Читать книгу 8 Magnificent Millionaires - Кэтти Уильямс, Cathy Williams - Страница 16

‘LIADAN?’

Adrian woke from the soundest sleep known to man to find the bright rays of the morning permeating the curtains like laser beams and the woman he’d made love to with such furious passion…gone. Combing his fingers dazedly through his thick dark hair, Adrian swung his long, muscular legs out of the bed and sat there for a few moments with his head in his hands. Her scent was all over him and he didn’t feel like washing it off, not yet. Right now he simply wanted to bask in the feeling of aliveness that seemed to be flowing through his body, when every other morning he woke with the weight of dread around his shoulders and almost didn’t want to face the day. It was obvious who had brought about such a miraculous change in him.

Liadan. Even her name had the power to infuse him with an excitement so great he barely knew what to do with it. His lips twitched into a smile before he realised it. Hardly able to contain his anticipation at seeing her again this morning, he reached for his trousers, buckled up his belt and wandered back down the corridor to his own suite of rooms to take a shower.

‘You want me to go out with you—tonight?’ Raising her astonished blue eyes to Adrian’s perfectly serious dark gaze, Liadan experienced a giddy rush of blood to the head, not sure she had heard him aright.

He shrugged those wide shoulders of his and smiled down at her with a slow, mouth-wateringly sexy smile that both angered and excited her. Liadan frowned back at him, her chest tight. She could hardly believe that he was behaving as if that scene in her bedroom had never happened. She might have responded to his urgent lovemaking with equal passion and need, but this morning her emotions felt as if they’d been scraped raw with sandpaper, while Adrian appeared completely unaffected by such turmoil. What was angering her most was that she’d risen at dawn as usual to light the fire in his study and get his breakfast ready, and left him to sleep on—not knowing where the hell she stood with anything. Right now she hardly knew whether she should go or whether she should stay and yet there he stood, supremely confident in his arrogant maleness and superiority, no doubt imagining she’d be swept off her feet with excitement at the idea he had invited her out.

Plucking the yellow duster she’d been polishing with out of her hands, he tossed it carelessly onto the piano. ‘We’re going to the opera, La Bohème, at the Royal Albert Hall. Courtesy of my editor, Lynne, who fears that I’m turning into Dracula, staying in the house too long and only walking abroad at night.’

Liadan found no humour in his statement. Inside she was wondering if she was simply going to let Adrian dictate to her in the way that Michael had loved to do—no doubt whatsoever in his mind that she might have any objections. ‘What makes you think that I want to go anywhere with you, Adrian? Unless you make it a habit of inviting your housekeeper to the opera? Well, do you?’

Irked by her resistance to what he had automatically assumed would be a good idea, Adrian was deeply unsettled by Liadan’s apparent frostiness. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he asked irritably.

‘It means I need a little clarification here. You hired me to work for you—correct me if I’m wrong? Now we’re sleeping together and obviously our relationship has changed, so I need to know where I stand. Am I your housekeeper or your girlfriend, Adrian? I can’t be both.’ She couldn’t keep the trembling out of her voice. Her throat was threatening to close and her mouth was stripped bare of moisture, but she was determined to let him know that she was nobody’s fool. If he wanted a proper relationship with her, then so be it. It might mean having to look for another job, but why should she worry about that when she would have the satisfaction of knowing she was with someone who really wanted to be with her? But right now she didn’t know that for sure. All Liadan did know was that she wasn’t prepared to be used again by any man—even one she was crazy about.

Alarm bells were ringing very loudly inside Adrian’s head. Was she considering leaving him if his answer was not to her satisfaction? More to the point—was he in danger yet again of screwing up another woman’s life with his arrogance and blithe disregard for her feelings? This was an ultimatum he hadn’t expected to be confronted with, he was ashamed to admit, but at the same time he was unreasonably annoyed at Liadan for presenting him with it. Especially when his mood had been brighter and more optimistic this morning than it had for ages.

