Jillian coughed politely. "That's not really something I can discuss at the moment." Her gaze darted nervously away from the camera.
"Is that because they're in a relationship?"
"Er … " Jillian's cheeks flushed a bright scarlet. "I can't comment on any of that."
"Oh." The news anchor quickly recovered. "So these displays will be around through the end of February of the coming year?"
"Yes." Jillian beamed again, clearly more comfortable with this topic.
The remote dropped from his hand as he gazed at the screen in shock. Jillian had assured him that the photos wouldn't be leaked; she'd only mentioned that a winning photographer would choose a charity. He'd foolishly assumed that meant she wouldn't have allowed the photos to be publicly promoted at her own desire. The cunning woman had left that part out of their discussion.
He would never have agreed to the shoot if he'd known this would happen. A picture of them lip-locked like there was no tomorrow was going to be everywhere in London. Because the press had recognized him in the photo, it would hit every major paper, tabloid, and news outlet in hours, which meant that his father would see it, but worse than that, his mother and Kat's father would see it …
"Bloody hell."
He and Kat were royally fucked.
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Chapter 1
They're not going to find out about us." The deep masculine voice cut through Kat Roberts's muddled thoughts.
She jerked her gaze away from the street view through the kitchen window of the expensive town house that belonged to her father's new fiancée.
It didn't feel like home, not yet. But it was the place she would be coming to for her future holidays while studying at Cambridge over the next three years.
"Kat." That voice, with the British accent, was the reason she'd gotten into this mess. That voice and its owner were completely irresistible, impossibly seductive.
A tall, dark, and sexy dream. No woman could resist that. She hadn't been able to. After a daring kiss in the middle of a pub on a snowy night, she'd been falling hopelessly in love with him more and more each passing day. With a man she couldn't have.
Tristan Kingsley. A twenty-five-year-old, British bad boy, business student at Cambridge, and the future Earl of Pembroke. He was also a heartbreaker, and a man whose bed she couldn't stay out of. But most important, he was going to be her stepbrother. Her father and his mother had just gotten engaged and were already in the midst of wedding plans, much to Kat and Tristan's dismay.
I can't sleep with my stepbrother, but I have. Too many times. If Dad finds out …
Tristan cleared his throat. "Don't worry. I promise they'll never know we're together."
When she looked his way, her mouth went dry and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, making it hard to form words. He always had that effect on her, and she finally understood that expression about a man being a tall drink of water. He made her thirsty just looking at him.
He was leaning one hip against the kitchen counter, arms crossed over his chest. The black trousers showed off his long, muscled legs, and the white dress shirt he wore was unrestrained by a tie. His collar was open enough to reveal his throat. She loved to grip that collar when she dragged his head down for a kiss. She glimpsed the sensitive patch of skin she'd spent last night kissing because it made his hips jerk when he was inside her. But her feelings for him were so much more than just physical.
There was something almost impossible to describe about him, the way he stood there, at ease, yet every part of his body hard as steel. The sculpted features of his face undeniable in their beauty, but brought to life with his intense, often quiet study of the world around him. He carried an air about him that said he was a cut above those around him, but not in a bad way. It was more like he was an old-world gentleman trapped in the modern day but refusing to let the modern world change him.
When he touched her and she kissed him … well, it was a case of a match meeting a keg of gunpowder. They just went up in flames. No man had ever made her feel so wild, so out of control … so alive. She couldn't walk away from someone like that, even knowing how risky it was that their parents could find out about them. Sure, she and Tristan weren't blood relations, but her dad would freak out in the worst way if he found his nineteen-year-old daughter sleeping with a man like Tristan.
He was a sex god, and he was hers. But the man she couldn't stay away from, the man who made every hot, dirty, wild fantasy come true, was off-limits.
It was a nightmare.
"What are we going to do?" Kat slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. It was early in the morning, and the house was quiet except for the occasional creaks and groans of the wood settling, the way old houses often did. Every little sound had Kat tensing, ready for their parents to pop out from behind a door and say, "Gotcha!"
"We'll have to explain the photos, but we have to keep the truth about us buried." Tristan pushed away from the counter and took the chair beside her.
The photos.
If only there hadn't been evidence, they might've kept their relationship a secret a little while longer. But a photographer at Harrods' department store had talked them into portraying Snow White and Prince Charming in a fairy-tale-themed charity photo competition. The set had been amazing, so lifelike, with a glass coffin shimmering with frost and snow. She'd rested her head on a white satin pillow and lay waiting for Tristan to come and kiss her awake.
Early this morning, the winner had been announced on TV. The photo of her and Tristan in a snowy glen, their mouths a hairsbreadth apart from a kiss, eyes locked in desire and longing, and the words SOME LOVES LAST FOREVER beneath them, was going to be plastered on every flat surface in London from bus stops to billboards.
How was she going to explain that to her dad? The last thing Kat wanted to do was take away the one bit of happiness her father had found since her mother had left him years before. He was happy with Tristan's mom, and Kat didn't want to jeopardize that.
"Did you call Jillian?" she asked Tristan.
Jillian was the photographer who'd convinced them to pose for photo shoot. When they'd gone to Harrods to buy a Christmas tree for his mother's town house, neither of them had expected the day to take the turn it had. It'd been just the two of them, no parents watching their every move.
Minutes after they'd finished changing out of their costumes, paparazzi had tracked Tristan down inside the store. Cameras flashing, questions being shouted, all of it had bombarded Kat, and she'd been overwhelmed. Tristan had kept his calm, and they'd hidden out in a broom closet until the reporters had lost track of them.
She'd gotten a taste of the way Tristan lived, the pressures of his life, and the nonstop involvement of the media in his personal life. As an aristocrat and member of the peerage, his life wasn't truly his to live, in many ways, and it had become never more apparent that she didn't fit into his glittering world of titled men and women with grand estates and lofty expectations.
"I did call her. She said it would blow over. She didn't think they'd do a news feature so soon." Tristan scrubbed a hand though his dark hair and sighed.
Her heart gave a little tug inside her chest. She'd never seen him look so defeated or anxious. From the moment she'd met him, he'd been cool, seductive, playful. Almost a force of nature, in some ways. Nothing cut through that hardened, bad-boy exterior.
Nothing, until me. She'd pushed him away twice, trying to deny the intense attraction between them, but she'd only made them both miserable. Last night, she'd decided that she could do it, deceive their parents and hide her relationship with Tristan, so he'd come home. They'd spent all night making love. The kind of lovemaking that changed a person's life forever.
Then they'd woken up to this nightmare. Jillian's photos were everywhere, and now there was a news feature. Her dad and Tristan's mom would see them and connect the dots.
"We'll tell them a half-truth." Tristan reached under the table and placed a hand on her thigh, the touch a little sensual, but she could see in his eyes that he wasn't thinking about sex.
And that was why she adored him. He was a man she could love, someone who wouldn't use her and throw her away. The fire that burned between them was unstoppable, and the intensity had deepened in a way she'd never imagined.