‘My firm’s richest client needs a wife for business purposes, and he’s prepared to pay a lot of money to the right candidate.’
‘What kind of business purposes?’ Tansy pressed suspiciously.
‘I’m not in possession of that information. Jude Alexandris is a very private man. He doesn’t explain his motivations to his solicitors,’ her stepfather told her.
‘Does he need a British passport or something?’
‘I very much doubt it. But I do know that he needs a fake wife. It would be a marriage of convenience. Sign up for it and the sky will be the limit for you,’ Calvin told her with a sudden surge of enthusiasm. ‘Not only will he pay a large sum of money up front if you agree to marry him, but he will also make a very substantial settlement on you after the divorce and ensure that you never have to work again.’
‘That sounds like a winning scheme for a gold-digger,’ Tansy pointed out sweetly. ‘But I’m not that way inclined. Of course, I can see the appeal from your side of the fence. Presumably if I agree to this nonsense, you would get the large sum of money upfront to settle your debts and retain your lifestyle.’
‘Think of the benefits for Posy,’ her stepfather urged speciously.
‘Calvin, you don’t give two hoots about Posy or her needs. You’re only thinking about saving your own skin,’ Tansy countered ruefully.
Calvin frowned. ‘You know that’s not true. I love that little girl.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Tansy said with regret. ‘You live in the same house and you haven’t bothered to even see her in over a week. I’m not judging you for that. I accept that not everyone wants to be a parent but what worries me the most is that you don’t care about her welfare either.’
‘And how do you make that out?’ Calvin riposted, angry colour spotting his cheeks at that criticism.
‘Well, you keep on pushing Posy off on your girlfriend even though it’s perfectly obvious that Susie hasn’t an ounce of interest in acting as her substitute mother.’
‘Posy is my daughter,’ her stepfather reminded her with lethal timing. ‘Allow me to decide what’s best for her. Now what about this proposition? Don’t ignore the fact that there would be substantial benefits in the marriage for you as well.’
‘But nothing that I value. Yes, money would make it easier for me to move on with my life and possibly return to university,’ Tansy conceded reluctantly, ‘but it wouldn’t sort out the problem of who is to care for Posy. Right now, I think I’m the best person to look after my sister because I love her. Why can’t you sign over custody of Posy to me?’
Calvin studied her in indignant disbelief. ‘And what would people think of me if I did something like that? Handing my own flesh and blood over to a girl barely into her twenties?’
‘Is that all you care about? What other people think?’ Tansy viewed him with helpless contempt. ‘At the end of the day what should matter to you is what makes Posy happy and secure.’
‘Well, it certainly won’t be you when you’re broke and living under my roof at my expense,’ her stepfather reminded her crushingly. ‘You have no means of supporting a child, no income, no home—’
Tansy jumped to her feet with knotted fists. ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep Posy!’ she snapped back at him angrily. ‘Given a little time I could find us a home and I could find a job—’
‘Marrying Jude Alexandris would give you a home and an income,’ Calvin pointed out persuasively. ‘You just said that there’s nothing you wouldn’t do to keep Posy. Did you mean it? If you agree to marry Alexandris, I’ll consider giving you custody of Posy. In those circumstances, nobody would question me handing her over to you because you would be in a position to offer her so much more than I ever could. The Alexandris family are one of the richest in the world—’
‘Are you serious?’ Tansy gasped in complete astonishment at the suggestion that should she be willing to agree to such a marriage he might be willing to surrender his rights to her sister.
‘Yes, you agree to marry Alexandris and hand over that initial sum of money to me and I will agree to relinquish my paternal rights in your favour. But, mind you, it won’t be that easy,’ Calvin told her, switching into cool, curt business mode. ‘You would have to impress Alexandris first and you won’t do that by mouthing off to him the way you do to me. He will have a low tolerance level for insolence because he’s not accustomed to dealing with it. I wouldn’t suggest telling him about Posy in advance either as he will only see a young child accompanying you as a problem and a burden. He wants a yes-woman who will do as she’s told, nothing more demanding.’
Tansy let his words wash over her while she breathed in deep and slow. A yes-woman, well, she supposed she had been a weak yes-person for much of her life, constantly striving to please and impress her mother and never quite managing to make the grade. From childhood, Tansy had been a disappointment to Rosie Browne. She had cried when her mother had entered her in beauty pageants, come over all shy when she’d got her a booking as a child model and had failed utterly in the drama and ballet classes that had followed.
It was that sad history, that awareness of past failure, that had made Tansy take time out of the radiography degree her mother had denigrated and come to the older woman’s aid when she had asked for her help while she was pregnant. Just for once, Tansy had wanted to succeed in winning her mother’s approval because she had badly needed the comfort of believing that in spite of everything she could still be a good daughter. Regrettably, she had no memory whatsoever of her father, who had died when she was a baby, and by the time her mother had married Calvin, she had been fifteen years old. He had had no desire to take on a stepfather role and she and Calvin had pretty much avoided each other until she went to university. Currently, she struggled to deal with Calvin without her mother around because everything about superficial, smooth-talking, selfish Calvin irritated her.
‘You will be seeing Alexandris tomorrow morning at ten for an interview,’ Calvin informed her, startling her with that announcement. ‘I’ll organise Susie to look after the baby.’
‘Tomorrow?’Tansy gasped.
‘We have no time to lose and neither has he. He’s on a tight timeline. I need to coach you on what Alexandris expects so that you’ll impress him as a viable choice,’ her stepfather decreed, disconcerting her even more.
Tansy was taken aback by the concept of being ‘coached’ by Calvin in anything. Was she even willing to go through some marriage ceremony with a stranger for money? Put that baldly, it struck her as a proposition that only a greedy, unscrupulous woman would even consider, and she was neither of those things. On the other hand, if agreeing to that proposition gave Tansy the right to ensure that her little sister was never again left screaming, hungry and unwashed in her cot, she had to think again about what she was ready to sacrifice to achieve a greater good.
‘Will you promise me that if this guy agrees to marry me, you will hand over Posy?’ she pressed worriedly. ‘Because that would be the only reason I am even prepared to consider this idea.’
‘So you say,’ Calvin jibed with a curled lip. ‘But I refuse to accept that the cash and the lifestyle Alexandris could give you doesn’t feature in your decision.’
‘If this works and you get the money for me doing this, are you willing to sign over custody of Posy to me?’ Tansy demanded a second time, needing that reassurance.
‘Tansy, if you can pull this off, I’d sign my soul over to the devil, never mind give up Posy,’ Calvin admitted with unusual honesty. ‘Right now, I’m facing disaster and I’ll do anything to avoid it…’