Zayn leaned nonchalantly against the banister of the stairs, and it brought his whole body closer to hers. "Perhaps because you're running around looking like a fun-loving, irresponsible teenager in the middle of a work day?"
Color crept into her cheeks. "It's Glastonbury," she defended feebly. "And I've just graduated."
He shrugged, as if to say she'd just proved his point. And she supposed she sort of had. After all, her first instinct had been to skip the festival this year, but Andrew and Georgie had been insistent. She didn't want to be the one to break up their trio. They'd been friends forever, and all that would change now that they were taking up serious jobs.
"What are you doing here, anyway?"
Zayn's expression was inscrutable. She looked up at his face, but had to look away again almost immediately. Though he'd broken her heart, he still had the ability to wind it up to double speed. Just one quick glance at him had set her pulses skittering. She swallowed nervously, and tried not to think about how good he smelled.
"I came with a proposition."
Another tingle of warning danced along her spine. "A proposition?" She dipped her hand into her the cup and fished out another berry. "I can't imagine what you could have to say that my father would want to hear."
His smile was smug, but still so glorious on his face that it made her stomach flip over. "I offered to buy his company."
Now the warning signals were so loud they were almost screaming in her brain. She froze, berry half way to her lips. "Dad would never sell his business. He spent a lifetime building it up. It's his legacy."
"Your inheritance, too," he said with just a trace of judgment in his voice.
She made a scoff of distaste. "Of course not. I don't think like that."
"No. I'm sure you worked very hard for that Porsche you almost crashed into the house."
She glared at him. So what if she had been a little indulged by her father? He had money, and he liked her to have nice things. But she'd never asked for a penny. She wasn't like that. Why did it bother Julia so much that he had cast her as a silly little diva? "You're one to talk." She snapped sarcastically, biting down on the berry in annoyance. "How's the palace treating you?"
His smile was slow and lazy, like a cat lying on sunny bricks. "Touche. While I was born to the royal family, I have worked since I was a boy. Have you, Julia? Have you ever done a whole day's work in your life?"
She felt heat in her cheeks. Angry, frustrated heat. He knew nothing about her anymore; why was he acting like he wrote the book of Julia? "What the hell is it to you?" She snapped, pushing past him and sashaying down the hallway with an unknowingly provocative swagger to her curved hips.
Zayn followed, and their height difference was such that it took him no time at all to catch her, with his long strides matched to her small, barefooted steps. Trying to seem unfazed, she moved into her father's study, simply because it was the closest room and she needed to sit and get her composure back.
He was right behind her, making it impossible for her to feel anything but uneasy. She fixed him with her most withering of glances. "You can wait for my father elsewhere. I would rather be alone."
He moved his head slowly from side to side and came to stand in front of her. "But I have also come to speak with you."
Julia's brown flecked eyes narrowed, and she stared up at him from beneath her thick, curling lashes. "Just go away, Zayn. We have nothing to talk about." He was so damned handsome, so sexy, that she felt herself being pulled dangerously backwards in time, to the first time she had seen him.
It had been just a few rooms over, in the downstairs parlor that was often used for hosting formal events. She had known her father had invited him, of course. He was royal, and so a very big deal, even for someone with as rich and distinguished a family tree as Colin Cosgrove-Howard. But she'd imagined that Sheikh Zayn Al-melara would be old, and paunchy, perhaps with a glass eye or something.
The moment he'd walked into the room, everything had stopped for Julia. The music, the chatter, the orbital spinning of the earth. She had simply stared at the most devastatingly attractive and
powerful man she had ever seen. He'd come alone. That had surprised her too, for surely men of his wealth and position travelled with security and advisors constantly.
"He's the second son," her father had informed her later. "Not the heir to the throne. Though he controls the family's business empire and is himself worth billions."
Julia had hardly heard him. He was so beautiful that he should have been shadowed by security simply in the interests of preserving such a superior specimen of humanity. Pretending an interest in a conversation with Georgie and Andrew, she'd studied him covertly all evening, from beneath her lashes, until finally, while she was replenishing her champagne from the bar, he'd completely surprised her by singling her out.
"I have been watching you all night," he had whispered against her cheek, as he'd kissed her by way of introduction.
Her eyes had flown to his face in surprise. "Not possible, or you would have seen me staring at you."
Her honesty had drawn a broad smile from him. "I did see you staring, and it was all I could do not to beat a path through the room and take you outside where we could speak privately."
She had shrugged, impressing herself with how cool she seemed. "Let's go now."
Zayn had frowned a little. "I didn't intend to take you from your friends. And it is your father's party; I do not wish to show him disrespect."
Julia had waved a hand in the air. "Don't be silly. My friends are on their way to being so sloshed they won't notice I'm gone. As for dad, if I'm happy, he's happy."