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“Bed?” he prompted, a wicked glint in his eye. His silky laugh chased chills up her spine. “If you hadn’t, it would have taken me forever to get rid of Francine.”
“So you two aren’t…?” Caroline groped for a word and quickly rejected the ones that popped into her head. “Involved?”
“God, no.”
“Then what is she doing here in her underwear?”
“Trying to seduce me. She is under the mistaken impression that she’s engaged to the wrong brother.” He rubbed his face and cursed. His attention shifted to the hallway behind her. “You being here has changed her mind on that score.”
Whoa. Yep, she’d been right. She had bumbled into a crazy drama, and a family one at that.
“Yeah, about that—”
“Later. She’s coming, and I really need you to play along.”
Play along?
“I can’t. The whole thing’s too crazy.” She shook her head as he captured her hands and began a tantalizing slide of his fingers between hers. “You don’t know me. I don’t know you.”
“That’s funny because I feel as if we have a connection.”
The combination of his throaty murmur and the gentle rasp of his thumb against the ragged pulse in her wrist melted her reservations. The room, the half-naked Francine, the world…started drifting away.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
As tempting as it was to imagine they had some sort of connection because of a few dozen flirtatious notes exchanged over the last six months, she wasn’t the sort of girl who indulged in fantasies.
Her knees wobbled as he carried their clasped hands to his chest. A wispy curl of something smoky and forbidden spiraled upward inside her. She tugged to free herself, but he spoke a word that stopped her.
“Please.”
“Oh, all right,” she grumbled, unnerved by the longing that surged through her muscles and lodged in her joints. “But just for now.”
“Thank you.”
He’d no more gotten the words out when Francine reappeared. Caroline took a long look at Simon’s future sister-in-law. Strawberry blond hair fell past her shoulders in a silken curtain, framing a perfect oval face with high cheekbones, a long, narrow nose, and full sculpted lips. Her jade green eyes could have stared in cool arrogance from the cover of any high-fashion magazine in the world.
The gown she wore looked as if it cost a fortune. Caroline shifted her weight as Francine continued to ignore her as if she were a coat rack. She didn’t need the redhead’s obvious disdain to know she wasn’t in the woman’s league.
Francine fetched her coat and slipped her arms into the sleeves. “When did you get engaged?”
“Right before I left for Australia.” Simon offered Caroline a sexy smile, his blue eyes dancing with mischief.
“Have you been seeing each other long?”
No doubt Francine had utilized her time alone in Simon’s bedroom to check for signs that a woman occupied the space: clothes in the closet or drawers, a tube of lipstick on the dresser. When her search hadn’t even turned up an extra toothbrush, Francine no doubt saw Simon’s ploy for what it was.
“Not long,” he admitted. His thumb grazed Caroline’s chin. He sure looked the part of a smitten fool. “I think this has been a surprise for both of us.”
“You can say that again,” Caroline muttered. She hated lying. It went against everything she believed in. No good ever came of it, and you usually ended up hurting the ones you loved.
“You’ve kept her quite a secret,” Francine said, continuing to behave as if Caroline wasn’t standing two feet away.
“I wasn’t ready to share her with anyone.”
That he had an answer for everything triggered a warning buzz in Caroline’s mind. Why had he insisted on fabricating a relationship with her? Francine’s lips curved in a dangerous smile.
