The sun was beginning to set. The celebrity couple emerged on to the steps of the impressive portico to the villa, she with her head thrown back and her throat arched, to reveal the glitter of the Tiffany necklace as she leaned into her husband, and he gazing adoringly down at her. They were presenting a very different image from the one Jules had seen earlier in the day, when she had been screaming at him, accusing him of cheating on her, whilst he had snarled back that she was so self-obsessed he was surprised she had even noticed.
‘It would have been hard not to, darling. Not when the little slut in question was supposed to be my manicurist. Except it wasn’t a nail job she was giving you when I walked into the bedroom and found you with her, was it?’
Now the slender, supple female figure—kept that way, so rumour had it, by a rigorous regime of drugs reinforced by cosmetic surgery—was angled towards her husband’s, whilst his hand rested possessively on her hip.
Jules heard Lucy, who was standing next to her, give a small sad sigh. Poor Lucy, married to a man who had no respect either for her or the vows he had made to her. And where was Nick anyway?
Automatically Julia turned her head to look for him, almost jumping out of her skin when she heard Silas demanding, ‘Looking for someone?’
‘Yes—you, of course, darling,’ she responded with sugary sweetness.
‘Girls, this is great,’ Dorland enthused as he lumbered towards them, mopping the perspiration from his face with a large handkerchief.
The sun was setting, the photographers were busily snapping away as the celebs reaffirmed their vows, and in their tens, twenties and hundreds the lights of the candles glowed against the warm Mediterranean darkness.
Silas looked on, and murmured, ‘What a total farce.’
‘It’s supposed to be very romantic and symbolic,’ Julia pointed out crossly.
‘I’m astonished that you managed to get insurance for something like this.’ Silas grimaced.
‘Nick dealt with the insurance,’ Julia told him absently, before demanding, ‘You didn’t really mean what you said to Dorland and Lucy, did you?’
‘Which bit?’
All of it, Julia was tempted to say, but instead she answered, ‘The bit that went “Where Jules goes, I go”. I mean, it’s bad enough that you said anything to Dorland at all—’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ She stared at him in disbelief. ‘Silas, Dorland owns A-List Life. He gets off on going public on personal stuff that people want to keep private.’
‘Like Nick Blayne and you, you mean?’
Julia hissed in angry disbelief. ‘There is no Nick Blayne and me.’
‘Blayne doesn’t seem to think that. Which would you rather have, Julia? Dorland publishing a coy announcement that you and I are an item, or Dorland hinting that you and Blayne are having an affair behind his wife’s back?’
‘Neither,’ Julia told him shortly. ‘Silas, you’re going to have to say something to Dorland and…and tell him that you don’t want anyone else to know about us yet.’
‘With the ego-driven photo fodder Dorland’s assembled here, the last thing he’s going to be interested in is us,’ Silas told her derisively.
‘Shush!’ Julia hushed him warningly, looking round quickly to check that no one was standing close enough to him to have overheard him. ‘Lucy’s business is dependent on people like these, and, since I work for her, so is my job.’
She caught his derisive look and felt compelled to demand, ‘What’s your real motive for this, Silas? I refuse to believe that you really intend to spend virtually the whole of the next six months policing me just because you don’t want to see Lucy hurt or because you disapprove of extra-marital affairs.’
‘So you have been having an affair with Blayne, then?’
Julia exhaled noisily and fixed him with a furious amber glare.
‘Oh, that’s just so typical of you—trying to play catch-out by deliberately twisting what I’m saying to suit your own purposes. No, I’m not having an affair with Nick.’
‘Okay, maybe describing it as an affair is going too far. You’ve had sex with him and you want to have sex with him again—is that better?’
‘No, it is not. Just in case you’ve forgotten, Silas, I’m twenty-six—not sixteen.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that I’m plenty old enough to have lost my illusions about what sex is really like. A sixteen-year-old might—just might—be starry-eyed and hormone-driven enough to believe that wonderful, mind-blowing, transports-you-to-another-dimension sex actually exists, and to lust after it and the partner she thinks will supply it for her, but a twenty-six-year-old woman knows the truth.’
‘Which is?’
Julia gave a small dismissive shrug.
‘That the kind of sex we fantasise about as teenagers is just that—a fantasy. Sexual satisfaction isn’t a life-changing experience that transports you to some kind of unique physical heaven, and it certainly isn’t worth betraying a friendship like mine and Lucy’s for. But of course no one wants to admit it. I’m not saying that sex isn’t enjoyable. I’m just saying that after the fantasy sex girls build up inside their heads, the reality can be a bit of a let-down.’
‘It’s an interesting theory, but not one, I suspect, that is shared by the majority of your peers.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ Julia told him darkly. ‘More and more women in their thirties who are in relationships are saying that sex just doesn’t interest them any more.’
‘Mmm, well, to judge by the antics being indulged in by the majority of the guests here this evening, they are not in agreement with you.’
‘Most of them are out of their heads on drink or drugs—or both.’
‘Habits you don’t share?’
‘I’ve seen too much of what they can do. I like a glass of wine with a meal and the occasional glass of champagne, but that’s all. Besides, I couldn’t do my job if I was out of my head on drink and drugs.’
The first of the fireworks exploded above their heads in a shimmer of brilliant falling stars, quickly followed by several others.
‘I understand from Dorland that you’ll be leaving for Italy tomorrow?’
‘Yes, I’m flying to Naples and going from there to Positano for my next job. Silas, there’s no need for you to come with me. Lucy is bound to tell Nick about us, and seeing us together has certainly reassured her. I hate to think of her being hurt.’
‘But ultimately I suspect that she will be, unfortunately,’ Silas warned her. ‘Her marriage to Blayne makes that inevitable.’
Another firework went off in an explosive crackle of noise that caught Julia off guard, and instinctively she took a step closer to Silas. Immediately he put his arm around her, causing her to turn her head to look up at him.
Silas was looking back at her, his head bent towards her own. A frisson of something unfamiliar and yet oddly instantly recognised by her senses gripped her emotions, causing her eyes to widen. She could feel the warmth of Silas’s