High Society by Penny Jordan Read Free Book Online Page B

found two of the
greyhounds playing tug-of-war with his favourite Brooks Brothers shirt.
    ‘I thought you’d prefer to have breakfast up here. So I’ve
ordered you some coffee and juice, and I remembered that you like your eggs over
easy.’
    Coffee. Caffeine. That was what was wrong, Julia told herself
feverishly. She was in caffeine shock. She had heard it could do weird things to
you, but she hadn’t realised just how weird.
    ‘Are you sure you’re wearing the right bathrobe?’ she demanded.
‘Only it doesn’t seem to be your size.’
    ‘Well, if you end up tripping over the hem of yours we’ll have
to swap. But until you get out of that bed we aren’t going to know, are we?’
    ‘I can’t get out of bed with you standing there.’
    ‘You can’t? Why not? Worried about the effect the Mickey Mouse
PJs might have on me?’
    ‘That was when I was ten,’ Julia told him awfully.
    ‘So was the teddy bear hot water bottle, but last time I
visited the old guy there it was, hanging up along with the others.’
    Muttering at him, Julia mentally cursed herself for getting
into bed naked in the first place. It would serve Silas right if she just clean
got out of bed starkers. Mickey Mouse PJs indeed. Huh. That would show him.
    After all, it wasn’t as though no man had ever seen her naked.
Several had, even if right now she could not remember ever having felt this
hot-shot tingle of fizzing, trepidation-coated excitement before.
    ‘Your eggs will be cold,’ Silas warned her.
    That was all he knew, Julia decided feverishly. Right now her
‘eggs’ were feeling pretty hot, and ready for the kind of action that led to one
and one becoming three. Or maybe even four, if they had twins. She had always
thought twins must be fun...
    She gave a small yelp of protest against her own thoughts and
hurriedly got out of bed, forgetting her nudity in her eagerness to escape from
the images inside her head of two adorable dark-haired babies with Silas’s
ice-blue eyes.
    ‘What happened to the tattoo?’
    She was very careful not to turn round, but instead to look
back over her shoulder as she stood sheltering behind the half-open bathroom
door.
    ‘What tattoo?’
    ‘The family coat of arms. Mother said you’d had it tattooed
across your butt.’
    ‘I did—for a dare. But it wasn’t permanent. Anything else you
want to know?’
    ‘No, not right now. I guess it tells a guy quite a bit about a
woman when he can see that she doesn’t sunbathe in the nude.’
    ‘Haven’t you heard of sun damage?’ Julia retorted smartly. ‘If
I want an all-over tan I have it sprayed on.’
    ‘Take it from me, the cute white triangles are much more of a
turn-on. Any guy would feel good knowing he was getting to see something the
world at large hadn’t had access to. I’d forgotten how small you are without
those ridiculous shoes you insist on wearing.’
    ‘Small?’ Julia stepped angrily towards him and then shot back,
her face pink. ‘I’m five foot five.’
    ‘Like I said, I’d forgotten how small you are,’ Silas
drawled.
    ‘Well, I haven’t forgotten what an arrogant, know-it-all you
are,’ Julia snapped back at him crossly, before disappearing into her bathroom
and firmly closing the door.
    To her own disgust she was actually trembling slightly, with a
mixture of rage and emotional frustration. How could she have forgotten just how
much and how easily Silas had always managed to infuriate her, with that lordly
belief of his that everything he said and did was both superior and right?
    What must it be like to be so impervious and invulnerable? The
problem with Silas was that he had never suffered. But whilst wealth and
position had protected him from financial hardship and the rigours of modern-day
life, it was surely his nature that had ensured he was impervious to emotional
vulnerability and self-doubt. No one had ever successfully challenged his
beliefs or made him question them. No one had ever made him doubt himself