Читать книгу Expecting the Playboy's Heir - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 6

‘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’.

To those who loved reading celebrity magazines the lifestyle of those they read about might seem enviable and glamorous, but the reality was that beneath the glitter and excitement lay a deep and dark abyss into which today’s star could all too easily disappear and be forgotten.

‘Thank God Tiffany relented and allowed Martina to borrow that diamond necklace she’d set her heart on wearing,’ she heard Dorland remark.

‘Only thanks to you,’ Julia pointed out, determinedly not looking at Silas.

‘Well, like I told them, they’d be missing a terrific PR opportunity if they refused,’ Dorland agreed happily.

‘Perhaps they were more concerned about the possibility of missing a few million dollars’ worthy of diamond necklace,’ Silas pointed out dryly. ‘After all, it would not be the first time a star has “lost” a valuable piece of jewellery she’s only had on loan.’

‘Oooh, Silas, that is so naughty of you.’ Dorland pouted theatrically. ‘What kind of ring are you going to give our Julia? Something new and shiny? Or is it going to be a family heirloom? I heard on the grapevine that you’ve hunted down most of the stuff your mutual great-great-grandfather gambled away—and paid enough to cover the national debt of a small country for it,’ he added gleefully.

‘Silas, you haven’t?’ Julia protested.

‘The sapphire and diamond set presented to our great-great-grandmother on her betrothal is of considerable historical value, and as such reassembling it was a worthwhile project.’

Julia’s eyes widened. ‘All of it?’

A certain Indian Maharajah had presented the jewellery to the bride, with whom, as rumour had it, he had fallen passionately in love. The household records her grandfather had shown her when he had told her the story had listed the gift as comprising not just the expected necklace, earrings, bracelets and tiara, but in addition matching jewelled combs and brushes, along with perfume bottles and a gem-studded carrying case. The necklace itself had contained seven sapphires unique in colour and size.

‘All of it,’ Silas agreed.

‘Ah, Julia, my dear, you are so fortunate. Your very own billionaire. What fun!’

Fun? Silas? Julia didn’t think so. No way could she ever envisage using such a lightweight word as fun in connection with a man who was predominantly and dangerously a heavyweight alpha male.

What would he be like in bed?

Her curiosity caught her unprepared with its small provocative question.

‘I must go. I’ve got a meeting with the PR people,’ she fibbed, cravenly making her escape.

Inside the villa, the ‘happy couple’ were still being interviewed, looking anything but happy.

Love! The older she got, the less she believed it actually existed, Jules reflected cynically as she went to warn the caterers that it was time to start serving the buffet.

The villa hired for the anniversary party had originally belonged to an eccentric art collector who had had it built early in the twentieth century to house his collection of Greek and Roman artefacts. It was built on a small promontory overlooking the sea, in a design vaguely reminiscent of a Roman villa, around an enclosed courtyard complete with marble columns and a sunken pool.

The plan was that as the sun set the celebrating celebrities would reaffirm their vows on the sea-facing terrace outside the villa, the light of the sun to be replaced by the light of the one thousand and one candles inside the villa and the inner courtyard.

They had had terrific problems getting the people who owned the villa to agree to the lit candles, and Julia was hoping that she had organised enough candle-lighters to get them all lit at the same time. The idea was that the first one in every ten would be lit first, then the second, and so on until they were all burning.

She just hoped it was going to work.

Her palm was still tingling where Silas had kissed it. Kissed it. He had done much more than that, she reminded herself indignantly, as she remembered the way his tongue-tip had stroked a fiery circle of erotic pleasure over her skin.

His expertise had suggested that he would be a very accomplished lover. But would he be sensual and passionate? Would he give himself to the need he aroused in his partner? Would he…?

Not that she was interested in knowing, of course. No way would she ever flutter her eyelashes and fawn over a man the way she had seen the girls he had brought down to Amberley do.

She had still been a schoolgirl then, resenting the fact that Silas’s annual summer visit to Amberley coincided with her own time there. And aware too that whilst for now Amberley was her home, one day it would belong to Silas.

Now it was not the potential loss of Amberley that hurt, but rather the potential loss of her grandfather. Her mother was the child of his second marriage, and he was in his seventies now, his heart weakened by the serious heart attack he had suffered eighteen months ago.