‘You’re right,’ he acknowledged, his dark gaze wary. ‘We should discuss this.’

Letting out a soft, slow breath, Liadan nodded. At least he hadn’t denied the necessity for talking about their relationship—even though he was clearly reluctant. She was doing the right thing, she told herself. She owed it to herself to speak up and not be pushed around as she had been in her disastrous relationship with Michael. The situation between herself and Adrian urgently needed clarifying. It was one thing being in love with the man and unable to resist his incredibly compelling powers of seduction, but it was quite another him expecting her to continue working in his employ and still be his lover. Like it or not, this potentially disastrous situation simply could not continue. Natural common sense made her face the truth that was staring her in the face.

‘So…what do you think?’ she asked nervously.

Frowning, Adrian folded his arms across the midnight blue sweater that he wore with black jeans and sighed. ‘What do I think?’

If someone had predicted that when Kate left he would find himself embroiled in a very different, less-than-professional relationship with the next woman he employed, he would have been openly scornful. He had a healthy libido, he’d have said, but he wouldn’t be so foolish as to indulge it with someone who worked for him. He needed a housekeeper, that was all. And that was all, until Liadan showed up.

Not that she wasn’t good at her job—that was half the trouble. Right now he couldn’t imagine anyone else taking care of himself or his house so well. At the same time, he’d succumbed to his lust and craving for her body and made her his lover. By doing so, he’d placed both himself and her in an untenable predicament. Yet how could he not have capitulated to his desire for her? Liadan only had to walk into the same room as Adrian to make him so turned on it was practically physical torment, and right now he refused to contemplate doing without her for one second, let alone for good…

He seemed to be stalling for some reason, and Liadan’s stomach turned an anxious cartwheel.

‘I can’t stay here working for you and continue having an—an intimate relationship. You must see that.’ Her curling red-gold lashes downcast, she studied her hands intently, torn between running out of the house as fast as her legs could carry her, or throwing herself into his arms and confessing that she loved him. A course of action that would be clearly disastrous in the face of his indecision about their relationship.

‘Yes, you can.’

‘How?’

Glancing up, her heartbeat rapidly increased at the determination on Adrian’s impossibly attractive face. The pulse in one perfectly sculpted cheek throbbed momentarily before he spoke.

‘You can marry me,’ he said without emotion.

‘Marry you?’ Liadan was glad the piano stool was situated just behind her. Her trembling limbs dictated she sat on it whether she wanted to or not. ‘But you don’t love me.’ You love a ghost…she finished in her mind.

He looked astonished, as though her assertion was entirely irrelevant. His next comment drove it home.

‘We have other equally powerful inducements, don’t we?’ A knowing smile kicked up the corners of his usually stern mouth. ‘You can’t deny that we’re good together and your company is more pleasing to me than most women I know. You don’t talk my ears off and you have a quiet way about you that I find soothing.’ Liar. She was in his blood and what he felt for her right now was anything but soothing…more like a raging fever. Damn it all to hell! Why can’t you just be honest with the woman? he demanded silently of himself. Tell her how you feel!

But how could he be honest when fear of failure was demanding he stay silent on that score? One way or another, eventually he was bound to make a mess of things. Hadn’t he done so with both Nicole and Petra? Only one thing was certain. If he didn’t act soon to the contrary he would possibly wreck the only chance at happiness that had come his way in a long, long time and it would be entirely his own stupid fault.

A small, disappointed shiver ran down Liadan’s spine at Adrian’s statement and she twisted her hands together in the lap of her jade-coloured skirt as if she didn’t quite know what to do with them. ‘My company is pleasing?’ Was that all he could find to say about her? What was it about her that men couldn’t commit to her as they could to other women? she reflected despondently. First Michael’s judgemental rejection both of her body and her person and now this—this lukewarm litany of some of her supposedly more attractive attributes that was supposed to add up to a proposal of marriage. ‘You must be desperate for a housekeeper if you’re prepared to marry me in order to keep me in your employment,’ she said in a detached voice, barely able to bring herself to look at him.

