by Penny Jordan
Unlike Nick. Nick had never made her laugh. Nick’s sense of humour involved being cruelly unkind to and about others.
Nick.
She looked at her upper arms where the flesh was already beginning to show the bruise marks he had left there.
CHAPTER FOUR
JULIA stretched luxuriously beneath the bedclothes. She could smell coffee and she could hear voices. One of them a familiar voice. Silas’s voice, she recognised, at virtually the same second as she realised why she was hearing it.
She opened her eyes and stared towards the now open double doors that led from the bedroom to the sitting room.
‘Are you awake yet, sleepyhead?’
Silas himself appeared in the doorway, his legs bare beneath the hem of the robe he was wearing. He was holding a cup of coffee. Her mouth started to water. Coffee. She could live quite happily on a combination of caffeine and the buzz she got from her shoe habit. And this morning she was going to indulge that habit, having spent all week being tormented with longing for those impossible-to-resist little darlings she had heard about the day she had arrived.
‘If you’re waiting to shower and get dressed, don’t let me stop you,’ she informed Silas pointedly.
‘I’d forgotten how grumpy you are when you wake up. Come and have a look at this view.’
And she’d forgotten how relentlessly and unnecessarily cheerful he was, Julia decided antagonistically.
‘Shouldn’t you put some clothes on?’ she suggested.
‘What for?’
What for? For her peace of mind, that was what! There was something seriously disturbing about having to cope with Silas wandering around in a bathrobe that was both too short and too small, so that it exposed a large amount of tanned, hair-roughened chest, in addition to somehow making it plain that those thighs it was just about covering were hugely powerful and very male. And surely he could have tied the belt a bit more securely, and put something on his feet. There was something distinctly sexual about a man’s bare feet. In fact there was something distinctly sexual about Silas this morning, full-stop.
That familiar frisson of sensation she was feeling right now, which she had always previously put down to healthy antagonism, had somehow astonishingly morphed into a staggeringly acute sexual awareness of him. Beneath the bedclothes her nipples peaked with delight, ready and willing to show him the effect he was having on them, whilst the tension gripping her lower body made her wonder hollowly if she was on the point of losing her sanity.
How could she be lusting after Silas? She knew it had been a long time since she had last had sex, and it was true that she couldn’t even remember the last time she had woken up to find a semi-naked man wandering around, but this semi-naked man was Silas, for heaven’s sake. Silas, who had laughed out loud the first time he had seen her dressed up to go out on a date. Silas, who had threatened to ‘beat her butt black and blue’ when she had given the pheasants their freedom. Silas, who had threatened even worse violence to her person when he had found two of the greyhounds playing tug-of-war with his favourite Brooks Brothers shirt.
‘I thought you’d prefer to have breakfast up here. So I’ve ordered you some coffee and juice, and I remembered that you like your eggs over easy.’
Coffee. Caffeine. That was what was wrong, Julia told herself feverishly. She was in caffeine shock. She had heard it could do weird things to you, but she hadn’t realised just how weird.
‘Are you sure you’re wearing the right bathrobe?’ she demanded. ‘Only it doesn’t seem to be your size.’
‘Well, if you end up tripping over the hem of yours we’ll have to swap. But until you get out of that bed we aren’t going to know, are we?’
‘I can’t get out of bed with you standing there.’
‘You can’t? Why not? Worried about the effect the Mickey Mouse PJs might have on me?’
‘That was when I was ten,’ Julia told him awfully.
‘So was the teddy bear hot water bottle, but last time I visited the old guy there it was, hanging up along with the others.’
Muttering at him, Julia mentally cursed herself for getting into bed naked in the first place. It would serve Silas right if she just clean got out of bed starkers. Mickey Mouse PJs indeed. Huh. That would show him.
After all, it wasn’t as though no man had ever seen her naked. Several had, even if right now she could not remember ever having felt this hot-shot tingle of fizzing, trepidation-coated excitement before.
‘Your eggs will be cold,’ Silas warned her.
That was all he knew, Julia decided feverishly. Right now her ‘eggs’ were feeling pretty hot, and ready for the kind of action that led to one and one becoming three. Or maybe even four, if they had twins. She had always thought twins must be fun...
She gave a small yelp of protest against her own thoughts and hurriedly got out of bed, forgetting her nudity in her eagerness to escape from the images inside her head of two adorable dark-haired babies with Silas’s ice-blue eyes.
‘What happened to the tattoo?’
She was very careful not to turn round, but instead to look back over her shoulder as she stood sheltering behind the half-open bathroom door.
‘What tattoo?’
‘The family coat of arms. Mother said you’d had it tattooed across your butt.’
‘I did—for a dare. But it wasn’t permanent. Anything else you want to know?’
