Hearing the shower stop, he tested his shoulder cautiously and winced at the pain. He should get up and leave but none of the staff knew he was home and he didn’t relish exiting Julia’s room first thing in the morning, bare-chested and wrapped in bandages.
She strode into the room wearing her long, lilac cashmere robe and wrapped around her hair was a towel that had obviously been confiscated from another bathroom. Douglas’s mother was particular about the colour coordination of towels and Julia had used all of hers on him last night.
She walked straight to the desk, the front of the robe parting to accommodate her stride showing a shapely length of leg. She hadn’t noticed he was awake so he took advantage of this opportunity to observe her.
Douglas watched as she stood by the desk and reached down. He could tell by her movements that she was using the touchpad on her laptop and was clicking through something. She stopped, leaned over the screen to have a better look and smiled softly. He felt his chest tighten at the smile, an instantaneous reaction the cause of which he felt it best to ignore.
One of the many reactions he’d been having to Julia lately that he felt it best to ignore.
She sat down to give whatever it was her attention, crossing her legs to the side of the desk and the robe fell away, exposing them fully to his gaze. Her fingers flew over the keyboard with astonishing speed but before she was finished the handle on the door rattled. He watched her head shoot up then she exited the chair and flew across the room.
She caught the door as it was opening and whispered, “Ronnie…”
Douglas heard his maid murmuring and Julia responded quietly, “I got up a little late… didn’t get a shower before breakfast. I’m sorry, can you come back later? I’ll find you, okay?”
He heard the affirmative noise from Veronika, Julia closed the door and turned toward the bed. He saw her head peeping around the draperies and closed his eyes, feigning sleep. When he heard her move off, he opened them again.
He watched her stroll down the hall of her dressing room. She sorted through some drawers and he saw her pull out a wisp of white.
This was when any chivalrous man would either close his eyes or let her know he was awake.
Douglas, however, was not the kind of man to let chivalry stand in the way of seizing an opportunity.
She bent down to step into her underwear, her back to him, the robe hiding anything but a brief flash of leg, which, Douglas thought, was damned disappointing.
At that point, he found himself tiring of the game and wanting her attention instead. He rolled cautiously out of bed, walked silently across the room and stood in the doorway to her dressing room, leaning his good shoulder against the door jam.
“Good morning, Julia.”
She let out a small, stifled scream and whirled around, her hand flying to the opening of her robe.
“You’re awake,” she noted the obvious.
He crossed his arms on his chest and winced. She noticed his grimace and came forward.
“How are you feeling?” she asked gently, her eyes were on his bandages.
How was he feeling?
That was an excellent question.
His shoulder was burning with pain but that he could handle.
His feelings about last night were quite a bit different.
She’d been extraordinary. Throughout her performance he didn’t know whether to order Nick from the room and throw her on the bed or strangle her.
In his life, only one woman had ever even attempted to care for him and that woman was his sister. His mother had never bothered. He’d never had another woman who cared for anything other than his money, his title, the enjoyment he could give them in bed or the number of photographs she could appear in at his side.
While they were growing up, Tamsin had been just like an angry lioness protecting her cub, albeit she was a powerless one.
Last night, he watched Julia do the same, but she wasn’t powerless. She was dazzling and formidable, bent on controlling the situation and looking after him, even when she had no idea what she was doing and even when he ordered her not to.
Her behaviour only served to strengthen his resolve to have her as his wife. Outside of that, he wouldn’t allow himself to contemplate.
“It hurts like hell,” he answered her question.
He watched with no small amount of fascination as her eyes melted and she closed the space between them.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice low and gentle.
“I’ll survive,” he told her, his tone just as soft.
She looked in his eyes and hers became startled as realisation dawned that they were sharing a tender moment. Douglas watched, registering a vague sense of disappointment when the guard went up and Julia carefully controlled her features.
“Well, never fear,” she stated airily, the moment lost, she was moving back into the dressing room and waving her arm for emphasis, “Carter had a quiet little chat with me this morning and apparently your friend Nick called him. You have a doctor’s appointment today at nine. Carter is going to bring some clothes down for you and he’ll be taking you.”
She stopped abruptly and turned around slowly, the melting look in her eyes now long gone. She glanced around the room, down at herself and then up at him.
“You seem bright-eyed this morning,” she commented warily.
“I’ve been awake for ten minutes.” He watched her eyes widen in angry amazement. “Maybe fifteen,” he allowed.
She stood there a moment, shocked speechless and then she smiled.
“You cad!” she cried, her voice filled with humour.
Her unusual word choice almost made him smile.
“Cad?” he asked.
“Yes, ‘cad’,” she replied. “I’m practising not cursing. I don’t want to pass any foul words to the children.”
She pulled the towel off her head and whipped her hair around while she grabbed her comb. He found her reaction to his spying on her while she put on her underwear bizarre in the extreme.
“You aren’t angry.” It was a statement, rather than a question and she turned to him.
Then she looked in the mirror as she pulled the comb firmly through her hair.
“Oh, yes, Douglas Ashton, I’m angry. Although I find I can’t make room to be even angrier at you now that you’ve taken the liberty to spy on me while I put on panties. I’m already angry enough that, when you arrived home last night, not only had you been shot but your companion was pointing a gun at me.” Julia’s eyes moved from her reflection to Douglas. “Not that I would mind nocturnal visits from gunshot victims or having firearms mistakenly levelled at me in dark hallways…” she paused, straightened and skewered him with a look, “if I lived in some war-torn, third-world country and you were a rebel fighting for our freedom against the nasty federales!”