Love is a Battlefield: Games of Love, Book 1 (37 page)

Their eyes met.

There was a reserve to Julian’s gaze, a thin veil that used to make her think he was as unreadable as an ancient Hindu text. But he wasn’t. That was the look he wore when emotions were struggling to rise to the surface and he was doing everything within his power to keep them submerged.

He took his place at the center of the group—too far to make it possible to converse but close enough that Kate registered his every movement. She had no idea how famous people did this sort of thing regularly. Being so much in the public eye restricted what she could do and say. Julian stood within arm’s reach, and she still had no idea what she was doing here—why he’d asked her to come at all, unless he too just wanted her to smile for the pictures.

A heavyset man stepped forward and began talking into the microphone, weaving a tale of tradition and honor that brought rallying cries to the lips of the crowd with almost every other word. Kate paid attention to none of it until the man at the podium yelled out, “Let the Games begin!” and everyone broke into a loud cheer.

Cameras flashed, and the men stomped their feet on the platform with heavy boots and even heavier bodies, jarring Kate right out of her reverie and almost off the side. But a warm arm grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back.

Julian.

“Don’t leave, Kate,” he said, his voice a low whisper that tickled at the base of her neck, fluttering her hair and sending jolts of pleasure straight down her body. “Stay until the hammer throw. Please.”

“Photo time!” Bonnie chirped, coming forward and clapping her hands. She had Duke by her side, and Julian stepped away the moment the other man came into view. The timing couldn’t have been worse, but there wasn’t very much she could do about it. This was what she’d been told to do. Smile big and feed the reporters the necessary lines.

Bonnie arranged the three of them in a studied pose, Kate in the middle, flanked on either side by her duo of masculinity. She immediately gravitated toward Julian, Duke’s spiced cologne tingling her nose with unpleasant memories and turning her stomach with nausea.

The reporters took about twenty photos, until Kate’s lips were so tired of being pulled into a smile she probably looked a bit like the Joker. The only thing she wanted was to get out of there and find a quiet place where they could talk, where they could begin to rebuild the connection she felt deep in her heart. But before she knew what was going on, Julian had run off in the opposite direction, and she was left standing there with Duke.

“I knew I could count on you, Kate,” he said with a grin. “You’re one hell of a good sport—I didn’t think you had it in you. You should be here for the big moment. They’re announcing the sponsorship after the hammer throw.”

Kate stared at him. “What is this sponsorship everyone keeps talking about?”

Duke laughed so loudly he drew the stares of curious onlookers. “You really don’t know?”

Michael came up beside her then, scowling dutifully at Duke and offering Kate his arm. “C’mon, Kate. Jules wants me to make sure you get to the hammer throw in time.”

But Kate snatched her arm away and looked up at Michael expectantly. “In time for what? And what is this sponsorship everyone keeps mentioning—is it like a job? Like a real athletic sponsorship?”

Duke’s nostrils flared, and Kate was pretty sure she’d just insulted the man.
Good.

“Yeah, Kate,” Michael said kindly. “A real athletic sponsorship. Think Nike but for the Scottish Highland Games.”

“And Julian is trying to get it.” The words were not a question, and they were said more to herself than anything else. Understanding began to spread through her stomach and into her throat. It didn’t feel very nice. In fact, it burned.

This whole situation was looking increasingly like more than just a game—like maybe it was as important as Julian had been trying to convince her since the beginning. And she’d done nothing but put up obstacles and belittle his dreams the whole time.

A lesser man would hate her.

For all she knew, Julian did.

“Wallace and I are both up for it,” Duke interjected. “It’s been all but decided that the winner of this year’s hammer throw is going to walk away with the contract.”

Michael shot him a quelling glance and turned Kate away, helping her to take halting, hobbling steps in the direction of the athletic field. They passed a group of cute little girls in plaid skirts and black vests, leaping in time to the clapping beat of what looked like their mother. As soon as they were well out of Duke’s hearing range, she turned to Michael.

“He never said anything,” Kate whispered. She had no idea so much of Julian’s life was tied up in this particular event. In all their conversations and in all their confrontations, it had always been about honor and the superiority of man. Never about what Julian, the normal human being, might need or want.

“Of course he didn’t,” Michael said with a rumbling laugh, not the least bit fazed that Kate’s entire worldview was shifting on its axis. “If you ask Jules, the Games are about the men—all of them, how we come together to make a team, how we heave and roar and triumph. The sponsorship means a lot to him, but he always puts the guys first. Well, he used to, anyway. I think someone else might be taking over that role.”

Before she had a chance to ponder the meaning of that statement, Michael added, “Besides, a Scot never takes the easy road. Why take the beaten track when you can move ass-first through the brambles?”

“Um…because it makes more sense?” Because there was a chance, however small, that she might have listened? Because they could have saved themselves—saved her—a heartache she was afraid gaped so wide and open there was nothing big enough to fill it? Well, nothing except the one man she’d ever met with enough honor and dignity to put the rest of the world to shame.

“Not to Julian it doesn’t,” Michael said, adding cryptically, “A man never knows what he’ll find in those brambles. Could be a burr stuck to his balls. Could be something a hell of a lot sweeter.”

Kate didn’t know how to respond, but they’d reached their destination, so she didn’t have to. They were at a field set off from the spectators with the kind of fence they used at ballparks. A black piece of wood marked the throw point, an open grassland for hundreds of yards in a sixty-degree-angle all around it.

“Listen, I’m going to park you right here. Don’t move, will you? The hammer throw starts in about ten minutes, and I’ve got to get warmed up. You should be able to see everything from here.”