He was so precious to her, and so loved. He had provided her with the male influence in her life after her parents’ divorce, and at the same time he had given her and her mother a home.

Her mother had remarried three years ago, and, though Jules liked her stepfather, he could never take the place of her grandfather.

What exactly had Silas meant when he had said that it would suit him to be in a relationship? One day he would have to marry, if he wanted to provide an heir for Amberley—and Jules felt sure that he would want to do so. He was in his thirties now, and he was not the kind of man who would flinch from telling a woman that his relationship with her was over.

Like her, Silas had grown up without his father. Not because his parents had been divorced, as her own had been, but because his father had been killed in a freak sailing accident when Silas had only been a few months old.

She looked down at the floor, not wanting to think of Silas as a vulnerable fatherless baby, and then frowned as she studied her shoes. Shopping was her Achilles’ heel and shoes were her downfall, and had been all her life. She still had, in their original shoe boxes, the pretty dancing shoes she had persuaded her mother to buy for her as a child, and tomorrow morning she was hoping to be able to slip away to visit a local shop, where she had heard it was possible to pick up exclusive samples of shoes from one of fashion’s hottest new young designers.

The sun was beginning to set. The celebrity couple emerged on to the steps of the impressive portico to the villa, she with her head thrown back and her throat arched, to reveal the glitter of the Tiffany necklace as she leaned into her husband, and he gazing adoringly down at her. They were presenting a very different image from the one Jules had seen earlier in the day, when she had been screaming at him, accusing him of cheating on her, whilst he had snarled back that she was so self-obsessed he was surprised she had even noticed.

‘It would have been hard not to, darling. Not when the little slut in question was supposed to be my manicurist. Except it wasn’t a nail job she was giving you when I walked into the bedroom and found you with her, was it?’

Now the slender, supple female figure—kept that way, so rumour had it, by a rigorous regime of drugs reinforced by cosmetic surgery—was angled towards her husband’s, whilst his hand rested possessively on her hip.

Jules heard Lucy, who was standing next to her, give a small sad sigh. Poor Lucy, married to a man who had no respect either for her or the vows he had made to her. And where was Nick anyway?

Automatically Julia turned her head to look for him, almost jumping out of her skin when she heard Silas demanding, ‘Looking for someone?’

‘Yes—you, of course, darling,’ she responded with sugary sweetness.

‘Girls, this is great,’ Dorland enthused as he lumbered towards them, mopping the perspiration from his face with a large handkerchief.

The sun was setting, the photographers were busily snapping away as the celebs reaffirmed their vows, and in their tens, twenties and hundreds the lights of the candles glowed against the warm Mediterranean darkness.

Silas looked on, and murmured, ‘What a total farce.’

‘It’s supposed to be very romantic and symbolic,’ Julia pointed out crossly.

‘I’m astonished that you managed to get insurance for something like this.’ Silas grimaced.

‘Nick dealt with the insurance,’ Julia told him absently, before demanding, ‘You didn’t really mean what you said to Dorland and Lucy, did you?’

‘Which bit?’

All of it, Julia was tempted to say, but instead she answered, ‘The bit that went “Where Jules goes, I go”. I mean, it’s bad enough that you said anything to Dorland at all—’

‘Why?’

‘Why?’ She stared at him in disbelief. ‘Silas, Dorland owns A-List Life. He gets off on going public on personal stuff that people want to keep private.’

‘Like Nick Blayne and you, you mean?’

Julia hissed in angry disbelief. ‘There is no Nick Blayne and me.’

‘Blayne doesn’t seem to think that. Which would you rather have, Julia? Dorland publishing a coy announcement that you and I are an item, or Dorland hinting that you and Blayne are having an affair behind his wife’s back?’

‘Neither,’ Julia told him shortly. ‘Silas, you’re going to have to say something to Dorland and…and tell him that you don’t want anyone else to know about us yet.’

‘With the ego-driven photo fodder Dorland’s assembled here, the last thing he’s going to be interested in is us,’ Silas told her derisively.

‘Shush!’ Julia hushed him warningly, looking round quickly to check that no one was standing close enough to him to have overheard him. ‘Lucy’s business is dependent on people like these, and, since I work for her, so is my job.’

