Vacancy: Wife of Convenience. Jessica Steele

and where Silas had a strong, rather nice-shaped mouth, this man’s mouth was weak—and that was before he opened it.

      ‘Ellen, lovely girl—is my cousin in?’ he wanted to know, his eyes skirting from her to make a meal of Colly.

      ‘Not yet,’ Ellen replied, but his attention was elsewhere as he turned his smile full beam on Colly.

      ‘Are you here to see Silas?’ he queried—and, before she could answer, ‘Kit Summers,’ he introduced himself, and held out his right hand.

      It would have been churlish to ignore it. Colly shook hands with him—and wanted to pull her hand back when he held it over-long.

      ‘What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?’ Kit Summers asked flirtatiously.

      Heaven help us! This man might be left to run the company! Colly caught Ellen doing an eye-roll to the ceiling, and felt a hysterical kind of laugh wanting to break loose.

      Kit Summers was not at all put off that Colly did not answer, but, continuing to beam at her, suggested, ‘Look, Silas might not be back for ages—why don’t I take you for a cup of tea?’

      Colly stared at him. This chinless wonder was married, yet by the look of it did not miss an opportunity to flirt. She was about to give him a cool, No, thank you, when Ellen Rothwell interceded.

      ‘Have you the figures Silas wanted?’ she enquired evenly.

      That shook him sufficiently for him to take his eyes off Colly for a moment. ‘Hell, was it today he wanted them? Strewth, I’d better be going. Don’t tell him I was here,’ he said. ‘And deny any rumour you may have heard that I was on the golf course this morning!’ With that he was gone.

      Colly sat there feeling stunned and with her insides churning. Silas’s cousin was a lightweight, and it showed. And if first impressions were anything to go by he was not fit to run any development company, much less an international one.

      Then suddenly her mouth went dry. She heard sounds coming from the next-door office. If she wasn’t very much mistaken, Silas was back.

      She was not mistaken—the intercom buzzed into life. ‘Has Kit been in?’ Silas asked.

      ‘Been and gone, I’m afraid,’ his PA answered, and quickly, before he could enquire about any figures, ‘Miss Gillingham is here to see you.’

      The announcement was met with total silence. And, quite desperately wishing that she had written, or phoned, but certainly that she had not come in person, Colly went from hot to cold and to hot again. All at once there was movement on the other side of the door, and a moment later the door was opened and Silas Livingstone, tall, commanding, and the very opposite of his cousin, stood there.

      He did not smile, or remind her that he had been going to give her a call tomorrow evening, but, ‘Hello, Colly,’ he said mildly, with his eyes fixed on hers as if he would read there what she had come in person to tell him.

      Colly stood up. The time had arrived to give him the answer that would not wait until he telephoned tomorrow. He took a step back, so she should go first into his office, and following her in closed the door behind them, giving them all the privacy they needed.