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, and 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.
* * *
She really didn’t know which pair of shoes were her
favourite, Julia mused dreamily as she sauntered back to the hotel. True, the
pair she had seen in the shop window had been her first love, and she had had to
have them, but then the assistant had shown her the other pair, and a pang of
such acute longing had gripped her that she had just not been able to choose
between them. Thank heavens she had had the good sense to buy both pairs.
‘Hello, Jules.’
She came to an abrupt and wary halt as the alleyway opened up
into a small square and Nick materialised in front of her. The square was quiet
and empty, apart from two old men sitting outside a small café, both of whom
looked as though they were asleep.
‘I’m just on my way back to the hotel,’ Julia announced, trying
to assure herself that if she acted as though Nick’s aggressive attack on her
had not actually taken place then somehow that would require him to behave
decently.
‘Well, well,’ Nick murmured. ‘Look who’s here.’
Julia gave a small gasp of dismay as she looked across the
square and saw Silas walking purposefully towards them.
‘Let’s see how he likes looking at this, shall we?’
Before she could stop him Nick had pushed her back against the
wall and was kissing her with mock passion, as she fought to break free of
him.
He didn’t release her until Silas’s shadow was falling across
her face, and kept his back to Silas before he turned to saunter triumphantly
away, so that only she could see the cruel satisfaction in his eyes.
‘It wasn’t like it seemed—’ she began shakily, as Silas stood
in front of her, blotting out the warmth of the sun so that she felt so chilled
she actually started to shiver.
‘Do you remember what I threatened to do when you set those
wretched pheasants free?’ Silas asked her, almost gently.
Julia was not deceived; she had heard that dulcet note in his
voice before and knew exactly what it meant.
‘Yes, you said if I ever did anything like that again I’d feel
the flat of your hand on my butt, good and hard. You couldn’t get away with
threatening me like that now. It’s illegal to smack a child.’
‘But you aren’t a child; you are an adult—even if you don’t
seem to possess the ability to reason like one. And right now the best way, in
fact the only way I can think of letting you know how furious you have made me,
would be for me to apply the weight of my hand to that pretty little
derrière
of yours, until it blushes pink with shame
for you.
‘Can’t you see what you’re doing? You said that you didn’t want
to hurt Lucy, and yet you lied to me and to her so that you could sneak out and
meet up with her husband. What if she had been the one to see Blayne pushing you
against that wall as though he were about to take you right there and then?’
There was no gentleness left in his voice now, and Julia
quailed beneath the savage lash of its anger.
She was no weak-willed pushover, though, to be treated like a
child and threatened with the kind of humiliation Silas had just described.
‘I did not sneak out to meet Nick! I’d only just bumped into
him. He kissed me like that deliberately, because he had seen you. He’s angry
because I’ve told him I won’t sleep with him, and now he wants to hurt me and
get at you as well!’
Her voice was trembling slightly with both indignation at
Silas’s accusation and reaction to her own mental image of his open palm,
spanking teasingly and sexily down on her bare behind whilst she tried to squirm
free. She couldn’t help feeling a little bit turned on both by the image and her
own reaction to it. There was something definitely rather naughtily delicious
about the thought of such teasing love-play. Not that she was into anything as
potentially painful as true S and M, but a little gentle game of forfeits with
the kind of ‘punishment’ that would involve her partner indulging in some
pretend bottom-spanking could be fun if she was in the right mood. And with the
right man... A man like Silas?
Julia could feel herself starting to blush a little at the
inner excitement caused by her own thoughts, but Silas soon brought her back to
reality, insisting, ‘You claim you met Blayne by chance, and yet it was obvious
to me this morning, when you said you intended to go into town, that you were
hiding something.’
‘But it wasn’t a secret meeting with Nick,’ Julia
protested.
‘Then what was it?’ Silas challenged her.
Julia looked down at the bags Nick had made her drop.
‘Shoes,’ she muttered guiltily.
‘Shoes?’
Silas looked from the carrier bags to her flushed face and then
back again.
‘You didn’t want me to know you intended to buy
shoes
?’ he questioned, bemused.
Julia could only shake her head. If Silas didn’t know about her
shoe addiction then she certainly wasn’t going to expose herself to his mockery
by telling him.
‘Come on, we’d better get back to the hotel,’ he announced,
reaching down to pick up her bags.
Immediately Julia tried to stop him, not wanting to allow her
precious purchases out of her own control.
‘Julia, I’ll carry them for you,’ Silas insisted, taking hold
of her arm to hold her back so that he could pick them up, but he was gripping
her arm exactly where Nick had bruised it the previous evening, and Julia
couldn’t stop herself from giving a small, agonised gasp of pain.
‘What...?’
The sleeves of her tee shirt just about covered the bruise
marks—or at least they did until Silas pushed one of them up to reveal them.
‘Who did this?’ he demanded quietly.
