Sommersgate House (Ghosts and Reincarnation #2)(87)

Julia had no time to react or to do anything because the next thing she knew, her hand was taken in a firm, almost painful grip and she heard an iron-edged, velvet-cloaked, deep voice growl in her ear, “We’re going.”

That’s when she knew she was in trouble.

Chapter Sixteen

Julia’s Realisation

Douglas Ashton, Baron Blackbourne, was not happy.

“I’ll kill her.” These were Douglas’s thoughts but they were uttered by his friend, Oliver, who was standing at his side.

For the last half an hour, Oliver and Douglas had witnessed a display of womanly wiles so practised and successful that Douglas had no doubt his phone would be ringing off the hook tomorrow.

Which meant, tonight, after he was finished with Julia, thoroughly finished with her, he was going to leave her exhausted, na**d body in his bed and then throw every phone in the whole damned, bloody house in the bin.

Jealousy, and he knew exactly what the feeling was, there was not a thing vague about it, was eating at him. A fine, red film of fury had long since glazed his vision. The only thing that stopped him from striding across the room and dragging her from the building was the scene he knew it would cause.

He’d spent the last three weeks calmly, he thought, patiently, he felt, waiting for her to come to him. He thought, if he allowed her some space, she’d come around to his way of thinking. If he let her have a moment to think, to settle in, she’d stop being so bloody-minded and realise she wanted him.

He’d been wrong.

His usually precise strategy had been spectacularly inaccurate. She’d been blithely unaware of him the entire time. Only once or twice he caught her looking at him with what he thought, even so far as f**king hoped, was longing, but nothing came of it. She was impossibly busy, always doing something for her charity, for the kids, nursing an ailing Mrs. Kilpatrick, setting a big bowl of spaghetti and meat sauce in front of a grinning Nick, decorating the damned Christmas tree.

The only time he felt as if he was making any headway was when she’d brought her business plan to him last night. She looked devastated when he’d set it aside without comment and gone back to his work. He thought his actions would make her react, finally (and verbally).

They did not.

The truth was, he’d been inordinately pleased she’d asked him, even trusted him to read it and he’d reached for it the moment she left the room.

That was then, this was now.

If she felt she could flirt, under his nose, with practically every man in the room, it was time for Douglas to disabuse her of that notion.

He’d only made his decision when he caught her eye and she blinked at him, her laughter at something the idiot at her side was saying dying on her face.

He realised that she knew he was displeased and that satisfied him immensely. He watched as, in the next moments, she glanced anxiously at him a couple of times and grabbed Charlotte.

“If you’ll excuse me, Oliver, I think I’ll call it a night,” Douglas muttered to his friend, deciding quickly to make his move before Julia had any chance to make hers.

“Capital idea,” Oliver muttered right back.

Douglas’s angry, ground-eating strides went unfettered by the crowd as they parted to accommodate him. In reality, they had no choice; he would have simply run them over.

In no time at all he had hold of Julia’s hand. She was looking away to where Charlotte had escaped and he leaned forward and told her simply, “We’re going.”

Her frightened eyes flew to his face but he didn’t hesitate. He had her at the cloakroom within moments. He tossed her wrap to her, pulled her out the front door and practically threw her in the back of the Bentley that Carter had, thankfully, parked close to the front steps.

Then they were away into the night.

She waited a few minutes before she spoke. “Is… um, Douglas?” she hesitated. “Is there something wrong?”

He didn’t even attempt to mask his reaction to her as he had been doing, painstakingly, for the past three weeks.

He turned burning eyes to hers.

“Wrong?” he inquired, his voice steely.

The passing streetlights illuminated his face and she shrunk away from him but said, “Yes. Wrong.”

“Why would you think something’s wrong?” With effort, he tore his eyes from her.

He couldn’t look at her in that exquisite dress without tearing it off her equally exquisite body. He imagined Carter, who was now practically like her favoured uncle, would find something amiss in such an action.

When he’d first seen her earlier that night standing in the dining room wearing that remarkable dress and calmly adjusting her glove, he’d nearly lost all control.

He had never, in his entire life, been so enamoured of clothing the way he was of Julia’s… entire… f*cking… wardrobe. It took everything in his power to compose his face and regard her blandly when she finally deigned to give him her attention.

She laughed, breaking into his thoughts, he heard the anxiety in the sound and he was unreasonably glad of it.

“Well, we practically ran out of there,” Julia stated nervously. “I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye.”

She stopped when his head swung around to regard her. “Who, may I ask, of all the many people you met tonight, would you have liked to wish a good evening?”