Sommersgate House (Ghosts and Reincarnation #2)(52)

“Marriage?” she whispered, her eyes narrowed. “Have you lost your mind?”

He shook his head and she stared at him in disbelief, casting around for anything that would get this crazy scheme out of his head.

“So what do you do when you…” she stopped, flustered, then started again, “need to see to your needs? Or when I do for that matter? You just ignore my lovers and I ignore yours?”

“There’ll be no lovers,” he announced implacably, almost forcefully, his hands furthering the point by coming to grip her upper arms firmly.

“A platonic marriage of convenience with no release?” She couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. She couldn’t believe he of all people was making this suggestion. He was a known womaniser, even a celebrated one.

“I never said the marriage would be platonic, Julia.”

At that, she jumped away with a surprised yelp and slammed against the wall.

Trapped, she could do nothing but stare at him in astonishment.

“You’re saying you want to marry me, marry me. As in a real, full-blown, consummated union of the souls?”

“There’ll be a union but I cannot guarantee it’ll be of souls,” he replied and she gaped at him open-mouthed.

Then she snapped her mouth shut.

“No,” she shook her head, unable to cope with this latest announcement, “no way, no.”

“May I ask why?” he queried calmly.

“Because it… is… insane,” Julia enunciated her words carefully then she demanded, “Step back.”

“No,” he replied and her panic rose. “You’ll have a good life, I promise you that,” he vowed softly, changing tactics, his voice was now coaxing. “Anything you want, you’ll have. Command of this house, control of the children. We’ll offer all of this to William as my heir or we could make our own –”

“Children?” she asked, her voice a high-pitched squeak.

“If you wish,” he replied as if it mattered less to him than… her mind raced but she couldn’t think what mattered to him at all.

“This is nuts, insane, crazy. Absolutely beyond –”

“I’m not insane, Julia. I’m a busy man who has assumed a terrible responsibility I’d rather not have. Not because I don’t care about those children but because my responsibility for them means my sister is dead.”

That shut Julia up and she stared at him in wonder. It was the first time he’d ever spoken of it with any emotion. His dark eyes were darker, if that could be possible, and blazing.

“God,” she breathed, “you’re doing this for Tamsin.”

“Not just for Tamsin, no.”

“Then why?” she asked, incredulous and curious at the same time.

“Because I need a wife and because you’ll make a good one.”

She stared at him in open-faced shock at that unlikely pronouncement.

Then she gathered control of herself and declared, “I’ve tried marriage before and I’m here to tell you that I am not good at it.”

“You were fine, it was the bastard you chose who wasn’t good at it,” he informed her like he was their long-term marriage counsellor and could make such a judgement.

She tried another tactic. “Okay, then I don’t want to be good at it. I don’t want to be married to you or… or anyone!”

He leaned in, put his hand up on the wall at the side of her head and when he spoke his voice was low and smooth. “Then I’ll have to persuade you to change your mind.”

She knew exactly what he meant.

Again, she narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you dare!”

“Do you think I can’t?”

“Of course you can’t,” she scoffed.

Mistake.

Big, big mistake.

Because it was then, Douglas kissed her. Pressing his body full against hers and with nowhere to run, no way to get away, she was forced to endure.

And she had to endure. She had to prove she was immune to him. She had to prove that the morning in the dining room was a fluke.

But the heat shimmered through his body to hers, her br**sts were pressed against his hard chest, his mouth was teasing, tempting.

Dear Lord.

Julia managed to keep her mouth resolutely shut and tried to think of things that were very unsexy. She thought of the doodle art he patronised for the gallery and that was a good start. Pleased with herself, she stiffened her body in resistance.

Douglas, unfortunately, was not deterred. His arms, which had slid around her, pulled her from the wall and moulded her to him, br**sts against chest; soft, yielding h*ps against hard, straining ones. One arm held her firmly about the waist while the other hand slid down, softly, gently, over her bottom.

His hand at her bottom felt good. Oh God. Too good.

As tingles shot across her skin, she thought harder about the doodles then her mind flashed to him handing her a glass of champagne. Then to him sitting in the Bentley and talking about her perfume. Then to him holding her face gently in his hands and stroking her jaw and bottom lip while she told her tale of woe last night. Her resolve quickly flagged as the tingles matured to delicious tremors.

She groaned in despair, low in her throat, and pressed her hands against his chest, pushing him away while his teeth nibbled at her lips in an illicit and enticing way, his one wayward hand had moved up her side and was now stroking, slowly, achingly slowly, against the side of her breast.