Love is a Battlefield: Games of Love, Book 1 (12 page)

Julian swallowed the rest of his beer in one gulp.

He had to get out of there. Just about anything would be preferable to sitting in his empty apartment with a quarter of a buzz and that woman on the brain.

Julian reached for his jogging shoes and pulled them on his feet. They’d already trained pretty extensively that afternoon, but he could use a few more miles before bed.

He was pulling on his T-shirt when the phone rang. It was probably Michael, stealing a quick call from his date to gloat he was about to get lucky. He had a tendency to do that whenever he knew Julian was sitting at home, getting the exact opposite.

“I don’t care if this girl has three tits and a daddy complex. I don’t want to hear it,” Julian said as he clicked on the phone.

“Um…I’m pretty sure the woman on the invitation only has two breasts. Though by the way she’s angled, I say daddy issues may be coming into play.”

It was Kate. And she was laughing.

God help him, he loved that she was laughing.

“You got my message.”

“Is that what you call defacing other people’s property? Funny. I always called it a misdemeanor.”

“I was marking my territory.” He jumped over the back of the leather couch and settled across it lengthwise, one arm propped behind his head. He wanted to be comfortable for this.

“You couldn’t pee on a big rock like the rest of the Neanderthals?”

Julian laughed, triumph running through his veins like hot, molten pleasure. “Would that work? If I marched out to Cornwall Park right now and started peeing wherever I could, would I get to keep the areas I land on? I can tell you right now, Kate, I’m a big man, and I have big friends. You have no idea how much—”

“This isn’t a pissing contest, and I don’t care how big your…bladder is.”

Julian was more than happy to continue on in that vein, but he took a few deep breaths instead. This was supposed to be about getting results, not raising her hackles. He’d gotten too easily sidetracked once. She was beautiful. She was soft. And apparently, she had a good sense of humor. But she was also an obstacle to just about every one of the goals he’d ever set for himself.

“I warned you I would win this.” Julian kept his voice level. “If you can’t handle my style of warfare, maybe you better go back to your land of the ladies and lords.”

“Your style of warfare?” She made a cute scoffing sound into the phone. “You make it sound like you’re some big, tough warrior, but all you do is fight dirty. Like a girl.” She drew out the last word with as many syllables as possible, to the obvious amusement of someone in the background. Loud thumps of music and the tinkling of glass mingled with laughter in the background.

“Invitations are replaceable,” she added. “Hang on a second, will you?”

The background sounds got quieter, and her breath picked up. “Sorry about that. Too loud. We’re celebrating.”

“Celebrating?”

“What? You think I’m so bad at the art of war I can’t counter a silly little attack on some fancy paper? Let me tell you something, Julian. It doesn’t take two hundred pounds of muscle and a checkered skirt to make a warrior.”

He sat straight up. “What did you do?”

“Oh, nothing. Yet.” She giggled. He wondered how long she’d been out celebrating. All that calm, cool poise on the outside—she’d never struck him as the type of girl to go out to bars and lose control.

His groin tightened. There was a lot about her he didn’t know. That there might be layers of depravity, of wanton appeal… “Where are you?” The words came out before he could stop them.

“I don’t know. Downtown somewhere? We’re at that bar where you can ride the mechanical bull. Jada’s ridden three times already, and she’s really good. You see, you have to open your legs super wide and—”

Julian watched with a kind of detached interest as his arm reached for his keys and then his jacket. He had always had such control over his body—both on the field and off it. But this woman’s voice was enough to set it moving like a gun had gone off.

“Have you ridden it?” he interrupted, his voice tense.

“Oh, she rode it hard, big boy. Hard and fast.” Jada’s voice came onto the phone. “You can’t imagine the strength she has in her upper thighs.”

He could imagine it. That was the problem. “Put Kate back on,” he demanded.

“Nuh-uh,” Jada said with a laugh. “If you want her, you’ve got to earn her.” A few more screams of laughter reached his ears before the phone clicked off.

Drunk dialing. He’d come so far down he was on the receiving end of a drunk-dialing episode—and he felt a little sad when it ended.

Harold would have been ashamed of him. He could almost hear his stepfather’s voice telling him to man up and grow a pair. After which he would have grabbed himself liberally by the balls and given them a hefty tug.

God, he missed that man.

And he wanted more than anything else not to let him down.

He bent over and tightened the laces on his shoes. That run sounded like a good idea right about now.
 

Chapter Six

A Ducal Interlude

Kate stood on Julian’s doorstep, a hot coffee and the day’s newspaper in hand, a sinking feeling of dread in her stomach.

It was a mistake, coming here. She’d expected him to live at some frat house for athletes, empty beer kegs and giant cabers littering the front lawn. But this was a nice house in a family neighborhood. There were rhododendrons blooming next to the white picket fence, and the mailbox was painted a cheerful blue. She had to be at the wrong place.

“Yes?” An older woman pulled open the door, and Kate had to swallow a laugh or she would have spilled the coffee all over herself. The woman was a diminutive Julian, much shorter and heavier-set, but with the same air of calm authority.

The man lived with his mother. It was almost too good to be true. Too easy for her to tip the scales back in her balance.

Because they were off balance. By a lot. She should have known something was wrong when she’d gone to pick up the invitations the other day. The women at the paper printers had sighed romantically and fondled the box as if it needed their adoration to survive. One of the women even took her hand and told her she was the luckiest woman in the world.

She’d thought maybe they were rampant Jane Austen fans. Until, of course, she’d taken the invitations to Lady Lovelace’s house and they opened the box together.

For the first time in her life, Kate wished she carried smelling salts or feathers that could be burned and waved under the woman’s nose. For a moment there, she’d even considered unhooking Lady Lovelace’s bra, the closest thing to loosening the corset strings she could come up with.