‘No, not right now. I guess it tells a guy quite a bit about a woman when he can see that she doesn’t sunbathe in the nude.’
‘Haven’t you heard of sun damage?’ Julia retorted smartly. ‘If I want an all-over tan I have it sprayed on.’
‘Take it from me, the cute white triangles are much more of a turn-on. Any guy would feel good knowing he was getting to see something the world at large hadn’t had access to. I’d forgotten how small you are without those ridiculous shoes you insist on wearing.’
‘Small?’ Julia stepped angrily towards him and then shot back, her face pink. ‘I’m five foot five.’
‘Like I said, I’d forgotten how small you are,’ Silas drawled.
‘Well, I haven’t forgotten what an arrogant, know-it-all you are,’ Julia snapped back at him crossly, before disappearing into her bathroom and firmly closing the door.
To her own disgust she was actually trembling slightly, with a mixture of rage and emotional frustration. How could she have forgotten just how much and how easily Silas had always managed to infuriate her, with that lordly belief of his that everything he said and did was both superior and right?
What must it be like to be so impervious and invulnerable? The problem with Silas was that he had never suffered. But whilst wealth and position had protected him from financial hardship and the rigours of modern-day life, it was surely his nature that had ensured he was impervious to emotional vulnerability and self-doubt. No one had ever successfully challenged his beliefs or made him question them. No one had ever made him doubt himself or what motivated him. Even that wise gentleman her grandfather treated him with respect and deference.
But she wasn’t going to do so! What she wouldn’t give to be around on the day when Silas discovered what it felt like to be human and hurt, Julia decided savagely as she showered and dried.
She pulled on her own waiting bathrobe, which of course was not oversized and meant for a man, but instead exactly the same as the one Silas was wearing.
Of course it was oversized on her, but
the fact that it wrapped round her with fabric to spare and reached the floor was not, in her present mood, a disadvantage.
She found Silas standing beside the open windows of the sitting room, drinking his coffee.
‘There’s a balcony out there, but I’m not sure how safe it is,’ he warned her. ‘Want some coffee?’
‘I’ll pour my own, thanks,’ Julia told him sharply.
‘I’d eat your eggs first.’
‘I don’t eat eggs any more.’
It wasn’t the truth, but it was well worth depriving herself of them to have the joy of rejecting his authority.
But of course Silas wasn’t so easily outmaneuvered.
‘No wonder you look thin,’ he told her disparagingly.
‘I am not thin!’
‘What’s on the agenda for today?’
‘Nothing much, really. The Famous Couple and their people are flying out this afternoon, and presumably, Dorland will be going to see them off safely. But we aren’t involved in that. Lucy and Nick are due to return to England tonight, and, like I said, I’m booked on a flight for Naples.’
‘So that leaves you with a free morning?’
Julia hesitated. She had no intention of handing Silas the opportunity to further deride her by informing him that she intended to spend her free morning indulging in her shoe habit. Why should she, when even her closest friends shook their heads over it so much that secretly she did sometimes feel guilty?
‘Not exactly. I’ve got a few errands to run, some laundry to collect, and I want to go to the bank—that kind of thing.’
‘Fine. I’ll come with you. It will give me an opportunity to look round the old part of the town.’
‘No! I mean, there’s no need for you to come with me. You’d only be bored. I’ve got some paperwork to catch up on as well, and some phone calls to make.’
‘I see.’
Did she really think that he couldn’t work out that she was planning to see Blayne? Silas wondered cynically.
If it hadn’t been for the fact that he knew the other man was flying back to the UK later in the day, whilst he was accompanying Julia to Italy, he might have been inclined to do something about it, but he could see no sense in pushing her into doing something stupid like running off with Blayne.
It was a pity that she hadn’t remained at Amberley after leaving school, riding her horse, doing good works and keeping her grandfather company while she matured enough for him to marry her. He had not been too concerned about her involvement with Prêt a Party because it had freed up time he was able to put to good use in focusing on streamlining the operation of the Foundation.
Now, however, things were different. Now he was ready to put into operation his decision to make her his wife. She was, after all, in so many ways the perfect wife for him. They shared a common history, but their blood tie was not too close. She had virtually been brought up at Amberley, as had her mother, and would have no problem fitting in or running it. Julia, via her family history, understood the duties of a marriage such as theirs. Her grandfather would naturally approve of their union, and, whilst there was no obligation on him to submit his marriage for the older man’s approval, life would be easier all round if he did approve of the woman who would one day run his beloved home.
Not that Silas had any intention of basing himself permanently at Amberley. He was an American, after all, with responsibilities and duties to fulfil to the Foundation established by his own grandfather. Julia, he felt sure, would make an admirable wife in that respect, especially with his formidable mother to guide her. Their children—and there would be children—would grow up in a secure emotional environment, because there would be no divorce. He had already decided that after the birth of their first child he would commission Julia’s portrait, with her wearing the Maharajah’s gift, just like her ancestor.
