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Julia had had enough. ‘By doing what, exactly?’ she demanded angrily.
Silas gave the kind of shrug that only very tall, very muscular, very male men could give. And, as always, being forced to recognise his maleness triggered a frisson of awareness inside her that hiked up her antipathy towards him. He had no right to be so damn sexy. It was somehow all wrong that a man who aggravated her as much as Silas did should possess the kind of physique and looks that made grown women react like hormone-controlled teenagers.
‘By doing whatever it takes. Either by giving up your job—’
‘I won’t do that,’ Julia interrupted him irritably. ‘Especially as Lucy’s already lost Carly, now that she’s married to Ricardo and expecting a baby. I can’t leave as well.’
‘—or by making sure Blayne knows you aren’t available.’
‘I’ve already told him that I’m not.’
‘But, as he can quite plainly see, you are. On the other hand, if there were another man in your life…’
‘But there isn’t.’
‘So find one who’s willing to pretend to be there for long enough to get Nick Blayne to back off.’
‘What? Like who?’
‘Like me.’
‘What?’ Julia shook her head in violent denial. ‘You? No. No way! Ever. Absolutely not. Anyway, everyone knows that we loathe one another.’
‘It isn’t unheard of for couples to discover that what they thought was love is really loathing, so why shouldn’t we have made the discovery the other way around?’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Do you really expect me to agree to pretend that you and I are in a relationship?’
‘I thought you said you wanted to protect Lucy’s marriage.’
‘I do, but not by offering myself up as a sacrifice for you to devour.’
‘Very bacchanalian imagery. Although I confess the thought of you offering yourself up…’
‘I wouldn’t. Not to you. Not ever.’
‘But you would to Nick Blayne?’
‘No!’
‘So prove it.’
Julia glared at him.
‘Just what is this all about, Silas? What’s in it for you?’ she demanded trenchantly. ‘And what on earth are you doing here, anyway? You hate this kind of thing.’
‘I’m here because you’re here.’ Another shrug, more lazily dismissive this time, and the movement of powerful shoulders beneath the linen suit jacket unbelievably and very much unwantedly conjured up images of just such a pair of male shoulders naked, and gleaming in the morning sunlight as their owner arched his equally naked and male body over her own.
Silas naked?
Such an image might not be legally or even morally taboo, but it was certainly not the way she was used to thinking about him. Was this the kind of thing that happened when you were in your mid-twenties and your sex life was an arid desert, refreshed only by watching reruns of Sex and the City and determinedly refusing to study the ads in the back of glossy magazines for purveyors of sex toys?
‘Oh, yes. Of course,’ she agreed wryly, hurriedly banishing her unexpectedly erotic mental images.
But before she could ask him why he was really there, he told her coolly, ‘You should wear a hat in this heat. Your face is burning.’
Maybe it was, but the heat it was giving off hadn’t been caused by the sun, Julia admitted to herself.
That was the trouble with Silas. Much as he filled her with wary dislike and suspicion, she still couldn’t stop herself from being aware of him as a man. And not just any man, but a very dangerously sexy man.
‘What is it you really want?’ she demanded.
‘Well, for one thing I want your grandfather’s peace of mind and continued good health. We both know how much it would upset him if it got into the papers—as it more than likely would—that his beloved granddaughter was involved in a sordid love triangle. And for another…Let’s just say that it would be convenient for me right now to be seen publicly as romantically involved.’
It might not, Silas had decided in his practical way, be in his own best interests to discuss Aimee DeTroite and the problems she was causing him with Julia. There was no need, after all, for her to have to know. And as for Aimee herself—since she continued to take such an unwanted and intrusive interest in his private life, hopefully the discovery that he was now ‘coupled up’ with Julia should send a very clear message to her that she was wasting her time.
Not that that was the only or even the most important reason he had for what he was doing.
‘Well, at least you haven’t claimed that you want me,’ Julia told him.
‘Would you like me to?’
Say it or mean it? Julia felt her heart ricochet from one side of her chest to the other.
‘It might be worth it, just for the pleasure of calling your bluff,’ she told him sweetly.
‘Like Blayne was calling yours, you mean?’ Silas challenged her.
‘I meant what I said to him,’ Julia told him hotly.
‘Then prove it.’
‘I don’t have to prove anything to you.’
‘Not to me, perhaps,’ he agreed, in that mocking way of his that so infuriated her. ‘But I rather think that you do have something to prove to Lucy. She was standing right next to me when Blayne was kissing your neck.’
Immediately, and anxiously, she looked beyond his shoulder to where she could see Lucy, talking to the magazine editor.
‘She saw him?’ she demanded, concern for her friend immediately pushing everything else she was feeling out of the way.
‘Yes.’
Lucy, her lifelong friend. Lucy, who always somehow seemed to be struggling to conceal an inner fragility and vulnerability. Lucy, who would be broken and destroyed by the thought that her husband was cheating on her with her best friend. No way could she allow that to happen, no matter what temporary sacrifices she might have to make herself.
‘Very well, then. I’ll do it,’ she told him impetuously. It would be worth it to protect her friend’s marriage. And to assuage her own guilt?
CHAPTER TWO
‘AH! HERE you are!’
Julia hoped that her expression hadn’t betrayed how very unloverlike and ill at ease Silas’s appearance had caused her to feel, coupled with his warm, husky greeting—somehow as sensually intimate as though he had addressed her in far more loverlike terms—and the weight of Silas’s arm around her shoulders.
‘Missed me?’
Two words and one look, focused on her eyes and then dropping to her mouth, one small touch of male fingers in her hair. Dammit, Silas should have been an actor. He was certainly putting on an Oscar-worthy performance. Even her own body had been taken in by it.
And as for either Lucy or Dorland Chesterfield guessing they were putting on an act—if their expressions of delighted astonishment were anything to go by they were far too excited to notice anything other than what Silas wanted them to see.
‘Jules!’ Lucy squeaked. ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’
Dorland mopped his round sweating face with his handkerchief, and then breathed happily, ‘Oh, my, what a potentially delectable feast of delicious gossip. Billions of dollars, a title, and the fact that the two of you are related. Perfect.’
‘Dorland…’ Julia began apprehensively, but her caution was lost in Silas’s words.
‘We haven’t known for very long ourselves, have we?’
Automatically she turned towards him. He must have been right about the heat, because suddenly she felt distinctly odd, sort of dizzy and light-headed, whilst her heart fluttered in shallow little beats. How was he managing to look every bit as arrogant and potently male as he always did? He was focusing on her with a gaze of such sensual hunger that it actually made the colour rise up under her skin.
‘Jules, you’re blushing!’ Lucy exclaimed, laughing.
This was ridiculous!
‘We said that we were not going to go public yet—r
