The Hired Husband. Kate Walker

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