She caught his derisive look and felt compelled to demand, ‘What’s your real motive for this, Silas? I refuse to believe that you really intend to spend virtually the whole of the next six months policing me just because you don’t want to see Lucy hurt or because you disapprove of extra-marital affairs.’

‘So you have been having an affair with Blayne, then?’

Julia exhaled noisily and fixed him with a furious amber glare.

‘Oh, that’s just so typical of you—trying to play catch-out by deliberately twisting what I’m saying to suit your own purposes. No, I’m not having an affair with Nick.’

‘Okay, maybe describing it as an affair is going too far. You’ve had sex with him and you want to have sex with him again—is that better?’

‘No, it is not. Just in case you’ve forgotten, Silas, I’m twenty-six—not sixteen.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that I’m plenty old enough to have lost my illusions about what sex is really like. A sixteen-year-old might—just might—be starry-eyed and hormone-driven enough to believe that wonderful, mind-blowing, transports-you-to-another-dimension sex actually exists, and to lust after it and the partner she thinks will supply it for her, but a twenty-six-year-old woman knows the truth.’

‘Which is?’

Julia gave a small dismissive shrug.

‘That the kind of sex we fantasise about as teenagers is just that—a fantasy. Sexual satisfaction isn’t a life-changing experience that transports you to some kind of unique physical heaven, and it certainly isn’t worth betraying a friendship like mine and Lucy’s for. But of course no one wants to admit it. I’m not saying that sex isn’t enjoyable. I’m just saying that after the fantasy sex girls build up inside their heads, the reality can be a bit of a let-down.’

‘It’s an interesting theory, but not one, I suspect, that is shared by the majority of your peers.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ Julia told him darkly. ‘More and more women in their thirties who are in relationships are saying that sex just doesn’t interest them any more.’

‘Mmm, well, to judge by the antics being indulged in by the majority of the guests here this evening, they are not in agreement with you.’

‘Most of them are out of their heads on drink or drugs—or both.’

‘Habits you don’t share?’

‘I’ve seen too much of what they can do. I like a glass of wine with a meal and the occasional glass of champagne, but that’s all. Besides, I couldn’t do my job if I was out of my head on drink and drugs.’

The first of the fireworks exploded above their heads in a shimmer of brilliant falling stars, quickly followed by several others.

‘I understand from Dorland that you’ll be leaving for Italy tomorrow?’

‘Yes, I’m flying to Naples and going from there to Positano for my next job. Silas, there’s no need for you to come with me. Lucy is bound to tell Nick about us, and seeing us together has certainly reassured her. I hate to think of her being hurt.’

‘But ultimately I suspect that she will be, unfortunately,’ Silas warned her. ‘Her marriage to Blayne makes that inevitable.’

Another firework went off in an explosive crackle of noise that caught Julia off guard, and instinctively she took a step closer to Silas. Immediately he put his arm around her, causing her to turn her head to look up at him.

Silas was looking back at her, his head bent towards her own. A frisson of something unfamiliar and yet oddly instantly recognised by her senses gripped her emotions, causing her eyes to widen. She could feel the warmth of Silas’s arm round her and smell the scent of his skin, warm, male, and luring her to move closer to him to breathe it into herself more deeply. A small, sharp spasm of physical shock shook through her. She could feel the rocky, unsteady thud of her own heartbeat. Why had she never noticed before how sexy Silas’s mouth was? His lower lip was sensually full, whilst his top lip was so cleanly cut that she had to subdue a crazy impulse to reach out and trace it with her fingertip.

‘Blayne’s watching us.’

‘What?’

It took several seconds for Silas’s comment to penetrate the disconcerting confusion of her wandering thoughts, and then several more for her to translate it into an explanation of why Silas was continuing to hold her.

And a reason for the downward movement of his head now, at the same time as he drew her against his body and held her there, one hand in the hollow of her back, pressing her into him, the other splayed against the back of her head, supporting it as the lips she had been admiring brushed coolly against her own.

The temptation was too much for her to resist. Silas’s mouth was now hers to explore more intimately. Slowly and carefully she traced their outline with the tip of her tongue. His lips felt cool, and smooth, and firm. A cascade of small quivering shots of delight tumbled down her spine, coupled with a desire for something more. Automatically she moved even closer, and then made a small sound of complaint when Silas stepped back from her.

