Читать книгу Tall, Dark... Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Carole Mortimer - Страница 36

‘—SAYS he wants to come in for a meeting.’

Laura stared up at Perry with unseeing eyes. She hadn’t heard anything more he said since he’d come into her office a few minutes ago and actually told her that Liam had rung him this morning.

She swallowed hard. ‘Sorry, Perry, what did you say?’ She frowned in an effort to concentrate.

She hadn’t slept well at all last night, with thoughts going round and round in her head, but none of them really going anywhere.

For over seven years, since she had decided to marry Robert, she had lived in dread of Liam somehow walking back into her life, of his taking one look at Bobby and trying to claim him for his own. Something she would never, ever allow. Liam had given up any rights to his son when he had callously walked out of her life eight years ago.

Of course there was no way he could have known she was pregnant when he left; she hadn’t known it herself then. But if Liam had bothered, just once, to contact her, she could have told him the two of them were expecting a child.

Instead, she had read in the newspapers of his marriage to another woman!

Pregnant, alone, terrified, she had hated him with a vengeance, never wanted to set eyes on him ever again.

Time had dulled those feelings, of course. Not least because Robert had been a wonderful husband and father. She owed him everything that she had become.

As time had passed Liam O’Reilly had become a thing of the past, an interlude in her life she could look back at with a certain amount of embarrassment. In retrospect, she could see she had thrown herself at him, had refused to read the signs that would have told her the feelings she’d had for him weren’t reciprocated.

Which didn’t mean she considered Liam completely blameless in what had ultimately happened; he had done nothing to stop their relationship becoming an intimate one. And being able to look at the situation with adult eyes didn’t mean she had forgiven him, or that she ever wanted to see him again either!

But there had been no way she could just ignore that manuscript when Perry had first shown it to her three weeks ago. He was her senior editor and had been presented with a brilliant manuscript, even though he hadn’t known the real identity of the author then. He had brought that manuscript to Laura for her immediate attention. There had been no way, without arousing Perry’s extreme curiosity, that she could have just ignored it. Even though she had guessed from the first chapter just who the author was!

‘Liam O’Reilly has decided to go back to Ireland later this evening,’ Perry repeated patiently. ‘He wants to come in and talk about a contract before he leaves.’

‘Reilly O’Shea,’ she corrected lightly, giving herself necessary time to think.

Liam wanted to come here. He might ask to meet the head of Shipley Publishing!

Her.

‘What did you tell him?’ she asked Perry cautiously.

‘That I have a really busy schedule for today, but that I’ll call him back.’

Liam had decided to go back to Ireland. Why? She didn’t believe for a moment that it had anything to do with their unsatisfactory meeting—from Liam’s point of view, that was!—the evening before.

His reasons for leaving London earlier than expected were actually irrelevant; what was important was that his change of plans meant he wanted to come here. Today.

She drew in a sharp breath, determinedly businesslike. ‘Are you and David—’ her rights manager ‘—ready to talk contracts with him?’

Perry hesitated. ‘Depends who we’re talking to, doesn’t it?’ He frowned, shaking his head. ‘This is a really tricky situation, Laura. I’m not sure that you shouldn’t deal with it personally.’

That was the very last thing she wanted!

She leant back in her leather chair, every inch the businesswoman in her black trouser suit and white silk blouse. ‘Power dressing’ Robert had called it, but at twenty-nine, she knew she was considered very young to be the head of a publishing house, and she needed every edge she could get.

‘I’m sure you’re more than capable of dealing with it yourself, Perry.’ She smiled at him confidently as he sat across the desk from her, playing to his ego.

Perry was an ambitious man, who enjoyed his position as senior editor at this prestigious publisher; he would not like having his capabilities questioned.

‘Ordinarily, yes,’ he sighed. ‘But in this case I don’t have the first idea how to go about it. I want this manuscript very badly, want O’Reilly’s signature on a contract before he has the chance to change his mind or go to another publisher. But how am I supposed to go about that without telling the man I know exactly who he is? Worse, that I want the book published with Liam O’Reilly’s name on the cover? I don’t want to frighten him off.’

Her smile lacked humour this time. ‘He doesn’t sound the type that scares easily!’

‘Nevertheless, I still think personal input from you at any meeting with him would—’

‘Would give him completely the wrong impression of his own importance,’ she cut in sharply. ‘Perhaps the best thing would be to tell him you’re too busy to see him today, after all, Perry. It is very short notice, and—’

‘Laura, he’s asked to take the manuscript back to Ireland with him if we haven’t made him a definite offer by the end of today,’ Perry put in quietly, obviously reluctantly. And with very good reason.

