He then did something that completely took her breath away.
He kissed her nose.
And if she had gotten her breath back it would have again been stolen.
Because he turned on his heel and he left, just as she needed him to do.
She went immediately to her room, to her phone and called her mother to tell her about the events of the evening with the children.
And she didn’t leave out Douglas’s part in it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sweet Anticipation
The next three weeks found Julia experiencing complete emotional turmoil which she felt was a little incredible considering she already thought she was experiencing the height of emotional turmoil.
Clearly, Douglas realised what Julia had officially termed (in her own mind) “The Tender Onslaught Strategy (with Vague Tendencies Toward Arrogance)” was working beautifully so he kept right on using it.
The press had taken it into their head that Julia and Douglas were a couple and they were speculating wildly about her and Douglas leaving the ball so quickly. Not to mention Douglas was no longer appearing with his rail-thin, twenty-something starlets and models at every social gathering imaginable but instead squiring Julia and the children all over Bristol and Somerset.
Making matters worse, they all travelled to London to attend Charlie and Oliver’s Annual New Year’s Bash. Julia didn’t want to go so soon after Ruby’s outburst but she couldn’t let Charlie down. Sam arranged for the children to spend the night with her nieces and nephews at her sister’s house.
Julia took Veronika, saying she wanted the girl, who had no family close and no friends to speak of, to have a good time. If she admitted it to herself, she was really using her young friend as a shield.
Once in London, she found out Sam (or perhaps Douglas, she wouldn’t put it passed him) arranged for Veronika to attend a party with her rather than go with Julia and Douglas to the Forsythes.
This left Julia and Douglas together, alone.
Luckily, the New Year’s party was a mad crush and Julia easily lost Douglas. She made certain she didn’t drink too much; she needed all her faculties to utilise in her efforts to avoid him. Further, she didn’t want to do anything to let her guard down.
Christmas night was still fresh in her memory and she knew she was losing ground fast. She decided to nurture her irate frustration at the situation; it was the only thing she had left.
Eventually she found herself alone with Oliver and she decided to take that opportunity to pick his brain, subtly of course, about Douglas’s history. Douglas’s story about his childhood Christmases still had Julia feeling ill-at-ease. In fact, when she wasn’t avoiding Douglas, stewing over him or watching the children like hawks (after the Christmas night disaster), it was all she thought about.
Oliver knew him best and Julia felt that, maybe, he could be a font of information.
After a few questions, diplomatically worded (she thought), Oliver cut eyes to her that were not lit with his usual good-natured light.
“What are your intentions regarding Douglas?” he asked bluntly.
“I… well,” she spluttered. Her intentions with Douglas? She didn’t know what to say, so she said, “I’m just curious.”
Oliver surveyed her for a moment which probably lasted about a second but the intensity of his eyes made it seem like an hour.
“I’m afraid curiosity isn’t good enough, Julia. If you genuinely cared, I would tell you, but since you’re just curious…” He let that hang and when Julia said no more, he excused himself and, for some reason, this made Julia feel like an absolute heel.
She was caught in a mad crush of happy, drunken people as the clock struck down to midnight (and it was never fun to be an unhappy, un-drunken person in that kind of situation).
At “five” she felt a warm hand on the small of her back. At “four” it was an arm that wound around her waist. At “three” it was pulling her firmly around. At “two” it was hauling her against a hard body. At “one” another arm joined it to tighten around her. At the strike of midnight, a sexy, scarred mouth descended on hers in a hard, thorough, unmistakably possessive kiss that seemed to last forever and stole her breath away.
Anyone who saw it would have been in no doubt that Julia and Douglas were a couple.
Regardless how good the kiss was or, more to the point, because of how good it was, and the point it so publicly made, Julia seethed all the way home.
Monique was still (thankfully) in Munich meaning they were all alone at the Kensington house. As Douglas pulled the parking brake up on the Jag, Julia darted out of the car only to have to stand on the steps to wait for him to let her in the house because she didn’t have a key.
I really, she thought, have to think ahead.