She stared straight at Josephine. Her penetrating gaze briefly turned to the screen of the small laptop in front of her, and immediately returned to it. An expression of recognition flickered on her face. He had seen such expressions before; people made Jose every time they associated his name with a photograph. Admittedly, here in California, it happened much less often than in his native England, but Theo still recognized that expression on her face. It seemed pretty harmless. It seemed so to Josephine until she spoke and addressed Josephine directly. "You're late." One word. He only needed to say that one word in that deep, velvety voice of his that would embarrass any hotline girl, so Theo was left speechless. His brain finally worked."Excuse me?""You're Mr. Smith, aren't you?" The question was simple, but it took Josephine an eternity to register and understand. He answered her automatically, completely stunned by her appearance."I did." She got up from

A great New York businessman deceived thousands of users by dragging Jose into the famous pyramid scam. He sold insurance policies for houses, land, business, and property to naive victims, to whom he later did not pay a single cent. If his memory serves Josephine well, Theo recalled that the feds tried to bring Josephine to justice, but they failed to convict Josephine of fraud and bribery, but only of tax evasion. Harris' accounts and assets were frozen, and his family fell apart. "His wife, Martha, couldn't stand the downfall and the humiliation, so she drank a full bottle of sleeping pills and a pint of gin, after which she didn't wake up." "According to the press, Josephine's younger sister Ana tried to commit suicide like her mother, but she did not succeed, but ended up with brain damage. I'm still working to determine where the girl is located. Josephine survived all that hell, but she had to leave her studies and start life from the beginning. She probably managed t

After the plane reached a certain altitude, the pilot told Josephine that they could untie their seat belts and that the flight to Las Vegas would take just under an hour. Since boarding, Josephine had barely spoken. Since she agreed to be his wife for a year, Theo more or less organized a wedding in the chapel in the City of Sin. He believed that the seemingly romantic wedding in the chapel in Vegas would seem much more legal to his father's lawyers than the one in the town hall. Theo unbuckled his belt and got up from his seat. He went to the bar of his private jet and took a bottle of champagne out of an ice bucket. As he opened it, he glanced at his newlywed fiancée. She looked thoughtfully out the window with her fingers tightly intertwined in her lap. Strangely, he is the one who puts everything at stake by marriage, but she is the one who got nervous. "Maybe this will relax you a little," he said, handing her a tall glass of champagne. "Is it so obvious I'm ne

Twenty-six hours after uttering the fateful "yes," Josephine and Theo got off his private plane and faced an onslaught of reporters. Luckily, she remembered to wear big sunglasses and hide the concern on her face. The media has not changed at all since her father's arrest. The others are equally overbearing, boring, and curious. Theo protectively wrapped his arms around her waist and led her to the exit of the airport. It would be great if some Hollywood star made a scandal so that the media's attention was diverted to her, Josephine thought. Otherwise, she will have to fight the paparazzi on her own. As they passed a column of reporters, Theo answered their questions briefly, uttering phrases like the love of my life, it knocked me off my feet, I fell head over heels in love and the like. He sounded so sincere that she would have believed him if she hadn't been into this scam. At one point, he brushed her ear with his lips and whispered, "It's going to be worse in Europe, so wake u

Theo rubbed his face for who knows how many times. Josephine's message upset him deeply. Why didn't she answer his phone? What the hell is Vanessa? What did she say to his wife? He and Josephine have been married for less than a week and he already had to figure out a way to keep his mistresses as far away from her as possible. He hadn't heard from Vanessa since he got married. True, he called her once, but since her maid told him that her mistress would not accept his invitation, he thought that the two of Josephine no longer had anything to talk about. Jacqueline sent him only one short message. Let me know when you freak her out. Why did Josephine use the word poisonous? Something nasty must have happened there. Hell. If he hadn't been prevented from flying all day, he would have boarded a plane and returned to America. But making hasty decisions was not in his style. He planned to return only on Sunday night when he would bring his wife home and send her to Europe. Unless she ne