A Price Worth Paying(15)

‘The last few months have been rough on you.’

She squeezed damp eyes shut, wishing away the sting, trying to block out his rich, low voice from worming its way into anywhere it could do some damage. She wished to hell he didn’t sound so … understanding. She wasn’t looking for sympathy. She was looking for a solution. ‘Anyway,’ she said, huffing out air, shaking off her gloom, ‘I’m not planning on telling anyone at home about this—about our arrangement. Nobody need know. Because then I don’t have to go home and explain what went wrong with my quickie marriage. It might not bother you, but there’s no way I want to listen to everyone telling me, “I told you so”.’

‘You’ll have nobody? Don’t you think it will look strange if you have no one in attendance? Isn’t there a friend you can confide in and trust?’

That earned him a snort. She’d had a best friend she’d trusted. Ever since primary school, she and Carla had day-dreamed about the day they’d each get married and had sworn to be each other’s chief bridesmaids. They’d shared everything in life—the good times and the bad—and the job had always been Carla’s—right up until the day Simone had found her sharing her cheating boyfriend.

And not only sharing her boyfriend but sharing him in her bed, which, to her way of thinking, made the betrayal even more damning.

As for asking any of her other friends—there was no way she could expect photos or news of the wedding not to leak out onto social media, no matter how much she wanted to keep it quiet. And it would be unfair and unreasonable to ask her friends to keep it a secret, simply to protect her own need for privacy. They’d want to know why and they’d deserve to be told.

And that wouldn’t work when she didn’t want anyone to know. This marriage was hardly going to be one of her finest moments. She wasn’t sure she wanted witnesses to the event. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, thinking it was all getting too difficult. ‘Maybe we should just fly off to Las Vegas and not bother with a wedding here at all. Just come back and say it’s a done deal.’

‘And cheat Felipe out of the pleasure of walking his granddaughter down the aisle? How would it brighten his days to know you had been whisked away to marry a man whose family he has been in dispute with his entire life?’ He hesitated a moment to let that sink in, and sink in it did. As much as the idea appealed, how could she do that when this was all about convincing him this was real and making him happy?

‘Besides,’ Alesander continued, ‘why should anyone believe it? Whereas if they see us married before their eyes, surely that will be more convincing.’

Convincing. What did that mean in Spanish terms? She looked out of the window, biting her lip as the car wended its way along the narrow road up the hill towards Felipe’s shrunken estate. Her plan had seemed so easy when she’d come up with it. Marry Alesander and let Felipe end his days thinking his precious vines were reunited. What could be more simple?

But there was so much she hadn’t considered; so many details where her plans could come unstuck.

Convincing.

But she didn’t want a big church wedding with all the trimmings. Somehow a small civil affair seemed easier to undo. Less false, if there even was a scale of falseness.

Right now she wanted to believe it.

But maybe she’d been kidding herself all along. Maybe her idea had been doomed from the start and she was finally starting to realise it.

Except he must believe it was possible or why would he have gone along with it?

She turned to him, needing to hear what he thought. ‘Do you really think we can make this work?’

He looked over at her. ‘Having second thoughts?’

‘No, not really. It’s just that … it seemed like such a simple idea but there’s just so much to consider. So many tiny details to sort out.’

‘Ideas are the easy part. It’s making them happen that takes work.’

Wasn’t that the truth? ‘So you think we can do it?’

‘I’m banking on it.’

The land, she thought, sitting back in her seat. He will make it happen because he’s banking on the land. And she couldn’t resent the price he’d demanded or the deal she’d made, because right now having Alesander Esquivel on her team was her plan’s biggest asset.

If she had nothing else going for her, he would make it happen.

Oh yes, Alesander thought, he was banking on it. The way he figured it, he had nothing to lose and everything to gain.