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The Hired Husband
Kate Walker


Sienna Rushford desperately needs to claim her inheritance from the father she never even met - but his will states she must be happily married!The only man Sienna can turn to is Keir Alexander. She knows he needs a short-term business loan, so she proposes a deal: in return for her financial help, they will marry, temporarily. But Keir, not content with being a "hired husband," has a proposition of his own - that for the next year their marriage is real….









“Keir, please don’t say no! I need this—we both do!”


Just what was going on inside that handsome head of his? For perhaps thirty of the longest seconds of her life Sienna watched and waited. At long last he drew in a deep uneven breath.

“Two conditions…” he said slowly.

“Anything! Anything at all, if you’ll just say yes!”

“Condition one…” Keir marked it off on one long finger of his left hand. “We have a proper wedding. All the trimmings. A church ceremony, flowers, candles, the lot.”

“Whatever you say. And—and condition two?”

“After the proper wedding we have a real marriage. I won’t stand for anything else. For one thing, there’s no way we’ll convince anyone that this is the love match you’re supposed to have by the conditions of your father’s will if we don’t look really together. It’s all or nothing.”

All or nothing.


When Sienna desperately offers Keir Alexander a temporary marriage of convenience, he has a surprise proposition of his own—their marriage must be a real one! Talented Harlequin Presents


author Kate Walker takes you on a breathtaking ride of passion and sensuality, as Keir proves to Sienna he will not be content with just being her “hired husband”!



Legally wed,

Great together in bed,

But he’s never said…

“I love you.”

They’re…






Wedlocked!

The series where marriages are made in haste…and love comes later….

Marriage on Command

by

Lindsay Armstrong




The Hired Husband

Kate Walker















CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN




CHAPTER ONE


‘YOU want what?’

His expression said it all, Sienna reflected unhappily. He didn’t have to speak a single word. Shock, disbelief and sheer antipathy to her suggestion were stamped clearly onto Keir Alexander’s hard features, leaving her in no doubt as to how he felt.

‘You want what?’ he repeated now, the edge in his voice sharpening on every word as his deep brown eyes glared into her anxious blue-green ones.

‘I—I want you to marry me.’

It sounded so much worse the second time around. Starker, more incredible, more impossible. She couldn’t believe she’d ever had the nerve to ask him once, let alone manage to reiterate her request in the face of his reaction.

If she could have taken it back she would have done so at once, but she had no alternative. She’d tried every other approach, considered every possible answer, but none of them would work. It was Keir or no one. He was her last chance; and if he didn’t agree to help her then she was lost. Finished.

‘No way, lady!’ It was hard, inflexible, adamant. ‘No way at all.’

‘But—’

‘I said no!’

‘But, Keir…’

But she was talking to the back of his head, and a moment later to empty air as the door slammed to behind him. Keir had walked out on her, rejecting her and her proposal outright, not even sparing her a backward glance. Closing her eyes in despair, her sigh a deep, helpless sound of defeat, Sienna sank down into the nearest chair.

So what did she do now? she asked herself, shaking her dark head despondently. There was nothing she could do. No answer presented itself. No fairy godmother appeared to wave her magic wand and put everything right. When she opened her eyes everything was the same as before, the future stretching ahead dark, bleak and with no light at the end of the tunnel.

It had been the worst year of her life so far, and it was still only July. First Dean, and then the loss of her job as an aromatherapist when the beauty salon in which she had worked had closed down. That had been followed by the discovery that her mother, who had clearly been unwell for some time, was in fact suffering from multiple sclerosis. And then, to cap it all, the landlord who owned the small flat she and her mother rented had informed them that he was selling the building. The new owners planned to turn it into a set of offices and they would have to move out—soon.

Oh, it wasn’t fair! Sienna slammed one fist into the palm of the other hand in a gesture of frustration and distress. Her mother had to have a home. Somewhere she could live in the comfort and security she needed. The perfect place was available—was hers for the asking. But only if she could meet the conditions laid down. And with Keir’s rejection of her proposal her last chance of doing that had been destroyed. She doubted if she would ever see him again.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, lost in her misery. She had no idea how much time had passed before the sound of the doorbell pealing through her flat jolted her out of her unhappy reverie. At first she was tempted to ignore it, but when it became obvious that whoever was outside had put their finger firmly on the button and intended keeping it there until they got a response, she forced herself to her feet, dashing down the stairs and wrenching open the door.

She couldn’t believe the sight that met her eyes. Keir Alexander stood on the doorstep, dark head held high, his jaw tight, every muscle in his tall, strong body taut with resistance.

‘All right,’ he said, his voice cold and hard as a sharpened knife. ‘Start talking—convince me.’

Sienna talked as she never had in her life before. She couldn’t believe that she’d been given a second chance, but she was going to grasp it with both hands, do everything she could—anything she could—to ensure it didn’t get away from her.

‘I know this isn’t the way either of us would have done this,’ she began, even as they were still climbing the stairs to the first floor where she and her mother lived. ‘Not in an ideal world, anyway. It’s certainly not the way I ever dreamed of marrying, but beggars can’t be choosers. It’s the only way I can think of for getting out of a very tight corner indeed, and if you don’t agree to help then there’s no one else I can turn to.’

She couldn’t look at him as she led him into the small sitting room that he had stormed out of such a short time before, painfully conscious of the fact that it was only a few short weeks since the first occasion on which he’d visited her home. Just two months or so since the party at which they’d met.

‘You know how ill my mother is—and that it can only get worse. I need to find somewhere for us to live so that I can look after her properly, so…’

‘So naturally you want your father’s house?’ Keir put in harshly.

‘Yes.’

Sienna’s voice was low and shaken, still carrying the echoes of the way she had felt when a solicitor had contacted her out of the blue. She had been stunned to discover that her father, the man who had abandoned her mother before Sienna had even been born, had had a belated attack of conscience and decided to acknowledge her as his daughter. As his wife had died some years before, and he had had no other children, he had left her everything he owned in his will. But there was a catch.

‘If my—if Andrew Nash hadn’t left me all that money, I don’t know what I’d have done. And if he hadn’t put in the condition, then I wouldn’t be forced to involve you in this.’

At last she turned to face Keir, her heart quailing as she saw the heavy lids that hooded his eyes, hiding his thoughts from her. His hands were pushed deep into the pockets of his dark trousers, his shoulders stiff, his very stance declaring hostility and opposition to everything she said.

‘The condition being that you have to be married, I presume?’

‘That’s right. In his letter he said that he’d lived his life wishing he’d chosen differently all those years ago. That he’d realised too late that the love my mother and I could have brought him as a family was more important than the wealth he kept by staying with his wife. And so he made it a prerequisite of my inheritance that I had to be married—happily married—before I could inherit.’

‘Happily married,’ Keir echoed cynically. ‘And who’s to be the judge of that?’

‘My…’

Sienna couldn’t get her tongue round the word ‘uncle’. After twenty-five years of believing she had no family at all, it was too much to accept that she now had an uncle, particularly one who held her future so securely in his hands.

‘His brother, Francis Nash, is to have the final say in seeing that his wishes are carried out. But he knows nothing about me. He’s never even seen me. It shouldn’t be too hard to—to convince him that…that…’

‘That you and I are madly in love and desperate to get married?’ Keir finished for her when she couldn’t complete the sentence.

‘That’s right.’ It was barely more than a whisper and once more her eyes skittered away from the coldly assessing stare that fixed her like a specimen on a laboratory slide, awaiting analysis. ’W-would you like a drink? There’s wine…’

‘I think I’d better keep a clear head for this,’ Keir returned dismissively. ‘I wouldn’t want anything to muddle my thinking.’

Did that mean he was actually considering the idea? Sienna didn’t dare to allow the thought to enter her mind.

‘So you want me to play the devoted groom?’

He made it sound like the most repellent task possible. As if he would rather put a gun to his head—anything other than what she had asked of him.

