“Julia made one for the staff. While we sit down to eat the one Mrs. K and Ronnie made for us, they’ll sit down and eat one Julia and the rest of us made for them. ‘No one,’” Charlotte drawled in a husky, American accent, teasingly mimicking Julia’s voice, “‘Misses out on Thanksgiving.’”
Charlotte turned her face to Douglas to see how he’d react to this news but he kept his expression bland. He knew his friends were speculating about Julia and himself but he had no idea if Charlotte would be an ally or an enemy. She knew too much of his history, especially with women, and she’d formed a close bond with Julia in a short time. He had decided to tread carefully with her.
Douglas, did, however, have a reaction. Nearly all of his friends growing up had servants and many of them had long-standing staff who had effectively become members of their family. Monique and Maxwell Ashton did not share this affectionate bent. Although Douglas himself had never known a time when Mr. and Mrs. Kilpatrick had not been in his life, he knew nothing about them and never asked, first because it wouldn’t have been allowed by his parents and then as pure habit. Yet in a matter of weeks, Julia had made deep inroads into entrenching his servants into the family unit.
No more was said as, just then, the children clamoured down the stairwell followed by Julia who was walking beside Sam, both of them laughing at something.
At the sight of her, Douglas took a swift intake of breath.
Julia was wearing a soft, cream, knit sweater dress that covered nearly every inch of flesh, from its deep, cowl-neck all the way down to her wrists with the figure-skimming skirt swinging gracefully around her ankles. It didn’t matter that it covered every bit of her. Everywhere, the material fit snugly, lovingly accentuating every lush curve. She’d fastened a gold, link belt tantalisingly low on her h*ps and had dozens of golden bangles on both her wrists. And her feet were encased in a pair of tan cowboy boots.
“You might not want to ogle my new best friend,” Charlotte hissed in a playfully irate voice and Douglas, unusually, started. He swiftly shuttered his blatant reaction, his head swung to his friend but he saw Charlie was admonishing Oliver who turned sheepish eyes to his wife.
As Julia and Sam made it to the bottom of the stairwell, the children already rushing to the dining room, Douglas moved forward, intent on one thing.
Dinner may get cold and his careful strategy might be damned but he was going to slip her somewhere so he could privately show her exactly how much he liked her dress. Privately and thoroughly, until she was in no doubt about his particularly strong, insistent feelings about that… fucking… dress.
Julia lifted her eyes to his and Douglas saw hers became startled as she read his unconcealed intent and, at that moment, with her green eyes on him, that dress on her, he didn’t give a good goddamn that she could read him so easily.
However, just then there was a bustle of activity down the hall and Monique came gliding out of the library.
“How delightful, my friend is just in time. Now, another Thanksgiving tradition, a family reunion.”
Douglas ignored his mother but Julia’s eyes followed Monique.
He arrived at her side and bent to whisper in her ear, “If I may have a private word before dinner?”
“What?” she asked distractedly, not looking at him, but instead she continued gazing down the hall and he saw her face pale as she breathed, “Oh.”
Douglas followed her eyes and saw what made her pale. In confusion, he stared at a tall, familiar-looking man with greying blond hair and faded blue eyes.
Then he heard Julia whisper, “My God, it’s my Dad.”
At her words, Douglas’s vision exploded in a white-hot blaze of fury.
* * * * *
Monique was escorting into the stairwell, and fawning over, Dr. Trevor Fairfax, Julia’s father.
Dear Lord in heaven, Julia thought and then she felt the room reel and she was almost certain she was going to faint even though she’d never done such a ridiculous thing in her entire life.
“I didn’t want to say anything because Dr. Fairfax didn’t know if he could make it but here he is! Isn’t this an extraordinary surprise? A family reunion!” Monique announced with malevolent delight.
The room was still spinning and in a desperate effort to steady herself, Julia focused on Douglas. Looking at him from under her lashes, she saw to her distracted surprise that he was staring at her father, not blandly, but thin-lipped, his scar frighteningly defined and a muscle worked angrily in his hard jaw.
Monique continued with her announcement and Julia swung her dazed eyes to the woman. “I know, Julia, that this will be a big surprise for you. But I do hope it’s a welcome one. I’ve had many heartfelt conversations with your father, who was understandably upset about Gavin, and, of course, that no one saw fit to invite him to his own son’s funeral.”
At any other time Julia would have laughed out loud at the thought of the heartless Monique having a heartfelt anything.
However nothing at that moment was even the slightest bit funny.
She didn’t even dignify Monique’s second pronouncement with a thought. Of course her father hadn’t been invited to Gavin’s funeral. It was Trevor Fairfax’s choice not to be a part of their lives. Julia herself hadn’t seen her father since her college graduation when he handed her a tiny cardboard box that held a pair of earrings made of paste and some metal that turned green within a few weeks. He had walked away from her then, feeling his duty done, and she’d never seen or heard from him again.
And she liked it that way.
“Julia.” Her father came forward, his smooth, cultured voice, grating across her skin like sandpaper. His blue eyes, eyes so much like Gavin’s, moved over her face with worried care. To her disbelief, he pulled her rapidly stiffening body into his arms. “I was so sorry to hear about Gavin.”
“Children!” Monique called and Julia jumped while still suffering her father’s embrace. “We have a surprise for you.”