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could sink any further, Silas told her, ‘You know, Jules, you are beginning to sound more and more like an anguished outdated virgin than the sexually experienced modern young woman I know you to be.’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.
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
J
ULIA
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.