Alissa froze at that announcement. ‘Borrow my identity? How?’
‘You’re the one with the university degree and I needed to use it on my application to meet the criteria,’ Alexa revealed, lifting her chin in defiance of her twin’s shaken stare. ‘And because I had used it to make myself look educated I had to use your name as well. When they checked out my claims they’d soon have discovered that I was lying if I’d applied under my own name.’
Alissa was very shocked at her sister’s casual attitude to what she had done. ‘But that’s…that’s fra
ud, cheating…’
Alexa’s indifference to what she clearly saw as a minor detail was striking. ‘Whatever. I thought it was worth a try and so it proved, but then I started seeing someone.’
‘You’re dating again?’ Alissa gasped in surprise and excitement. After her sister’s boyfriend, Peter, had died in the same car crash that had taken their brother’s life—a tragedy that had soon been followed by their father’s shocking defection—Alexa had become so angry and bitter that she had sworn off all men. Alissa had understood the level of her sister’s heartbreak for, as their next-door-neighbours’ son, Peter had been as much a part of their lives as any member of the family. ‘Were you too busy looking at the coat to notice this?’ Alexa extended a hand on which an opulent ruby and diamond ring glowed on her engagement finger.
Alissa gaped. ‘You’re engaged…already?’
‘And preggers,’ Alexa confided.
‘Pregnant as well?’ Alissa stared as her sister turned sideways but it was evidently early days for her stomach still looked perfectly flat. ‘My word, and you never said a thing about all this until now?’
Alexa grimaced. ‘I told you that things had got complicated. I was in the running for that job and I didn’t want to tell Harry about it…yes, that’s his name. He’s quite well off—a gentleman farmer who runs his family estate. They’re thrilled about me and the baby, not a bit bothered that I’m not one of the county set. But neither he nor his family would understand what I signed up for before we met…or that I could have accepted all that money for the right reasons.’
Her smooth brow furrowing, Alissa stared. ‘Alexa, what are you talking about? This job? What money did you accept?’
Alexa sat down at the kitchen table and sipped her tea before she replied. ‘I never thought I’d get it. I went through the whole application process out of curiosity. Strictly speaking, it’s not really a job,’ she admitted in an undertone.
Alissa sank down into the chair opposite. ‘Then what is it? It isn’t anything, well…immoral, is it?’
‘Before I tell you, you think very carefully about what that money will do for Mum,’ her sister urged sharply. ‘It’s her only hope of rescue and I’ve already paid out most of it on her behalf. All I had to do to get it was agree to marry a very rich Russian and act like his wife.’
‘But why would any man want to pay you for doing that? These days I thought most rich Russians were beating off gold-digging women with sticks,’ Alissa remarked drily.
‘This guy wants it all done on a business basis, with money paid up front, signed contracts and a settlement agreed for the divorce at the end. He wanted an educated attractive Englishwoman and I stepped forward. I almost told his lawyers that he could have two of us for the price of one!’
Alissa wasn’t amused by that rather tasteless joke. ‘So, let me get this straight—you decided you were willing to marry this man just for the cash?’
‘For Mum!’ Alexa contradicted loudly. ‘I was only ever willing to do it for her sake.’
Alissa sat there tautly and thought about this explanation. Everything she herself had done of late, from resigning from her comfortable librarian’s job in London to coming home to help out as best she could, had also been done for her mother’s sake. Both young women adored their parent, who was currently stressed out of her mind and desperately depressed, a mere shadow of the cheerful and energetic woman she had once been.
A kinder and more loving and supportive parent or wife than Jenny Bartlett would be hard to find. Unfortunately, over the past two years, the twins’ once close and contented family circle had been cruelly smashed by a series of disasters. The death of their brother, Stephen, and of Alexa’s boyfriend, Peter, in a car crash one wintry evening had only been the first calamity to strike them. That storm had barely been weathered before their father’s cancer was diagnosed. Long months of anxiety and debilitating medical treatment had followed. Throughout all those events their mother had been the strongest of them all, refusing to allow her family to sink into despair. She could never have guessed then that, within months of his recovery from cancer, her husband of thirty years would desert her for a much younger woman and then claim half of their home and business to finance his new lifestyle. Watching those awful proceedings unfold from the sidelines, Alissa had felt her heart break alongside her mother’s.
Alissa had learned a new insecurity when she had finally realised that she could not even trust her father to be the honest and decent man she had always believed he was. Although he was an accountant on a good salary, he was pursuing his wife for a share of the home that had originally belonged to her parents and of the small business that she had set up and ran entirely on her own. Money and the lust for more of it, Alissa thought fearfully, could turn people into strangers and make them do inexcusable things. Now it seemed to her that Alexa had got caught up in the same dangerous toils.
‘Pay the money back,’ Alissa urged tightly. ‘You can’t marry some foreigner you don’t even know for money.’
‘Well, I can’t marry him now, can I? I mean, I’m carrying Harry’s baby!’ Alexa pointed out flatly. ‘And Harry wants us to get married in the next couple of weeks.’
Alissa nodded, unsurprised by that sudden announcement. Alissa always did everything at supersonic speed. That she had fallen in love and fallen pregnant within months and was racing equally fast into marriage was the norm for her. She had never learnt patience and if common sense threatened to come between her and her goals she would ignore it.
‘You must go ahead and marry the Russian in my place,’ Alexa continued, ‘or I’ll be forced to consider an abortion…’
Shattered by that announcement, Alissa pushed her chair noisily back and leapt upright. ‘What on earth are you talking about? Me marry this weird guy? An abortion? Is that what you want?’
A petulant expression traversed Alexa’s face. ‘No, of course it’s not what I want, Allie, but what choice do I have? I signed a legal binding contract and I accepted a huge amount of money on the strength of it. Most of the money has been spent so I can’t give it back. So where does that leave me?’
Alissa was once again aghast at that admission. ‘Spent?’
‘Mostly on Mum. Okay, so I bought the car and a few other little things. At the time I thought that with the sacrifice I was making in agreeing to marry the guy, I had the right to spoil myself a bit. After all, it was me, not you, riding to Mum’s rescue!’ her twin vented, treating her sister to a scornful appraisal. ‘I mean, here you are, acting all shocked at what I’ve done. But what have you done, but sit here wringing your hands and checking bank statements? It took me to take action, so don’t you dare look down on me for being willing to marry a stranger for money. Money and lots of it is the only real cure for the problems here!’
The louder Alexa’s angry voice got, the paler Alissa became and she sat down heavily again. ‘I’m not looking down on you in any way. You’re right. You have pulled off something that I couldn’t have and, yes, we are desperate for money—’