She ignored him.
“You!” she pointed, her tone accusatory, her gaze malicious, at Julia who was staring at her brother’s mother-in-law, her expression a study in shock, her eyes riveted to the finger pointed in her direction.
Monique then threw the paper she was carrying and it slid down the table, over the children’s dirty dishes and spilled onto Julia’s lap taking marmalade and butter with it.
Julia caught it reflexively, jumping up from her seat.
Douglas gritted his teeth.
“Mother,” he said through them, his voice a warning.
“Didn’t take you long did it?” Monique hissed. “Went right in for the kill, didn’t you?”
Julia was looking down at the paper and Douglas saw in it was a printed the photo taken of them outside his house in Kensington.
He had to admit, it looked damning. He knew he’d just caught her after a stumble but they looked like they were two lovers embracing. He was forced to subdue a pleased smile at this turn of events as this was fortuitous to his new plan.
Julia looked at it horrified.
“This is all a mistake. I –” Julia started.
“You’re a parasite, is what you are… which was expected but I cannot believe how quickly you’ve managed to latch on.”
At that piece of rudeness, Douglas cut in curtly.
“Mother, we were in London for an art opening. Julia tripped, I caught her, the photographer got lucky. Did you come all the way back from the Mediterranean for this?”
His words and tone made her actions sound ludicrous.
She tore her angry gaze away from Julia who was visibly shaken. Julia looked from Monique to Douglas then back to Monique.
For her part, Monique looked to be trying to decide the veracity of his words. She also looked at him and then Julia.
He looked annoyed, which he was. Julia looked stricken and offended.
And he noted passingly, rather glorious.
Even standing there, barefoot, wearing snug-fitting jeans and an equally snug-fitting chocolate brown t-shirt that said “Eat at Ed’s” in pink on the front, she somehow appeared to match Monique in panache. Even injured and caught off guard, there was something almost regal about her that even Monique, with her wealth of aristocratic background and good breeding, couldn’t match.
Douglas tore his gaze away from Julia and watched as his mother made her decision. Perhaps believing Douglas, perhaps realising that her opponent may not be as much of a pushover as she anticipated, perhaps sensing she wouldn’t have Douglas’s support, she backed off with ill-grace.
“That,” Monique answered Douglas belatedly, her tone no longer icy but now airy, “and Beatrice was getting on my nerves. I forgot I can only stand the woman for hours at a time, why I thought I could spend three weeks with her is beyond me.”
Deciding to give up her tirade, without another word, she turned and began to walk away, as usual without any kind of greeting, asking after Douglas, who she hadn’t seen in weeks, or inquiring about Julia, who had moved an ocean away from her home to take up the care of Monique’s grandchildren.
“Mother,” Douglas called, his voice so unyielding even Monique stopped and turned.
“Yes, my darling?” she replied.
He stared at his mother and saw her eyes glittering with malice. Her words were uttered in a sugar sweet tone that he knew from years of experience she didn’t mean. He’d been enduring her faux motherhood for thirty-eight years and he’d always been able to ignore it. For some reason, today, he found it grated.
“I think there are a few things you should say to Julia,” he informed her.
Her eyes narrowed and she tried to stare him down. Instead, he calmly sat, picked up his coffee cup and took a sip, watching his mother the whole time.
Once he replaced the cup in its saucer, he quirked an eyebrow to her.
His mother sighed dramatically, giving in with anything but good grace.
“Welcome to Sommersgate, Julia. My apologies for the misunderstanding.”
She looked Julia up and down and her expression showed she found what she saw lacking. Then, without another word, she walked out of the room.
Douglas sighed.
Then he turned his eyes to Julia, who was staring after Monique, her face a mask of pure incredulity.
“Sit down, Julia,” he commanded quietly.
For once, she did as she was told.
“What… was… that?” she asked, her voice horrified.
“I’m afraid the gloves are off,” Douglas explained, watching her.
Her eyes moved to him and he saw they were huge and uncomprehending. She looked at the paper in her hands and then threw it on the table as if it burned. She lifted a shaky hand to pull her hair away from her face and took a deep breath.
“It’ll be okay,” she murmured as if trying to convince herself. “It’ll all be okay.”
Douglas watched her as she tried to fool herself. This time, with him standing beside her, she emerged virtually unscathed. Given her mental state, she was, he knew, no match for his mother’s callous, unrelenting venom. Even if she had exhibited fire and spirit, she was exhausted and still coping with the loss of her brother and Tamsin. She’d be torn apart within a week; he’d give it two at the most.
And somehow understanding this went beyond annoying him.
Ten minutes ago, knowing that Julia and his mother and this arrangement would be difficult was a simple inconvenience, something he understood that he needed to control.
Now, watching his mother square up against the woman he just decided to make his wife was simply unacceptable.
“Oh for God’s sake,” Douglas muttered as he rose, frustrated with denying himself. He grabbed Julia’s hand and pulled her roughly out of her chair and straight into his arms.
She stiffened and pushed against him, her hands at his chest, her eyes alert and surprised.
She tilted her head back to start to ask, “What are you –?”
He ignored her reaction and did what he’d wanted to do since her first night at Sommersgate, indeed, since he first saw her fifteen years ago.
Douglas kissed her.
While one arm held her tightly against him, wrapped around her waist, his other hand slid down her back to splay across the small and press her hips more tightly against his.
She pushed against his chest with more strength and moaned a suffocated denial against his lips, opening her mouth under his. Given this golden opportunity, he took unfair advantage, sliding in his tongue and deepening the kiss.
The moment his tongue touched hers, his body ignited. She tasted of a hint of coffee with an underlying sweetness that was intoxicating. Both his arms closed around her pulling her more deeply into him as his tongue went from invading to coaxing. He used it to tease her and his hands to mould her against his hard body.
This, he was pleased to note, worked.
He felt her hands abruptly stop pushing against his chest and they started to slide up, stopping when her fingers curled at his shoulders to hold on. Her lips relaxed and her head slanted to give him better access.
He didn’t hesitate in accepting her invitation.
It was then the kiss went wild.
She clung to his shoulders, her fingernails biting into his flesh as she matched his heat, her tongue duelling with his. He felt his blood heating, his heart pounding, her body remarkably hot through her clothes.
Finally, one of her hands lifted, gliding up his neck, her fingers slid into his hair as she held his head to hers, giving herself fully to the kiss. She pressed her soft body to his, the heat of her searing his skin through his clothes as her passion exploded. She gave him everything he wanted and he took it, gladly, and then took more. He heard her moan again but this time not in denial but with desire, the sound of it sending his blood speeding through his veins and he pulled her body even closer to him, trying to absorb her very essence.