‘To lie? Don’t you know that lies have a nasty habit of breeding more lies? Before you’ve time to think you’re tangled up in them so tightly that you can’t get free and they’re dragging you down…’

‘But we’re not going to lie! Not really. People already know us as a couple. We’ve been seen out together often enough. It wouldn’t be all that different from what we have now. It wouldn’t!’ she declared vehemently when he expressed his disagreement in a harsh sound of disbelief. ‘You’re here almost every night as it is. What if I’d asked you to move in with me?’

‘I’d think you were taking a lot for granted, lady.’

‘Keir, it’s only supposition!’ Desperately Sienna tried to make up the ground she realised she’d lost. ‘We both know that our relationship isn’t on that sort of footing—that it will probably never be. But we’re the only ones who know that. And what we do have is good, isn’t it?’

Keir’s stony face gave her no encouragement and it was all that she could do not to give up in despair.

‘If we decided to say, after a year, that we knew it wasn’t working, then we could split—both go our own ways—and it wouldn’t matter. There’d be no frayed ends, no regrets, no complications.’

‘But this arrangement comes weighed down with complications,’ Keir pointed out with cold reason. ‘It can’t not do that. A marriage certificate complicates things, darling.’

‘But it’s only a temporary solution, you must see that!’ she pleaded with him. ‘It won’t mean anything to either of us, so you needn’t worry about getting trapped in something you don’t want! There’ll be no commitment beyond that one year—just a twelve month period and then we’ll go our separate ways.’

‘You make it sound so simple…’

‘It is simple! It couldn’t be anything else. After all, it’s not as if you’re madly in love with me, or vice versa. And…’

Her voice faded into silence as Keir snatched his hand away from her and moved to stare out of the window, affecting an intent interest in the cars going by in the street.

‘It might work,’ he said slowly.

Was it possible that he was going to agree? Sienna was past knowing whether she hoped for his agreement or feared it dreadfully. She was so caught up in her own disturbed thoughts at the prospect that she jumped like a startled cat when he suddenly whirled round to face her.

‘And what, exactly, would I get out of the deal? Because I presume you were going to offer me something—some remuneration for my co-operation, some compensation for the loss of my freedom by entering into this agreement.’

‘Of course.’

Sienna swallowed hard. She had expected this. Had known it must come inevitably. But she hadn’t thought he would be quite so cold-blooded about it.

You fool! her heart reproached her. What had she expected? That he would declare that of course he would do it, that he would do whatever she wanted and not expect anything in return?

Of course not. She had known she would have to offer Keir something in exchange for his agreement to help her out. It was just that she hadn’t been prepared for the way his demand made her feel that it was that compensation that mattered and not her.

‘So?’ Keir prompted harshly when she couldn’t find the voice to answer him.

‘You—you remember what you told me about the shares in Alexander’s?’

She had been frankly surprised that he had opened up about so much of his life to her. Keir was the sort of man who kept things very much to himself, limiting the conversation only to uncomplicated, unemotional topics that didn’t call for much involvement on either part.

But just three nights earlier he had revealed something of the problems he had been having with the haulage and transportation company of which he was part owner and managing director. Problems that had been caused by his stepmother, his late father’s second wife.

Alexander’s was a family firm. Originally owned by Keir’s father, Don, it had been an ailing, small-scale enterprise when, at twenty-one and fresh from university, Keir had taken it by the scruff of the neck and dragged it forcibly into the late twentieth century. In the following twelve years he had turned it into a huge international success. It was now impossible to travel anywhere in Europe or beyond without seeing one of Alexander’s distinctive red and green vehicles somewhere en route.

‘Did you manage to raise the amount you needed to buy your stepmother out?’

Keir’s expression gave her the answer before he spoke, a dark cloud of anger shadowing his face.

‘I raised it, but then she upped the stakes again. She says she has another potential buyer in the offing. If that sale goes through then Alexander’s as a family firm will cease to exist.’

‘And that’s so important to you?’

The look her turned on her scorched her from head to toe with its impatient contempt for the stupidity of her question.

‘Alexander’s is mine, Sienna—mine! I’m not prepared to see it the subject of some hostile take-over and swallowed up, becoming just part of another company. I promised my father that, and I’ll keep my promise if it kills me.’

‘But if your stepmother keeps asking for more?’

Keir’s scowl was blacker than ever.

‘She knows how much I’ve invested in modernising things—buying new vehicles, computers, everything over the past year. Given time, that investment will pay off, several hundredfold, but right now it’s stretched me to my limit. And Lucille knows that, damn her!’

‘How much time would you need?’

‘Twelve months, maybe less…’

Sienna knew almost to the exact second the moment that realisation dawned. She saw the subtle changes in his expression, and those dark, knowing eyes slid to her own face, fixing on it in intent appraisal.

‘That’s what you’re offering.’

It was a statement, not a question, absolute conviction ringing in his tone, and she could almost hear his astute brain working, weighing up pros and cons, subjecting the idea to shrewd and careful analysis.

‘Keir, my inheritance will make me wealthy beyond my wildest dreams. I’ll have more than enough to keep myself and my mother in comfort. And I’ll be able to help you out too. Oh, don’t say no!’

He was going to. She knew it just by looking at him. And now that what she hoped for, what she’d prayed might happen, was actually within reach, she couldn’t believe that fate would be unkind enough to snatch it away again, right at the last minute.

‘Keir, please don’t say no! You can pay me back if you like. But I can give you the money you need, and you can help me. I need this—we both do!’

Just what was going on inside that handsome head of his? What was that keen, calculating brain thinking? She felt like the accused in some terrible trial. As if she was standing in the dock with Keir acting as both judge and jury, very definitely counsel for the prosecution, about to attack her verbally.

For perhaps thirty of the longest seconds of her life she watched and waited. Watched him consider, debate with himself, accept certain ideas, then just as swiftly reject them. At long last he drew in a deep, uneven breath.

‘Two conditions…’ he said slowly.

‘Anything! Anything at all, if you’ll just say yes!’

‘Condition one…’ Keir marked it off on one long finger of his left hand. ‘We have a proper wedding. All the trimmings. A church ceremony, flowers, candles, the lot.’

‘Whatever you say.’

It was almost impossible to get the words out. Her pulse was racing so fast that her heart seemed to pound against her ribcage, leaving her unable to breathe properly or keep her voice in any way steady.

‘And—and condition two?’

‘After the proper wedding we have a real marriage. I won’t stand for anything else. For one thing, there’s no way we’ll convince anyone that this is the love-match you’re supposed to have by the conditions of your father’s will if we don’t look really together. It’s all or nothing.’

All or nothing. Almost from the moment that they had met she had known that Keir wanted their relationship to be a physical one. He had made no secret of the desire he felt for her, and she had been the one trying to apply the brakes. ‘Trying’ being the operative word, she acknowledged uncomfortably.

Because she couldn’t deny the effect he had on her. From the first moment that he had kissed her, an irresistible, potently sensual chemistry such as she had never known before had sparked between them. It had swept her off her feet, turned her world upside down, taking with it every long-held belief she had ever had about who she was and how she behaved.

It was all the more difficult to cope with because she had never felt like this with Dean. Dean whom she had loved, believed in, trusted. Dean to whom she had given her heart, but even then had never felt the same dangerous, wild excitement that Keir could inspire with simply a look, a touch, a brief caress. She had never understood how she could feel that attraction for a man she barely knew, let alone cared for in the deepest sort of sense.

But perhaps that same excitement would be the saving of her now. Perhaps the unnerving response she felt towards Keir would be enough to turn the fiction of a marriage she was proposing into something that would convince all observers it was actually fact.

But that still didn’t make it easy to answer. Her throat closed over a knot of powerful emotions so that all she could do was nod silently, unable to speak a word.

‘You agree?’ Keir demanded, still in Grand Inquisitor mode.

‘I—I agree.’

It was only as she forced it out that comprehension dawned, bright and vivid, blinding her with its brilliance.

She couldn’t believe it. Could it possibly be true?

‘A proper wedding!’ she gasped, struggling to collect what remained of her scattered thoughts. ‘A real marriage after a proper wedding! Keir—do you mean—are you agreeing to my proposal?’

