by Penny Jordan
‘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?
CHAPTER THREE
‘HOLA, SEÑOR.’ The receptionist beamed up at Silas from behind the desk. ‘Here is your key.’
His key? Julia stared at him.
‘You aren’t staying here?’
Silas was a ‘five-star hotel and nothing less’ man. No—correction. Silas was a ‘private villa and his own personal space’ man who, she was pretty sure, had never stayed at a three-star hotel in his life.
‘I’ve booked us a suite and asked them to move your stuff to it from your room. That way Blayne won’t be under any misapprehensions about us or our relationship.’
A suite? Us? Their relationship?
‘Something wrong?’ Silas asked her.
‘Do you really need to ask?’ Julia challenged him as soon as she had got enough breath back to speak. ‘Silas, no way am I going to sleep with you.’
‘Sleep with me?’
‘You know what I mean,’ Julia told him crossly.
‘We’ll discuss it in our suite, shall we?’ Silas suggested in a gentle voice that felt like a very thin covering over very hard steel as it fell against her frazzled nerve-endings. ‘Unless, of course, you feel that having the hotel staff witness a potential quarrel between us is going to add reality to our relationship?’
Since he was already standing next to her, bending towards her in a way that no doubt looked sensually lover-like to their audience but, Julia nastily decided, was just another example of the dictatorial side of his nature she had always disliked, she didn’t have much choice other than to allow him to propel her towards the rackety lift.
‘I suppose this wretched suite is on the top floor,’ she complained as the lift started to lurch upwards.
‘Since Señora Bonita has assured me that it is possible to see the sea from its windows, I imagine that it must be,’ Silas concurred, so straight-faced that Julia had to look at him very carefully to catch the smallest of small betraying quivers lifting the corners of his mouth.
‘And you believed her? The sea is miles away.’
‘No doubt the señora assumes we will be far too busy gazing at one another to concern ourselves over her enthusiastic laundering of reality.’
‘This lift takes for ever, and I’m not even sure that it’s safe,’ Julia complained. For some reason she wasn’t prepared to explain, even to herself, it seemed a very good idea to keep her gaze concentrated on the lift door and not on Silas.
“‘A long, slow ride to heaven” was how the señora poetically described it to me.’
Forgetting her determination not to look at him, Julia turned round and accused him, ‘You’re making that up.’
Silas gave a small shrug.
‘Silas, why are you doing this?’ Julia demanded, then her eyes widened as the lift suddenly shuddered theatrically and then dropped slightly, throwing her off balance and against Silas.
Immediately his arms went round her to steady her, and equally immediately he released her and moved back from her.
‘Something wrong?’
Julia glared at him. What was he trying to imply?
‘This lift isn’t safe,’ she told him.
Silas watched the emotions chase one another across her face. She had always had the most expressive eyes, and they were telling him quite plainly now exactly what she thought. Fortunately, he was rather more adept at guarding his own expression, otherwise she would have been able to read equally clearly in his eyes exactly what he had really wanted to do when he’d had her in his arms.
Her grandfather’s gruff comment to him that he was worried about her had brought him here to Majorca, but ironically it was thanks to Nick Blayne that he was at last able to manoeuvre himself into a position of intimacy with her. Even if that intimacy was, for the moment, merely fictitious.
‘Silas, you can’t possibly really intend to marry Julia,’ his mother had protested unhappily the night they had both attended Julia’s eighteenth birthday.
‘I take it you don’t approve?’ Silas had challenged her.
‘Do you love her?’ his mother had demanded, equally sharply.
‘Sexual love is little more than an emotional virus, and in my opinion should not be used as the basis on which to build a relationship. I have thought for some time that Julia would be the perfect wife for me—once she has matured.’
‘Silas...’
‘I’ve made up my mind. After all, who could possibly be a better wife for me? She knows exactly what her duties would be once I inherit, both as a countess and as the mistress of Amberley. It will make the old boy happy—and tidy up a lot of loose ends. From a practical point of view, a marriage between us makes good sense. She’s too young at the moment, of course. But I don’t want to leave it too long.’
‘Good sense? Silas, you’re talking about marriage as though it’s a...a business deal.’
‘No, Mother, I’m merely being practical. As well as my responsibilities to Amberley, I’ve got to think of the Foundation as well. I don’t want a wife who is going to change her mind and demand a huge divorce settlement. Julia has been born into a tradition of arranged marriages that goes way, way back. She understands these things.’
‘Does she? My money is on her refusing you, Silas. Julia is a very feisty and passionate young woman. And an arranged marriage—that is so archaic!’
‘They worked very well for hundreds of years, and they kept families and property together.’
His mother had sighed faintly and told him grimly, ‘Sometimes you sound more like those dry dusty trustees you inherited from your father than a young man in his twenties. Don’t you care that you will be depriving Julia as well as yourself of sharing your lives with someone you love?’