His hard jaw clenched, Adrian couldn’t disguise his annoyance. ‘What are you talking about? If I married you I would look to employ someone else as my housekeeper, naturally. You would be my companion…my wife.’ If a possessive tone had crept in at his use of that last word, Adrian deliberately ignored it. Instead, he latched onto the realisation that it was probably the best idea he’d had in ages, under the circumstances. Liadan was a kind, beautiful girl whose loving nature had stolen a march on him when he hadn’t been looking. Plus the sexual chemistry between them was combustible. He’d got used to her being around and the thought of her not being around was—unthinkable. If they married, he would provide her with financial stability for life and neither of them would have to be alone any more. Perfect. Only, when Adrian gazed into Liadan’s troubled blue eyes, it didn’t seem at all as if she agreed with him.

‘I appreciate the thought but…no, thanks.’ Getting to her feet, she pushed away a wayward curl and picked up the discarded yellow duster from the top of the piano. ‘I have to be getting on. I have plenty of work to do.’ If her voice was flat, she couldn’t help it. Inside Liadan was crushed. His cold proposal of marriage had done nothing for her self-esteem. In fact, right now she hated herself because she couldn’t understand why the man she loved couldn’t seem to return her affection on any level except a sexual one.

‘Liadan?’ A frown between his perfect black brows, Adrian caught her arm as she passed him, to waylay her. ‘I’ve obviously offended you. Tell me! I want to know.’

‘Offended me? Whatever gave you that idea? I mean, why on earth should I be offended by such a cold, unfeeling suggestion as to marry you and be your little “companion”? Your editor is right, Adrian. You really do need to get out more. You’re so caught up in your dark, depressing stories that you’ve forgotten how to relate to people emotionally. I may not have much money, and I may not have another job to go to if I should leave here, but at least I have a heart full of love rather than no heart at all. At least I’m not scared to express my feelings! Now, if you don’t mind…’ she wrenched her arm free and swept towards the door ‘…I have work to do.’

‘Liadan!’

‘What?’ Turning at the door, she willed her feet to stay still even though she’d like nothing better right now than to escape to her room—lock herself in and cry her heart out. He might be an expert on running away from life’s problems, but she wasn’t. She would face whatever she had to face and afterwards she wouldn’t have any cause to feel ashamed.

‘I don’t want you to go, so please don’t talk of leaving. If my offer of marriage was less appealing than you’d like, then please forgive me. I may be a writer but I don’t always necessarily choose the right words to express my feelings.’

‘So you do have feelings, then?’ Liadan was unable to bite back her sarcasm, then saw Adrian flinch, as if her words had contained a poisonous tip that had deeply wounded him. Inwardly, she cringed. She didn’t want to hurt him any more than he’d been hurt already. So he might not be the most emotionally expressive man on the planet, but he still had a good heart. Liadan was convinced of that…despite what she’d said about him having no heart at all.

Clearly wrestling with those very feelings, Adrian unconsciously circled his chest with his hand as if trying to contain them. ‘Come to the opera with me tonight…please. Let’s at least enjoy a pleasant evening together and forget about everything else for a while. What do you say?’

Music was one of his greatest passions, Kate had told her that first afternoon when they’d met. And the chance to see La Bohème was not to be missed. Even if Liadan was in turmoil about his less-than-loving proposal of marriage.

‘All right, then. I’ll come.’ Her lip quivered a little as she tucked some hair behind her ear. The decision to go to the opera was easy. The marriage offer, on the other hand, was far more problematic to contemplate. Adrian didn’t love her, that much was obvious, and marrying him ultimately would only bring her down. Just being with him would solve one great need she had, but living with him and not having his love would surely destroy her utterly in the end.

Recoiling from the immense wall of pain that she emotionally slammed into, Liadan knew the decision she had to make. Buying a little time at the opera would be no bad thing, she told herself—because it would probably be the last evening they ultimately shared together in such an intimate way.