The look he turned on her had such a scorching intensity that it seemed to sizzle through the air, sending electrical impulses along every nerve in her body. It spoke of hunger and conquest and passion. But most of all it was redolent with a desire so carnal it seemed positively indecent in the cold light of day.

‘Yes, Sienna.’

Hearing his voice, Sienna blinked in disbelief. Suddenly that blazing sensuality was gone, wiped from his face as if it had never been. His tone was emotionless, totally controlled, as blank and indifferent as his eyes, which could have been carved from dark marble they were so cold and lifeless.

‘Yes, I’m agreeing to your proposal. Under those conditions, then, yes, I will marry you.’




CHAPTER TWO


‘WELL, we did it!’

Sienna’s voice was breathless with a mixture of triumph, relief and something coming very close to panic that she prayed the man beside her wouldn’t be able to detect. The same emotions were mirrored in the sea-coloured brilliance of her eyes as she turned on him a smile edged with a tension that, try as she might, she was unable to erase completely.

‘We did it,’ Keir echoed gravely, no answering smile lighting the darkness of his own gaze as it locked with hers. ‘But did we get away with it? That’s the real question.’

‘Oh, don’t be silly!’

Sienna made the reproof as careless as was possible when her heartbeat and breathing refused to settle down into anything like their normal rhythm.

‘Of course we got away with it! Why wouldn’t we? And don’t say that—you make it sound as if we’ve done something wrong.’

‘And we haven’t?’

At his tone, the precarious euphoria that had buoyed her up evaporated in a rush, leaving her feeling disturbingly limp and deflated, like a pricked balloon.

‘No, we haven’t!’ Infuriatingly, she couldn’t give the words the conviction she wanted; a quaver she couldn’t suppress took all the certainty from her declaration.

‘Are you so sure of that? There are those who might label what we’ve done as fraud, or at the very least an attempt to swindle money from the Nash estate.’

‘I’m not swindling anyone! I am a Nash, remember? By blood, at least, if not by name. And the only person who might feel defrauded of anything is my father, or rather he might if he was still alive. But, seeing as he never took any interest in my existence from the day I was born, I very much doubt that anything I do now is going to trouble him in the least.’

Moving impulsively, she laid a hand on Keir’s arm, her fingers white against the deep colour of his superbly tailored suit as she looked up into the hard-boned strength of his face.

‘Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts at this late stage?’

‘Not second thoughts, no.’ Keir pushed one strong hand through his hair, ruffling its gleaming darkness. ‘But if we’re strictly honest we are pulling a fast one on all those people in there.’

A slight inclination of his head indicated the door at the far side of the room through which the buzz of a hundred conversations could easily be heard.

‘Especially your mother.’

‘It’s because of my mother that I’m doing this,’ Sienna reminded him in a vehement undertone made necessary by the need to avoid being heard as the door swung open, revealing the crowded room beyond. ‘And you—’

But there was no chance to finish the sentence, because at that moment a loud, stentorian voice broke through the noise, silencing it immediately.

‘Ladies and gentlemen—pray silence for the bride and groom!’

‘Oh, Lord!’

Taken by surprise, Sienna lurched into a nervous flurry of activity. A hasty glance in the huge, ornately framed mirror over the fireplace reassured her that her veil was still securely anchored, the delicate silver headdress holding it firmly in place in the brown curls of her hair, a couple of shades darker than Keir’s.

Her make-up, carefully applied some four hours before, was still almost perfect: a soft wash of beige shadow emphasising the almond shape of her eyes, the long, thick lashes enhanced by a single coat of black mascara. Perhaps the warm pink on the full softness of her mouth had faded just a little, and there seemed to be a surprising lack of colour across the high, slanting cheekbones, but there was nothing she could do about that now. She could only hope that their guests would put her pallor down to excitement or belated wedding nerves.

Patting her cheeks lightly, in an attempt to bring some blood to the surface of her skin in order to make its ivory tones look a little healthier, she turned back to Keir. Meeting his darkly watchful gaze, she switched on what she hoped was a convincing smile, supremely conscious of the fact that it was distinctly ragged round the edges.

‘Ready?’ he asked, and held out his hand to her.

Sienna could only manage an inarticulate murmur that might have been agreement as she smoothed down her long skirt with uncertain fingers. Made of the finest lace over a delicate silk lining, the dress had originally been her grandmother’s, worn on her wedding day almost fifty-five years before. Carefully preserved, wrapped in tissue paper to protect it from the yellowing effects of the light, it had been handed down from mother to daughter in the hope that wearing it as a bride would pass on something of the love that had made the older woman’s marriage such a happy one.

But for Sienna’s mother, Caroline, there had been no such happy ending. There hadn’t even been a wedding ceremony, her daughter reflected bitterly. Her father had already been married. He had had no intention of leaving his wife for the naïve twenty-two-year-old who had been foolish enough to let herself get pregnant as the result of what had, to him at least, been just a pleasant holiday dalliance, with no commitment whatsoever.

‘Sienna…’ A note of reproof sharpened the edge of Keir’s voice, dragging her from her reverie. ‘Our guests are waiting.’

The hand he held out moved imperiously, the gesture demanding her instant obedience. For a brief moment the idea of rebellion flared in her mind, but almost immediately she dismissed it.

For now she had to observe all the conventions, play up to everyone’s belief that this was the love match of the century. Keir and Sienna, second only to Antony and Cleopatra, or Cathy and Heathcliff in the lists of the all-time great love stories.

Out there, in the elegant dining room beyond the great double doors, was Francis Nash, her late father’s brother and only surviving relative. If he was not convinced by their marriage and the whirlwind romance that had apparently preceded it, then the game was well and truly up. One false move and her chance of making sure that her mother spent the rest of her days in the comfort and security she so needed would be ruined.

And so she forced herself to smile again, with rather more success this time, drawing herself up to her full five foot nine as she placed her hand in Keir’s.

‘I’m ready,’ she declared. ‘Let’s go.’

Hard fingers closed tightly over hers, though whether in encouragement or warning not to take any more risks she couldn’t be sure.

‘Come on, then,’ Keir said, his voice unexpectedly roughened and tight. ‘Let’s get this show on the road.’

Not giving her time to think, he swung her round and, with her hand held high between them, marched her forcibly across the room, leaving her with no option but to follow him. It was either that or be dragged embarrassingly in his arrogant wake.

In the doorway Keir stopped suddenly, dark head held high, deep brown eyes scanning the elegantly dressed crowd before him as a murmur of interest greeted their appearance. Surprised by his unexpected stillness, it was all Sienna could do to avoid cannoning into the broad, straight line of his back.

Automatically her free hand came out to balance herself, closing over the tight muscles in his arm as she came to an uncertain halt at his side.

‘Perfect,’ Keir murmured softly, threading the word through with a dark cynicism that she had never heard from him before. ‘Now we look just like the model bride and groom on the top of that ridiculously over-decorated cake you insisted on.’

‘I…’ Sienna began but her muffled protest was ignored as Keir, having caught the eye of the waiting maître d’, gave a swift, curt nod as a signal to proceed with the reception.

‘Ladies and gentlemen…may I present to you Mr and Mrs Keir Alexander?’

But that was too much. Sienna’s head came up sharply, turquoise eyes flashing repudiation of the announcement.

‘Mr Keir Alexander and Sienna Rushford!’ she pronounced, against the flurry of applause that had greeted the announcement. ‘I—’

But the rest of her words were silenced, forced back down her throat, as, with a muttered expletive, Keir caught her in his arms, hauling her up against him as his dark head lowered, his mouth coming down hard on hers.

‘Keir!’

His name was a spluttered sound of protest against his lips. It was all she could manage before he kissed her again, with even more ruthless determination.

‘Looks like Keir’s got a tiger by the tail, all right.’

On the borders of her awareness Sienna heard one of Keir’s adolescent stepbrothers make the comment in an aside that was obviously meant to be heard, pitched as it was in a tone that carried clearly in spite of its apparent restraint. The malicious amusement in his voice was impossible to miss.