Even as Reilly O’Shea—especially as Reilly O’Shea!—this author was behaving with extreme arrogance. New authors could often wait months to hear back from a publisher after submitting a manuscript: the fact that they had contacted Liam—through an impersonal post office box number of course!—after only a matter of weeks should have pleased him, not given him an over-inflated opinion of his own importance! But then, no matter what the author might claim to the contrary, this was Liam O’Reilly they were dealing with…

‘I know, I know!’ Perry stood up impatiently. ‘Your first instinct, as mine was, is probably to tell him to go to hell.’ He paced the room. ‘But I can feel the success of this book, Laura. I don’t want to lose it,’ he added heavily.

‘You’re sure you aren’t biting off a little more than you can chew?’ Than Laura could swallow. Publishing Liam’s book was one thing—as long as she had as little to do with it, and him, as possible!—but having him dictate terms at this early stage of things was too much. ‘He sounds as if he’s going to be a difficult man to deal with.’

As she knew only too well. Just that brief hour in his company yesterday evening had shown that, if anything, Liam’s arrogance had grown over the years, not diminished.

Which was a little hard to take, in this particular instance, when the man hadn’t had a book published for eight years.

Except that, like Perry, she knew Josie’s World, the whimsical story of a girl growing to maturity in a small Irish village, was so beautifully written that it was going to outsell anything they had every published before.

The problem here was that Liam knew it too!

‘Difficult or not,’ Perry answered grimly, ‘I want that book.’

Laura spoke quickly. ‘Then I suggest you discuss terms with him.’

‘And if I need to talk to you?’

‘Call me,’ she answered abruptly. Under no circumstances was he to bring Liam anywhere near her! She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s ten-thirty now. Ask him to come in and see you at four o’clock.’ When she would already have left her office for the day in order to collect Bobby from school.

As Amy had said last night, it wasn’t easy for her juggling motherhood with being head of Shipley Publishing. But with help from people like Amy, and a very loyal and reliable level of management at Shipley Publishing, she managed to keep all those balls in the air. If her own personal life seemed to suffer because of it, then it didn’t really matter; she already had more than she could ever have hoped for.

‘That way you aren’t going to look too compliant,’ she told Perry encouragingly. ‘As for the problem of who you’re dealing with; I think his arrogance this morning probably answers that question for you!’

‘You’re right,’ Perry agreed. ‘Sorry.’ He grimaced. ‘I was just thrown there for a few minutes.’ He walked purposefully to the door, obviously no longer thrown. ‘I’ll call him and tell him I can spare him a few minutes at four o’clock.’ He paused in the open doorway. ‘Wish me luck.’

She nodded, smiling—knowing he was going to need it! Liam was a force to be reckoned with—she was just relieved she wasn’t the one who would have to deal with it!

‘—told you, Mrs Shipley is busy and—You really can’t go in there!’ Ruth, her secretary, could be heard protesting agitatedly even as the office door was forcefully opened.

‘No?’ A sceptical Liam O’Reilly stood arrogantly in that open doorway, dark brows raised as he looked challengingly across the room at Laura as she sat behind the imposing desk in front of the window.

Laura’s first thought—stupidly!—was that it was only three o’clock! The man shouldn’t have arrived at Shipley Publishing for another hour!

‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Shipley.’ Ruth, small, plump, red-haired, very efficient at her job, looked crossly indignant at the way Liam had just trampled over her! ‘This—gentleman she announced sceptically, ‘asked to see you. But as he doesn’t have an appointment—’

‘And as I told this young—lady,’ Liam bit back with the same sarcasm, ‘I don’t need an appointment to see you.’ Again he looked at Laura with those hard, challenging blue eyes.

He most certainly did need an appointment! And if he had asked for one he most certainly wouldn’t have got one. Although, in the circumstances, it was a little late in the day to be worrying about that now!

Laura slowly put the pen she had been working with down on the desk-top, ignoring Liam to smile reassuringly at her secretary. ‘It’s all right, Ruth,’ she lied. ‘Mr O’Reilly and I are—acquainted.’

Ruth gave the intruder another indignant glare before turning back to Laura. ‘If you’re sure…?’

She nodded. ‘It’s fine.’

It was far from fine!

How dared Liam just push his way in here? More to the point, how had he known she was here at all?

‘Nice office,’ he drawled as Ruth closed the door behind him.

It was a beautiful office; there were oak-panelled bookshelves on three of the wall’s supporting copies of past and recent books published by the company. Her own desk was of the same mellowed oak and a plush fitted blue carpet covered the floor.

But, at the same time as Laura acknowledged the luxurious appointments of her office, she knew Liam was no more interested in their surroundings at the moment than she was.

What was he doing here?

She eyed him warily as he strode further into the room, blue denims old and faded, grey shirt beneath a loose black jacket. No wonder Ruth had tried to block his path into Laura’s office; he hardly looked the part of a successful author, let alone a millionaire!

‘Mrs Shipley,’ he murmured, almost to himself, it seemed.

Laura stiffened. It wasn’t what he had said so much as the way he had said it. Insultingly. Deliberately so, she was sure.

