He quickly divested himself of his suit jacket, throwing it aside and did the same with his tie. He moved forward, unbuttoning the buttons at his throat and saw that a light was shining into the stairwell from the drawing room. It barely illuminated a prone human form that was lying at the side of the hall.
With a vague sense of concern he wouldn’t allow to form fully, Douglas moved silently forward then crouched beside who he recognised as Nick. Noticing the blood on his back, Douglas put out his fingers to check and found his friend had a strong pulse.
But Nick was out cold.
Douglas didn’t have time to pay his friend more attention. Hoping the pulse would remain steady; Douglas straightened and walked slowly forward, listening carefully.
The house was utterly silent but somehow he felt almost as if it was alert and watching him take each step.
As he entered the grand stairwell, the drawing room came into view.
And so did Julia.
She stood at the back of a couch facing the door and there was a man standing beside her holding a gun to her temple. She was wearing, as usual, a stylishly sexy dress.
She looked magnificent.
He forced himself to walk slowly, even casually, toward the door, his footsteps sounding preternaturally loud on the stone.
The Russian had seen him and started talking. It was one of the men, as Douglas guessed, who’d been after Veronika. He knew at the time he should have never shown himself to them.
He had his orders, he was too public a figure, it wasn’t his job. His job was that he gathered (in a variety of ways) information but he was not to make contact with the criminals.
But he couldn’t stand by and watch them beating Ronnie nor could he allow them to force her into a life that was no life at all.
Now, he’d pay for that mistake.
God, Ronnie. He hoped they hadn’t found her first.
As he came forward, he sought to allay Julia’s fears with his eyes but as the Russian talked on, making grandiose and threatening statements about taking something that wasn’t his, Douglas finally took in Julia’s face.
And he was stunned at what he saw.
Julia, his bride-to-be, looked annoyed.
Not frightened as he assumed she’d be, or, more accurately, terrified out of her mind.
No, she looked annoyed.
She looked like he’d kept her waiting and they were going to miss their booking at a restaurant she particularly wished to sample. Not like she was being held at gunpoint in the drawing room of her own home by a vile Russian who dealt in white slavery.
If she had checked her watch and tapped her toe, Douglas wouldn’t have been surprised.
And in that moment, he knew.
She trusted him. She believed in him. She knew, without any doubt, that he would know what to do, that he would save her, make their home safe again.
All she had to do was wait.
He felt this knowledge hit him like a physical blow.
Tamsin had believed in him, but she was his sister.
No one else had. Not anyone in his life.
No one.
Except Julia.