She shifted her weight from foot to foot, the fingers of her right hand fiddling with the strap of her handbag. The afternoon light caught something glittering on her left hand before she tucked it out of sight.
Something grabbed at his chest like a claw. Tightened. Squeezed.
Juliet was engaged?
Why hadn’t Ben given him the heads-up? He didn’t know she’d been seeing anyone. Last Christmas he thought... What had he thought? He hadn’t been thinking. He’d acted on impulse. Something he never did. He blamed it on the glasses of wine at lunch, the eggnog and the brandy butter. It must have gone to his head. His chest gave another suffocating spasm. The thought of her dating...having sex with some guy made his insides feel hollow and empty, as if they had been scraped out with something sharp.
‘Hen’s party,’ she said.
‘Your own?’
She looked at him blankly for a moment. ‘No...Kendra Ashford’s.’
Marcus had never understood what Juliet saw in the clique of girls who called themselves Kendra’s Clan. A bunch of pampered aristocrats who did nothing but preen and party, usually with the paparazzi around to document it. Not that he could necessarily talk, given his father’s ridiculous wealth, but at least he didn’t brandish it about. And he worked for a living. He couldn’t see how Juliet had anything in common with them, but she’d been at boarding school with them, and she was a loyal little thing and wouldn’t hear a bad word said about anyone.
He pointed to the ring on her finger, trying to ignore the painful ache in his chest. ‘Who’s the lucky guy?’
Two spots of colour spread even further over her cheeks making her cute freckles stand out like a dusting of cinnamon sugar on the top of a teacake. ‘Erm...’ She did that foot shuffling, weight shifting thing again, reminding him of when she was ten years old and embarrassed about asking him to help her change the tyre on her pushbike.
Back then the six years difference in their age had seemed like a generation. Even at eighteen she had been far too young—rather memorably demonstrated by her gauche attempt to kiss him in the study the night of her birthday party. He had always made sure he was never alone with her after that, especially if there was alcohol around. She didn’t have much of a head for it. Not that he could talk given what almost happened at Christmas.
Now it was...it was a surprise to realise how grown up she was. Grown up enough to get engaged.
His chest seized again.
To get married.
He hadn’t noticed quite how grown up she was until last Christmas. In the past she had always been his best mate’s kid sister. He hadn’t seen her as anything else. He hadn’t allowed himself to, especially after the incident in the study. Getting involved with his best friend’s baby sister was breaking a strict code of mateship. If things didn’t work out, it got messy for everyone. He had too much respect for Ben and his mother, Grace—not to mention Juliet herself—to take any risks in that area.
But last Christmas...
Marcus pushed the thought back. Best not to go there. She belonged to someone else now. He tried to ignore the sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. He hoped it was someone who was worthy of her. She was a decent girl. A sweet and caring soul who could easily get trampled on or taken advantage of because she wasn’t street smart or sophisticated. But that’s what he liked about her. She was intelligent and kind, not shallow and vacuous and self-serving like some of the women her big brother was currently hanging out with in L.A. ‘So, is it anyone I know?’ he asked.
The point of her tongue came out again and moistened her soft Cupid’s bow mouth. Her cheeks were so red now he could have cooked a couple of rounds of toast on them. ‘I didn’t think you’d turn up like this,’ she said. ‘Ben didn’t tell me you were due back...’
‘Yeah, well, I’m lucky to get a word from your brother now he’s so rich and famous,’ he said. ‘Last time I heard from him was about a month ago. He texted me a photo of himself on a red carpet somewhere surrounded by Hollywood starlets.’
She did the lip chew thing again. ‘He’s certainly got an awful lot of friends now....’
Marcus’s gut clenched as if a fist had grabbed at his intestines. Was Juliet involved with some guy who only wanted her for a connection to her famous brother? Some sleazy status-seeker who wanted to fast-track his own career in show business? She was so innocent and guileless she mightn’t see past the superficial charm. Why hadn’t Ben warned her?
‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t Romeo himself.’
Marcus looked up to see Harriet Penhallon, one of Kendra’s Clan, coming towards them with a smirk on her face. ‘Congratulations, Marcus,’ Harriet said, eyeing him up and down like an auctioneer does at a cattle market. ‘Who would have thought?’
Who would have thought what? Marcus opened his mouth to say it out loud when he heard Juliet make a strangled sound beside him. He glanced down at her with a frown. ‘What’s wrong?’
Her brown eyes had never looked bigger. Wider. The pupils like dark pools of rippling panic. He even heard her take a gulp. ‘I told Harriet...erm...that I...that we...erm...’
‘Told Harriet what?’
‘That you’re engaged,’ Harriet said.
Marcus blinked. Engaged? Juliet was pretending she was engaged...to him? What was she thinking? What was going on? Why would she do such a thing? He’d been sick with worry that she’d been seduced by some creep, only to find it was all a game of charades. He didn’t have time for such nonsense, damn it. What a waste of angst. He was supposed to be here on business. He wasn’t here to play silly schoolgirl games. His professional reputation was under the spotlight. Not his personal life. Not that he had one right now.
He looked down at her again. Her expression was a mixture of contrition and hope. Hope he wouldn’t blow her cover? Publicly embarrass her by denying it? Was she doing this to get social cache with her so-called friends? Surely she’d known he would find out one way or the other. No one could do or say anything these days without someone tweeting or texting about it. There was no such thing as local gossip these days. The whole planet found out in a matter of seconds.
But if he contradicted her, it would make her look foolish in front of her friends. It might draw even more attention to him than he wanted right now. It wasn’t such a leap to think they might be an item. He’d been a part of her family for years.
Besides, he didn’t care for the narrow-eyed look on Harriet Penhallon’s face.
‘Yes...that’s right, so we are.’ He put an arm around Juliet and brought her close to his body. She felt soft and warm and feminine and smelt of summer flowers—sweet peas with a hint of orange blossom. Exotic and yet old fashioned and touchingly familiar. ‘We were going to keep it a secret for a little while longer, weren’t we, sweetie?’
Juliet looked up at him with a faltering smile. ‘I’m sorry...’
Not as much as you’re going to be, he thought. What the hell was she playing at? Engaged? Hell’s bells. What was Ben going to make of this? ‘It’s fine, darling.’ He mentally ground his teeth. ‘It had to come out sooner or later.’
Harriet put a hand over her mouth in a theatrical manner. ‘Oops. I didn’t realise you hadn’t officially announced it. I just tweeted it to all Kendra’s followers.’ She dropped her hand and smiled broadly. ‘All five hundred and fifty thousand of them.’
CHAPTER THREE
JULIET COULDN’T LOOK at Marcus. She wanted to die. She wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole and spit her out on the other side of the world. She