by Penny Jordan
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—r
emember,’ 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.