Authors: Kristen Ashley
That was
yesterday. Tonight was different.
The
scratching was back, intent and determined.
He
was out there.
It was late
and although Monique was gone, the scratching and everything on
Julia’s mind wouldn’t allow her to sleep. She was averaging less
than five hours a night and she was constantly exhausted.
Douglas had
disappeared, no word, no sign. Pride was now stopping her from
calling both him and Samantha to find out what he was doing and
when he would return. He should be home; he’d been gone for over
two weeks. He was supposed to be helping her with the kids and he’d
not even had the courtesy to phone. She was furious and the minute
she saw him again she was going to let him have it.
She had to
think that way. If she allowed herself to think of the way he
sometimes looked at her and the fact that he kissed her…
Kissed
her!
She still
couldn’t fathom it.
She’d been
right, a game was afoot. Perhaps he was trying to get her to slip
up, seem like the gold-digging monster his mother thought she was.
Perhaps he was going to try to prove her unworthy of taking care of
the children by seducing her, making her look the brazen hussy.
Why, she did not know, as he had little interest in the children
but who knew exactly how Douglas Ashton’s mind worked.
If she wasn’t
careful, he would succeed. It had been a long time for her. She’d
not had a lover since Sean. When Douglas had kissed her, she kissed
him back, she didn’t want to but she couldn’t help herself.
He was a good
kisser.
No, he
wasn’t a good kisser, he was an
excellent
kisser.
And he was
Douglas.
There was a
time when she’d dreamed of him kissing her, when she’d have
practically paid him to do it (not that he’d need or take the
money). She never imagined that he would even want to kiss her, let
alone do it.
And it
had been good, oh so very good to have that hard, sexy mouth with
its mysterious scar on hers. He tasted like… like… well, he tasted
like all man and like
sex
,
touching her tongue to his, feeling his tongue in her mouth, the
only thought on her mind was having his mouth on her body,
everywhere
on her body. He barely had to
try before he broke through her struggle and she was clinging to
him and kissing him back like a wanton.
His body was
so warm and hard and…
She
shook her head to clear it. She would not,
could
not think of Douglas. She had to get a hold of
herself. She could not live the next more than a decade panting
after the Lord of the Manor. It was humiliating and she wouldn’t
allow it to happen, not ever again.
The scratching
was fraying her nerves and when she could take it no more, she
threw the covers back and stalked to Douglas’s study to get a
whisky to soothe her tension and hopefully put herself to sleep.
She’d get drunk if she had to, sleep on the sofa in the study to
avoid the infernal, constant scratching. She threw her lilac,
cashmere robe on over her pyjamas and headed out of her room.
The draperies
were open in the study and moonlight lit the room. The moon was so
huge and bright, she didn’t bother with the lights, walked directly
to the drinks cabinet and picked up the decanter she’d seen Douglas
using. She was reaching for a glass when she heard a deep, baritone
voice.
“Can’t
sleep?”
She jumped,
whirled and almost dropped the decanter.
“Douglas!”
Julia cried in surprise.
He was sitting
in the armchair that faced away from the door, towards the window.
He was lounging with feet up on the table in front of him like he
had no cares in the world. As if he didn’t have three children he
was supposed to be looking after. As if he didn’t have a harridan
of a mother who was making everyone’s life at Sommersgate a living
hell and had been for years. As if none of this touched him.
Something
about this made her both angry and on edge.
She could see
the glint of a glass in his hand.
“Julia,” he
replied calmly in greeting.
“You’re home,”
she noted unnecessarily, feeling foolish.
She should be
shouting at him because he’d abandoned her to the fate worse than
death that was Monique. But something made her stop.
Something made
her nervous.
He didn’t
reply, just looked up at her, his face partially in shadow,
partially lit by the moonlight and the effect was decidedly
ominous.
“What are you
doing, sitting in the dark?” she asked.
“Thinking,” he
answered shortly.
She stood
there mutely, holding the decanter and waiting for him to say
more.
He didn’t.