‘Let’s hope he’s not bitten off more than he can chew.’

Against her slender length Sienna felt the tension that stiffened Keir’s hard frame, tightening every muscle into an unyielding wall that seemed to bruise her just to be pressed close to it. So it was almost impossible to equate what all her senses were telling her with the apparently sensual indolence with which he slid his mouth away from hers, trailing it softly over her cheek until his warm breath teased the delicate curves of her ear.

‘Do you want this to work or not?’ he whispered silkily, his words meant for her hearing alone.

‘Of course…’

‘Then kiss me!’

‘Keir…?’ Confusion clouded her eyes, made her voice just a shaken thread of sound.

‘Kiss me!’

With a raw, uncontrolled sound in his throat, he closed hard fingers over her chin, wrenching her face up to his once more. But this time when his mouth touched hers it was with an unexpected, beguiling gentleness, a voluptuous tenderness that made her senses swim, her heartbeat slow to a heavy, languorous thud.

Against her back, the strength of his arm was all that held her upright. Without its support she felt that she would melt away completely, sliding into a warm, honeyed pool at his feet. Her whole body glowed, heating the blood in her veins until she felt as if she was flooded with molten gold, a burning spiral of very primitive need uncoiling deep inside her. She wanted to feel Keir’s mouth all over her skin, not just on her mouth; she longed for the caress of his hands on parts of her body too intimate to be appropriate on this public occasion.

It had been like this from the start, she acknowledged hazily with the little rational thought that was left to her. With Keir she no longer knew herself. She became a stranger even in her own eyes. In her place was a woman who had her own slender height, delicate oval face and thick fall of long dark brown hair, but who acted in ways she had never seen before.

That Sienna rushed into situations that only months before she would have fled from, screaming in panic. Situations like this travesty of a marriage that was only for show, with no real foundation in fact.

It was several long drawn-out seconds before the realisation that what she had believed to be distant thunder, or even the crazed pounding of her heart echoing inside her head, was in fact another, louder round of appreciative applause from their audience. A couple of the younger guests even added enthusiastic wolf whistles to the chorus of approval.

With carefully feigned reluctance, Keir broke the embrace and turned a slightly rueful smile on her heated face. To the onlookers, it must have appeared quite genuine, but Sienna had sensed the careful judgement that had had him ending the kiss the full space of several heartbeats before he’d lifted his head. She had seen the calculating look he had directed into her glazed eyes, the triumphant twist to that wide mouth as it had abandoned hers, leaving her aching for more.

Straightening fully, Keir slung a possessive arm around her waist as he turned to face the assembly of friends and relations.

‘I’m afraid my wife—’ a chorus of cheers greeted his use of the word for the first time since the completion of the marriage ceremony ‘—has strong feminist views that mean she insists on using her own name instead of adopting mine. Some of you may find that rather unromantic, but personally I have no problem with it. After all, when she indulges my every whim in everything apart from this…’

A careful emphasis on the words ‘my every whim’ left no room for doubt as to exactly what other things he had in mind.

‘Who am I to deny her this one wish for independence if it means so much to her?’

Milking the situation for all it was worth, he smiled down into Sienna’s flushed face, his appearance to all intents and purposes every inch that of the doting husband.

‘Don’t be embarrassed, darling,’ he reproved softly. ‘You’re amongst friends here. Everyone knows how we feel about each other.’

Struggling against a crazy desire to kick him hard on the ankle, in order to let him know exactly how she felt about the charade he was acting out, Sienna forced herself to swallow down the anger she couldn’t afford to reveal. Painfully conscious of Francis Nash, standing just a few feet away from her, watching Keir’s fooling with an intently speculative air, she managed a rather sickly smile.

But she knew that the curve of her lips wasn’t matched by the look in her eyes, which were flashing furious reproof and a warning of later retribution into Keir’s mocking face. He really was taking things way too far. Nothing like this had been mentioned in their agreement.

But Keir appeared totally unmoved by the silent rage in her eyes. Instead, taking advantage of the fact that a waiter carrying a tray full of glasses of champagne had just come within reach, he appropriated one of the crystal flutes and held it aloft, dark eyes smiling knowingly down into hers all the time.

‘If you’ll indulge me,’ he declared to the surrounding audience, ‘I’d like to propose a toast. To Sienna—my beautiful bride, and the woman who has made me the happiest man in the world by becoming my wife today.’

The man really was incorrigible! In spite of herself Sienna found it impossible to hold back a disturbed squawk of protest at this blatant lie. If Keir didn’t stop, someone was going to see right through his over-the-top performance and so start to wonder what the real truth was.

‘Keir!’ she protested softly, knowing that any further show of anger or impatience would only make him worse, drive him to even more dangerous extremes. ‘You’re embarrassing me.’

Immediately he was apparently all repentance.

‘I’m sorry, darling. You’re right. There’s a time and a place for this, and that’s not here and now. We’ll finish later…’ Deliberately he let his voice drop a couple of octaves, so that it became a husky purr, rich with sensual promise. ‘When we’re alone.’

Which earned him yet another cheer of enthusiastic appreciation from the spectators, all of whom completely misunderstood the reasons behind the burning colour that suddenly flooded the bride’s face.

‘I’ll look forward to that,’ she shot back in swift retaliation. ‘But for now we have our guests to see to. Please, everyone—help yourselves to drinks. I’m sure you’re ready for them. Lunch will be served in half an hour. In the meantime…’

She directed her attention back to Keir, her voice and her expression hardening as she did so.

‘I think you and I had better circulate—talk to a few people… I’ll take this half of the room…’

She had nerved herself for further play-acting on his part, perhaps even a downright refusal to do as she asked, but surprisingly it didn’t come. Instead Keir simply lifted his glass in a silent, mocking toast before turning and strolling off in the opposite direction from the one she had indicated.

Silently Sienna watched him go, small white teeth worrying at the fullness of her lower lip as she did so. It would all have been so much easier if she could have been in love with Keir, even just a little. After all, that shouldn’t have been too hard. He was the sort of man almost any woman with red blood in her veins would have fallen head over heels for. Tall, strong, impossibly good-looking, with the sort of potent hardcore sexuality that turned susceptible female brains to jelly, leaving them incapable of thought.

He was successful too. A self-made man. A man she could be proud to have at her side, proud to call her husband even for such a strictly limited time. But he would never have her heart. That wasn’t hers to give. She had already lost it to someone who had proved every bit as unworthy of her love as her father had been of her mother’s lifelong devotion.

No, she mustn’t think about Dean. Sienna’s teeth dug in harder as she fought against the tears that burned in her eyes. She had thrown in her lot with Keir, and that was the way her future lay—at least for the term of their contract together. It was an arrangement that she had been convinced could work so well for both of them. But today Keir had behaved in a way she’d never seen before.

Sienna’s sea-coloured eyes went to where Keir stood, his dark head thrown back, his face alight with laughter at something his companion had said to him. Suddenly she was brought up hard against the truth of just how very little she actually knew about this man who was now her husband.

If looks could kill, Keir thought wryly, catching that turquoise glare from the opposite side of the room, then he would surely have fallen down dead right on the spot, shrivelled into ashes by the force of Sienna’s anger. She hadn’t liked his teasing earlier, and clearly the thought of it still rankled. He hadn’t realised just how volatile his new wife’s temper could be.

His wife. Carefully he tested the word inside his mind, not yet sure exactly how he felt about it.

‘Keir!’ A powerful handshake was accompanied by a hearty slap on the back from a tall man with a bushy dark beard and laughing hazel eyes. ‘Congratulations, mate! I never thought I’d see the day that you joined the ranks of married men. This Sienna really must be some woman.’

‘Believe me, she is.’

Keir could only pray that his words didn’t sound as insincere spoken out loud as they did inside his head. Richard Parry had been his friend for over twenty years now, ever since they had first met up at secondary school, and if anyone was likely to smell a rat at his sudden decision to marry then Rick was that person.

