Living the Charade

And now, feeling like a liferaft set adrift, she understood why people did crazy things for love. She understood what her father had been talking about when he’d said that it was too painful to visit her after she had left with her mother. He’d had his heart broken. The sudden wave of understanding made her eyes water.

Blinking back the memories, she smiled at Katrina and pretended she’d been listening—and then at her next words she really was.

‘I never thought I’d see my brother so in love. He can’t stop looking at you.’

Couldn’t stop looking at her? He hadn’t looked at her once.

Well, okay, she had seen him glancing her way a couple of times, but she’d have called that glowering at her, not the benign version of looking. And he’d turned away each time before their eyes could properly connect.

Which was ironic, because she was supposedly here to prevent him from being accosted by every unattached woman at the ball, and since they weren’t behaving like a couple the women had been lining up to get to him in droves. In fact, if she’d known he was going to completely ignore her, she would have brought a numbering system to help the whole process go more smoothly. Sort of like a speed dating service. Give everyone their five minutes and wait for him to choose her replacement.

Miller felt a spurt of anger take over from the intense pain that thought engendered, and latched onto it.

He might not want to continue things with her, but that didn’t give him the right to treat her so poorly. It wasn’t as if she would suddenly develop into a needy person who wouldn’t let him go. She had known it was going to end. What she hadn’t expected was that she would enjoy being part of a couple so much. She had been so fiercely independent for so long the thought hadn’t occurred to her. But with Valentino... He made her feel so much. Made her want so much. Was that why he was avoiding her so thoroughly? Had he guessed her guilty secret?

The thought that he had horrified her. She might feel as if she was ready to face a lot of things she hadn’t before in her professional life, but personally she was very far from ready to “squeeze the fear”. Certainly not with a man who would never feel for her the same way she felt for him.

But it was one thing to deceive her workplace about her relationship with Valentino, which she had hated doing, and quite another to deceive Valentino’s loving family. She didn’t think Valentino would care if she corrected Katrina.

‘Actually, Valentino isn’t in love with me.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure. He might not have said—’

Miller put her hand on Katrina’s arm. ‘I only met Valentino last week. The only reason I’m here with him now is because he helped me out of a bind and pretended to be my boyfriend.’ She saw Katrina’s eyes widen with unbridled curiosity and shook her head. ‘Don’t ask—it’s a long story. Suffice it to say I became unwell, Valentino helped me out, and...here I am. But I’m going home tomorrow.’

Katrina turned compelling blue-grey eyes on her. ‘But you have feelings for my brother?’

Miller inclined her head. No point in denying what was clearly obvious to Valentino’s sister. She shrugged. ‘Like every other woman on the planet.’

‘So you’re going to do what he does?’ Katrina gently chided.

Miller’s brow scrunched in confusion.

‘You’re going to make light of it?’

‘No, you’re wrong. I don’t make light of anything.’ She gave a self-deprecating laugh. ‘I’m way too serious; it’s one of my faults.’

Katrina pulled a face. ‘I know my brother can be intensely brooding and unapproachable at times, but don’t give up on him. He’s protected himself from getting hurt for so long I think its second nature to him now. After our father’s death he changed, and not—’

‘Giving away family secrets again, Katrina?’

A biting voice savagely cut through his sister’s passionate diatribe and Miller cringed. He stood behind her, legs braced wide and larger than life in a superbly cut tuxedo that made him look even more like a devil-may-care bad-boy than his jeans and T-shirts.

‘Hello, little brother. Are you having a good time?’ Katrina greeted him merrily.

‘No. And I need to go. I’ll see you at the track tomorrow, no doubt. Miller?’

He held out his arm for her to take and Miller did so, but only because she didn’t want to cause a scene in front of his sister. ‘It was lovely to meet you, Katrina.’