She twisted,
put the decanter down and turned back. In that time, he had
silently risen from his chair and her faint feeling of dread
intensified as ominous turned menacing.
What was he up
to now?
She wanted to
escape but curiosity got the better of her.
And curiosity
killed the cat, Patricia always used to say.
“Thinking
about what?” she asked.
He walked
forward a couple of steps, stopped a foot away and leaned into
her.
She inhaled
sharply with alarm but he only reached around her, grabbed the
decanter she had just set down and refreshed his drink.
He leaned back
in to replace it and she said belatedly, “Let me get out of your
way.”
“Thinking,”
his deep voice rumbled, rooting her to the spot as he paused to
take a sip from his glass, “about a woman who would give up
everything to come and look after three children. Children who
lived thousands of miles away from her and who, upon reflection,
she barely knew. Why would someone do that?”
“Do you mean
me?” Julia asked stupidly.
He didn’t
answer.
She slid
away from him in order to put a healthy distance between them. He
was frightening her with his tone and his question and with his
overall
mood
.
Douglas didn’t
have moods. Douglas glided through life guarded by Teflon.
“Why do you
think I did it?” she inquired, trying to read him.
“You tell me,”
he responded.
She’d escaped
to stand in front of his desk, putting furniture between them. He
had to turn and his face was again illuminated by the moonlight. It
was blank, not naturally so, carefully so.
“I did it
because Tamsin and Gavin asked me,” Julia gave the obvious reply.
Again, he said nothing and her nervousness made her go on. “It
isn’t as if I barely knew the children. We spoke on the phone
regularly. We spent holidays together, I’d come over for vacations.
You know, you saw me every time I came out.” That was true, she
realised in distracted surprise; he did. Regardless of how busy he
was, every visit she made to England, (save for the ones during the
time of his Disappearance) she saw Douglas.
He leaned his
hip against the drinks cabinet and continued to watch her, his face
showing nothing.
“Can we turn
on a light?” she requested, her voice pitched a little high, her
tone sounding damnably, and obviously, uneasy.
“No.” Her
anxiety escalated at his answer and he continued. “You’ve damaged
your career, sold your home, left everything behind. It seems a
noble sacrifice, extraordinarily so. One might say unbelievably
so.”
“Gavin would
have done it for me,” she told him, her anxiety beginning to fade
to anger as the intent behind his questions began to dawn on
her.
What
exactly
was he
inferring? Did he think this was a walk in the park for her? Did he
honestly think that she was thrilled to ruin her life, stall her
career and live with his Attila the Hun of a mother in this
beautifully scary but incredibly ostentatious house that was so far
from a home it wasn’t funny?
He didn’t
respond, just kept watching her and she felt compelled to
explain.
“In fact, he
did do it for me, in his way. We take care of each other, we always
did,” she said with feeling.
“Gavin gave up
his life for you?” he asked, not attempting now to hide his
disbelief. “When did this happen?”
“With Sean.
And he didn’t actually ‘give up his life’ but if he’d been caught…”
Julia stopped, her voice still sounded nervous but it had a
slightly belligerent edge.
“Webster?
How?” Douglas questioned, his tone still disbelieving.
Julia shook
her head. Could she trust him with this information? Obviously he
was leading somewhere with this attack and she had the distinct
impression she knew where he was leading. He’d obviously taken
Monique’s accusations to heart and, with so very much time away to
think about it, he decided that Julia had come for the same reason
that Monique did. The kiss, she had to admit, undoubtedly
helped.
As angry as
that ridiculous and arrogant assumption made her, she felt it
necessary to explain if just to throw it in his face. Gavin was now
gone and even if it changed Douglas’s opinion of her brother, so be
it. She’d never spoken to Gavin about it, never told him she
suspected but, with Gavin gone, what would it matter?
“I told Gavin
what Sean had… done to me,” she started tentatively.
“The
cheating,” Douglas interrupted and she was surprised he knew.
But then
again, everyone knew, even Julia.
