Expecting the Playboy's Heir

American tycoon Silas Carter to wed English society party-planner Lady Julia Fellowes!

Yes, he might well be the world’s most eligible bachelor, according to A-List Life magazine—but multibillionaire tycoon Silas Carter is no longer eligible. He’s engaged to be married, and both his family and hers are reported to be thrilled with the match.

Not long ago Silas was spotted with American heiress Aimee DeTroite, who is said to be fuming at the news. Yesterday it wasn’t even known that Silas and Julia were an item, much less engaged—suggesting that this may be an arranged marriage. The present Earl of Amberley is Julia’s grandfather. His heir is none other than Silas Carter—who stands to inherit the title and the country house where Julia grew up, along with the family’s sizable art and property fortune.

So, is this an arranged marriage brokered by the present Earl of Amberley to ensure his beloved granddaughter keeps the family estate? Or is this rather sudden engagement more of the shotgun variety? After all, this relationship is steamy—if the paparazzi are to be believed.…

PENNY JORDAN has been writing for more than twenty years and has an outstanding record: over 150 novels published, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honor and Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Penny Jordan was born in Lancashire, England, and now lives in rural Cheshire.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

LIPS light as the touch of a butterfly’s wings, but far more sensual, brushed the back of her neck, a male hand on her shoulder enclosing the small intimacy in protective secrecy, before he whispered in her ear.

‘Back in a few minutes. Don’t go away.’

She hadn’t moved, not even to turn her head to look at him, and she didn’t move now. Mainly because she couldn’t, Jules realised shakily.

There were times when she would rather be anything other than one of the partners in an event planning organisation. And this was definitely one of them.

Everyone who was anyone in the celebrity world was here in Majorca, thronging the grounds of the exclusive holiday villa currently on loan to the most excitingly ‘in’ Hollywood superstar couple.

A-List Life, the magazine responsible for paying for this particular ‘bash,’ which was ostensibly being given to celebrate the couple’s first wedding anniversary, had already described them as Hollywood Royalty.

Now their carefully selected celebrity ‘friends’ were ‘celebrating,’ whilst the magazine’s flamboyant owner and editor, Dorland Chesterfield, interviewed the happy couple and its photographers mingled with the guests.

She was getting too cynical, Julia decided. Lucy, her friend and the owner of Prêt a Party, had been thrilled about this commission, and of course Julia could understand why.

Dorland was a millionaire and was the most influential person on the upmarket social event scene. Being hired to organise any event the magazine was sponsoring—never mind being selected, as they had been, to organise Dorland’s fabulous and high-profile end-of-summer celeb bash—was virtually a licence to print money, via future commissions, as Nick, Lucy’s husband, had said.

A small frown pleated Julia’s forehead as she remembered Nick’s unkind comments about Dorland.

‘The man’s a fat, brainless star-sucker—if he is a man,’ he had announced derisively when Dorland had first approached them.

‘That’s neither true nor fair, Nick.’ Julia had immediately defended Dorland.

Yes, Dorland was slightly overweight, and it was true that there were rumours that prior to bursting onto the social scene and setting up his magazine he had undergone a sex-change operation, as well as equally unproven gossip and speculation about his sexual orientation. However, Julia privately suspected he might well be one of those people who genuinely were asexual. Although he was surrounded by eager wannabes of both sexes, thanks to the success of A-List Life, no one had ever been able to say categorically that he had had any sexual involvements or partnerships. It was Julia’s belief that Dorland reserved all his passion for the great love in his life, which was fame and those who achieved it. Whatever his sexuality, Dorland could tap into the female psyche, and he also had the knack of massaging a vulnerable and famous ego to the point where even the most out-of-reach ‘star’ was prepared to let down their guard with him.

The truth was that Dorland genuinely liked and admired the famous, and they, sensing that, turned to him and his magazine with the kind of exclusive articles that had other editors gnashing their teeth with envy.

Nick affected to loathe and despise him, but Julia couldn’t help wondering if secretly Nick was jealous of both his success and his wealth.

