‘Like Blayne was calling yours, you mean?’ Silas challenged her.
‘I meant what I said to him,’ Julia told him hotly.
‘Then prove it.’
‘I don’t have to prove anything to you.’
‘Not to me, perhaps,’ he agreed, in that mocking way of his that so infuriated her. ‘But I rather think that you do have something to prove to Lucy. She was standing right next to me when Blayne was kissing your neck.’
Immediately, and anxiously, she looked beyond his shoulder to where she could see Lucy, talking to the magazine editor.
‘She saw him?’ she demanded, concern for her friend immediately pushing everything else she was feeling out of the way.
‘Yes.’
Lucy, her lifelong friend. Lucy, who always somehow seemed to be struggling to conceal an inner fragility and vulnerability. Lucy, who would be broken and destroyed by the thought that her husband was cheating on her with her best friend. No way could she allow that to happen, no matter what temporary sacrifices she might have to make herself.
‘Very well, then. I’ll do it,’ she told him impetuously. It would be worth it to protect her friend’s marriage. And to assuage her own guilt?
CHAPTER TWO
‘AH! HERE you are!’
Julia hoped that her expression hadn’t betrayed how very unloverlike and ill at ease Silas’s appearance had caused her to feel, coupled with his warm, husky greeting—somehow as sensually intimate as though he had addressed her in far more loverlike terms—and the weight of Silas’s arm around her shoulders.
‘Missed me?’
Two words and one look, focused on her eyes and then dropping to her mouth, one small touch of male fingers in her hair. Dammit, Silas should have been an actor. He was certainly putting on an Oscar-worthy performance. Even her own body had been taken in by it.
And as for either Lucy or Dorland Chesterfield guessing they were putting on an act—if their expressions of delighted astonishment were anything to go by they were far too excited to notice anything other than what Silas wanted them to see.
‘Jules!’ Lucy squeaked. ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’
Dorland mopped his round sweating face with his handkerchief, and then breathed happily, ‘Oh, my, what a potentially delectable feast of delicious gossip. Billions of dollars, a title, and the fact that the two of you are related. Perfect.’
‘Dorland…’ Julia began apprehensively, but her caution was lost in Silas’s words.
‘We haven’t known for very long ourselves, have we?’
Automatically she turned towards him. He must have been right about the heat, because suddenly she felt distinctly odd, sort of dizzy and light-headed, whilst her heart fluttered in shallow little beats. How was he managing to look every bit as arrogant and potently male as he always did? He was focusing on her with a gaze of such sensual hunger that it actually made the colour rise up under her skin.
‘Jules, you’re blushing!’ Lucy exclaimed, laughing.
This was ridiculous!
‘We said that we were not going to go public yet—remember,’ she told Silas, forcing herself to soften her voice to an unfelt sweetness whilst returning his look with one of her own that was not so much ardent as reproachful.
‘I wasn’t aware that we had,’ Silas countered, causing Lucy to laugh.
‘Just the way you’re looking at Jules says it all, Silas. If ever a man’s gaze said I love you and I want you in bed, yours just did.’
‘Mmm…Well, it has been a while,’ Silas answered shamelessly, and Julia longed for the privacy to tell him exactly what she thought of his enthusiasm for his new role.
‘You’ll have to take some time off from that Foundation of yours and spend it with Julia instead,’ Dorland chipped in.
Julia looked at him in triumph and waited. No way would Silas do that. He was caught neatly in his own lies, and it served him right.
His hand had moved from her shoulder to her neck, and his fingers were stroking into her hair. She had to fight against an instinctive desire to stretch luxuriously into his touch, demanding more of it.
‘That’s exactly what I intend to do. In fact, that’s exactly what I am doing. From now on where Jules goes, I go.’
‘You can’t do that,’ Julia objected, panicking. ‘I’m working.’
The hard fingers weren’t stroking now, but pressing warningly instead.
‘Of course, but not twenty-four hours a day. And when you aren’t working…’
‘Silas, don’t you dare take her away from me until the end of the year,’ Lucy begged. ‘We’ve got so much work on I couldn’t manage without her—especially now that Dorland has asked us to organise his big summer party.’
‘You’ve got her until the end of the year,’ Silas agreed. ‘But, as I’ve just said, where Jules goes, I go—and her off-duty time is mine.’
Lucy burst out laughing. ‘Silas, you must be in love. I thought you hated parties and huge events.’
‘I do, but I love Julia more than I loathe them.’
She had had enough, Julia decided—more than enough, and in spades.
‘Darling, I can’t possibly let you make such a sacrifice. Of course you mustn’t do any such thing. You’d be bored to tears, hanging around waiting for me. And besides, we are going to spend the rest of our lives together.’ She smiled sweetly and waited. She could see the ‘I take no prisoners’ glint in Silas’s eyes, but no way was she going to back down.
‘How could being with you ever be a sacrifice?’ His arm was round her waist and he had closed the distance between them, holding her against him, his free hand resting on her hip, which he was rubbing tenderly in a gesture of supposedly subtle intimacy.
‘No, my mind is made up. Unless Lucy objects, where you go, I go.’
‘Of course I don’t object,’ Lucy assured him.
‘You’ve got the Silverwoods’ combined silver wedding and eighteenth for their son coming up next, haven’t you, Jules? That is going to be huge, I know.’ She hesitated, and then said diffidently, ‘Nick mentioned to me that you’d hinted that you’d like him to give you some support with it, and—’
‘No! I mean, there’s no need for him to do that.’ She could hardly tell Lucy that she had said no such thing, and that Nick had lied to her. ‘Nick must have misunderstood what I was saying.’
Lucy might be looking relieved and smiling, but Julia noticed that Silas certainly wasn’t mirroring Lucy’s response.
‘And don’t forget my end-of-summer bash,’ Dorland broke in.
‘Yes, you’re doing that, Jules,’ Lucy agreed. ‘And I’ll do all the smaller UK-based stuff—which will leave you with just the Sheikh’s post-Ramadan party in Dubai.’
‘Fine.’ Did her voice and face sound and look as tight as they felt? ‘But right now it’s time for the buffet to be served, plus I’ve got to organise champagne for the toast and check that everything’s set for the firework display. So if you’ll all excuse me…’
She turned to walk away and then found that she couldn’t. Silas had somehow taken her hand in his and entwined his fingers through her own in a pseudo-lover’s clasp that effectively locked her to him like a prisoner.
Indignation