‘She has to be. I was really beginning to wonder if you were married to that company of yours. You seemed to spend every waking hour of your life in the office.’

‘There have been some problems.’ The muscles in Keir’s jaw tightened, making his reply sound clipped and distant. ‘My father’s death was so unexpected that it left a lot of things unresolved…’

‘But that was—what?—eighteen months ago? Surely you’ve sorted things out now?’

‘Just about.’ Keir nodded slowly, his eyes darker than ever as he thought back over the past year and a half. ‘There’s one last complication I have to deal with, and then everything will be just how I want it.’

In his business world at least. His personal affairs were quite a different matter. But right now all he could think of was the relief that that one ‘complication’ had been lifted from his shoulders. It had been the bane of his life for ten years, and he hadn’t been able to wait to see the back of it. Only now did he feel free to turn his attention fully to the vexed question of his reckless marriage.

‘And when can we expect to hear of a whole new generation of Alexanders?’ It was Richard’s wife who spoke, her voice soft and gentle as her nature, bringing her husband’s head round to her at once.

‘Give the poor lad a break, Jo! He’s barely put the ring on her finger! Let him at least enjoy the honeymoon before you wish the joys of parenthood on him. Not everyone wants to be plagued with the sort of brood we’ve got.’

The laughter in Richard’s voice was belied by the way his eyes lingered on the swell of his wife’s stomach, evidence of how close he was to becoming a father for the fourth time.

‘But you always said you wanted children, didn’t you, Keir? And I think you’d make a wonderful father—if the way you get on with Sam, William and Hannah is anything to go by.’

‘Your children are like their mother, Joanna.’ Keir smiled. ’They’d get on with anyone at all without any trouble. But I don’t think you should look for the chance of a couple of playmates for your gang at any time in the near future. Sienna and I haven’t even talked about having kids…’

What would be the point when this charade of a marriage they had embarked on wasn’t meant to last much longer than a full-term pregnancy anyway? But he couldn’t admit that to Rick and Joanna, who were so blissfully happy in their own union that they would find it hard to understand the convoluted reasoning that had led to his taking Sienna as his bride.

‘Now if you’ll excuse me…I’d better rejoin my wife.’

Coward! Keir reproved himself as he turned away and began to weave a path through the crowd to where Sienna stood on the opposite side of the room, pausing occasionally to shake a hand, acknowledge congratulations and good wishes. But his mind wasn’t on what he was doing. He knew he couldn’t have faced any more of Joanna’s gentle questioning without blurting out something that might have given the game away completely.

The trouble was that Rick and his wife had known him for too long. They had been there all those years before when, under the influence of rather more wine than had been wise, he had declared with impassioned certainty that he would never marry unless he knew it was for ever. That only the conviction that the relationship would last for a lifetime, nothing less, would get him up the aisle and put a ring on his finger.

So how had he ended up doing just that, in the certain knowledge that what he had entered into was just a temporary contract? Stopping dead abruptly, Keir looked down at the thick gold band now encircling his wedding finger, twisting it round and round in an uneasy movement. How come he had compromised all his ideals in this way?

Because he was so much older now—and he would say wiser. He knew that such ideals were nothing but fantasies, impossible to achieve. He had been hit over the head with a strong dose of reality that had driven all the dreams from his mind. These days he was realist enough to know that sometimes a pragmatic compromise was the best you could come away with.

‘Keir, darling, I’m so glad to see you…’

This time the hand on his arm was much smaller, finer, totally feminine. Adorned with an extravagant display of gold and diamonds, the slender fingers were tipped with long, pointed nails painted in a violent shade of red. As Keir stiffened instinctively a wave of some heavy, musky perfume assailed his nostrils, turning his stomach.

He would recognise that overpowering perfume anywhere, just as he would recognise the sound of her voice and that false-toned ‘darling’ that they both knew she didn’t mean in the slightest. She only used it for the benefit of everyone else around, in order to maintain the illusion—in reality they had never felt anything other than total hatred for each other.

‘Lucille.’ He bit the word out, her name leaving a foul, bitter taste in his mouth.

Lucille Alexander. The stepmother from hell and his own personal demon. The woman he had described with deliberate understatement as the one last ‘complication’ he’d had left to deal with in order to be free of all the problems that had been weighing him down over the past ten years. The woman whose greedy demands had forced him into this marriage that was not a marriage but a purely business arrangement.

And as he turned slowly to face her the wave of revulsion he couldn’t control left him in no doubt that the prospect of getting her out of his life once and for all made the pretence and subterfuge totally worthwhile.




CHAPTER THREE


‘IS SOMETHING wrong?’

‘Wrong?’

Keir’s voice was distracted, his attention obviously elsewhere, and the dark-eyed gaze he turned in his wife’s direction was hooded, shaded with hidden thoughts that she couldn’t begin to understand.

‘Why should anything be wrong? After all, we’re both now going to get exactly what we want.’

What had put that cynical note into his voice, roughening it until it scraped her already over-sensitive nerves raw? But the truth was that ever since Keir had come back to her side at the start of the formal wedding lunch it had been clear that his mood had changed dramatically. The playful teasing that had so disturbed her had vanished, replaced instead by a darker, brooding distance.

‘Well, you could at least act as if you were just the slightest bit pleased to be married to me,’ Sienna hissed in the whisper necessitated by her determination not to be heard by her mother at her side and Keir’s best man at his. ‘If you continue to stare at your plate as if it was poisoned, and push the food around without tasting any of it, people will begin to wonder just what’s wrong with you!’

Especially those who had just witnessed his Oscar-winning performance as the most lovelorn and devoted husband of the century.

‘Right now you look more like the condemned man who can’t even bring himself to eat his last meal…’

No, anger was the wrong approach entirely, drawing a disturbing response from him. Seeing the rejection that flared in his eyes, the way that one long-fingered hand clenched over the starched white damask of his napkin, Sienna hastily adjusted her tone and expression in the hope of appeasing him.

‘It won’t be long before this is all over,’ she tried soothingly. ‘There’s just the traditional speeches and cutting the cake and then we can call it a day.’

Thankfully, she hadn’t given in to the urgings of her friends and planned an evening party to round off the celebrations. She had been unable to square the idea with her already uncomfortable conscience, seeing it as taking hypocrisy way too far. And with Keir in this mood it would have been more like a wake than any sort of revelry.

‘We’ll soon be able to be on our own again.’

‘And that will be so much better, will it?’ Keir snapped coldly. ‘Mr and Mrs Keir Alexander—oh, I’m sorry, I forgot. You want this marriage so little that you don’t even think it’s worth changing your name. So I see very little reason why you should be looking forward to our being alone…’

Sienna was astonished at how much his words stung. They were largely the truth, after all, so there was no reason for the sudden twist of pain she was experiencing.

With a sensation like the slow trickle of icy water creeping down her back, she found herself once more in the grip of the appalling unease of earlier that afternoon. It was as if some alien had moved in, taking over the shell of the person she had thought was Keir and replacing him with a total stranger.

But he was a stranger she was now legally tied to. For better for worse. For richer for poorer—in their case, definitely for richer, unless something went terribly wrong. Which it might do if she couldn’t jolt him out of this black mood. Already interested eyes were turning their way, obviously made curious by their absorbed concentration on each other, the muttered conversation that was so clearly not made up of words of love.

There was just one way she knew to get through to him.

‘Keir…’ Deliberately she gentled her voice, making it softly sensual. ‘Darling, don’t be like this…’

She wasn’t sure which startled him the most. The murmured endearment or the gentle hand she laid on his. But she couldn’t be unaware of his reaction, seeing it in the sudden widening of his dark eyes. It was there under her fingertips too, in the tension that stiffened his muscles against her, the threat of rejection that he only just controlled in time. She knew how tempted he was to repulse her gesture in a response that would be totally inappropriate to the impression they were trying to create, and she knew just as surely exactly when he decided not to use it.