“We are a historical preservation society,” Lady Lovelace had sniffled, lying at cross angles on her couch while her daughter, Lady Anne, practically passed out from laughing in the background. “Not one of those sleazy Renaissance Fairs.”

Kate did her best to look contrite, but she had to hand it to Julian—he’d hit her where she least expected it. If there was one way to bring all her plans tumbling around her head, it was by making her look like a fool in front of Lady Lovelace. She was the one person who had the power to kick Kate out of the JARRS group for good. Not since the patronesses of Almack’s had there been such a formidable foe.

But deep in her silly, feminine core, Kate couldn’t help but be pleased. The invitations demonstrated that Julian wasn’t dismissing her claim to the park. She was an adversary worthy of his attention—even if that attention meant he’d be slapping pornographic images all over their invitations.

“I’m so sorry, Lady Lovelace. It’s just this guy—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Lady Lovelace had cried.

“Oh, Mother. It’s a little misunderstanding,” Anne interrupted, her eyes crinkling with sympathy as they met Kate’s. “You know we can count on Kate to get everything straightened out. I’ll even help. I don’t know why you ever thought one person could do it all alone.”

Lady Lovelace wilted into the couch.

“How can I help, Kate?” Anne asked, the moment they left the older woman to a tonic and a weathered copy of
Mansfield Park
.

Kate liked Anne. With brown, curly hair that sprang from her head in all directions and a warm, inviting grin that spread over a slight snaggletooth, she didn’t look a thing like the librarian and Jane Austen historian Kate knew her to be. The two of them weren’t very close, but Anne was similar to her in age, and there always seemed to be a levity about her that made Kate wish they could spend more time together.

This was certainly an interesting way to go about it.

“You can help me exact revenge, if you’re up for it,” Kate had said. There was no use hiding it. She could have asked Anne to reorder the invitations and send them out, or double-check the supply list to make sure everything had been ordered and was scheduled for delivery. But that stuff was easy compared to besting Julian. And besting him had suddenly moved to the very top of her to-do list.

Anne didn’t even question it. There were some issues that bonded women better than super glue. Pornography and revenge were two of them.

“I’ve always found revenge to be a drink best served on the rocks,” Anne had said solemnly. So, drinks on the town with Jada it had been. Drinks, mechanical bulls and a plan of revenge so wonderful Kate hadn’t been able to resist coming by to deliver the news herself.

But apparently, she was going to have to deliver it to his mother instead.

“Is Julian here?”

“No-o.” The woman looked her over curiously. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Do you know where I can find him?” Kate shifted from one leg to another. “I’m a…friend of his, and I have something for him.”

“Oh, do you, dear?” Her entire mien changed, and before Kate knew what was happening, the woman ushered her into the house, her arm warm and insistent on Kate’s back. Masterful. This was definitely Julian’s mother. “Come on in. Sit down, sit down.”

The woman sat across from her, appraising Kate without even pretending to hide it.

“You’re so lovely,” she exclaimed. She didn’t seem to expect an answer and even smiled when Kate blushed and looked away. “I’m Chika, Julian’s mother. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

“I guessed it. Is he going to be back soon?” She looked around the house. It wasn’t at all what she might have expected—no crumbling castles, no moors, no bagpipes or deer heads mounted over the fireplace. It looked…normal. Normal in a way that made her incredibly uncomfortable. It was one thing to sabotage this man from afar, visions of a handsome, steely face driving her to dastardly depths. It was quite another to sit with this kindly woman, childhood pictures littering the mantle with haphazard love.

Chika cocked her head to the side, a picture of maternal benevolence. “He doesn’t live here, dear. Didn’t he tell you?”

Crap.
She’d looked up the address on the SHS website. It never occurred to her that it might be outdated.

“Oh. I’m so sorry. We only met a few days ago, and I—” She rose, trying to cover her embarrassment. She should have known she wouldn’t be very good at this revenge stuff. After all, her days were spent trying to get people to buy more books. She cleaned her house every Saturday morning using earth-friendly products. And more than one Girl Scout had been sent to camp for free based on the number of cookies she bought every year. A pushover. A nice girl. That was all she’d ever be.

“Sit down.” Chika’s voice brooked no argument.

Kate sat. The pushover and nice girl inside of her couldn’t help it.

“I’m sure he’ll be by any minute,” Chika continued, this time with more kindness. “He usually visits after his morning practice. Now, how did you say you knew Jules?”

Kate was saved from answering by the sound of the front door opening. From the near-rapturous flash across Chika’s face, she knew it was Julian. There was no need for her to look, to even acknowledge anything but a slight flutter of anticipation in the pit of her stomach.

But, of course, she looked anyway.

He filled the doorway, blocking the sun. A demigod in athletic gear, all sweat and forearms.

As soon as he saw her sitting there, Julian smiled. It was a slow, catlike grin that flashed his even white teeth and made him look like he could land a gig for a razor commercial, an aftershave commercial or any other commercial that featured a man in his underwear preening in front of a mirror.

“Kate!” he called pleasantly. He slipped his shoes off at the door and gave his mom a perfunctory kiss on the cheek before settling the full force of his solicitous attention on Kate.

She looked down at her own feet, shod in black patent leather ballet flats, and felt suddenly crude. A line of footwear at the door indicated this was a no-shoes house. She’d been so flustered, she hadn’t even noticed.

Julian, the bastard, noticed everything—including the way she was eyeing her shoes. He swept forward with a ridiculously debonair grace and knelt at her feet, once again looking at them like he didn’t quite understand the motivation behind her choice of footwear.

She scowled. It wasn’t complicated. She liked pretty, shiny things. Enough said.