The Doctor's Billion-Dollar Bride, page 6
The sudden switch had her blinking. ‘Al Delebe?’
‘You won’t have heard of it. Hardly anyone has. It’s a tiny African nation wedged between two bigger and much more warlike ones. It’s so small and war-torn that few aid agencies are on the ground. Mum and Dad were intrepid travellers. They went there on their honeymoon, but instead of sightseeing they found themselves treating eyes. That care’s been ongoing and it’s so important. The heat and dust, the poverty, the lack of education... Jodie, for less than most of us pay for a basic meal, we can remove cataracts, restore someone’s sight. For a few lessons teaching basic eyecare, we can save kids from glaucoma, from sight-threatening infections, from a lifetime of blindness.’
Whoa. This conversation was getting away from her. She was staring at him in astonishment, hearing the passion in his voice but totally confounded as to where this was heading.
‘So?’ she said cautiously.
‘So,’ he repeated, heavily now. ‘I now have a choice. My parents’ funds have pretty much been spent—setting up a hospital and attracting staff has bitten into what was a massive fortune. They worked for peanuts, but most doctors won’t. Within a couple of years, the funding will run out.’
‘Are your parents still involved?’
‘They were, until they were killed in a border skirmish twelve years ago.’
That made her flinch. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be,’ he said, though the brusqueness in his voice told her there was still pain. ‘They loved the country; they loved what they were doing and they knew the risks. I’m just sorry they didn’t have more time.’
‘And you?’ The situation now had her intrigued.
‘I worked there for a while,’ he told her. ‘Now I run operations from Brisbane.’
Really? She eyed the tissue box with distrust. This wasn’t turning out to be the empathic mental health consultation she’d planned.
‘So...um...me?’ she ventured at last. ‘A million dollars. Marriage. I’m not seeing the connection.’
‘If you don’t marry me, the foundation will fail.’
She stared at him open-mouthed, and then carefully raised her hand and pushed her mouth closed. ‘Huh?’ she managed. Okay, that wasn’t the most intelligent of responses, but it was all she could get out.
He was looking at her now with something that seemed...a lot like sympathy? As if he knew she wouldn’t want to hear this messy story.
‘For years, Arthur hated that my father insisted on leaving the business,’ he told her. ‘To be frank, he was gutted when his brother—my grandfather—died. For him, the company was his only remaining family, and my father refusing to be part of it seemed like deciding to chop off part of him. Dad’s decision to take his inheritance rather than invest it into more and more mines—well, to Arthur that was yet another gut-wrench. We were all that was left of his family. He couldn’t understand us, he was grief-stricken—and his response was to put every waking minute of his life into building the company.’
‘But...this doesn’t fit,’ she said slowly. ‘The Arthur I knew... Every waking minute... How does that fit with deciding to surf when he was over eighty?’
‘That was me,’ he said heavily. ‘We had a huge row just before he came over to the island. He knew the foundation was running out of money, that it couldn’t continue for much longer, and he was pressuring me again to return to the company. He accused me of never thinking of anything but my “do-gooding”, as he called it. And I countered that he never thought of anything but how much money he could make out of destroying the planet. I was also worried about his health. He was demanding I spend time with him, learning about the company. He held out the carrot that if I did, he might be persuaded to do something for us—and in desperation I said if he did something outside his office I’d think about it. He had major health issues—he had so little time left to enjoy. To be honest, I never dreamed he’d do it. But he obviously planned to take one weekend away and then come back and throw it in my face.’
‘Ouch.’
‘As you say. And now I’m dealing with his will.’
‘Which is?’ She was intrigued, but there were major warnings blaring in her head. Back away! This was surely none of her business.
But she’d asked and now he was forging ahead.
‘He’s given me...us...two options,’ he was saying, looking down towards the kids on the beach—carefully not looking at her? ‘And they depend on what I do. Or... I’m sorry, but in part it’s what you do. The first is that I do nothing. I inherit nothing. The directors will stay as they are, and profits, plus his personal fortune, will continue to be funnelled into further coal mining, plus huge gas exploration off the coast. Both of which will cause untold environmental damage. All profits will be distributed to shareholders. Many people are about to become seriously rich.’
‘But not you?’
‘Not me.’ His face was bleak. ‘I guess... I had hoped that he’d leave at least part of the company to me. I couldn’t have influenced the way it was run but I could have sold my shareholding and used it to keep the Al Delebe foundation going for a few more years. If you knew how many people’s sight that would have saved...’
He stopped at that, just stayed silent, staring down at the beach. The sounds of the children playing on the sand had faded. Everything seemed to have faded.
‘But there’s another option?’ she said at last, trying to figure this out. ‘Which is where I come in?’
‘The marriage option.’
‘With me? That’s so crazy.’
‘I agree. It is crazy, but you need to hear what’s behind it.’ He hesitated again, but she stayed silent. And finally he spoke slowly, heavily, as if forcing every word out.
