‘I never said he was. I know how difficult he can be.’
She folded her arms across her chest. ‘I don’t want your money, Remy. I want you to give me back what is mine. That’s all I want from you.’
‘Not going to happen, ma chérie.’ He gave her an intractable look. ‘And, just for the record, I haven’t finished with your father. Tarrantloch is nothing compared to what he did to me in all but defaming me online. I’m not stopping until I get the justice I want.’
Angelique curled her lip. ‘Is that why you jumped at the fiancée charade that led to this ridiculous marriage? You saw a perfect opportunity for revenge. For rough justice. Forcing my hand in a marriage neither of us wants in order to score points. That’s so...pathetic I want to throw up. ‘
His brows jammed together. ‘Do you really think I’d go that far? Come on, Angelique, you’re not thinking straight. I don’t want to be married to anyone, let alone you. If by any remote chance I choose to settle down with someone it won’t be with someone like you.’
She gave him a huffy scowl. ‘Like me? What does that mean? What’s wrong with me?’
He let out a breath as he pushed a hand through his hair. ‘Nothing’s wrong with you... It’s just, I don’t see you as wife material.’
‘Because?’
‘Because you’re not the “marriage and babies” type.’
Angelique raised her brows. ‘You want...babies?’
He reared back from her as if she’d asked him if he wanted a deadly disease. ‘No! God, no. I’m just saying...’
She gave him another scowl. ‘I’m not sure what you’re saying. Maybe you could elaborate a bit. Fill in the blanks for me.’
He looked about as flustered as she’d ever seen him. It was a rare sight. He was normally so in control—joking around. Having a laugh at everyone else’s expense. Now he seemed to be back-pedalling as if he had stepped on a land mine and wasn’t quite sure how to step off it without an explosion. ‘It’s not that I don’t think you’d be a great mother.’
‘But you think I’d be rubbish at being a wife.’
‘I think you’d find it hard to compromise.’
Angelique blurted out a laugh. ‘And you don’t? Oh, for God’s sake, Remy. You really are unbelievable. You’re the least compromising person I’ve ever met. If I’d make a rotten wife, then you’d make an even worse husband.’
‘Then thank God we’ll be able to stop being a husband and wife as soon as we get back to England.’
‘You really think it will be that simple?’ Angelique asked. ‘What if someone hears about this? A journalist or someone with contacts in the media? Did you see how many people were at our wedding? What if someone took a photo? What if everyone took a photo?’
His expression locked down, leaving just one muscle moving in and out on the left side of his jaw. ‘No one is going to find out. We can annul this as soon as we land. I’ve already spoken to my lawyer in London. We can go straight to his office from the airport. It will be over and we can both move on with our lives as if it never happened.’
Good luck with that, Angelique thought. She’d been lucky lately in keeping her face out of the gossip pages but she knew it wouldn’t last. If a journalist got a whiff of what had happened in Dharbiri she and Remy would be besieged by the media as soon as they landed. But then, anyone with a camera phone could snap a picture of them together and email or text it to a newspaper.
Even arriving at Heathrow together was going to cause a stir because there were always people coming back from holidays from tropical locations where her body had been on yet another billboard.
Oh joy...
CHAPTER SIX
REMY COULD NOT believe the sort of attention Angelique attracted. Even before they had cleared Customs people were nudging each other and pointing. Several came up and asked for autographs. Some took photos, even though the signs in the customs area strictly forbade the use of phones or cameras.
‘Do you have to be so damn nice to everybody?’ he said in a low, gruff tone as he ushered her through to where a driver was waiting to collect them. ‘Can’t you pretend you’re not you? Let them think they’ve got the wrong person or something. I’ve done that heaps of times. It works like a charm.’
‘You’ve got the wrong person if you think I’d be rude to someone who paid a lot of money for a swimsuit I’ve modelled.’ She smiled at another fan who came over with a pen and a boarding pass for her to sign.
Remy could feel his blood pressure rising. Was she doing this on purpose? People were looking at him now, trying to figure out who he was and how he fitted into her life. How long before they recognised him and put two and two together?
He took her firmly by the elbow. ‘We have to go. Now.’
‘Hold your horses.’ She winked up at him cheekily. ‘Or your camels.’
She smiled again as yet another person came over and told her how much they admired her, and that they didn’t believe for a second all that rubbish about her and the English banker who was married, and how it wasn’t her fault the marriage had broken up because it was obviously doomed from the outset, blah, blah, blah.