She, not Nick, was the one who had had the headache of organising and co-ordinating the two lavish events Dorland had hired them for. Including dealing with more mammoth egos than any sane person would ever want to know. Nick had cleverly managed to be away chasing up new business or interviewing potential new clients when all the really hard work had had to be done. Nick was here today, though.

A pang of pain mingled with guilt squeezed her heart.

There had been a time when in her heart, if not in public, she had begun to dream that she and Nick would become a pair. When he had dropped her for Lucy, shortly after she had introduced them, she had naturally done her best to conceal how she felt, assuring herself that hearts did not break, and that if hers was so very badly cracked that she felt it would never mend, then that was her own affair.

Her mental choice of the word affair made her grimace. Nick might have pursued and flattered her, but things had not got to the point where they had exchanged anything more than a few passionate kisses, and thankfully she had not had time to confide in her friends about how she’d felt about him.

But just recently Nick had started to complain to her that his marriage was in difficulties and he felt he had made a mistake. Lucy, too, whilst fiercely loyal to her husband and her marriage, had begun to look strained and unhappy.

After a thorough visual scan, to ensure that nothing needed her attention, Julia was just about to go inside and check on the progress of the interview when Nick came up behind her and put his hand on her bare shoulder again, deliberately caressing the smooth, lightly tanned skin.

‘Don’t, Nick.’ She warned him off.

He ignored her, murmuring tauntingly, ‘Don’t? Don’t what? Don’t stop? You know you want it every bit as much as I do.’

‘That’s not true,’ she denied fiercely. ‘Apart from anything else, you’re married to Lucy.’

‘Don’t remind me.’

Automatically Julia felt herself recoil. These were words she just did not want to hear, just as this was a situation she did not want to be in, but Nick was still holding her, and closing the gap between them as he whispered thickly, ‘Remember how good it was between us? What are you holding back for? Why shouldn’t we enjoy one another when it’s what we both want? I could come to your room later. No one need know, and—’

‘No! It’s over between us, Nick. I mean that. And I won’t change my mind.’

‘Oh, yes, you will,’ he told her softly. ‘You know that, and so do I.’

He was bending his head towards her and in another heartbeat he would be kissing her. Panic and guilt invaded her. The last time he had kissed her had been under a tropical moon in the garden of the luxury hotel where they had met, and where she had assumed they would become lovers. But by the end of the holiday Lucy had been the one Nick had declared he loved. Lucy had been the one he had married. Lucy was his wife. And one of her two closest friends. No way was she going to betray that friendship. Every marriage went through a bad patch.

Somehow she managed to wrench herself away from Nick, but she had barely taken a couple of steps when she felt hard male fingers gripping her arm.

‘No, Nick. I meant what I said,’ she said sharply, without bothering to turn her head.

‘Did you? He certainly didn’t seem to think so—and neither do I!’

‘Silas!’

Her whole body went into shock as she stared up in consternation at the man holding on to her.

‘How—?’ she began, only to be cut off with ruthless efficiency.

‘How much did I overhear? All of it,’ he told her succinctly. ‘How long has it been going on?’

‘Nothing is going on!’

The look he gave her—ice-blue eyes narrowed, cynicism tightening his mouth, even the angle of his head as he turned it toward her—reflected his disbelief. She could feel the old familiar mix of anger and antipathy taking hold of her.

‘It’s true,’ she insisted. ‘I met Nick before he met Lucy, and the relationship he was referring to was that relationship—not that it’s any of your business.’

‘A relationship he obviously now believes you want to resume,’ Silas said silkily.

‘Well, he believes wrong. Because I don’t.’

The way he was looking at her was driving up her own anger. They’d never got on, not really. She only tolerated him because of Gramps, whose title and land he would one day inherit.

In Gramps’s shoes, she doubted that she would have been able to take to her heart so warmly this American outsider who, by virtue of being descended in the male line from Gramps’s younger brother, would one day inherit his title and land. But then she did not possess her grandfather’s sanguine outlook on life.

‘But you do want him.’

