Alissa laced her hands together. ‘I’m afraid we’ve got to talk because when you mentioned having a baby I genuinely didn’t know what you were talking about—’
‘Bearing in mind the contract you signed and the legal advice you had beforehand, that’s an impossible claim for you to make.’ Brilliant dark eyes now glinting with cold incredulity, Sergei thrust back the bedding to spring out of bed. ‘What are you trying to do to me?’
Alissa hovered while he strode into what appeared to be a dressing room similar to hers and disappeared briefly from view. She listened to doors being opened, drawers being rammed in and out with a force that defeated their smooth gliding mechanism. The tension in the air was already making her tummy queasy. The sheer scale of the deception she had engaged in was suddenly hitting her for the very first time. It seemed to her that she could only have walked blindfold into marrying him with her brain on hold. Only now, when she had to break the silence of secrecy, was she able to fully contemplate the enormity of what she had done.
Sergei emerged, sheathed in well-worn jeans and a black T-shirt. Barefoot, every inch of his long muscular physique taut, he surveyed her, his lean dark features set in forbidding lines. ‘Explain yourself.’
Her heart beating very fast, Alissa breathed in deep, wondered where on earth to begin and decided to go straight to the crux of the matter. ‘It was my sister who initially applied for this…er…role. She went through the whole interview procedure using my name and my educational background…’
His bronzed skin stretched taut over his proud bone structure. A hint of pallor was detracting from his healthy colour. ‘Your…sister? Are you seriously trying to tell me that you are not the woman who was vetted to become my wife?’
The tension was so fierce that her spine was rigid. ‘Yes. I know it must sound awful to you, but there was truly no malicious intent involved in the exchange.’
Taut with savage disbelief at that either excessively naïve or excessively stupid assessment of the damage done, Sergei’s hands slowly coiled into fists of restraint by his side. He could not immediately credit the possibility that he could have spent a fortune recruiting the perfect wife and the future mother of his child only to end up being duped by a complete con artist and her accomplice in crime. The very idea of it enraged him. Transgressions of that nature didn’t happen to Sergei. He had little experience of monumental foul-ups because he employed a large staff of the very best professionals available to protect him.
Alissa was torn between relief at his silence and terror of what he might be about to say to her. She made a slightly clumsy pleading movement with one hand and took a step forward. ‘My sister, Alexa, is my twin—my identical twin.’
Comprehension hit Sergei like a punch in the stomach. He immediately recalled the sour skinny version of her in the photograph. He had got the little, smiley, curvy virgin one instead when he might well have rejected the original in the flesh. Recalling his misgivings over Alissa’s failure to match his initial expectations and, even more gallingly, the background check he had cancelled out of pure lust, he cursed and only half under his breath. He should have insisted that she be checked out. He had only himself to blame on that score. Why had he let her sex appeal overrule the shrewd intelligence and preservation instincts that until now had kept him safe?
‘You do realise that you and your sister have committed fraud?’
Alissa turned very pale indeed at that charge and busied her trembling hands in picking up her wrap and putting it on. ‘Fraud?’ she queried unsteadily, sheer horror at the assurance that she was guilty of a crime scrambling her ability to think straight.
‘Who went through the elimination process for this role?’
‘Alexa.’
‘For the entire process?’ Sergei prompted.
Alissa nodded confirmation, her eyes full of anxiety.
‘Who signed the contract?’ he continued
‘Alexa…in my name. She forged my signature,’ Alissa told him unwillingly.
Reining back a burst of volcani
c rage that would have blown her out of the room, Sergei allowed himself to wonder whether, in the light of those facts, she was still his legal wife. He levelled hard dark eyes of purpose on the bird he had in hand and knew that, impostor or otherwise, he had no intention of letting her out of his sight for longer than five minutes lest she make a run for it. Fired up by the danger of that risk, Sergei lifted the phone to speak to his security chief, Borya, and gave the older man a ream of detailed instructions. He commenced with an order for background reports on Alissa and her twin sister and concluded with the directive that his wife’s phone calls be recorded and her every move watched.
Breathing in short shallow bursts, Alissa waited for Sergei to turn back to her. Fraud was a hard, scary word and she felt incredibly stupid for not having expected it to be thrown at her.
‘You’re an impostor,’ Sergei told her with icy precision.
Alissa nibbled worriedly at her lower lip. ‘Yes.’
‘A liar—’
‘I haven’t had to tell any lies!’ she protested.
‘From the first night we met you’ve been lying to me by pretending to be your sister,’ he rephrased his charge grimly. ‘Why?’
Alissa had never been so conscious of his size as she was standing in that lamplit bedroom with his dark shadow falling across her. His anger was like a physical entity in the room, for the atmosphere was explosive. She breathed in deep and slow.
‘While Alexa was going through the application, she started dating someone and she fell pregnant by him. So, of course, then she couldn’t go through with marrying you, but she’d already spent the money you gave her—’
‘What? All…’ Sergei quoted a massive headspinning amount of money and suddenly it was Alissa’s turn to gape at him in disbelief. ‘Even the biggest spendthrift would find it hard to spend that much in so short a period.’
‘You can’t have given Alexa that much money!’ Alissa exclaimed in astonishment.