‘Mother, love is merely an illusion—a delusion, in fact. A marriage built on mutual understanding and shared goals is far more practical, and far more likely to survive.’
‘I doubt that Julia will agree with you. Look at her!’ his mother had demanded, and dutifully Silas had looked across at the short spiky brown-and pink-striped head that had been all he could see of her over her dance partner’s shoulder.
‘Helen said that she came back from school with her belly button pierced and talking about having a tattoo—the family coat of arms, if you please.’
That had been the year Julia had fallen passionately in love with the leader of a local animal rights group, Silas remembered. The love affair might have been short-lived, but the results of it were still very much in evidence. The group, led by Julia, had defied her grandfather’s gamekeeper and ‘rescued’ the
young pheasants he had been rearing, with the result that one could not travel within ten miles of Amberley now without encountering wandering cock pheasants.
It was also this relationship that had been responsible for the five engaging greyhounds Julia had ‘rescued’ and brought home and who now lived a life of luxury, having won her grandfather’s heart via their shared misery at winter rheumatism and their love of a good whisky before bed.
Julia wasn’t eighteen any more, though. And Silas had decided that it was time to put his plan into action. Julia’s grandfather was growing frail, and Silas was very fond of him. It would mean a great deal to him to see his granddaughter married to his heir, Silas knew. Like him, the old Earl was also a very practical man—and what could be more practical than for his heir to marry his granddaughter, tying together the two remaining strands of the family and securing the future of Amberley at the same time?
It was very fortuitous that fate had decided to weigh in on his side and assist him in bringing his plans to fruition. Not that Silas considered that he needed to have fate on his side. He was perfectly capable of constructing his own good fortune.
The lift had finally stopped its sawing motion. Julia got out with relief, not sure whether to be appalled or triumphant when she realised that the ‘penthouse suite’ was actually in the rafters of the house, and that the tiny window in the corridor beside the lift was so low that an adult would have to kneel down in order to be able to look out of it.
She watched whilst Silas inserted the key into the lock of the heavy-looking door, and then opened it.
The room that lay beyond it was furnished as a sitting room, its double doors open to reveal the bedroom that lay beyond it. And a huge bed.
‘Apparently there are two bathrooms,’ she heard Silas informing her. ‘And the sofa in the sitting room area converts to a double bed.’
‘In case we want a foursome?’ Julia couldn’t resist saying lightly.
There was a cold steeliness in the look Silas lanced in her direction.
‘The only kind of bed-sharing foursome I find acceptable is the non-sexual variety with a couple and their two children. And if Blayne’s been dragging you down into that kind of gutter—’
Julia’s face burned.
‘It was just a joke, that’s all. I didn’t mean anything... I suppose you’re expecting me to sleep on the sofa bed?’
‘No. You can take the bed. After all, I’m not the one who has the problem waking up in the morning, am I?’
It was true that she was more of an owl than a lark, Julia knew, and it was also typical of Silas that he wouldn’t have forgotten that as a teenager she had preferred to sleep late in the mornings—especially when she was on holiday.
‘Which side of the bed do you prefer to sleep on?’
Julia gave him a suspicious look. ‘If I’ve got the bed to myself it doesn’t matter, does it?’
Silas exhaled slowly and warningly.
‘Julia, it would help us both if you were able to refrain from looking for a sexual connotation in everything I say. My question about which side of the bed you prefer was provoked quite simply by a desire to know which of the two bathrooms it would make sense for you to use. That is to say, if you sleep on the left-hand side of the bed then, should you need the bathroom during the night, you would probably automatically use the one on the left. On the other hand—’
‘All right, Professor, I get the picture.’ Julia stopped him crossly. ‘Why on earth couldn’t you just say that, Silas?’
‘Why couldn’t you simply answer my question?’
‘This is never going to work,’ Julia told him, raking her hand impatiently through her hair.
‘It certainly won’t work if you don’t want it to,’ Silas agreed succinctly. ‘If we want it to work then it’s up to us both to make sure that it does.’
She certainly didn’t want another run-in with Nick like the one she had had earlier in the evening, But his behaviour towards her had set her wondering just how he treated Lucy, and if in helping to preserve her marriage she was truly doing her friend a favour.
‘There’s no way I want to be the cause of Lucy being hurt,’ she agreed. ‘But if she’s unhappy in the marriage too, then—’
‘Has she told you that she’s unhappy, or are you relying on Blayne for that piece of information?’
‘I haven’t discussed her marriage with Lucy, but—’
‘But you have discussed it with her husband?’ Silas pointed out coolly.
Julia slanted him a sideways and slightly wary glance. He was angry with her now; she could tell that just from the way in which his voice had hardened.