She shrugged
lightly and said, “Yes, that…” she paused not willing to share more
so she finished, “and other things.”
His eyes
narrowed before he put his drink down and took two steps toward
her.
She took two
steps back and her bottom hit the edge of his desk. She might be
angry but she didn’t like talking about this and, furthermore, it
was none of his concern. She was beginning to be furious he’d put
her in a position of defending herself, just as furious as she was
scared of him. He was frightening when he was brooding like this,
immensely so.
“What other
things?” he asked when he’d stopped advancing.
“Nothing,
just… it seems silly now but at the time –”
“Yes?” he
prompted, obviously not willing to read into it and demanding she
explain.
“Sean could be
very cruel,” Julia replied simply.
Cruel was not
the word for it. It was more than cruel the way Sean spoke to her.
It was soul-destroying.
“How so?”
Douglas pushed.
She sighed
deeply, wondering how to explain it, wondering if a man like
Douglas could even understand it.
“He didn’t hit
me or anything.” Her eyes skittered away. She hated to think about
it and had learned, over the years, to set it aside. It wasn’t her,
she told herself over and over again, it was Sean. He was
destructive, belittling, domineering and hurtful. She didn’t make
him that way; he’d been that way always. It still made her heart
ache, even after all these years. “He would just… say things,” she
finished.
Silence.
Then in a tone
that was far quieter, dangerously quiet, Douglas pressed, “Say
things?”
“Yes, things.
Stupid things. Hateful things. Just things meant to hurt me. They
were just words and it was silly of me to give them power.”
Again, he was
silent and she felt it sounded foolish even to her own ears.
“He was mean,
a bully,” she explained, exasperated with herself at the memory of
how she was so weak, and further angry at herself for letting those
long ago memories tear at her insides now. “He just wanted me to
feel small so he could be the big man. I shouldn’t have let it
affect me but I loved him and wanted him to love me, so I did. Let
it affect me, that is. It was… he meant to… it just…”
She didn’t
know how to explain it to a powerful, rich, fit, tall, famous man
who probably never felt small in his whole life. She couldn’t put
into words how, day-by-day, Sean would methodically strip her of
her sense of humour, sense of fun, sense of self until he shredded
her confidence and made her a quivering wreck. He never stopped and
she was always scared of him, scared of what he would say and do,
scared to do anything to cause his displeasure. She became scared
of what others felt about her and wondering if they saw all the
same ugly things Sean seemed to see. She had to build a wall of
bravado around her simply so she could function.
Then, of
course, there was the long and difficult journey to find herself
again when Sean was finally gone.
“
Hurt,
” she
finished and her voice betrayed vividly in that one word just how
destructive Sean had been.
Douglas walked
forward again and Julia had no place to retreat so she held her
ground.
“And what did
your brother do about this?” he asked, his tone still quiet, the
menace somehow gone but that didn’t make her less frightened. If
anything, she was more so because now his quiet tone was also,
shockingly, gentle.
He looked down
on her; he was so close she could feel the heat from his body. She
ignored it and pressed on and she did this in an effort to finish
this discussion and move on.
“Well,” she
hesitated, staring in his expressionless face, “after the divorce,
he waited, of course, until I’d ended it, I think… I don’t know,
but I think that Gavin arranged for Sean to have an accident.”
Douglas went
very still and she rushed on, “I have no way of knowing if he did
it but the police said it was suspicious, the accident. They
interviewed me a couple of times, thinking I might have had
something to do with it, but they never could prove anything. Gavin
was so angry, he hated Sean anyway and when I told him some of the
things Sean had said. Well… once, when I was in high school, some
boys were talking about me, saying nasty things and Gavin took them
on, all five of them. They eventually beat the hell out of Gavin
but he did a good deal of damage before they overcame him and,
after that, the talk stopped. It was known from then on that I was
Gavin Fairfax’s sister and no one was to mess with me. It played
havoc with my social life, let me tell you.” It was a lame joke but
she was trying to lighten the very heavy mood.