‘I’m sorry.’ It was a low, deep sigh. ‘I’m just a bear with a sore head today.’

‘A sore head!’

It was Sienna’s mother who had caught the comment, her laughter-warmed tones lightening the atmosphere dramatically as she echoed his words, leaning forward to smile into Keir’s dark, shuttered face.

‘Would that be the result of rather too exuberant a stag night last night, son-in-law?’ she asked teasingly. ‘I would have thought you and your friends’d have more sense…’

‘Now don’t blame me!’ James, the best man, joined in on a note of amused protest. ‘Whatever Keir got up to last night, he did it on his own! And as for a stag night, all we had was a very sedate meal together at the beginning of the week, so you can’t hold me responsible for the way he’s feeling today. Unless you had some sort of debauched evening that you didn’t invite me along to, you rogue,’ he added, with a none too subtle dig of his elbow into Keir’s ribs.

‘Nothing of the sort,’ his friend returned, switching on a grin that even came close to convincing Sienna, though she was well aware of how very far from genuine it actually was.

Along with the grin went a belated attempt to look affectionate, by turning his hand on the table top until his strong fingers enclosed hers completely, his grip warm and firm. The slow, deliberate movement of his thumb against the sensitivity of her palm dried her throat, the softly sensual circles he was drawing setting her heart thudding and heating her blood.

Keir’s wicked, slanted glance in her direction told her that he knew exactly what he was doing. That he had turned her own weapon of the potent effect they had on each other back on her with devastating results.

‘I’m afraid what was occupying me last night was business, pure and simple,’ he confessed ruefully, his voice revealing nothing of the emotion that Sienna knew would shade hers if she tried to speak. ‘A deal that needed finalising.’

‘The night before your wedding!’ James was obviously disbelieving. ‘Keir, man, couldn’t it have waited?’

‘No way.’

The shake of his dark head that accompanied the flat statement was as firmly emphatic as the words.

‘I wanted this particular matter behind me once and for all, so that I was free to concentrate on my bride. It’s just that negotiations went on much longer than I had expected…’

Lucille had been as difficult as it was possible for her to be, damn her, Keir reflected grimly. She and her lawyer had held out for every penny she could get away with, and then some. There had been times when he had come close to giving up on the whole thing and walking out, but then, just when he had been about to declare that he had enough, that she could forget it, she had finally capitulated and signed on the dotted line.

‘I didn’t get to bed until well after midnight, and then I didn’t sleep too well.’

‘What was the problem?’ Sienna inserted rather tartly, the sensual haze that had enclosed her evaporating with a rapidity that left her shaken and disturbingly on the edge of tears.

It was his comment about being free to concentrate on his bride that had changed her mood. She was only too well aware of the fact that it had been inserted solely for the benefit of their audience. It had no grounding at all in reality. In fact the real truth was that, crazily, she didn’t even have the faintest idea what they were going to do once the wedding was over.

‘Wedding nerves?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Oh, come on! That’s the bride’s prerogative, not the groom’s!’

She couldn’t believe that Keir—strong, independent, determined, cold-blooded, heart-free Keir Alexander—had lain awake worrying about the coming day. Refused to even consider that he might have felt as apprehensive as she had about the marriage ceremony and what they were getting themselves into.

Not Keir. He was the one who had been as cool as the proverbial cucumber all the way through this. Once she had convinced him it was the answer to both their problems, he had taken every single thing in his stride, handled each detail, every small hiccup, with the cool assurance that was so much a part of his nature.

‘Are you saying that a man can’t feel unsure and apprehensive on the night before his wedding—overawed by the prospect of what’s ahead of him—the responsibility he’s about to take on?’

‘N-no…’

The look in his eyes disturbed her. They were darker than ever, shadowed by something she didn’t understand. And now that she looked more closely she could see smudges of weariness underneath them, marks that she had never noticed before. The faint lines that fanned out from the corners of his eyes looked more pronounced too, as if etched there by strain and worry.

‘Or are you claiming that if I’d rung you when I couldn’t sleep I’d have found you wide awake too, sharing the same sort of feelings?’

‘Well—no, I wasn’t.’

The truth was that, worn out by rushing around here there and everywhere for the past five weeks, she had fallen asleep as soon as her head had touched the pillow. Even the last minute butterflies in her stomach at the prospect of the day ahead had been overcome by the thought that tomorrow, finally, all her worries would be over.

‘I didn’t think so.’

Suddenly the thought that had crossed Sienna’s mind a moment before came rushing back with a new and worrying force.

Once she had convinced him. Keir hadn’t wanted this marriage. When she had first proposed the idea he had rejected it outright. It had only been when he’d made it a condition that they had a proper marriage, complete in every way, that he had been persuaded to agree to her proposal.

‘Sienna!’

Her name in Keir’s voice held a note of warning that dragged her back to the present. The best man was getting to his feet, ready to make his speech. Somehow Sienna found the self-control to appear to be listening. She turned her head in James’s direction, focused her eyes on his face, and even, forewarned by the ripples of laughter from other parts of the room, managed to smile at the jokes he made.

But the truth was that she heard little of the witty address, and registered even less. Deep inside, her stomach was just a twisting mass of nerves, a knot of fear that made her stomach heave nauseatingly.

What had she done? She had actually asked this man to be her husband. To live with her, share her home, her life, her bed. For the next year, at least, she would have to make it appear that she and Keir were deeply in love. That they were no longer two individuals but that indefinable thing known as ‘a couple’.

What had seemed so simple just a few days before now seemed impossible, unendurable, fraught with pitfalls and traps to catch the unwary. The twelve months that had once appeared such a short space of time now stretched endlessly ahead, three hundred and sixty five days of it, and she had no idea how she was going to live through it.

Fear pounded inside her head, beating at her temples, so that she had to fight against the impulse to push her chair back and run from the room. She had chosen this path, knowing she had no alternative. Married to Keir she would inherit her father’s money, and with it all the security and comfort it could bring. Without him she would be once more alone and desperate, with her mother totally dependent on her.

The speeches were over, the toasts completed. At last she was free from the obligation to stay in her seat. The feeling caused a rush of relief that brought her swiftly to her feet, unable to keep still any longer. She had no idea where she was going, thinking vaguely of heading for the huge French windows, now flung open in the late summer heat, of getting some much needed fresh air. Perhaps some deep, cooling breaths would calm her racing pulse, ease the pressure inside her head. But…

‘Sienna…’ Keir said abruptly, reaching for her. ‘Wait…’

His grip on her arm felt like a steel manacle, imprisoning her. Panic flared afresh and, reacting purely instinctively, she tensed, pulling back, away from him, earning herself a dark, disapproving glare.

‘What the…? Sienna, just what’s got into you? People are looking!’

The savage undertone was somehow more disturbing than if he had actually raised his voice to express the anger he was clearly barely holding in check. The blaze in his eyes terrified her, and suddenly the ground no longer seemed steady beneath her, the thick red carpet shifting unnervingly under the soles of her white satin slippers.

‘I won’t go with you!’ It was a desperate whisper. ‘I can’t!’

‘Sienna, have you taken leave of your senses? Might I remind you that this is our wedding day?’

Remind her! As if she could forget!

‘We have guests…people we should speak to.’

Speak! Sienna’s tongue felt as if it was glued to the roof of her mouth, preventing her from forming a word. But with Keir’s strong hand still clamped on her wrist, the other pressed firmly against the small of her back, she had no option but to follow him out into the room, somehow managing to acknowledge the greetings of the people they passed.

Her face seemed frozen into an expression of feigned happiness, the muscles around her mouth aching from smiling too many false smiles. All she wanted was to get away, be by herself, find peace and quiet in which to try to come to terms with what she’d done. But Keir was unrelenting in his determination that they should greet everyone. Ignoring her murmurs of protest, her obvious reluctance, he steered her from group to group, covering her awkwardness with the smooth ease of his own conversation.

‘For God’s sake!’ he hissed in her ear. ‘Now you’re the one who looks like the condemned man! Smile, damn you! No one will believe you’re madly in love with me if you look at me as if I was some deadly poisonous snake about to strike.’

