by Penny Jordan
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.’