‘Arthur was obsessed with family,’ he said. ‘And you have no idea how much he pressured me to join the company. The first draft of his will, leaving everything to shareholders—was obviously made in frustration—he’d given up on me. But then he met you.’
‘Which shouldn’t have made one whit of difference.’
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ He spread his hands. ‘It’s senseless, but he was obviously impressed, really impressed—so impressed that he thought of another way to force my hand. Marriage. Marriage to you.’
She was starting to feel like she was surrounded by snakes. Cautious didn’t begin to describe it, but anger was now cutting through caution. She was starting to feel trapped and she didn’t like it one bit. ‘If that’s not ridiculous...’
‘From his point of view it wasn’t so ridiculous,’ he told her. ‘I don’t know what you talked about that night, but somehow, he decided that you’re ideal breeding stock.’
‘Breeding stock!’
He managed a smile then, but a crooked one. ‘Good child-bearing hips? A nice fertile woman?’
‘What...? Thanks very much!’
He grinned, but then he shrugged and the smile died. ‘Sorry. I’m only trying to imagine what Arthur saw. To say he was a misogynist would be an understatement—he had no time for women—but you did save his life. Maybe he wanted to reward you and he thought this was a way to do it. And maybe he thought this might just be a last-ditch plan to bring the company back into the family.’
‘But it’s crazy.’
‘Yes, it is,’ he said, in that heavy voice again. ‘But in hospital, recovering from a fright, with a battered body and a faltering heart, he wrote a second option into his will. He seriously proposed that we marry, and marry...seriously. For it to work we’d need to live together for at least two years, to satisfy the legal eagles that the marriage is real. But if we agree... His plan seemed to be that you get your million dollars, I inherit his personal fortune and we have children.’ He put up a hand as if to ward off her instinctive reaction. ‘No. Please, just listen. If that happened, the majority shareholding of the company—all his shares—would be put in a family trust—the Cantrell Family Trust—until the kids he suggested we have come of age. The company can’t be sold before they come of age, but I believe he decided that, even if I’m obstinate and keep doing my work abroad, by the time any offspring have grown they’ll have come to their senses and Cantrells will once again rule the world.’
She stared at him, growing more and more stunned. This was absurd.
‘It’s crazy,’ she said at last, starting to feel like she was a parrot, repeating the word over and over. Crazy, crazy, crazy. ‘A trust? Children?’
‘The lawyers seem to think we wouldn’t have to have them,’ he said weakly. ‘For some reason, Arthur thought it might happen if...if he forced us to live together.’
‘In your dreams,’ she managed. ‘In his dreams. And you? Where would that leave you?’
‘Well, that’s the chink in the armour,’ he said, deciding to focus on the beach again, carefully not looking at her. ‘This last option was put in just after you’d treated him—it was dictated to his secretary while he was still in hospital in Brisbane. He’d obviously been badly frightened. He wanted the change done in a hurry, so he didn’t have lawyers help draft it. A nurse co-signed it, and for some reason he forgot to outline who’d control that trust. It’s a big omission because, as he’s called it the Cantrell Family Trust, the lawyers believe control would come to me.’
‘You...’
‘So they say. And even if there are no children, it’ll remain with me. It seems I can do anything bar sell the company outright, but the corporation itself can now be redirected, beginning to undo all the damage the company’s done. And I can channel his personal fortune to Al Delebe. Jodie...’
Enough. The feeling of being trapped was suddenly overwhelming.
‘Stop!’
How did she begin to deal with this? She rose and walked down the steps into the garden, then decided to focus on her breathing for a while. For some reason, breathing seemed really hard. She stared out at the sea; she concentrated on getting her heart rate settled—this seemed incredibly important—and then she took a deep breath and returned to the veranda. It wasn’t Seb doing the manipulating, she told herself. It was one scheming old man. She might be angry, but maybe this anger shouldn’t be directed at Seb.
He, too, was a puppet.
‘So,’ she said at last, ‘how much money are we talking?’
And he told her. She stood stock-still while he outlined the value of Arthur’s personal fortune and how much the company was worth. He told her how much good that personal fortune could do to an impoverished people. He told her how the mining company could be redirected to green energy, to repairing environmental damage. He spoke with passion, with commitment, with emotion, and when finally he paused she felt as if she had nothing left in her. She had nowhere to go.
‘But...but you,’ she said at last, weakly, fighting to find loopholes. ‘This isn’t...you. You don’t even work full-time. You’re like me—you don’t commit.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Your uncle said. And your receptionist. I rang and tried to get an appointment for one of the islanders who’s suffering from what I think is a corneal dystrophy. She said you only worked in the mornings, and you won’t take on any patients outside the hospital.’
‘I work for the foundation.’
‘What, in all your spare time?’
‘Yes.’
She frowned. ‘So why aren’t you in Al Delebe if you care so much?’
That brought more silence, this time seemingly loaded. His face seemed to freeze.
‘You’re assuming...’
