‘You know what I mean! Paying Signor Bartoli an extra twenty thousand euros on top of the bill to change his mind and let Mr. and Mrs. Silverwood have the dining room after all.’ She gave a small disbelieving shake of her head.
‘What went wrong?’ Silas asked her.
‘I don’t know,’ Julia admitted. ‘Our system is that our clients pay all the bills we incur on their behalf themselves, via us. That way we keep our own overheads down and they get to see exactly what the costs are. All we charge them for is our professional services as organisers.’
‘Surely when you received those e-mails it must have alerted you to a potential problem.’
‘Well, yes, it would have done if I had seen them, but I didn’t—’ She broke off to smile at the waiter as he brought their first course.
Her stomach was still churning with anxiety-induced adrenalin. The scene in the hotel manager’s office had left her feeling so physically and emotionally on edge that the last thing she wanted to do was eat. She didn’t want to tell Silas that, though.
It was bad enough that he had witnessed her humiliation and been obliged to rescue her from it, without letting him see how stupidly upset and shaken she still felt.
Silas had scant tolerance of other people’s emotional vulnerability, and that was an aspect of his personality that had always made her feel defensive and wary. He always seemed so invulnerable, which highlighted her awareness of her own weaknesses. He seemed to think that in paying the hotel manager to change his mind he had solved the whole problem, but Julia was now sick with worry about how on earth she was going to repay him. The business certainly could not do so. Lucy had confided worriedly to her that they were barely breaking even, never mind making any profit. Julia had no money of her own, and whilst her stepfather was a relatively wealthy man Julia could not imagine asking him to give her twenty thousand euros.
Silas watched her pushing her soup round and not drinking it for several seconds before demanding, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. I’m just not hungry.’
‘It’s over twelve hours since you last ate. How can you not be hungry?’
‘I’m just not. But I am tired. In fact, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go up to…to bed.’
Silas gave a small shrug.
‘If that’s what you want to do, go ahead.’
It was his dinner he wanted, not her company, he assured himself, as Julia pushed back her chair and stood up. And that sharp little knife-twist he could feel, of something that was almost pain, wasn’t a pain at all. It was just a pang of irritation caused by Julia being Julia.
Julia stared at the figures she had written down on the piece of paper in front of her. Her head was beginning to ache and she felt sick. No matter how much she juggled with the figures, there was just no way she was going to be able to find twenty thousand euros. She didn’t like to go into debt and didn’t even possess a credit card—but nor did she in the way of savings, either (she bought too many shoes!). Her family was wealthy but their money was all tied up in property—such as the Estate at Amberley and the London flat where she lived—assets that were supposed to be preserved for future Earls and so weren’t hers to sell. Perhaps she would have to try and raise a loan—but it was not as if she had any property to borrow against.
Silas picked up his wine glass and looked sombrely at the contents. It held a robust, energetic rioja, with a good parentage, that should have tasted warm and well rounded instead of slightly sour. Or was it his mood that had turned sour and not the wine? Why should that be? Not, surely, because Julia had left him to eat alone? Silas often ate alone. In fact he preferred to. He glanced down at his plate. His steak was cooked just as he liked, but he might just as well have been eating sawdust, he realised, as he pushed his plate away from himself and signalled for the waiter.
As the hotel lift took him up to the suite, he wondered what the hell was happening to him? Why hadn’t he simply stayed where he was and finished his meal? Why had both it and the evening lost their flavour and become flat and unappealing without Julia’s presence?
Engrossed in the figures in front of her, Julia did not hear the outer door open, or see Silas walk in until he was virtually standing in front of her.
‘What’s this?’ he demanded, picking up the piece of paper and studying it.
‘Nothing,’ Julia fibbed, but Silas wasn’t listening to her. He stared at the small, worried little sums, written down over and over again, and something inside him that he hadn’t known was there moved a painful little notch, like the cranking of some long-unused mechanism, its movement all the more agonising because of that.
‘You don’t seriously think that I expect you to repay me, do you?’ he demanded sharply.
‘Why not? Someone has to,’ Julia told him. ‘And I know that Lucy can’t. The business is barely breaking even, and if the business can’t repay you, then naturally I feel morally obliged to do so myself. Because I dealt with the Silverwoods’ event.’
Her eyes widened as Silas suddenly screwed up the piece of paper with an almost violent movement of his hand and threw it into the wastepaper bin.
He had no real idea quite why Julia’s comment should affect him so strongly, nor why he should feel so enraged because she didn’t realise that he didn’t want to be repaid.
‘You’re my fiancée, remember? The money I gave to the hotel manager I gave because I did not wish to see my fiancée being harassed and distressed. Therefore it was for my benefit as much as anyone else’s. There is no reason for Lucy to know about it and even less for her to pay me back,’ he told her grimly.
‘But our engagement isn’t real,’ Julia pointed out. ‘And even if it were I’d still want to repay you.’
Silas looked at her. ‘Why?’
‘Because I would. Because I don’t like what it does to a relationship when one person uses the other—financially or in any kind of way. How could you respect me? How could I respect myself if I let you carry me financially? I can’t match you for money, Silas, but if we were really a couple I would want to match you in respect and…and…all sorts of other ways…’
Silently Silas digested what she was saying. She had surprised him he admitted. How could this young woman who had admitted openly to a constant need to buy shoes also manifest such a deeply ingrained sense of responsibility and pride? And how could he not have known that she did?
‘Since your clients insist they sent you a cheque, and moreover the cheque has been cashed, it seems to me there must have been some kind of accounting mistake. The money must be in Prêt a Party’s accounts somewhere. Who deals with the day-to-day finances of the business?’
Julia exhaled slowly, and then told him reluctantly, ‘Nick.’
‘Blayne?’ Silas demanded sharply.
Julia looked away, reluctant to admit to Silas that she was beginning to remember some odd and very worried comments Carly had made before she had left Prêt a Party to marry Ricardo.
Could it be that Nick was doing something fraudulent with the company’s money?
Julia was reluctant to speak openly to Silas about her burgeoning suspicions in case she was wrong. Nick might have threatened to punish her for refusing his sexual advances, but there was no way he could have carried out that threat by allowing the booking to be cancelled. The timing simply wasn’t right. Unless he had somehow or other tampered with her e-mails…But that would mean that Nick was stealing from his own wife, and why on earth would he do that?
And then she remembered that Nick had wanted to come to Positano with her.
‘Now what’s wrong?’ Silas queried, as he watched the way her expression changed and anxiety shadowed her eyes.
‘I was just thinking about Nick,’ Julia said.
CHAPTER SIX
JUST thinking about Nick? Hardly. No, what she really meant was that she wanted Blayne, despite having insisted previously that she didn’t. And despite, too, having responded physically to him.
Silas wasn’t used to hearing a woman express desire for another man when she was with him. And he certainly wasn’t used to the feelings he was now experiencing. Anger, pain—jealousy? What on earth was happening to him?
Oblivious to the interpretation Silas had put on her words, Julia took a deep breath and then asked uncomfortably, ‘Silas, you don’t think that Nick could be—?’
‘I don’t think he could be what? So unhappy in his marriage that he should leave Lucy for you?’ Silas demanded savagely.
‘Leave Lucy for me? I’ve already told you that I don’t want him!’