Naturally, Silas was aware that many people—Julia included—would not appreciate his unemotional and practical view on marriage, but a man who was responsible for ensuring that billions of dollars and an earldom were passed intact down through the generations could not afford the folly of being governed by his emotions.
But now, like a small flaw in the middle of an otherwise perfect diamond, there was Nick Blayne. It was Silas’s belief that a person made his own luck, but he was forced to admit that it had been a bonus in his favour to be in a position to drive a wedge between Nick and Julia and at the same time take advantage of Julia’s loyalty to her friend by proposing their own fake relationship.
He certainly wasn’t prepared to have all his plans disrupted by the inconvenience of Julia getting involved in a messy divorce.
He wasn’t going to press the issue now, though. Blayne would be going back to London with his wife, whilst he intended to make sure that when Julia returned to the UK it would be in order to prepare for their marriage. And he had from now until the end of the year to achieve his goal.
True, there was the irksome and irritating problem of a certain spoiled American heiress who was declaring to anyone who would listen to her, without any encouragement from him, that she was passionately in love with him. It was no secret in old money New York society that there was more than a suspicion of mental instability in her family tree, but Silas had grown impatient of her dramatic and over-emotional behaviour. It wasn’t even as though he had actually dated her—although she seemed to think that the fact that she continually stalked him, turning up uninvited at events she knew he was attending, constituted some kind of relationship. If she had known the first thing about him she would have known that she was wasting her time, and that by sending him a video of herself having sex with two well-endowed musclemen would not tempt him to fall in love with her, as she had repeatedly insisted she knew he would. Silas had no intention of doing anything so impractical as falling in love with anyone.
Still, a beneficial side effect of the announcement of his engagement to Julia was that it would, thankfully, bring Aimee to her senses—or at least what senses she possessed, Silas decided unkindly.
* * *
She had managed to leave the hotel without anyone stopping her to ask where she was going, and Julia could feel her heart starting to beat that familiar little bit faster as she turned into the alleyway that led to the shoe shop.
She stopped guiltily to look back over her shoulder. Of course she should feel ashamed of herself, and no doubt she would later, but right now all she could think of were the shoes. And there they were, in the window, with their darling high delicate heels, and the kind of low-cut front that she knew would show just the right amount of toe cleavage.
She could stand here all day and look at them. But if she did that someone else might buy them, and she couldn’t bear that. Hurriedly she pushed open the shop door.
Over an hour later she left the shop, clutching two carrier bags, her face flushed and pink with happiness and her eyes shining. It had been so impossible to choose between the two pairs of shoes she had fallen for that in the end she had decided she had to have both. They had been just too beautiful to resist.
* * *
‘No Nick, Lucy?’ Silas enquired, putting down the newspaper he had been reading as Lucy walked into the pleasantly shaded patio area at the back of the hotel.
‘No, he had to go into town to attend to a few things. He must have his mobile switched off as well, because I’ve just tried to ring him.’
Her innocent statement confirmed his own suspicions, an
d it was on the tip of Silas’s tongue to suggest cynically that she try Julia’s instead.
‘I hope he gets back soon. Dorland has just been on the telephone to say that there’s a big panic on at the villa. Apparently, the Tiffany necklace has gone missing.’
‘Don’t tell me he’s surprised?’
When Lucy looked puzzled, Silas explained, ‘Martina is known for her acquisitive nature, and it won’t be the first time she’s held on to a piece of loaned jewellery and refused to hand it back.’
‘But Dorland will have to pay Tiffany for it. Because they loaned it to him,’ Lucy protested, looking shocked.
‘I doubt the odd million or so would make much of a dent in Dorland’s bank account, and in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole thing wasn’t some kind of publicity stunt. My guess is that Dorland will have informed the media first, and not the police.’
‘Silas, you are far too cynical,’ Lucy told him gently.
‘It isn’t cynicism, it’s common sense,’ Silas corrected her, glancing at his watch and then putting down his paper. ‘Julia went into town earlier—she should be on her way back by now. I think I’ll take a walk and see if I can spot her.’
‘Julia’s gone in to town?’ Lucy’s forehead crinkled into a small frown. ‘Oh, I thought she said last night that she intended to spend the morning with you?’
‘She’d probably forgotten then about the laundry she had to pick up.’
It wasn’t his business to protect Lucy Blayne’s feelings, Silas reminded himself, but the poor girl was so obviously vulnerable—and besides, it wouldn’t serve his purpose to create suspicion and mistrust between Julia and her best friend.