‘I’m not assuming,’ she flashed back at him. ‘I’m asking, and if you want me to take this stupid thing seriously then I need answers. It’s you who’s assuming that I might even consider this. How do you even know I’m free to marry? There’s an assumption.’
‘I believe Arthur asked his secretary to find out for him. She told me he believed you were aching to marry.’
‘He what?’ It was practically a screech.
‘Okay.’ He held up his hands as if in surrender. ‘I apologise.’
‘I don’t need your apologies,’ she snapped. ‘How dare he?’
‘That’s pretty much what I think. He was a scheming, manipulative old man, obsessive about one thing, and he’s still pulling strings to continue that obsession from the grave.’
‘Oh, this is dumb,’ she said, suddenly weary of the whole discussion. ‘We might as well finish this now. I don’t do commitment. I don’t do family and I surely don’t sell myself. You’re telling me you can save the world if I agree? That’s not a plan, it’s blackmail. And tell me how your life would change if you went ahead with this. Would you go back to Al Delebe? Would you expect me to go with you?’
‘I expect we’d stay in Brisbane,’ he said tentatively. ‘You could still work, though you wouldn’t need to. Of course, all your expenses would be met. Your inheritance would be on top of that. Jodie, I haven’t thought that far but...’
‘But don’t bother.’ She was trying hard to sound calm, maybe even get this back on some sort of professional footing. ‘So let me see. You marry me, you send a lot of cash to this charity, you then control a huge corporation and you go happily on with the lifestyle you have now?’
‘I have no choice,’ he said, goaded.
‘What, no choice but to work part-time in Australia, earning your over-the-top specialist salary rather than giving your expertise to a people you care so much about?’
And the look on his face—the anger... But mixed with the anger she also saw distress.
But how was his face so readable? This was weird. It was almost like there was some link...
There was no link. Nothing about this made sense, but when he spoke again, the anger and the distress were still there. ‘I can’t go back to Al Delebe,’ he said, as if goaded.
‘Why not? Is it so unsafe? Your parents...’
‘It’s not unsafe in that sense, at least not at the moment. But I can’t...’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s personal.’
‘So’s marriage,’ she snapped. ‘Get over it. I need facts if you even want me to think about this.’
He closed his eyes, and once again she got the impression of someone carrying a load that seemed almost too great to bear. And with that came an inexplicable urge to respond. Not with more speech, more questions, but suddenly her instinct was to walk forward and give comfort. To take his hands and hold?
This was surely crazy. Where was her professional detachment when she needed it? What was it about this man that made her want...?
No. She wanted nothing. Somehow, she managed not to move. It cost an effort, but she waited, and finally he spoke again.
‘If you must know...’
‘It’s your decision to tell me. I’m probably going nowhere with this, but I’m definitely going nowhere without facts.’
His gaze locked on hers. There was a long moment where she saw pain. The urge to walk forward and take his hands grew again, and inexplicably she wanted to withdraw her demand. Withdraw from this whole situation?
She should, but she didn’t, and finally he responded.
‘I spent a lot of time there when I was a kid, with my parents,’ he told her, and his voice was now clipped and harsh. ‘I was home schooled but, almost as soon as I remember, Mum and Dad had me working in the wards, doing everything I could. But in my teens I caught dengue fever. I was fourteen and fit. It wasn’t a bad dose but it was enough to make my parents super-cautious.’
‘Transmitted by mosquitos?’
‘Of course. I can’t tell you how much insect-repellent I went through, but after that my parents sent me back here. I was in boarding school in Brisbane and my parents only let me go over during the dry season. I spent holidays with school friends here during the wet season. But then, when I was almost through university, my parents were killed in a border incursion. I went back to help repatriate their bodies and I caught it again. But it was okay,’ he said quickly, maybe responding to concern on her face. How could she help herself feeling it? ‘The second dose is supposed to be severe but I somehow got off lightly.’
She nodded, satisfied that at least this explanation made sense. ‘So you can’t risk it again?’
‘I felt... I had to,’ he said, his voice again heavy. ‘I had to see their work continue, and as soon as I qualified I was over there. I was an adult, I told myself, and I was so damned careful. I was vaccinated. I took every precaution possible, but eighteen months ago it hit again, haemorrhagic dengue, and it nearly killed me. So that’s it. I may be idealistic but I’m not suicidal. Tropical countries are out for me for ever. I work as hard as I can from here. I know I could do more over there but...’
‘But you’re no use to anyone dead.’
‘No.’
As excuses went for not heading back to a country like Al Delebe, this was a no-brainer. A second dose of dengue fever often killed. A third time...he’d been extraordinarily lucky to survive.
No wonder he was hunkering down in Brisbane.
‘So when your uncle described you as a waste of space...’ she said slowly.
‘I don’t waste time—I don’t have enough time. I organise the administration from over here. I do online tutorials to train our staff—I need to keep my skills up because of that—and I fundraise. I give presentations to every fundraising organisation that’ll have me.’
‘So days off?’
‘There’s a reason I’m not married—I simply don’t have time for it. If you marry me, you’ll hardly see me.’
