Penny Jordan - Passionate Nights

Julian might not be aware of her presence, she recognised after a discreet glance in the trio’s direction, but he , whoever he was, most certainly was. Slightly breathlessly she instinctively curled her toes, and a delicious thrill of feminine reaction ran through her as she realised just how intently she was being studied. Sternly she reminded herself of just why she was here and the role she had to play. The temptation to abandon it and to revert to her normal self beckoned treacherously. She had never been a flirt, never been the kind of woman to go all out deliberately to attract a man’s attention—she had never needed to and she had certainly never wanted to!

But, almost as though it was fate, just as she was wavering, a direct pathway opened up between her and Julian. Sternly she made herself take it.

‘Julian … How lovely to see you …’

Had she got the note of flirtatious invitation in her voice pitched correctly? Anxiously she held her breath as Julian turned his head to look at her, wariness giving way to a look of lustful male appreciation as she continued to smile at him.

‘Kelly! What a surprise …’

‘A pleasant one, I hope.’ Kelly pouted, deliberately stepping closer to him, angling her body so that she was placing herself with her back to the blonde girl standing silently at Julian’s side and thereby excluding her from their conversation.

‘I thought for a moment that you’d forgotten me …’

‘Impossible,’ Julian assured her with heavy flirtatiousness, his glance deliberately and meaningfully lingering on her body.

Really, he was a total creep, Kelly decided.

‘Here on your own?’ Julian quizzed her.

Throwing back her head, Kelly gave a small, sexy laugh.

‘Of course not,’ she chided him, her voice and the look she gave him emphasising that she was the type of woman who would never be without a male escort.

‘You’re looking very well,’ she praised him, adding purringly, ‘Very well …’

‘Then that makes two of us,’ Julian told her smoothly.

‘Julian, I think it’s time we started to make our way to the table.’

The cool, authoritative male voice intruding on their conversation caused Kelly to turn her head to look at its owner.

Close up he was even more sizzlingly sensual than she had first imagined. It must be the new persona she had assumed that was making her aware of him in such a very intimate and sexual way, she decided dizzily as her glance slid helplessly from the dark watchfulness of his eyes to his very sensual mouth. Certainly she could never remember an occasion previously when she had been so immediately and so shockingly physically aware of a man’s sexuality.

‘Oh, must you go so soon?’ She pouted again, a little disconcerted to recognise how easily both the pout and the teasing but deliberately flirtatious glance she had given Julian’s companion came to her. ‘We haven’t even been introduced …’

She could sense Julian’s surprise at the way she was behaving, and managed to hide her own reservation at her unfamiliar behaviour. Kelly could sense Julian’s reluctance to comply with her request, but his companion was already saying with a steely, not to say with a grim note in his voice, ‘Yes, Julian, do introduce us to your friend …’

‘Er … Eve, Brough, may I introduce you to an old friend—Kelly? Kelly, please meet Eve and her brother, Brough Frobisher.’

While Kelly waited for him to expand a little more on the relationship between the other couple and himself she could see from the look in Brough Frobisher’s eyes that he was decidedly unimpressed by her flirtatious manner.

At least she had had one of her questions answered, she acknowledged as Harry finally arrived at her side just as Brough was determinedly turning away from her.

Eve and her brother , Julian had said.

Ridiculous to feel that dizzying surge of excitement and relief just because Brough Frobisher appeared to be unattached.

‘We’re on table twelve,’ Harry was informing her as he manfully forged a pathway for them both through the press of people making their way towards the banqueting room.

Table twelve was well positioned, with a good view of the top table and close enough to the long row of French windows which opened out onto the terrace to offer the comfort of a cool walk along it should one wish to avail oneself of such a facility.

Curiously, though, as they approached the table a small altercation appeared to be taking place there between a harassed-looking couple, the man red-faced and plainly angry whilst his wife looked flushed and embarrassed.

‘ You told me we were on table twelve,’ he was saying to her as Harry and Kelly approached.

‘And so we were … At least, that was what Sophie said …’ his wife was responding, adding helplessly, ‘She must have got it wrong. You’ll have to go back and check the table plan.’

As she watched the hapless couple making their way back to the entrance to the room, Kelly couldn’t help feeling a little bit guilty. Was she being overly suspicious in suspecting Dee’s magical sleight of hand might somehow be responsible for their missing seats, especially when she could quite plainly see from where she stood that the place cards the couple had been studying with such bewilderment bore hers and Harry’s name?

A middle-aged couple and their daughter, the Fortescues, Kelly realised, were taking their places at the table, and another couple were taking their seats opposite Harry’s and Kelly’s own, which left three spare seats to Kelly’s left. Discreetly she leaned across to study the place cards, her heart thumping just a little bit too fast as she read, ‘Mr Julian Cox, Miss Eve Frobisher, Mr Brough Frobisher.’ She had no idea just how Dee had managed to get them seated next to Julian, nor did she wish to be enlightened. Dee was turning out to be a master tactician, an expert in the art of gamesmanship and subterfuge.

‘Kelly, you’re on our table! What a coincidence!’ Julian was exclaiming with very evident pleasure as he walked up.

Demurely Kelly said nothing, instead simply smiling at him from beneath down-swept lashes.

Half an hour later, when they had all been served with their main courses, Kelly acknowledged that Julian was even less likeable than she had previously guessed. Ignoring his girlfriend to flirt with her, he had progressed from blatantly sexually motivated compliments to the kind of sensual innuendo which Kelly found teethgrittingly unwelcome.

Her conscience overcoming her sense of duty, she leaned across the table to ask Eve gently how long she had been living in the town and if she liked it.

‘It’s very pretty,’ was her slightly hesitant response, and Kelly didn’t miss the way she looked first at her brother before replying to her, as though seeking either his support or his approval.

Kelly felt distinctly sorry for her. She was no match for a man of Julian’s unwholesome calibre, that much was more than evident to her, and Kelly hadn’t missed the way she had bitten her lip once or twice when Julian’s compliments to herself had pointedly underlined just how sexually attractive he found her.

‘What do you do?’ Kelly asked her, trying to draw her out a little, but it seemed she had asked the wrong question because immediately the younger woman flushed and looked helplessly at her brother before replying.

‘Oh, nothing … I’m afraid my art degree isn’t … doesn’t …’

Her voice trailed away and Julian cut in boastfully, ‘Eve doesn’t need to work, do you, my sweet? She has her own income … a trust fund …’

As he spoke he reached for her hand and squeezed it, lifting it to his lips to kiss her fingers in what Kelly considered to be an excessively exaggerated and insincere manner, but to judge from the pretty pink blush that coloured Eve’s pale skin she didn’t seem to find anything wrong with his manner towards her.