and focusing on the business at hand, as he would have with any other ex-lover. But he wasn’t. He found that the urge to go after her was nigh on impossible to resist. Especially when that obsequious man who’d had the temerity to put his hand on her had followed her like a besotted lap dog.
Kaden made his excuses to the still bewildered-looking director of the club and forged his way through the crowd, ignoring the not so hushed whispers as he passed people by. His blood was humming. He felt curiously euphoric, and also uncultivated—like a predator in the desert, an eagle soaring high who had spotted its prey and would not rest until it was caught.
It was an uncomfortable reminder of how he’d felt from the moment he’d first met Julia, when sanity had taken a hike and he’d given himself over to a dream as dangerous as any opiate could induce. But this feeling was too strong to deny or rationalise.
The fact that she represented a lapse in emotional control he’d never allowed again only caught up with him when he reached the lobby and saw it was empty.
She’d disappeared.
So what was this desolation that swept through him? And what was this rampant need clawing through him to find her again? He was done with Julia. He’d been done with her a long time ago.
Disgusted with himself for this lapse, Kaden called up his security, determined to get out of there and do what he’d set out to do all along: forget that he’d ever seen Julia Connors—he scowled, Somerton—again.
He had no desire to revisit a time when he’d come very close to letting his heart rule his head, forgetting all about duty and responsibility in the pursuit of personal fulfilment. He didn’t have that luxury. He’d never had that luxury.
Julia could see the tube station entrance ahead of her, not far from the building she’d just left behind. The nighttime London air was unbearably heavy around her now, making a light sweat break out over her skin and on the nape of her neck under her hair. Thunder rolled ominously in the distance. A storm had been threatening all evening, and if she’d been in better humour she might have appreciated the symbolism. The clouds that had been squatting in the distance were now firmly overhead—low, dark and menacing.
What was making the weather feel even more ominous was the fact that she’d been having disturbing dreams of Kaden lately. Maybe, she wondered a little hysterically, she was hallucinating?
Hesitating for a moment, Julia stopped and looked back. But the building just sat there, innocently benign, lights blazing from the windows, laughter trickling out into the quiet street from the party. She shuddered despite the heat. She wasn’t going back now anyway. She couldn’t face Nigel again. Or Kaden’s coolly sardonic demeanour. As if nothing had ever happened between them.
Part of her longed to just jump in a cab, but her inherently frugal nature forbade it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a sleek black shape slow to a crawl alongside her—just before she heard the accompanying low hum of a very expensive engine. At the same time as she turned automatically to look, lightning forked in the sky and the heavens opened. She was comprehensively drenched within seconds, but had become rooted to the spot.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as she registered the Royal Burquati flag on the bonnet of the car. She noticed the tinted windows, and the equally sleek accompanying Jeep, which had to be carrying the ubiquitous security team.
As she stood there getting soaked, unable to move, Julia was helplessly transported back to a moment in the hot, winding, ancient streets of Burquat City, when, breathless with laughter, her hand clamped in Kaden’s, they’d escaped from his bodyguards into a private walled garden. There, he’d pushed her up against a wall, taken away the veil hiding her face, and kissed her for the first time.
It was only when the back door of the car opened near her and she saw the tall figure of Kaden emerge that reality rushed back. Along with it came her breath and her heartbeat, and the knowledge that she hadn’t been hallucinating.
The rain seemed to bounce off him, spraying droplets into a halo around him. The sky was apocalyptic behind him. And still that rain was beating down.
Julia backed away, her eyes glued to him as if mesmerised.
“Julia. Let me give you a lift.”
Her name on his tongue with that exotic accent did funny things to her insides. A strangled half-laugh came out of Julia’s mouth. “A lift?” She shook her head, “I don’t need a lift—I need to go home. I’ll take the tube.”
She dragged her gaze from his and finally managed to turn around. Only to feel her arm caught in a hard grip. Electric tingles shot up and down her arm and into her groin just as more lightning lit up the sky. She looked up at Kaden, who had come to stand in front of her. So close that she could see his jet-black hair plastered to his skull, that awesomely beautiful face. Those black eyes. Rain ran in rivulets down the lean planes, over hard cheekbones.
“What do you want, Kaden? Or should I address you by your full title?” Bitterness and something much scarier made her feel emotional. “You gave a very good impression back there of not knowing who I was. I’m surprised you even remember my name.”
Through the driving rain she could see his jaw clench at that. His black gaze swept her up and down. Then his hand gentled on her arm, and perversely that made her feel even shakier. With something she couldn’t decipher in his voice he said, “I remember your name, Julia.” And then, with easy solicitude, “You’re soaked through. And now I’m soaked. My apartment isn’t far from here. Let me take you there so you can dry off.”
Panic mixed with something much more hot and primal clutched Julia’s gut. Go with Kaden to his apartment? To dry off? She remembered the way his look had changed earlier to something ambiguous. It was a long time since she’d felt that curl of hot desire in her abdomen, and to be reminded of how this man had been the only one ever to precipitate it was galling. And that he could still make it happen twelve years on was even more disturbing.
She shook her head and tried to extricate her arm. “No, thank you. I don’t want to put you out of your way.”
His jaw clenched again. “Do you really want to sit on a tube dripping wet and walk home like a drowned rat?”
Instantly she felt deflated. She could well imagine that she did resemble a drowned rat. Mascara must be running down her cheeks in dark rivers. He was just being polite—had probably seen her and hadn’t wanted to appear rude by driving past. His convoy would have been far too conspicuous to go unnoticed.
“I can take a taxi if I need to. Why are you doing this?”
He shrugged minutely. “I wasn’t expecting to see you … it’s been a surprise.”
She all but snorted. It certainly was. She had no doubt that he’d never expected to see her again in his lifetime. And thinking of that now—how close she’d come to never seeing him again—Julia felt an aching sense of loss grip her. And urgency. She wouldn’t see Kaden after tonight. She knew that. This was a fluke, a monumental coincidence. He was just curious—perhaps intrigued.
He’d been her first lover. Her first love. Her only love?
Before she could quash that disturbing thought Kaden was manoeuvring her towards the open door of his car, as if some tacit acquiescence had passed between them. Julia felt weak for not protesting, but she knew in that moment that she didn’t have the strength to just walk away.