It was a taunt rather than a question.

‘No!’ she said furiously. ‘Nick is married to Lucy. And she is my best friend.’

‘I know that. But I also know that if you want what you’re saying you do, you’ll make damn sure he knows that you aren’t available.’

Julia had had enough. ‘By doing what, exactly?’ she demanded angrily.

Silas gave the kind of shrug that only very tall, very muscular, very male men could give. And, as always, being forced to recognise his maleness triggered a frisson of awareness inside her that hiked up her antipathy towards him. He had no right to be so damn sexy. It was somehow all wrong that a man who aggravated her as much as Silas did should possess the kind of physique and looks that made grown women react like hormone-controlled teenagers.

‘By doing whatever it takes. Either by giving up your job—’

‘I won’t do that,’ Julia interrupted him irritably. ‘Especially as Lucy’s already lost Carly, now that she’s married to Ricardo and expecting a baby. I can’t leave as well.’

‘—or by making sure Blayne knows you aren’t available.’

‘I’ve already told him that I’m not.’

‘But, as he can quite plainly see, you are. On the other hand, if there were another man in your life…’

‘But there isn’t.’

‘So find one who’s willing to pretend to be there for long enough to get Nick Blayne to back off.’

‘What? Like who?’

‘Like me.’

‘What?’ Julia shook her head in violent denial. ‘You? No. No way! Ever. Absolutely not. Anyway, everyone knows that we loathe one another.’

‘It isn’t unheard of for couples to discover that what they thought was love is really loathing, so why shouldn’t we have made the discovery the other way around?’

‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Do you really expect me to agree to pretend that you and I are in a relationship?’

‘I thought you said you wanted to protect Lucy’s marriage.’

‘I do, but not by offering myself up as a sacrifice for you to devour.’

‘Very bacchanalian imagery. Although I confess the thought of you offering yourself up…’

‘I wouldn’t. Not to you. Not ever.’

‘But you would to Nick Blayne?’

‘No!’

‘So prove it.’

Julia glared at him.

‘Just what is this all about, Silas? What’s in it for you?’ she demanded trenchantly. ‘And what on earth are you doing here, anyway? You hate this kind of thing.’

‘I’m here because you’re here.’ Another shrug, more lazily dismissive this time, and the movement of powerful shoulders beneath the linen suit jacket unbelievably and very much unwantedly conjured up images of just such a pair of male shoulders naked, and gleaming in the morning sunlight as their owner arched his equally naked and male body over her own.

Silas naked?

Such an image might not be legally or even morally taboo, but it was certainly not the way she was used to thinking about him. Was this the kind of thing that happened when you were in your mid-twenties and your sex life was an arid desert, refreshed only by watching reruns of Sex and the City and determinedly refusing to study the ads in the back of glossy magazines for purveyors of sex toys?

‘Oh, yes. Of course,’ she agreed wryly, hurriedly banishing her unexpectedly erotic mental images.

But before she could ask him why he was really there, he told her coolly, ‘You should wear a hat in this heat. Your face is burning.’

Maybe it was, but the heat it was giving off hadn’t been caused by the sun, Julia admitted to herself.

That was the trouble with Silas. Much as he filled her with wary dislike and suspicion, she still couldn’t stop herself from being aware of him as a man. And not just any man, but a very dangerously sexy man.

‘What is it you really want?’ she demanded.

‘Well, for one thing I want your grandfather’s peace of mind and continued good health. We both know how much it would upset him if it got into the papers—as it more than likely would—that his beloved granddaughter was involved in a sordid love triangle. And for another…Let’s just say that it would be convenient for me right now to be seen publicly as romantically involved.’

It might not, Silas had decided in his practical way, be in his own best interests to discuss Aimee DeTroite and the problems she was causing him with Julia. There was no need, after all, for her to have to know. And as for Aimee herself—since she continued to take such an unwanted and intrusive interest in his private life, hopefully the discovery that he was now ‘coupled up’ with Julia should send a very clear message to her that she was wasting her time.

Not that that was the only or even the most important reason he had for what he was doing.