‘If you were doing that for Blayne’s benefit,’ he began in an almost harsh voice, ‘then—’

‘Nick’s benefit?’ Julia realised that she had completely forgotten about Lucy’s husband. No way did she want Silas to know that, though.

‘I don’t know why you sound so disapproving,’ she told him airily. ‘This whole thing was your idea, after all—although why you should want to protect Lucy…’ A sudden thought struck her. ‘You aren’t doing this for Lucy’s sake at all, are you? So why…? Oh, I get it. You’re using me to—What’s she like, Silas, and why are you going to such lengths to get rid of her?’

‘What?’ He was frowning impatiently now.

‘You heard me,’ Julia persisted. ‘What’s she like, this woman you want to shake off by pretending to be involved with me?’

‘What makes you think there is any such woman?’

‘What other reason could there be?’ Julia answered him practically. ‘Although I must admit you’ve never struck me as the kind of man who’d have any trouble leaving behind anything or anyone he didn’t want any more.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Even Gramps admits that you can be single-minded,’ Julia pointed out. ‘And he dotes on you. Mind you, I would have thought that you’d be looking for commitment instead of trying to avoid it—or wasn’t she the right type to become a countess and the mother of the next Amberley heir?’

‘You’re jealousy’s showing,’ Silas warned her.

‘What?’ Julia gave him an indignant look. ‘No way am I jealous of your women.’

Through the darkness Julia could almost feel his quick, almost bruisingly hard visual inspection of her shadowed face in a silence that suddenly seemed to be packed tight with explosive tension.

‘I meant your jealousy of the fact that ultimately I will inherit Amberley and not you.’

Julia felt her face start to burn. If she kept on like this Silas would probably start thinking that she was secretly in love with him. And she most certainly was not.

‘That’s ridiculous,’ she defended herself. ‘I’ve always known that you will inherit Amberley.’

‘And you’ve always resented me because of it.’

He made it a fact rather than a question.

‘No, I haven’t,’ Julia objected immediately.

‘Liar. Even as a child you went to extraordinary lengths to make it clear to me that I was an outsider.’

Julia frowned. ‘That wasn’t because you’ll inherit Amberley.’

‘No?’

‘No!’ Reluctantly she admitted, ‘Ma told me, when I was about six that if Gramps died then she and I would have to find somewhere else to live because Amberley would be yours. I suppose she just wanted to warn me what the situation was, but for a long time I was afraid that I would come back from school one day and Gramps would be dead. Ma always did her best, but sometimes not having a father hurts.’

‘Tell me about it.’

Julia glanced at him and then said bleakly, ‘Neither of us has had much luck in that department, have we? Your father died when you were only a few months old and landed you with those ancient trustees you inherited from him, and mine took one look at me and left Ma for someone else. Which do you think is worse? Your father being dead or your father being alive but not wanting you?’

To her own irritation, her voice had thickened with the tears blurring her eyes. She had thought she’d talked herself out of this kind of self-pity at junior school.

And even worse than self-pity was the thought of someone else’s pity—especially if that someone else was Silas. To forestall any offer of it she pulled away from him, and was startled to discover how much her body resented its removal from the warmth of his.

‘I’d better go and check that the candles are all put out properly.’ The look he gave her made her point out defensively, ‘I am supposed to be working.’

‘Working?’

‘My job might seem shallow and pointless to you, Silas, and I know that other people envy me because they think I spend all my time mixing with celebrities and partying, but the reality is that neither you nor they appreciate what a tough job this actually is. Lucy’s worked very hard to build up this business, and I owe it to her to do my job as professionally as I can.’

‘By schmoozing rich old men and their plastic-fantastic Stepford Wife women?’ Silas taunted her.

‘That’s unfair. Corporate and event entertainment is big business—and don’t tell me that you haven’t hired event organisers yourself, because I won’t believe you.’

Some of the billions of dollars Silas’s grandmother’s family had earned from oil had been used in his grandfather’s time to set up a charitable arts foundation, which Silas now headed.

