his wife want me and my new bride to join them for a couple of days for a getting-to-know-you cruise around Sydney’s waterways. I presume, if I pass muster as a happily married man with solid family values, the partnership will be mine.’

‘Good God!’ Richard exclaimed.

‘Look, I don’t intend to stay married,’ Mike informed his friend. ‘It will just be a business arrangement, played out till the partnership is signed and sealed.’

‘That’s a bit cold-blooded, isn’t it, Mike? Even for you.’

Mike shrugged. ‘The end justifies the means. After all, what right does that hypocritical old buzzard have to insist on such a ridiculous requirement? Being married has nothing to do with being a good businessman. I’m proof of that.’

‘Maybe, but that doesn’t make him hypocritical.’

‘You reckon? I did some investigating myself before I decided on Comproware, delving into its owner’s professional and personal background. Did you know that Chuck’s on his third wife, a woman, I might add, who’s a good twenty-five years younger than his own seventy years? Okay, so they have been married for sixteen years and she’s given him children. Two boys. But does that make him a decent man with solid family values?’

‘I see what you mean,’ Richard muttered.

‘His wife can’t be much better. Do you honestly think she married him for his charm? Hell, no. She hitched herself to a gravy train, like lots of women do with wealthy guys. You know how it is, Rich. Money is one hell of an incentive when it comes to some members of the fairer sex. Since I became a millionaire, I’ve never been lacking for female company. I’ll have no trouble finding myself a temporary wife. I just have to wave the right amount under the right girl’s mercenary little nose.’

‘You sound like you have someone in mind. One of your ex-girlfriends, I suppose. You’ve had enough of them.’

‘Hell, no. None of those will do. The last thing I want is complications, or consequences. I need a wife who knows exactly what I require from her, right from the start. Which is absolutely nothing but appearances. This will be a marriage in name only, to be discreetly dissolved at a later date. There will be no consummation of this union. Be assured of that!’ Mike finished up forcefully.

He was sick and tired of women claiming emotional involvement with him, despite his up-front warnings. They seemed to accept his ‘just-company-and-sex’ rule to begin with. But once he took them to bed a few times, they changed. Mike couldn’t bear it when a woman started telling him she loved him. For one thing, he just didn’t believe them. Women trotted out those three little words all the time to manipulate men. And to try to trap them.

Little did they know that telling Mike they loved him was the kiss of death.

That was the reason for his many exes. As soon as they began to get clingy, that was it. His latest ex had been a dedicated career girl. A lawyer, chosen because he’d thought she might be different. But no…she’d soon become just as possessive as all the others.

Mike had given up dating for a while, because he simply couldn’t stand the scenes. Lately, he’d been spending his spare time with his charity work, instead. And putting in more hours at the gym.

‘And where do you think you’re going to find this super mercenary creature, Mike? Girls don’t walk around with signs on them saying they’ll marry for money.’

‘What a short memory you have, Rich. I’ll get her from an internet introduction agency, of course. Didn’t you tell me yourself that you tried Wives Wanted before you found Holly? And didn’t you confess to me over a bottle of Johnny Walker that that particular matchmaking service had loads of good-looking gold-diggers on their books?’

Richard frowned. ‘You’re right. I did say that. But, in hindsight, maybe I misjudged them. I was in a pretty cynical state of mind at the time I dated those women. They probably weren’t as bad as all that. I mean, Reece found Alanna using that agency. No one in their right minds would call her a gold-digger.’

‘There are always the exception to the rule,’ Mike said, his mind momentarily going to Reece’s lovely and very loving wife. ‘Alanna is that exception. Wives Wanted will have what I’m looking for. What I need from you, Rich, is their contact number. Do you still have it? If you don’t, I could ask Reece.’

‘I have it here somewhere,’ Richard admitted.

No use protesting further, he realised as he opened the top drawer in his desk and went through the pile of business cards he kept in the corner, looking for the one from Wives Wanted. Mike was clearly determined to do this. And who could blame him? A partnership with Chuck Helsinger was the chance of a lifetime.

Still…

Holly wasn’t going to believe him when he told her about this tonight. Mike was the most anti-marriage guy they knew. Anti-marriage. Anti-love. And anti-women.

No, that was going too far. He wasn’t anti-women. There was always some beautiful dolly-bird on his arm. Women buzzed around Mike like bees to the honeypot. Richard wasn’t too sure why, since Mike wasn’t conventionally handsome. Holly said it was because he was tall, dark and dangerous-looking.

Richard conceded that Mike’s macho appearance might be the main contributing factor to his attractiveness. He had wall-to-wall muscles. And then some.

He also rarely dressed in suits, favouring jeans and leather jackets. Black, like the one he had on today.

Whatever it was, Mike was never lacking in female company. Fortunately, Holly didn’t go for that type. She preferred his own more conservative, well-groomed style. Thank God.

‘Here it