‘I am smiling,’ Sienna retorted through clenched teeth. ‘And as to looking as if I love you—I’d manage that much better if you didn’t frogmarch me round the room as if I was either drunk or insane. I can manage to stand on my own two feet, you know. If you’d just let me go…’

‘Be my guest!’

She was released so abruptly that she staggered awkwardly, afraid she might actually fall. Instinctively her hand went out to steady herself, and to her total surprise she found it taken by someone new. Soft fingers closed round hers, supporting her.

‘Steady!’ a female voice cautioned. ‘You nearly took a tumble there.’

‘Th-thank you.’ With her balance restored, Sienna managed to turn to her rescuer with a smile more genuine than anything she had managed before.

‘Not to worry,’ she was assured. ‘Those long skirts can be so very difficult to walk in when you’re not used to them.’

‘That’s true!’ The woman’s perfume was rather cloying and overpowering, but Sienna struggled not to reveal her response to it. At last she felt something of her earlier panic receding, evaporating in the warmth of this new companion’s smile. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think…’

She didn’t recognise the face. This must be someone Keir had invited. Someone she hadn’t yet met.

‘Keir, won’t you introduce me…?’

But Keir stood at her side, stiff and withdrawn, his face appearing to have been carved out of the cold, immobile marble that formed the statues out on the terrace. Even his eyes were blanked off, revealing no emotion.

Why had this had to happen now? Keir asked himself furiously. If he had tried to think of the worst possible moment for Lucille to finally meet up with the woman he had married, then it would have been hard to imagine one that beat this. Sienna had already been behaving like a nervous thoroughbred, fearful of being handled for the first time, so he could just imagine how she was going to deal with this additional development.

The problem was that his new wife couldn’t lie to save her life. She had come up with this ridiculous scheme of their pretend marriage, presenting it as the answer to all his problems as well as hers, but the truth was that she didn’t know the half of it. She didn’t know how appallingly Lucille had behaved—the sort of damage she was still capable of wreaking if given half a chance. And if his stepmother so much as suspected the true reasons behind this hastily arranged wedding, then she was more than likely to pounce on the information like some ecstatic predator. She would use it quite cold-bloodedly to her own advantage, especially if she could work on his own destruction at the same time.

‘Keir…’

Just one word from the other woman’s lips, but it had a dramatic effect on him. His head jerked round swiftly, his eyes narrowing to mere slits above his high, strong cheekbones.

‘You want to be introduced? Well, fine. It had to be done some time, so I suppose now is as good an occasion as any. Sienna, darling, this is Lucille, my stepmother…’ He spat the word out as if it left a foul taste in his mouth. ‘Lucille, obviously this is Sienna, my wife.’

Lucille. Sienna couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This was Lucille, the stepmother Keir so detested that he had finally agreed to their marriage solely because it offered him a way of getting rid of her, expelling her from his life once and for all? This was the monster who, like Medusa, had turned his heart to stone in the moment he had first seen her, and had never let a single redeeming chink of light into it since then.

But this woman was nothing like the one she had imagined. In her thoughts, influenced by Keir’s own feelings, she had created a vicious harpy, cold-faced and cold-eyed, not this smiling, bright-eyed creature. And Lucille Alexander was so much smaller than she had anticipated, smaller and lovelier, with her peachy skin, green eyes and red-gold hair. But what rocked her back on her feet, threatening her balance again for a moment, was just how young Keir’s stepmother was. She had anticipated some woman in her late forties, early fifties. This Lucille looked barely five or so years older than Keir himself.

‘Sienna…’ Lucille was holding out her hand. ‘It’s wonderful to meet you at last. I was beginning to wonder if I would ever get to see you at all. But now that I have I can quite understand why Keir wanted to keep you all to himself.’

‘I doubt if you understand anything at all,’ Keir put in with biting cynicism. ‘And if I’d had my way you would never have been invited to the wedding. But Sienna wanted all my family here and, much as I hate to acknowledge it, you are family, if only by marriage…’

‘Keir…!’ Sienna put in reproachfully.

But Keir ignored her, his attention still fixed on Lucille.

‘But, seeing as you are here, perhaps it’s just as well. There’s a small matter of business we can get out of the way. If you’ll just follow me.’

Once again he clamped his hand over Sienna’s arm, forcing her to go with him as he turned and marched towards the door. It was either that or be dragged inelegantly and embarrassingly in his wake. He didn’t pause to look back and see if Lucille had followed them, apparently totally confident that she would do just that.

And it appeared that his confidence was not misplaced. When he finally came to a halt in the small private room the hotel had put aside for the bride and groom’s use, Lucille was only seconds behind them. She was barely through the door before Keir kicked it shut, blocking off the noise and bustle of the reception.

‘Now…’

Releasing Sienna abruptly, he reached into his inner jacket pocket, pulling out a long white envelope that he dropped onto the highly polished surface of a nearby table.

‘This is what you’re really interested in, dear stepmother. Oh, it’s all right…’ he added, seeing Lucille’s curious glance in Sienna’s direction. ‘My wife and I have no secrets from each other. Quite the contrary. As a matter of fact, it’s Sienna, not me, who’s buying you out, at the price we agreed last night. Darling…’

It took Sienna the space of a couple of uneven heartbeats to realise that Keir was now speaking to her. And even when she had registered that fact she found herself staring at the fine silver pen he held out to her, unable to comprehend just what he had in mind.

‘Sienna,’ Keir urged softly. ‘I need your signature. The document’s all prepared. All you have to do is sign.’

And then it finally dawned on her just what he meant. Of course. This was what she had promised him in return for his agreement to go through with the wedding, his name on the marriage certificate.

But she hadn’t expected him to hold her to her promise quite so soon. The ring was barely on her finger, the ink on that certificate barely dry, and already he was pushing her to complete her half of the bargain. She was quite unprepared for how much that hurt.

‘Sienna,’ Keir urged again, more forcefully this time. ‘Sign it please.’

For a second or two Sienna was tempted to rebel. Let him wait for his money! He hadn’t done anything to earn it!

But then Lucille spoke, and suddenly Sienna found that her mood had changed dramatically.

‘So the little bride is bailing you out, is she Keir, darling? What a generous wedding present—I only hope she thinks you’re worth it. But I’m sure you will be—in one important area of marriage at least.’

Her lascivious tone, the way her eyes gleamed, her pink tongue positively licking her lips, made it only too plain exactly what area she meant. Sienna could only stare, transfixed, unable to believe her eyes. It seemed as if the Lucille she had first met had vanished and another woman entirely had taken her place. This was the real stepmother, then, and she was beginning to understand just why Keir detested her so.

‘You always did give great value there, didn’t you, dearest? But I did wonder what had persuaded you to sign your freedom away like this…’

‘I’m not signing anything away.’

Belatedly, it appeared that Keir had remembered the part he was supposed to be playing. Moving behind Sienna, he looped his arms around her waist, fastening his hands together under her breasts and pulling her back against him.

‘On the contrary, I’m gaining everything I ever wanted. A beautiful wife, a new life with her, the prospect of a wonderful future…’

The sensual magic of his touch was working its spell all over again. Already Sienna could feel her body respond to the warmth of his, to the strength of his arms around her, the faint crisp scent of his cologne, so subtle and clean in contrast to the overwhelming reek of Lucille’s perfume.

Instinctively she laid her head back against his shoulder, feeling his lips brush against her cheek as she did so. In this moment she could almost believe Keir had meant what he’d said. Could almost imagine that this was a real marriage, not the cold-blooded business deal Keir had just proved it to be.

‘And naturally you’re besotted with him.’ Lucille turned a look of scorn on her. ‘Well, I just hope you think you’ve got a good deal on this—that he’s worth what you’re paying him.’

Behind her, Sienna felt Keir’s hard body stiffen in swift rejection. But his face showed no sign of what he was feeling and his hands continued their warm caresses over her arms and tracing the delicate lines of her neck.

