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 arm round her and smell the scent of his skin, warm, male, and luring her to move closer to him to breathe it into herself more deeply. A small, sharp spasm of physical shock shook through her. She could feel the rocky, unsteady thud of her own heartbeat. Why had she never noticed before how sexy Silas’s mouth was? His lower lip was sensually full, whilst his top lip was so cleanly cut that she had to subdue a crazy impulse to reach out and trace it with her fingertip.
‘Blayne’s watching us.’
‘What?’
It took several seconds for Silas’s comment to penetrate the disconcerting confusion of her wandering thoughts, and then several more for her to translate it into an explanation of why Silas was continuing to hold her.
And a reason for the downward movement of his head now, at the same time as he drew her against his body and held her there, one hand in the hollow of her back, pressing her into him, the other splayed against the back of her head, supporting it as the lips she had been admiring brushed coolly against her own.
The temptation was too much for her to resist. Silas’s mouth was now hers to explore more intimately. Slowly and carefully she traced their outline with the tip of her tongue. His lips felt cool, and smooth, and firm. A cascade of small quivering shots of delight tumbled down her spine, coupled with a desire for something more. Automatically she moved even closer, and then made a small sound of complaint when Silas stepped back from her.
‘If you were doing that for Blayne’s benefit,’ he began in an almost harsh voice, ‘then—’
‘Nick’s benefit?’ Julia realised that she had completely forgotten about Lucy’s husband. No way did she want Silas to know that, though.
‘I don’t know why you sound so disapproving,’ she told him airily. ‘This whole thing was your idea, after all—although why you should want to protect Lucy…’ A sudden thought struck her. ‘You aren’t doing this for Lucy’s sake at all, are you? So why…? Oh, I get it. You’re using me to—What’s she like, Silas, and why are you going to such lengths to get rid of her?’
‘What?’ He was frowning impatiently now.
‘You heard me,’ Julia persisted. ‘What’s she like, this woman you want to shake off by pretending to be involved with me?’
‘What makes you think there is any such woman?’
‘What other reason could there be?’ Julia answered him practically. ‘Although I must admit you’ve never struck me as the kind of man who’d have any trouble leaving behind anything or anyone he didn’t want any more.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Even Gramps admits that you can be single-minded,’ Julia pointed out. ‘And he dotes on you. Mind you, I would have thought that you’d be looking for commitment instead of trying to avoid it—or wasn’t she the right type to become a countess and the mother of the next Amberley heir?’
‘You’re jealousy’s showing,’ Silas warned her.
‘What?’ Julia gave him an indignant look. ‘No way am I jealous of your women.’
Through the darkness Julia could almost feel his quick, almost bruisingly hard visual inspection of her shadowed face in a silence that suddenly seemed to be packed tight with explosive tension.
‘I meant your jealousy of the fact that ultimately I will inherit Amberley and not you.’
Julia felt her face start to burn. If she kept on like this Silas would probably start thinking that she was secretly in love with him. And she most certainly was not.
‘That’s ridiculous,’ she defended herself. ‘I’ve always known that you will inherit Amberley.’
‘And you’ve always resented me because of it.’
He made it a fact rather than a question.