‘Well, at least you haven’t claimed that you want me,’ Julia told him.

‘Would you like me to?’

Say it or mean it? Julia felt her heart ricochet from one side of her chest to the other.

‘It might be worth it, just for the pleasure of calling your bluff,’ she told him sweetly.

‘Like Blayne was calling yours, you mean?’ Silas challenged her.

‘I meant what I said to him,’ Julia told him hotly.

‘Then prove it.’

‘I don’t have to prove anything to you.’

‘Not to me, perhaps,’ he agreed, in that mocking way of his that so infuriated her. ‘But I rather think that you do have something to prove to Lucy. She was standing right next to me when Blayne was kissing your neck.’

Immediately, and anxiously, she looked beyond his shoulder to where she could see Lucy, talking to the magazine editor.

‘She saw him?’ she demanded, concern for her friend immediately pushing everything else she was feeling out of the way.

‘Yes.’

Lucy, her lifelong friend. Lucy, who always somehow seemed to be struggling to conceal an inner fragility and vulnerability. Lucy, who would be broken and destroyed by the thought that her husband was cheating on her with her best friend. No way could she allow that to happen, no matter what temporary sacrifices she might have to make herself.

‘Very well, then. I’ll do it,’ she told him impetuously. It would be worth it to protect her friend’s marriage. And to assuage her own guilt?

CHAPTER TWO

‘AH! HERE you are!’

Julia hoped that her expression hadn’t betrayed how very unloverlike and ill at ease Silas’s appearance had caused her to feel, coupled with his warm, husky greeting—somehow as sensually intimate as though he had addressed her in far more loverlike terms—and the weight of Silas’s arm around her shoulders.

‘Missed me?’

Two words and one look, focused on her eyes and then dropping to her mouth, one small touch of male fingers in her hair. Dammit, Silas should have been an actor. He was certainly putting on an Oscar-worthy performance. Even her own body had been taken in by it.

And as for either Lucy or Dorland Chesterfield guessing they were putting on an act—if their expressions of delighted astonishment were anything to go by they were far too excited to notice anything other than what Silas wanted them to see.

‘Jules!’ Lucy squeaked. ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’

Dorland mopped his round sweating face with his handkerchief, and then breathed happily, ‘Oh, my, what a potentially delectable feast of delicious gossip. Billions of dollars, a title, and the fact that the two of you are related. Perfect.’

‘Dorland…’ Julia began apprehensively, but her caution was lost in Silas’s words.

‘We haven’t known for very long ourselves, have we?’

Automatically she turned towards him. He must have been right about the heat, because suddenly she felt distinctly odd, sort of dizzy and light-headed, whilst her heart fluttered in shallow little beats. How was he managing to look every bit as arrogant and potently male as he always did? He was focusing on her with a gaze of such sensual hunger that it actually made the colour rise up under her skin.

‘Jules, you’re blushing!’ Lucy exclaimed, laughing.

This was ridiculous!

‘We said that we were not going to go public yet—remember,’ she told Silas, forcing herself to soften her voice to an unfelt sweetness whilst returning his look with one of her own that was not so much ardent as reproachful.

‘I wasn’t aware that we had,’ Silas countered, causing Lucy to laugh.

‘Just the way you’re looking at Jules says it all, Silas. If ever a man’s gaze said I love you and I want you in bed, yours just did.’

‘Mmm…Well, it has been a while,’ Silas answered shamelessly, and Julia longed for the privacy to tell him exactly what she thought of his enthusiasm for his new role.

‘You’ll have to take some time off from that Foundation of yours and spend it with Julia instead,’ Dorland chipped in.

Julia looked at him in triumph and waited. No way would Silas do that. He was caught neatly in his own lies, and it served him right.

His hand had moved from her shoulder to her neck, and his fingers were stroking into her hair. She had to fight against an instinctive desire to stretch luxuriously into his touch, demanding more of it.

‘That’s exactly what I intend to do. In fact, that’s exactly what I am doing. From now on where Jules goes, I go.’