Silas gave a small dismissive gesture, his accent suddenly very American as he drawled, ‘Sure. We’ve done stuff—fundraisers at the Met, and in conjunction with the Getty. My mother generally organises them, since she’s the head of our fund-raising committee.’

She saw the gleam in his eyes as he looked at her. ‘She would have been happy to give you a job—you know that.’

Julia made no comment. Like everyone, apart from Silas himself, Julia was slightly in awe of Silas’s charming but formidably organised and successful mother.

‘Lucy asked me first, and I couldn’t let her down.’

‘But you could allow her husband to proposition you?’

Julia’s mouth compressed.

‘Nick and Lucy are going through a bad patch.’

‘And having sex with you was going to be a Band-Aid to hold their marriage together?’

Julia didn’t bother to make any response, simply walking away from him instead, but his words were very much in her thoughts as she checked that all the candles were being doused properly.

She had felt so envious of Lucy when she and Nick had married, and so determined to make sure that no one guessed how she felt, but just lately she had begun to see Nick in a different light, and to feel sorry for Lucy instead of envying her.

In fact, refusing Nick’s blandishments and often openly sexual hints that he wasn’t happy in his marriage had proved to be surprisingly easy. Nick made no secret of the fact that he considered himself to be an accomplished lover, openly boasting to her of the pleasure he could give her, but some instinct told her that in bed he would not be in the same class as Silas.

Her face burned hotly with guilt as she recognised the path along which her thoughts were trespassing. Silas’s sexual expertise or lack of it was not something she should be thinking about or interested in. After all, he had never shown any kind of sexual interest in her.

Until tonight.

Tonight? That passionless brush of his mouth against her own?

Passionless for him, maybe, but she had certainly felt a distinct kick of sexual curiosity galvanising her body.

Don’t even think about going there, Julia muttered warningly to herself, and then jumped as Nick materialised at her side and demanded huskily, ‘Missed me?’

‘Have you been somewhere?’ Julia riposted sweetly. ‘I’ve been too busy to notice—although I expect Lucy will be wondering where you are.’

‘Well, in the morning you can tell her that I spent the night in your bed, if you want to.’

He was standing in front of her, blocking her in, having placed one hand on the column behind her.

‘I’ve already told you, Nick, I’m not interested.’

‘Of course you are. You’ve been acting like a bitch on heat ever since I dropped you for Lucy.’ He was smiling at her as though the words had been a compliment and not an insult, Julia saw, and a surge of angry contempt for him mixed with compassionate pity for Lucy gathered force inside her.

‘Really?’ She kept her voice deliberately light. ‘I must tell Silas that. He’ll be delighted to learn that other men are aware of how much I want him.’

Immediately Nick removed his hand from the column behind her.

‘Silas?’ he demanded. ‘You mean Silas is shagging you?’

‘We are lovers, yes,’ Julia lied firmly. How could she ever have found anything attractive in Nick? Even the way he spoke revealed his contempt for women.

‘Why?’

‘The usual reasons. He’s sexy, and I want him, and—’

‘No, I meant why should he want to shag you?’ Nick told her brutally. ‘With his money he could have anyone he wants.’

Her original distaste for Nick’s comments was rapidly turning into outright loathing for Nick himself.

‘The “anyone” Silas wants is me. And the only man I want is Silas. You, Nick, are married to Lucy. She’s my friend, and—’

Julia protested in shock as Nick suddenly grabbed hold of her upper arms and forced her back against the column, shaking her so hard that she only just avoided banging her head on the hard stone.

‘Are you sure you don’t want it? I think you do. I think you’re gagging for it. And I think I should give it to you hot and hard, right here and now. You owe me, Jules, and I intend to collect—one way or another.’

All of a sudden Julia didn’t just feel angry and repulsed, but actually afraid. There was an ugly sound to Nick’s voice, a miasma of lust and contempt somehow emanating from him. Instinctively she fought to break free of him as he held on to her, twisting and turning, the fragile fabric of her dress tearing beneath his grip. Her furious panic gave her a fierce determination not to give in to him, even though he was hurting her. But it was only when she kicked out at him and her heel caught his leg, that he yelled out in pain and let her go. She could hear him cursing her as he held his calf, and she pushed past him and started to run towards the building and safety, too afraid of him coming after her to turn round to look and see if he was following her.