‘I’m not paying him,’ she managed, her voice rather breathless as a result of the heightened, erratic beat of her heart. ‘Nor am I bailing him out. What I’m doing is making our partnership a financial one as well as a personal one. An investment for our future.’

She must have sounded more convincing than she had hoped, because against her back she felt Keir’s chest move in a silent, secret laugh of triumph.

For the first time Sienna felt a sense of unity with him. A feeling that they were both in this together, united against a common enemy. The sensation sent her spirits soaring, and impulsively she twisted in his grasp so that she could brush a kiss against the softness of his mouth.

‘Give me the pen, darling, and show me where to sign. I want the business side of things over with so that we can concentrate on more personal matters.’

In a haze of euphoria she signed her name with a flourish, folded up the document and thrust it back at Lucille, feeling a sense of exhilaration as the other woman took it and deposited it in her smart cream handbag.

‘Well, I’ll wish you every happiness together.’ Lucille’s tone implied exactly the opposite. ‘You’re obviously made for each other.’

It was as the door swung to behind her that Keir moved suddenly and unexpectedly. Sienna found herself gathered up into his arms and enclosed in a bear hug that drove all the breath from her body.

‘Brilliant! You were quite perfect! You even had me convinced that you were crazy about me.’

‘I did, didn’t I?’

The warmth of his approval was doing strange things to her. The light in his eyes, the smile that curved the wide sensual mouth were as intoxicating as the fine champagne she had drunk earlier. She felt as if she was bathed in the warmth of the August sun outside, her skin glowing, her blood heating in response. It was a heady, thrilling sensation and she wanted more of it.

‘And believe me, sweetheart, if you can convince my dear stepmother you can convince anyone. We might actually get away with this charade after all.’

Charade. Just one single word but it had an effect like the dash of icy water in her face. Sobering immediately, she felt herself come back down to earth with a sudden and very painful thud. His approval hadn’t been for her, but for the performance he believed she had delivered.

Charade. Just for a second she had allowed herself to believe there was something else between them, some unity other than the one that linked them as partners in a scam to enable her to collect her inheritance. Something that would make the coming twelve months easier to live through. But she had only been fooling herself. Keir obviously wanted no such thing.

‘So, now that’s out of the way we can move on to the next stage…’

‘The next stage?’ Sienna’s uncertainty showed in her voice. ’What next stage is that?’

‘Really, Sienna, isn’t it obvious?’

The look he turned on her was one of sardonic mockery, mixed with a strong dose of frank disbelief.

‘We’re married, darling. The wedding’s over, the reception’s coming to an end. What’s the logical next move?’

‘You don’t mean…?’ Sienna could only shake her head in disbelief. He couldn’t mean what she thought.

‘We do what everyone else does, sweetheart. We go on honeymoon.’




CHAPTER FOUR


HONEYMOON.

The word swung round and round inside Sienna’s head as she lingered over a glass of wine on the terrace of the villa, enjoying the cool of the evening after the warmth of the day. Above her head, swallows swooped through the air in pursuit of midges, the swish of their wings the only sound in the silence that surrounded her.

‘We do what everyone else does, sweetheart. We go on honeymoon.’

She had been frankly stunned by her own reaction to Keir’s declaration. It had been the last thing she had expected. The nature of their arrangement was so businesslike and unemotional that she had never even dreamed there would be any place in it for of the conventional pleasures that were supposed to follow immediately after the celebration of a wedding.

So the realisation that they were actually to have a honeymoon had left her quite breathless and surprisingly excited. Somehow the thought of such a holiday had made her feel like a bride.

A real bride, she corrected when hard common sense had reminded her that she was actually Keir’s bride, even if it was only a pretence at a love match.

‘On honeymoon!’ she exclaimed, looking up into Keir’s dark face in wide-eyed surprise. ‘But where…? What…?’

A strong finger laid across her lips silenced her effectively.

‘That’s my secret,’ Keir told her with a grin. ‘Isn’t that what the groom’s supposed to do? Organise everything and keep the destination a mystery until the last minute?’

It was more usual that the bride and groom chose the honeymoon together, poring over brochures and travel articles before deciding on some place they both wanted to visit, Sienna reflected, something of the euphoria that had lifted her spirits fading slightly. Of course there would be nothing like that for herself and Keir.

Discretion warned her that it would be best to make no comment about that. It would only spoil the new warmth that had developed between them. A warmth she very much needed. The last remnants of her earlier panic still lingered in her thoughts, clinging like sticky cobwebs to the corners of her mind, and she wanted desperately to drive them away.

‘I didn’t think we were having a honeymoon. If I’m honest, it never even crossed my mind.’

‘A proper wedding, I said,’ Keir reminded her. ‘One with all the trimmings.’

‘Yes, but this… I mean, can you afford it?’

Big mistake! Bad mistake. It was obvious that he didn’t like what she’d said at all. The curve to his lips vanished at once, his face hardening ominously. The dark brown eyes took on a dangerous glint that warned her she had over-stepped some invisible but firmly defined line that he had drawn around his private affairs.

Swinging away from her, he moved to stare broodingly out of the window into the spectacular garden beyond.

‘I may have been forced to into needing a temporary injection of funds in order to meet Lucille’s unreasonable demands, but I am still very far from penniless,’ he snapped out, so sharply that Sienna found herself taking an involuntary step backwards, away from him. ‘And even if I am only a temporary husband, hired for the period of our contract, I trust I know what my duties are—’

‘Keir, don’t! I didn’t mean that the way it sounded!’

‘Why not?’ he flung over his shoulder at her. ‘We both know you wouldn’t have proposed marriage to me if you hadn’t been desperate.’

‘And you wouldn’t have accepted if it hadn’t suited your business plans!’

‘Exactly.’

‘You make it sound so sordid—so cold-blooded!’

With an abrupt, savage laugh Keir turned back to face her again, hands pushed deep into his trouser pockets, one black brow raised in taunting mockery.

‘That’s what business deals are, my lovely,’ he told her harshly. ‘Rational, hard-headed, and as cold-blooded as possible.’

If only that were really true, he reflected bitterly. If only he could have made this decision as coolly and unemotionally as he handled every other problem that he came up against in his working life.

But in this situation his natural control had totally deserted him. And the reasons for that were twofold. Both female. When it came to dealing with either Lucille or the woman now standing before him, the woman he had just made his wife, it seemed that common sense or rational thought went straight out of the window, leaving him uncharacteristically unsure of which way to turn.

As a result he had acted on the sort of impulse that he would have thought was totally alien to him, deciding to act before thinking things through to their logical conclusion. Only time would tell whether that decision would prove to be the best or the worst of his life.

‘Why do you look so shocked?’ he went on, seeing her big sea-coloured eyes darken in distress. ‘You know I’m only speaking the truth. Those are the facts, so why should it worry you to hear them put into words?’

‘I…’ Sienna could only shake her head, unable to find an answer.

She couldn’t deny the truth of what he had said. But it still disturbed her to have it stated so baldly, in the flat, emotionless voice Keir had used to deliver them.

‘Conscience problems, sweetheart?’ he questioned softly. ‘Does it trouble you to discover that you might be every bit as cold-blooded and demanding as I am after all? That when you see something you really want you go for it with all the determination and ruthlessness you can muster up? And that in pursuit of your dream you can drive a harder bargain than anyone?’

His cynical words caught Sienna her on the raw, taking her breath away and making her want to lash out unthinkingly.

‘If that was the case then you wouldn’t be here right now!’ she flashed at him. ‘Believe me, if I could have what I really want, you wouldn’t be the man with a wedding ring on his finger! And if I was to achieve a dream, then I would have married—’

‘I know. Your precious Dean. The man whose shoes I couldn’t possibly fill.’

The temperature in the small room suddenly seemed to have plummeted dramatically, making Sienna shiver convulsively in spite of the late August sun streaming in through the windows. She felt as if Keir’s snarled words had been formed in freezing blocks of ice that had fallen brutally onto her delicate skin, chilling her where they landed.




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