More relieved than he could say with her agreement, Adrian felt the tension in his muscles thankfully relax. ‘You won’t regret it,’ he promised.

Summoning up a mere ghost of a smile, Liadan nodded and said nothing.

‘Here.’ Adrian pushed his clean white handkerchief into Liadan’s hand, touched by her highly emotional response to the final scene where the heroine, Mimi, died in her lover’s arms. But he was also concerned. She’d been so quiet throughout the long drive into London and now, in the theatre foyer, as they collected their coats from the cloakroom her pretty tear-moistened eyes kept avoiding his inquiring gaze; she was clearly embarrassed by displaying such emotion in public.

‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine.’ She was lying. Especially since she looked as if she was about to burst into tears all over again.

‘Liar.’ Waiting until she’d finished dabbing at her eyes with his handkerchief, Adrian helped her on with her long tweed coat, her perfume stirring the air around him, immediately casting a spell he was helpless to resist. Not that the woman needed any artificial help in creating her magic. He was simply mesmerised by her.

‘How could anyone not be moved by what we’ve just seen and heard? It’s such a tragic story. Poor Mimi.’ Sniffing helplessly, Liadan glanced up at Adrian, at his extraordinarily compelling features and dashing appearance in his dark grey suit, white shirt, burgundy tie and long black coat that showed off his wonderful wide shoulders to perfection. She felt like Cinderella meeting the handsome prince at the ball for the first time, knowing that these precious stolen moments together would soon be relegated to painful posterity when the clock struck midnight, and she had to finally flee back to her old life without him.

‘Don’t forget poor Rudolph.’ For once, Adrian’s smile was unguarded and warm and Liadan wanted to capture the specialness of that moment and keep it close to her heart for ever. ‘Even though he should never have driven her away in the first place with his jealousy.’

‘Mr Jacobsen! Who’s your lady friend? How about a smile for our readers?’

They both turned at the demanding male voice and were temporarily blinded by the flash of a powerful camera. Immediately Adrian’s arm swept protectively around Liadan’s waist and she sensed every muscle in his body turn to iron.

‘Leave us alone,’ he said with a scowl, pushing past the impertinent photographer with ill-disguised resentment.

‘What’s your name, love? How long have you and Alexander been seeing each other?’

For a moment Liadan was surprised by the use of Adrian’s writing name, then she realised that that was the name that most of the public knew him by these days. Adrian Jacobs, war correspondent, had been replaced by Alexander Jacobsen, best-selling author of dark psychological thrillers.

‘Say nothing,’ Adrian warned her in a low voice as he steered her deliberately towards the heavy double doors of the exit. He needn’t have worried. Liadan was just as keen as he was to guard her privacy. The sooner they were in the car and on their way home, the better, as far as she was concerned.

‘Did you know that you’re a dead ringer for Alexander’s old flame Nicole Wilson, love?’

Beside her, Adrian froze. Liadan froze right along with him. Was that why he had hired her as his housekeeper—because she looked like the girlfriend he had lost in such tragic circumstances? The idea sent shock waves hurtling through her system like water rapids. Worse still…was that why he now professed to want to marry her?

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

Unable to contain his fury, Adrian turned on the hapless photographer, his hands possessively tightening around Liadan’s waist as if he expected her to suddenly bolt. The photographer, a middle-aged man with sandy-coloured hair thinning on top, and wearing glasses, smirked defiantly.

‘Come on, Alexander. It can’t have escaped your notice that she looks like Nicole? Still carrying a torch for the lovely Miss Wilson, are we?’

‘You print those despicable lies and you’ll never work again in the newspaper business…you understand?’

‘Is that a threat, Mr Jacobsen?’

‘No! It isn’t a threat!’ Breaking free of Adrian’s hold, Liadan stepped forward, her heart pumping wildly against her ribs—not just because she was furious, but because there was suddenly a small crowd of curious onlookers gathering around them in the plush theatre foyer, gawking. However she felt about Adrian’s reasons for wanting her, she still didn’t want him to be hurt any more than he was already. ‘Don’t you think he’s been through enough without you making his life even more difficult? Aren’t there more newsworthy stories that you could chase about real issues that affect real people, instead of making things up purely to sell your sleazy tabloid?’