‘This isn’t the eighteen hundreds, Silas, when a woman couldn’t speak to a friend’s husband or have male friends.’
‘It isn’t your friendship that Blayne wants, though, is it?’
She was tired, and a small dull ache at the back of her eyes was steadily becoming an insistent stabbing pain. All she wanted to do was to have a bath and go to bed, not stand here arguing with Silas.
‘Why don’t you climb down off your moral high horse?’ she suggested grittily. ‘After all, you aren’t in this just out of altruism, are you?’
‘What do you mean?’
He went so still so quickly, like a hunter suddenly on the watch, that her own body tensed as well.
‘I mean that aside from wanting to protect Gramps, there has to be something else in this for you.’
‘Such as?’
‘This woman you no longer want, for instance? The one you were happy to take to bed but don’t want to get seriously involved with?’
‘Like Blayne with you, you mean?’
He had relaxed again now, but he was still firing those poisoned darts, with deadly accuracy. Well, she could fire a few of her own.
Giving a small shrug, she told him, ‘If you want to put yourself in the same category as Nick, then go ahead.’
She had known, of course, that he wouldn’t like her comment, but she hadn’t correctly calculated just how much.
When he took a step towards her she found that she was automatically stepping back, and, even more betrayingly, wrapping her arms around herself, her hands on her bruised flesh as though to protect it from further assault.
There was a look now in his eyes that she could not interpret—at least not with her brain. Her emotions were reacting to it with a sudden rush of hot miserable tears that burned the backs of her eyes.
‘I can’t understand what on earth you’re even doing here in Majorca,’ she burst out, exhausted. ‘I suppose it must be something to do with the Foundation?’
There was the smallest of pauses before Silas agreed quietly, ‘Yes.’
‘Another acquisition, I suppose?’ She was just too tired to argue now.
‘In a manner of speaking. Although this one is very special...unique, in fact.’
‘And worth the trouble this fake relationship with me is going to cause?’ Julia asked him wryly.
‘Well worth it,’ Silas confirmed softly, before continuing, ‘Now, which side of the bed?’
‘The left. No, the right... I really don’t mind. Which side do you prefer?’ Julia asked him, and then went bright red. ‘No, I didn’t mean that. What I meant was, which bathroom would you prefer...?’
When he continued to look at her, she bit her lip, and then told him huskily, ‘I can imagine what you’re thinking, but I don’t want to have sex with you, Silas.’
Just the lazy way in which he raised one eyebrow was enough to up her heart-rate.
‘I wasn’t aware that I had invited you to. But, if I had, why would you want to refuse me?’
‘Why?’ Julia took a deep breath and gave him an outraged look. ‘Isn’t it obvious? We don’t mean anything to one another—we
don’t even like one another, never mind lust after each other. And even if we did... Well, it would just be too... Sex carries implications and...and responsibilities. And it’s...’ She was beginning to flounder and she knew it.
Before she could sink any further, Silas told her, ‘You know, Jules, you are beginning to sound more and more like an anguished outdated virgin than the sexually experienced modern young woman I know you to be.’
‘Well, I’m not,’ she told him flatly. ‘Not a virgin, I mean.’
‘So why all the fuss and panic?’
Why indeed? She could hardly answer that question for herself without having to face certain previously unrecognised realities, never mind admit them to Silas.
Instead it was far easier and safer to take refuge in insouciance and say, as light-heartedly as she could manage, ‘Maybe I was worried that my experience wouldn’t match up to your own well-documented expertise. After all, that supermarket chain heiress you dated made it quite plain that she thought you were a real stud...and put that video of the two of you having sex on her website to prove it.’
‘You watched it?’
‘No! But I read about it in the papers.’
‘That was three years ago, and since you never actually saw a face the man in the video could have been anyone. Still, I’m surprised by your attitude. I should have thought you’d have welcomed the opportunity to enjoy my so-called expertise and learn from it.’
Now what was she supposed to say?
Yes, please?
‘Actually, we do have a client who runs, amongst other things, “Learn to love your orgasm” classes,’ she told him truthfully.
‘Learn to what?’
‘You heard me. “Learn to love your orgasm” classes. I suppose it means that you...you know...learn to feel comfortable about...erm... not being in control...’
‘A sort of sexual female primal scream,’ Silas offered, not quite straight-faced.
‘It isn’t funny,’ Julia protested, but the giggles were already rising in her own throat and within seconds she was helpless with laughter herself.
That was the thing about Silas, she acknowledged later, as she luxuriated in a wonderfully deep bath, full of blissfully hot water, safe in the knowledge that the door to her bathroom was firmly locked. No matter how much he infuriated her, somehow he always had the knack of being able to make her laugh. She and Silas definitely shared a similar sense of humour.