but it wasn’t who he really was or indeed who he really wanted to be.
‘Does this mean you’ve decided to go ahead with our marriage?’ he asked after a little pause.
‘I don’t see how I can possibly say no,’ she answered somewhat grimly. ‘Agnes is dying…it seems so unfair not to grant her this last wish, even if it is all an act.’ She bit her lip and then released it to add uncertainly, ‘I guess I can see it through for a week or two…’
‘We have to see this through, Mia, no matter how compromised each of us feels. I don’t want her to know this is all an act. It would destroy her.’
‘I know…’ she said and eased herself out of his embrace. ‘I just feel uncomfortable…I’m being paid to be your wife. It just seems so…so…you know…terribly tacky.’
‘You’re thinking too much,’ he said as he unlocked the car. ‘It’s just money and I have plenty, so you don’t need to worry on that score. Think of it as any other acting job. I’m sure every actor has been assigned roles that aren’t quite to their taste, but they do it for the money.’
Mia frowned as she got in and fastened her seat belt. It wasn’t the money she was really worried about, she knew he had plenty and what he was paying her would hardly make a dent in it, and it would certainly solve her sister’s dilemma. It was what he couldn’t give her that worried her more. She was being paid to pretend to love a man she had previously thought unlovable, but somehow as he’d held her a few moments ago she had felt a tiny flicker of something deep inside, as if something was trying to make its way out to the surface but was being blocked in some way.
She sneaked a glance at him as he drove out of the car park. His expression was mostly inscrutable except for the tiny glitter of sadness she thought she could see in his dark eyes. But, as if he sensed her looking at him, he reached for his sunglasses on the dashboard and put them on his face and she was shut out once more.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE next few days passed in a whirlwind of activity that left Mia spinning. There was legal work to be dealt with and, although she felt uncomfortable signing documents that were so legally binding, she did it for the sake of Bryn’s great-aunt. She just couldn’t stop thinking about the older woman’s life coming to an end and how it would impact on Bryn. She was his last living relative. Once she died there would be no one else but him. His final link with his parents would be gone.
As far as she could tell he had spoken to no one about his dying relative. Jocey Myers had only found out by a quirk of fate. There had been nothing mentioned in any of the newspaper articles about Agnes Dwyer’s role in his life and certainly no mention of the tragic loss of his parents when he was a child. She wondered if he did it deliberately, as Jocey had suggested, to keep his hard-as-nails image in place or whether there was some other reason.
The Press went wild when the news broke of their impending marriage; requests for interviews flew thick and fast and wherever she went paparazzi followed, hoping for a candid shot of Bryn Dwyer’s intended bride.
It made Mia totally rethink her life-long dream to be famous. Now fame was becoming a reality she found she hated it. She couldn’t do the most basic things without being followed; even going for her morning run or thrice-weekly visits to the gym became an exercise of subterfuge in order to escape the intrusion of journalists and cameras.
Bryn, on the other hand, seemed to take it all in his stride. He insisted they dine out regularly and she was forced to put on a bright smile and accompany him to yet another high-profile restaurant.
‘I don’t know how you stand this,’ she said at the end of the second week of their engagement. They were in a harbourside restaurant and had only been seated for three minutes when a rush of fans had come up for autographs and impromptu phone-camera photos.
‘It’ll soon pass,’ he reassured her. ‘Once we’re married they’ll leave us alone.’
‘I certainly hope so…’ She toyed with the stem of her glass agitatedly as the maître d’ ushered the last of the lingering diners back to their tables.
Bryn gave her a quizzical look. ‘I thought your goal in life was to be famous. Isn’t that what every actor wants?’
She let out a tiny sigh. ‘There’s fame and there’s fame. I guess I didn’t really think about it too much…you know…how it would be if I ever made it into the big time.’
‘How long have you wanted to be an actor?’ he asked.
He watched as her mouth tilted engagingly, his chest feeling that little fish hook tug again. ‘I think I was about four or five years old,’ she said. ‘I’m a middle child and apparently I was always trying to be the centre of attention. It was the Christmas pageant when I was in kindergarten that finally decided it for me. I was cast as the front end of a donkey in the nativity play and that was it. I decided I wanted to be on stage. I went to ballet and tap classes and gymnastics and joined the school swimming team and then a junior drama club when I could finally persuade my parents to pay for it. My poor mum was run off her feet ferrying me back and forth to everything.’
‘Tell me about your family.’
‘Well…’ She smiled fondly as she met his eyes. ‘My mum and dad have been happily married for nearly thirty years. They are wonderful, just as parents should be. I have a sister, Ashleigh, a year older than me, who’s married to Jake and they have a son and a little daughter. I adore them. I have a younger sister, Ellie, who’s adopted. She’s fantastic.’
‘So you’re a close family?’
Mia gave him a very direct look. ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my family. I would give my life up for any one of them at a moment’s notice.’
He returned her look for a lengthy period before asking, ‘Have you told them about us?’
She chewed her lip for a moment and lowered her gaze. ‘My younger sister is…somewhere in the wilds of the Amazon. My parents are overseas at the moment with Jake and Ashleigh and the kids, so I haven’t got around to it. I’m not sure I want them to rush home for a wedding that’s not really real. Apart from a quick visit to London a few years ago, this is the first European trip my parents have had since they were married, so I didn’t want to ruin it for them.’
‘I hardly think attending their daughter’s wedding is going to ruin their holiday,’ Bryn said.
Mia looked up at him with a slight frown. ‘But it’s not as if it’s a proper wedding. What would be the point? Besides, as soon as your great-aunt…’ she faltered over the words ‘…passes away the marriage will be annulled.’
He gave her another lengthy look, his eyes very dark as they held hers. ‘What if my great-aunt doesn’t die in the next few weeks?’
Her hands gripped the edges of the seat. ‘Wh-what do you mean?’
‘I was speaking to her oncologist earlier today,’ he said. ‘Her condition has improved remarkably since she heard the news of our engagement. Her spirits have lifted and she’s making a real effort to eat again; the last bout of chemotherapy hit her hard but she’s put on a bit of weight and has more energy.’
‘But that’s a good thing, surely?’ Then at his wry look she stumbled on, ‘I
