Chapter 17

At his behest, Lea tried on outfit after outfit. Half the time Dave was on the phone, delivering terse commands to his assistant, but the whole time his attention seemed to be on her. It bothered her that she got a thrill out of his obvious interest, and she had to resist a shameful urge to preen and pose. It was becoming harder and harder for her to view their marriage as just a job, since he was personalising everything. An hour after their arrival, a package was delivered to him.

Lea made her final appearance in an opulent, full-length turquoise silk evening gown.

One glance at her and the exquisite pain of rampant sexual arousal assailed Dave in a tidal wave. The fabric cupping her breasts was too fine to conceal her nipples, which protruded like ripe cherries. Expelling his breath in a slow hiss of restraint, he sprang upright and signalled her.

Lea swore to herself before that there was no way she was wearing anything above her knee, but for Dave, she was being brave with herself. And the miniskirt she had earlier was one mistake she doesn't want to repeat. And thought competing with a dead girl was foolish.

“Come here,” Dave told her when she stopped a few feet away from him.

With care, Dave employed a tissue to wipe her lips clear of tinted gloss. “Less is more,” he murmured in a roughened undertone.

Lea gazed up at him wide-eyed and was ludicrously unprepared for the kiss that followed. With long fingers meshing with her hair, he pried her lips apart and took her mouth with erotic force. His hunger exploded through her, and her head spun and her stomach lurched with excitement as if she were on a fairground ride. The tight knot in her tummy clenched hard, and with every fibre of her being, she craved more intimate contact.

“Right moment, wrong place, wife,” Dave quipped, setting her back from him, and she almost screamed and stamped her foot with frustration. While he called every shot and maintained supremacy, he also made her feel controlled and helpless. Nothing, it seemed, took the edge off her intense craving for him. “Open your mouth.”

She frowned. “Why?” she framed stonily, annoyed that he had kissed her again and left her feeling things she barely understood and certainly didn’t want to feel. Her body was humming and all churned up in a very uncomfortable way.

“You can’t have me right now, but you can have... this,” he murmured playfully, sliding a chocolate between her lips.

The meltingly rich taste of chocolate reached Lea’s taste buds in a gastronomic tide of sensation. It tasted so good, she almost closed her eyes to savour it in full. “That is to die for,” she whispered.

He was fattening her up, a few weeks ago, she was as thin as Victoria's model, and now, wow! She thought she wasn't complaining at all.

Dave got an erotic buzz just watching her. She was a wonderfully sensual woman, and she could wind him up like a clock. He wanted to scoop her up into his arms and take her somewhere private where he could sink deep and hard and repeatedly into her lush little body until he had satisfied the fierce hunger he was restraining with such difficulty. But on another level, he was enjoying that unusual edge of anticipation, driven by a level of moderation he had never practiced before.

Somewhere close by, a phone rang insistently. Lea broke free of the spell holding her in stasis. “That’s mine.”

One of the assistants brought her the mobile phone from the changing room. It was her aunt calling, words gushing from her in a breathless tide. “Mary just called me."

“Oh, sh*t,” Lea exclaimed in consternation, uneasily aware of Dave’s proximity. “What did you tell her?”

“Well, not everything, of course, and that you’d been seeing Dave but that it hadn’t worked out, and that’s why you never mentioned him to her," Aunt Evelyn explained. “And now he’s back, and it’s all on again. What else could I say?”

“This just goes on getting more and more complicated,” Lea lamented.

“What’s going on?” Dave demanded, and one glance at his lean, taut features was sufficient to tell her how much he hated being left out of the loop on any issue.

“Mary saw a photo of us together in a newspaper, and she’s in shock—we didn't tell her about the wedding, and we didn't even invite her."

“Don't worry, I'll call her.” Dave growled at one of the assistants and motioned for them to go.

And although Lea tried to argue with him, nothing else would satisfy him. Lea dialled the number of his sister and broke through Mary's anxious and reproachful questions to ask her to speak to Dave.

Dave then took the phone from her damp grasp and proceeded to stun Lea by selling himself as the perfect brother who couldn’t wait to tell her. While Lea hovered, taut with growing incredulity and resentment at the ease with which he dealt with the situation, he insisted he would send a private plane to pick up Mary.

“Don't worry, she didn't know about our contract. I know her, she won't stop bugging me if she knows,” Dave remarked when the call had finished.

“I hope so. I don't want to disappoint Tyler,” Lea confirmed with a flat lack of expression, shying away from that controversial subject while dimly also wondering why he was so concerned about the castle. She decided it was no business of hers and that if she wanted to survive their fake marriage, she had to learn to keep a sensible distance from him.

The next day, Dave dropped her off at his indescribably chic apartment near the city centre to get changed while he returned to his client to attend a meeting. Lea wandered around the penthouse, admiring the fabulous art works on display, before selecting an elegant green shift dress to wear. The prospect of trying to deceive his sister into believing that she was in love with Dave seriously unnerved her.

But she need not have worried, for right from the start, Dave took centre stage, and it was soon clear that his sister was much impressed by his calm and assurance.

“It’s your niece's birthday tomorrow,” Mary said with a furrowed brow.

“An extraordinary coincidence,” Dave commented.

“A disaster because I can’t be in two places at once,” Mary opined in a pained voice, her distress unconcealed at that clash of dates. “I’m heavily involved in organising her day, and because she wants a beach birthday party, I can’t possibly abandon her to see to it all on her own—Tyler will kill me.”

“Of course not." Lea broke in and squeezed Mary’s hand soothingly. “We understand…”

“But I really would like to see you both get married.”

Dave rolled his eyes. “Here we go again. I told you, once is enough. Besides, we have parties to attend; our arrangements are too advanced to allow the date to be changed,” Dave said in a tone of apology.

“But there is a solution,” Mary told him, hopefully. “Oh, Chicago, would you consider—”

Lea’s eyes opened very wide at that startling suggestion, and she froze in dismay. Faking a relationship and sweetness in front of Mary was a different story; she might well become suspicious!

“I’m afraid such an arrangement would not be possible, Mary.” Dave then explained that he had clients expecting to meet him this week.

Lea assumed it was a polite lie, but she was impressed by his inventiveness when put on the spot. She reckoned that the presence of his sister at his own bogus marriage would only make the occasion more of a strain. When it occurred to her that she was already in the very act of deceiving Mary, guilt pierced her deeply.

Dave then went on to suggest that he and Lea should have a church blessing, followed by a party at which Lea could meet his friends and family in Chicago the following month. Her sister’s disappointed face slowly warmed to that prospect, and it was easy to tell from the suggestions she went on to make for the event that she was not only charmed by the idea but also equally charmed by the man who had voiced it.

When the meal was over, Lea opted to return home to Dave’s apartment. Dave’s steely glance warned her that he was displeased by that choice, but Lea had no intention of spending time alone with him at his penthouse. Their marriage was supposed to be a legal arrangement and a job, nothing more, and if she wanted him to respect those boundaries, she needed to keep some distance between them. In addition, Lea was in a hurry to return to the castle and to her aunt, laden with piles of expensive clothes that would be likely to awaken her aunt's fashionista persona.