Expecting the Playboy's Heir. PENNY JORDAN

spent the night in your bed, if you want to.’

      He was standing in front of her, blocking her in, having placed one hand on the column behind her.

      ‘I’ve already told you, Nick, I’m not interested.’

      ‘Of course you are. You’ve been acting like a bitch on heat ever since I dropped you for Lucy.’ He was smiling at her as though the words had been a compliment and not an insult, Julia saw, and a surge of angry contempt for him mixed with compassionate pity for Lucy gathered force inside her.

      ‘Really?’ She kept her voice deliberately light. ‘I must tell Silas that. He’ll be delighted to learn that other men are aware of how much I want him.’

      Immediately Nick removed his hand from the column behind her.

      ‘Silas?’ he demanded. ‘You mean Silas is shagging you?’

      ‘We are lovers, yes,’ Julia lied firmly. How could she ever have found anything attractive in Nick? Even the way he spoke revealed his contempt for women.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘The usual reasons. He’s sexy, and I want him, and—’

      ‘No, I meant why should he want to shag you?’ Nick told her brutally. ‘With his money he could have anyone he wants.’

      Her original distaste for Nick’s comments was rapidly turning into outright loathing for Nick himself.

      ‘The “anyone” Silas wants is me. And the only man I want is Silas. You, Nick, are married to Lucy. She’s my friend, and—’

      Julia protested in shock as Nick suddenly grabbed hold of her upper arms and forced her back against the column, shaking her so hard that she only just avoided banging her head on the hard stone.

      ‘Are you sure you don’t want it? I think you do. I think you’re gagging for it. And I think I should give it to you hot and hard, right here and now. You owe me, Jules, and I intend to collect—one way or another.’

      All of a sudden Julia didn’t just feel angry and repulsed, but actually afraid. There was an ugly sound to Nick’s voice, a miasma of lust and contempt somehow emanating from him. Instinctively she fought to break free of him as he held on to her, twisting and turning, the fragile fabric of her dress tearing beneath his grip. Her furious panic gave her a fierce determination not to give in to him, even though he was hurting her. But it was only when she kicked out at him and her heel caught his leg, that he yelled out in pain and let her go. She could hear him cursing her as he held his calf, and she pushed past him and started to run towards the building and safety, too afraid of him coming after her to turn round to look and see if he was following her.

      She was still trembling almost fifteen minutes later in the sanctuary of the ladies’ room, where she pulled off her torn dress and re-dressed in the jeans and tee shirt she had been wearing earlier in the day, which she had stuffed, rolled up, into a bag she had left with the caterers.

      There would be bruises on her arms in the morning from Nick’s assault on her.

      Assault. The word tasted gritty and unpleasant in her mouth, but he had assaulted her. Would he have raped her if she hadn’t broken free and escaped from him? Julia was not a naive teenager. She knew full well that there was a sordid underbelly to the glamourous celebrity lifestyle depicted in magazines such as A-List Life, but this was the first time its sleaziness had actively touched her. She had spoken the truth when she had told Silas that she neither drank to excess nor took drugs. In addition, she might not be sexually innocent, but she was very firm about maintaining a professional distancing manner when she was working, and she was most certainly not promiscuous. The drink-and drug-fuelled group sex sessions of the type that featured in the lives of many of their clients, as well as in the more down-market tabloids, held absolutely no appeal for her.

      But she had not been aware of how dangerous Nick was. He was taking her refusal to have sex with him far more personally than she had expected, treating it as though it were a personal strike against him he had to avenge. Shuddering a little as she remembered the horrible way he had spoken to her, and how frightened he had made her feel, Julia bundled her torn dress into the bag that had held her jeans and top. Suddenly Silas’s constant presence for the rest of the summer felt more comforting than burdensome. Not, of course, that she would ever tell Silas himself as much.

      Along with Lucy and Nick, as well as the catering staff and virtually everyone else who had accompanied them to Majorca, Julia was staying at a small budget-priced hotel in one of the main holiday resorts. She had planned to get a lift back to the hotel with Lucy and Nick but now she knew that nothing would persuade her to do so. Instead she would have to blag a lift with one of the contractors.

      ‘Jules, have you seen Nick anywhere?’

      She tensed as she heard the anxiety in Lucy’s voice as she came hurrying toward her.

      ‘Not recently,’ she answered truthfully.

      ‘He might still be with Alexina Matalos, then,’ Lucy sighed. ‘She wants us to quote for her husband’s fiftieth birthday party. Oh, and Silas was looking for you. I’m so pleased about the two of you.’

      ‘Not as pleased as I am,’ said a deep voice.

      ‘Oh, Silas, good. You’ve found her.’ Lucy laughed as he materialised beside them out of the darkness.

      ‘What happened to the dress?’ he asked Julia as he smiled in acknowledgment of Lucy’s statement.

      ‘I changed it. Jeans are more practical for putting out candles than chiffon.’

      ‘How much longer will it be before you’ve finished here?’

      ‘I’m virtually done, but there’s no need for you to hang around waiting for me, Si…darling,’ she emphasised, conscious that Lucy was listening to them.

      ‘How are you planning to get back to the hotel?’ he asked, ignoring her hint.

      ‘Oh, I’ll get a lift with one of the contractors,’ Julia told him airily.

      ‘Fine. I’ll come with you.’

      With her?

      She knew they were supposed to be an item, but surely that was taking things too far? Especially when he would then have to make his way back to wherever it was he was staying, which she presumed must be the same ultra-exclusive boutique hotel in Palma as Dorland.

      ‘Well, now that you two have made contact with one another, I’d better go and find Nick,’ Lucy announced.

      ‘There’s really no need for you to come back to the hotel with me,’ Julia repeated as soon as Lucy had gone.

      ‘Julia, we’re going now, if you’re coming,’ one of the contractors called out.

      ‘Can you fit both of us in?’ Silas asked him.

      ‘Sure.’

      Silas’s hand was splayed across the small of her back, urging her forward.

      It was funny how, though Silas’s hand held far more hard strength than Nick’s, she somehow wanted to relax into his touch rather than shrink back from it. That might be funny, but what was definitely not was the discovery that, instead of moving forward, she really wanted to turn sideways instead, and move closer to Silas.

      Why? she derided herself, deliberately trying to whip up awareness of her own foolishness. So that she could get another look at his mouth? Another taste of his mouth? But her body’s reaction, far from being an appropriate recognition of her folly, was a wilful misunderstanding of the message she was sending it. It, it seemed, would very much like another taste of Silas.

      When had she become the kind of woman who actively liked courting danger?

      CHAPTER THREE

      ‘HOLA, SEÑOR.’ The receptionist beamed up at Silas from behind the desk. ‘Here is your key.’