‘Mr O’Reilly,’ she returned with equal deliberation. ‘Or do I mean Mr O’Shea?’

After all, if he now knew who she was, there was absolutely no longer any point in any pretence on her part concerning his own attempt at subterfuge. At least she had only lied by omission—which was no lie at all; Liam had never asked her for her married name!

Blue eyes narrowed as Liam looked her over speculatively.

Which was a little like being studied under a microscope! Laura felt as if, just by looking at her in this way, Liam was trying to discover what else it was he didn’t know about her.

‘If it’s not too stupid a question,’ she began when she couldn’t stand that cold scrutiny any longer, ‘how did you know where to find me?’

‘I asked downstairs and was directed to the top floor,’ he returned satirically.

‘Very funny, Liam,’ she said wearily. ‘You know very well that isn’t what I meant at all!’

‘Isn’t it?’ he replied sharply. ‘Tell me, Laura, have you enjoyed the little game you’ve been playing with me the last two days?’ he rasped harshly, blue eyes dark with anger.

‘Game?’ she echoed dazedly, in no way recovered yet from the shock of his being here, in her office. A place he had no right to be! ‘I haven’t been playing any games, Liam—’

‘No?’ he cut in scathingly. ‘Yesterday afternoon at the hotel you and Perry Webster gave no indication that the two of you knew each other, and yet you’re his employer. Last night, when we met for a drink, you deliberately didn’t tell me that you know exactly what I’m doing in London at the moment—’

‘Not deliberately,’ she interrupted firmly. ‘Never that. I simply didn’t see the point in—’

“‘Didn’t see the point”!’ Liam repeated with cold fury, moving across the room with deceptively light footsteps. ‘I’ll tell you what the point is, Laura.’ He stood just across the other side of her desk now, leaning forward menacingly as he spoke to her. ‘The point is that you deliberately made a fool of me.’

‘I did not!’ she gasped.

‘Oh, yes, Mrs Shipley,’ he insisted, ‘you did.’

Laura shook her head. ‘I told you I was married—’

‘But not who you were married to,’ Liam scorned.

‘What difference does it make who I was married to?’ she challenged heatedly. ‘I didn’t see it bothering you last night when you—’

‘Yes?’ he taunted softly, suddenly very still. ‘When I what?’

‘Oh, never mind, Liam,’ she dismissed, heated colour in her cheeks now. ‘As I see it, you are the one who has been hiding behind another identity, not me!’

‘And as I see it,’ he returned forcefully, ‘you’ve known from the beginning that I was Reilly O’Shea—and you’ve used that knowledge to extract a little revenge.’

‘A little—!’ She was so angry now she couldn’t even complete her sentence. ‘If you think that’s true, Liam, then you must have a very low opinion of me,’ she said furiously. ‘And an even more inflated opinion of the role you once played in my life!’

They glared at each other wordlessly across the width of the desk for several long minutes. Laura was determined not to be the first to look away, but Liam was equally determined, apparently.

And then the atmosphere between them shifted slightly, changed, no longer charged with anger but with something else entirely.

‘Do I?’ he finally said.

Laura’s gaze was locked with his, her breathing low and shallow. ‘Do you what?’ she repeated softly.

‘Have an over-inflated opinion of what we once meant to each other?’ he encouraged huskily.

What they once meant to each other—!

His implication was enough to break the spell. For Laura, at least. She shook her head, her expression derisive. ‘I think we covered that quite well last night, Liam—I was an infatuated young student; you were an older, more worldly-wise man, flattered by—’

‘I’m well aware of the fact that I am some years older than you, Laura,’ he interjected, straightening away from the desk. ‘I certainly don’t need to keep being reminded of it!’

She was relieved he had moved his overwhelming presence away from her desk, but at the same time she was determined to put their past relationship in perspective. The way that she’d had to do for herself eight years ago, when she had thought her world was falling apart!

‘You—’

‘But talking of older men,’ he continued hardly, blue eyes narrowed again, ‘I believe Robert Shipley—’

‘I told you last night. I will not discuss Robert with you. Under any circumstances,’ she added tautly as Liam would have spoken, her eyes flashing a warning.

‘Robert Shipley was fifty-three when you married him,’ Liam continued, undaunted.

Laura half rose from her chair. ‘I—’

‘And fifty-eight when he died two years ago and left you as his widow and sole heir,’ Liam finished softly.

Laura dropped back into the leather chair, the colour draining from her cheeks.

Every thing that Liam said was true but one.

Robert had been fifty-three when they’d married seven and a half years ago. And he had only been fifty-eight when he’d died five years later. Leaving her his widow.

But Liam was wrong about her being Robert’s sole heir; the houses and half his fortune were hers, yes. But the other half of the money, and Shipley Publishing, she only held in trust. Robert Shipley Junior—Bobby, Liam’s own son—was actually heir to all of that…