‘You can’t do that,’ Julia objected, panicking. ‘I’m working.’

The hard fingers weren’t stroking now, but pressing warningly instead.

‘Of course, but not twenty-four hours a day. And when you aren’t working…’

‘Silas, don’t you dare take her away from me until the end of the year,’ Lucy begged. ‘We’ve got so much work on I couldn’t manage without her—especially now that Dorland has asked us to organise his big summer party.’

‘You’ve got her until the end of the year,’ Silas agreed. ‘But, as I’ve just said, where Jules goes, I go—and her off-duty time is mine.’

Lucy burst out laughing. ‘Silas, you must be in love. I thought you hated parties and huge events.’

‘I do, but I love Julia more than I loathe them.’

She had had enough, Julia decided—more than enough, and in spades.

‘Darling, I can’t possibly let you make such a sacrifice. Of course you mustn’t do any such thing. You’d be bored to tears, hanging around waiting for me. And besides, we are going to spend the rest of our lives together.’ She smiled sweetly and waited. She could see the ‘I take no prisoners’ glint in Silas’s eyes, but no way was she going to back down.

‘How could being with you ever be a sacrifice?’ His arm was round her waist and he had closed the distance between them, holding her against him, his free hand resting on her hip, which he was rubbing tenderly in a gesture of supposedly subtle intimacy.

‘No, my mind is made up. Unless Lucy objects, where you go, I go.’

‘Of course I don’t object,’ Lucy assured him.

‘You’ve got the Silverwoods’ combined silver wedding and eighteenth for their son coming up next, haven’t you, Jules? That is going to be huge, I know.’ She hesitated, and then said diffidently, ‘Nick mentioned to me that you’d hinted that you’d like him to give you some support with it, and—’

‘No! I mean, there’s no need for him to do that.’ She could hardly tell Lucy that she had said no such thing, and that Nick had lied to her. ‘Nick must have misunderstood what I was saying.’

Lucy might be looking relieved and smiling, but Julia noticed that Silas certainly wasn’t mirroring Lucy’s response.

‘And don’t forget my end-of-summer bash,’ Dorland broke in.

‘Yes, you’re doing that, Jules,’ Lucy agreed. ‘And I’ll do all the smaller UK-based stuff—which will leave you with just the Sheikh’s post-Ramadan party in Dubai.’

‘Fine.’ Did her voice and face sound and look as tight as they felt? ‘But right now it’s time for the buffet to be served, plus I’ve got to organise champagne for the toast and check that everything’s set for the firework display. So if you’ll all excuse me…’

She turned to walk away and then found that she couldn’t. Silas had somehow taken her hand in his and entwined his fingers through her own in a pseudo-lover’s clasp that effectively locked her to him like a prisoner.

Indignation flashed hotly in the irate glare Jules gave him, turning the normal amber of her eyes to a brilliant speckled gold.

But Silas ignored her outrage, just as he ignored the rejecting shake of her head and the resultant shiny disorder of her blonde hair, with its streaks of dark gold.

‘Silas,’ she began, through gritted teeth, but stopped as he raised their clasped hands to his lips and then opened her palm and pressed a very deliberate and very sensual kiss into it.

Shock, heat, and a surge of lust she would never in a thousand lifetimes have associated with her true feelings towards Silas rampaged through her, leaving her in possession of the unwanted discovery that knees did go weak and that desire was a shockingly unfathomable and treacherous thing.

When Silas released her, her body felt as giddy and unstable as though she had consumed a whole bottle of Cristal champagne. She made a valiant effort not to simply stand and stare at him.

Dorland’s photographers were still swarming all over the place, chasing down celebrities for the photographs that the magazine’s readers pored over so eagerly, and so too were the legions of PRs, make-up artists, hairdressers, personal trainers, dressers, astrologers…No right-thinking superstar would dream of being without his or her entourage.

The white powder so beloved amongst the foibles of the foolish and famous had also been very much in evidence during the big event, and Julia had lost count of the number of times she had refused offers of ‘something’.