She was still trembling almost fifteen minutes later in the sanctuary of the ladies’ room, where she pulled off her torn dress and re-dressed in the jeans and tee shirt she had been wearing earlier in the day, which she had stuffed, rolled up, into a bag she had left with the caterers.

There would be bruises on her arms in the morning from Nick’s assault on her.

Assault. The word tasted gritty and unpleasant in her mouth, but he had assaulted her. Would he have raped her if she hadn’t broken free and escaped from him? Julia was not a naive teenager. She knew full well that there was a sordid underbelly to the glamourous celebrity lifestyle depicted in magazines such as A-List Life, but this was the first time its sleaziness had actively touched her. She had spoken the truth when she had told Silas that she neither drank to excess nor took drugs. In addition, she might not be sexually innocent, but she was very firm about maintaining a professional distancing manner when she was working, and she was most certainly not promiscuous. The drink-and drug-fuelled group sex sessions of the type that featured in the lives of many of their clients, as well as in the more down-market tabloids, held absolutely no appeal for her.

But she had not been aware of how dangerous Nick was. He was taking her refusal to have sex with him far more personally than she had expected, treating it as though it were a personal strike against him he had to avenge. Shuddering a little as she remembered the horrible way he had spoken to her, and how frightened he had made her feel, Julia bundled her torn dress into the bag that had held her jeans and top. Suddenly Silas’s constant presence for the rest of the summer felt more comforting than burdensome. Not, of course, that she would ever tell Silas himself as much.

Along with Lucy and Nick, as well as the catering staff and virtually everyone else who had accompanied them to Majorca, Julia was staying at a small budget-priced hotel in one of the main holiday resorts. She had planned to get a lift back to the hotel with Lucy and Nick but now she knew that nothing would persuade her to do so. Instead she would have to blag a lift with one of the contractors.

‘Jules, have you seen Nick anywhere?’

She tensed as she heard the anxiety in Lucy’s voice as she came hurrying toward her.

‘Not recently,’ she answered truthfully.

‘He might still be with Alexina Matalos, then,’ Lucy sighed. ‘She wants us to quote for her husband’s fiftieth birthday party. Oh, and Silas was looking for you. I’m so pleased about the two of you.’

‘Not as pleased as I am,’ said a deep voice.

‘Oh, Silas, good. You’ve found her.’ Lucy laughed as he materialised beside them out of the darkness.

‘What happened to the dress?’ he asked Julia as he smiled in acknowledgment of Lucy’s statement.

‘I changed it. Jeans are more practical for putting out candles than chiffon.’

‘How much longer will it be before you’ve finished here?’

‘I’m virtually done, but there’s no need for you to hang around waiting for me, Si…darling,’ she emphasised, conscious that Lucy was listening to them.

‘How are you planning to get back to the hotel?’ he asked, ignoring her hint.

‘Oh, I’ll get a lift with one of the contractors,’ Julia told him airily.

‘Fine. I’ll come with you.’

With her?

She knew they were supposed to be an item, but surely that was taking things too far? Especially when he would then have to make his way back to wherever it was he was staying, which she presumed must be the same ultra-exclusive boutique hotel in Palma as Dorland.

‘Well, now that you two have made contact with one another, I’d better go and find Nick,’ Lucy announced.

‘There’s really no need for you to come back to the hotel with me,’ Julia repeated as soon as Lucy had gone.

‘Julia, we’re going now, if you’re coming,’ one of the contractors called out.

‘Can you fit both of us in?’ Silas asked him.

‘Sure.’

Silas’s hand was splayed across the small of her back, urging her forward.

It was funny how, though Silas’s hand held far more hard strength than Nick’s, she somehow wanted to relax into his touch rather than shrink back from it. That might be funny, but what was definitely not was the discovery that, instead of moving forward, she really wanted to turn sideways instead, and move closer to Silas.

Why? she derided herself, deliberately trying to whip up awareness of her own foolishness. So that she could get another look at his mouth? Another taste of his mouth? But her body’s reaction, far from being an appropriate recognition of her folly, was a wilful misunderstanding of the message she was sending it. It, it seemed, would very much like another taste of Silas.

When had she become the kind of woman who actively liked courting danger?