“And Julian wants me to watch—to see him win?” Kate’s head swam. There was too much going on around her. The excited crowd. The heat. The sponsorship. The fact that she was almost in danger of needing someone to loosen her stays.

“Sure, Kate. Whatever. Just don’t move.”

She didn’t. She didn’t know what else to do.

Getting back to the Fauxhall Gardens suddenly seemed like the least important thing in the world.
 

Chapter Twenty-Two

Buckskin Breeches

Julian stood in front of the mirror, cursing at the white piece of cloth in his hand. “Can’t I just tie it in a knot?”

“No, Jules. That’s what the poor people did. You’re supposed to make it look all tall and fancy.” Nala reached around and adjusted the stupid thing—a cravat, she called it—until it forced his chin to rise at least two inches above its normal position.

“I look ridiculous,” he muttered.

“No, you don’t!” Beth interjected, clapping her hands excitedly. “You look like a real gentleman from that play Mom and I went to see a few years ago. You just need a top hat.”

“I’m not wearing a top hat.”

“But—”

“It’ll look so—”

Julian held up a hand and shook his head at his sisters, who were taking far too much delight in this whole thing for his peace of mind. “No hat. I’m done being your Ken doll. If this isn’t good enough, then I’m backing out of the whole thing.”

They all knew he would do no such thing. His pants felt like nothing more than a pair a tan-colored tights, his feet had been shoved into a pair of boots that reached almost up to his knees and his shoulders were stuffed into a tuxedo-like jacket that hung way longer in the back than any item of clothing had a right to do. But from the way Nala and Beth kept sighing and swooning, he knew he looked good.

It was enough. It had to be.

He lifted a debonair eyebrow at the mirror’s reflection. “Shaken, not stirred.”

“Oh, God, Jules. You are such a dork.” Beth hid her face in her hands.

“But a dork who’s going to win the lady’s hand, right?” he asked anxiously.

“Only if you get out there and do it already,” Nala said confidently. She put both of her hands on Julian’s back and pushed. “Now go. She might have left by now.”

He turned back only to give his sisters a warm thank you, which they promptly covered by screaming at him to leave before he made them both the laughingstocks of the entire world. How they were going to compete with him for that title, he had no idea.

But right now, he would have walked out the kitchen doors of Kilroy Hall buck naked if he thought it would get him that much closer to Kate. She was here. Despite all the awful things he’d said and done, she was here, and he wasn’t letting her leave until he had a chance to tell her how he felt.

He’d had a very long conversation with his mother that morning, comprised mostly of the little truths she’d been keeping from him for so long. Everything Gareth had said was true, his mother confirmed, and more. She wasn’t the poor little widow Julian thought she was, and her years of hard work had formed a comfortable cushion for the family. She’d been happy in marriage, but she was finding just as much happiness alone. She’d simply never had the heart to break down all Julian’s youthful illusions about the man who gave him so much.

At least, not until now.

Harold might not have been the man Julian thought he was, but he’d been a good man. He’d been an excellent husband and an even better father. All his mom wanted, she’d said firmly, was for Julian to have a chance to be those things, too.

And they both knew who he wanted to help get him there.

He moved across the grounds quickly, surprised at the range of motion the Regency garb allowed him. Tartans and plaids blended into the background as he searched for one figure, elegant and iridescent among so much blaring Scottish fanfare.

“Have you seen—?” he started to ask a woman holding a squalling baby in one hand and a bagpipe in the other. The woman’s eyes grew wide when he loomed into view, and her mouth fell open in what he hoped wasn’t ridicule.

“The other one? You two sure make a fine pair, don’t you? I think she’s over by the hammer throw. It’s about to get underway.”

Julian thanked her warmly and moved off in that direction, even as his heart surged within his chest. Kate was getting ready to watch the hammer throw—
his
hammer throw.

It wasn’t difficult to spot her in the crowd. Even with so many people here to watch—much more than any of them had anticipated—there was an aloofness to her that couldn’t belong to anyone else. It was impossible for another woman to come even close to her beauty as she stood there in the green lawn, her low-cut gown a rich blue that almost matched the one of his plaid, sweeping wide circles every time she moved.

As Kate came even more into view, he slowed his pace and tried to remember all the things he wanted to say. He could see the other guys in the distance, all of them getting ready to participate in what was expected to be the biggest event of the weekend. Kilroy’s record-setting throw from so many years past was already marked on the field, and they were gauging the distance with their eyes and their egos.

Let them.

The real prize was standing right here.

“Kate,” he said.

She whirled and caught her foot on the edge of her dress, falling almost completely into his arms. He wrapped himself around her and felt an overpowering urge to keep his arms in place, to refuse to sever the physical ties until she became the pliant, passionate woman he knew she could be. But that wasn’t what he wanted. So he righted her and stepped back, allowing her to take in his attire with as much hilarity or mockery she felt she had a right to.

She offered neither.

“Julian? What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be warming up for the hammer throw.”

“I know,” he replied softly.

“But you can’t… But you aren’t…”

“I can and I am.” He crooked his arm at the elbow and offered it to her. “I hear there’s an incredible ball going on across town. I was wondering if you’d allow me to escort you there.”

“Julian, don’t. I won’t let you.”

He quirked a brow. “Do I look like a gentleman to be trifled with?”

She took in his apparel from top to bottom, her gaze lingering on the tight fit of his pants and the full width of his shoulders contained in the dark, heavy fabric. Each part of him came to life when her eyes hit it, starting with a pricking sensation that felt like a body awakening from sleep and melting into full-bodied, blood-pounding lust.

“You look…”

“Ridiculous?” Julian asked, a smile on his lips.