Julia didn’t even think of trying to lie.
‘Nick,’ she told him shakily. ‘Last night. He was furious when
I told him about you...’
‘So he did this to you?’
The surge of angry protectiveness that gripped him caught him
off guard. Of course no man should hurt a woman, but he was not used to
experiencing such intense or possessive emotions.
He looked across the square in the direction Nick had
taken.
Julia put a restraining hand on his arm. ‘I don’t think he
meant to hurt me, Silas.’
‘But he did. Your arms are black and blue—’
Julia started to laugh.
‘What’s so funny?’ Silas demanded.
Mischievously, Julia reminded him, ‘As my bottom deserved to
be, according to you.’
Silas looked at her. Her lips were parted and her face was
flushed. There was a look in her eyes that told him...
He put down the carriers and said softly, ‘Something tells me
that you find the prospect of a little spanking rather erotic.’
Julia laughed and looked away demurely. ‘You’re the one who
keeps threatening to punish me,’ she told him breathlessly.
Heavens, she couldn’t really be flirting like this with
Silas
, could she?
‘Mmm, but you’re the one who keeps reminding me that I haven’t
carried out my threat as yet,’ Silas murmured. ‘And the one who keeps on
provoking me...’
‘Provoking you?’
‘You certainly provoked me this morning, with that cute, peachy
little butt of yours.’
Now it wasn’t just her flirting with Silas. He was flirting
right back. And the heady excitement of what they were doing was
irresistible.
‘You said I was thin,’ Julia pouted.
‘I guess maybe I didn’t make a close enough appraisal.’
He was actually moving closer to her and reaching behind her,
and—oh, lordy—he was sliding his hand right down her back and cupping—no,
caressing—one firm buttock. Helplessly Julia leaned into him, even her shoes
forgotten.
This was definitely
not
part of his
game plan, Silas recognised as he looked down at her closed eyes and parted
lips. He wanted his—their—kids to be conceived after they were married, not
before.
He bent his head and kissed her briefly, ignoring the look of
disappointment in her eyes when she opened them as he released her.
‘We’d better get back. I saw Lucy at the hotel, and apparently
Dorland’s in a sweat because the necklace he had on loan from Tiffany has gone
missing.’
‘Oh, no! Poor Dorland. Maybe they’ll have found it by now,’
Julia suggested, as Silas picked up her bags. ‘Stuff like that happens all the
time. These big stars have such a huge retinue that no one ever seems to know
what anyone else is doing. One of the PRs has probably put the necklace
somewhere safe.’
She was growing more sexually attracted to Silas by the hour,
Julia admitted to herself—or had the attraction always been there without her
wanting to recognise it?
* * *
‘Oh, there you are. Nick’s gone over to the villa to see
if he can be of any help to Dorland,’ Lucy began as they walked into the hotel,
only to look accusingly at Julia’s carrier bags before exclaiming, ‘Jules—not
more shoes!’
‘I had to have them.’
‘How often have I heard that before? You do realise, I hope,
Silas, that Jules has a very serious shoe habit?’
‘Lucy, wait until you see them. They’ve got the perfect toe
cleavage shape,’ Julia burst out enthusiastically. ‘And the heels—they had one
pair with the cutest little kittens, and another with serious
stilettos...and...’
‘You had to buy them both!’
Julia hung her head.
‘No wonder you snuck out this morning without telling me where
you were going,’ Lucy accused her. ‘You’re going to have to find a way of
restraining her, Silas,’ Lucy warned him, mock seriously.
‘Yes, I think I am,’ Silas agreed gravely, but when Julia
looked across at him the wicked glint in his eyes told her that the kind of
restraint
he
was envisaging had nothing whatsoever
to do with preventing her from buying shoes.
What in the world was happening to her? She didn’t really
know—but she certainly knew what she would like to happen, Julia admitted
ruefully as she looked discreetly but very interestedly at the tell tale bulge
that no amount of expensive tailoring could completely hide.
Sex with Silas. Mmm...
‘Jules, will you please stop looking at Silas like that? You’re
embarrassing me.’ Lucy laughed.
* * *
‘So, tell me some more about this shoe fetish thing
you’ve got.’
It was after lunch and Lucy and Nick had gone upstairs to pack,
and Julia and Silas were still sitting outside, finishing the bottle of wine
Silas had bought to go with the alfresco lunch they had eaten in the small hotel
courtyard.
‘It isn’t a fetish. It’s just that I can’t help wanting to buy
shoes.’
‘Uh-huh. And toe cleavage? What exactly is that?’
Honestly—men. They didn’t know anything! Julia shook her head
and explained in a kind voice, ‘It’s when the front of your shoe shows a bit of
your toes, and it’s seriously sexy.’
‘Show me?’
‘I can’t—not properly anyway—because I’m not wearing the right
kind of shoes,’ Julia told him. ‘You’ll see what I mean when I wear them.’