Liadan didn’t know whether she’d imagined it, but the photographer seemed to go slightly red in the face, as though she’d inadvertently hit on something raw.

‘Liadan.’ Quietly but firmly insistent, Adrian reached for her hand and pulled her away. ‘Let’s go home, huh?’

‘Wait a minute.’ Her blue eyes focusing solely on the man in front of her with his cassette recorder and camera, she took a deep breath to try and calm her racing heartbeat. ‘Don’t print this nonsense…please. I’m appealing to the better nature that I’m sure you have underneath that hard-bitten façade. You don’t have to trade on people’s unhappiness to make a living, do you? We’ve just had the most wonderful evening at the opera. Please don’t spoil it for us by tarnishing the experience for ever.’

‘Let’s go home,’ Adrian said again, and this time Liadan allowed him to lead her through the thick double doors out into the street. When they glanced back, there was no sign that the photographer had made any attempt to follow them.

‘Liadan?’

‘I’m very tired, Adrian. We’ll talk tomorrow if you want to.’

‘No. This can’t wait until tomorrow. There are things that need to be said.’

Pausing to rub her hand across her eyes, Liadan took her hand off the curved balustrade of the staircase, feeling so emotionally drained that she hardly knew her own name.

‘Come into the study.’

There was no fire because they’d gone out for the evening, so the room was definitely on the chilly side. Glad that she hadn’t yet removed her warm coat, Liadan stuck her hands into the pockets and, with a dull ache in the centre of her chest, watched Adrian stride across to the drinks cabinet and pour them both a brandy.

‘Thank you.’ She accepted the drink dispassionately, not even desiring it. What she did desire was beyond all possibility of happening. She knew that now.

Adrian was still trying to come to terms with the fact that, yet again, Liadan had put his needs first. There had been no reason for her to jump to his defence with that photographer under the circumstances—even though he felt the utmost admiration of her courage for doing so. He’d made love to her with unrestrained passion but had firmly and deliberately kept other, perhaps more important, emotions under rigid control. Then, to make matters worse, he’d made a proposal of marriage that had sounded about as appealing as an invitation to the North Pole for a summer holiday. Taking a suddenly urgent sip of the fine French brandy in his glass, Adrian welcomed the raw heat that swirled into his stomach, then, taking a deep breath, he turned to regard the woman who stood so forlornly beside the piano.

‘You don’t look like Nicole. Your hair colour and build are similar, perhaps, but that’s all.’

‘I think what you’re trying to say is that I’m not a substitute for her?’

Leaving her brandy untouched, Liadan carefully placed the small glass on top of the piano. Her mouth curved into a tight, unhappy smile, and she shrugged, praying hard that her current feelings of despondency and heartache would not prevent her from walking away with her head held high. She was going to have to be very brave and very stoic to leave this place and the man she’d given her heart to, but leave it she must. It might be mere coincidence that she vaguely resembled Adrian’s lost love Nicole, but even so…Liadan knew that he still loved the woman and perhaps always would. Being second best was not something she was willing to accept, she realised. No matter how much she loved this man.

For a while she’d been second best to Michael’s faith until he’d finally made up his mind there was no reconciling his relationship and his calling. She wouldn’t repeat the same useless heartache with Adrian. If he didn’t love her, then eventually he could only come to despise her.

‘How could I be?’ she continued. ‘It was Nicole you gave your heart to. I know that.’

‘You accused me of not possessing a heart, remember?’

‘I remember. What was she like…Nicole?’

His hands tightening around his brandy glass, Adrian frowned. For the first time in years, his stomach didn’t plunge to his boots when he thought about his former girlfriend. The only part of his memory that recoiled in immediate pain was the part that recalled how she’d died. But that was a scene that was imprinted on his soul and would never disappear no matter how much he might wish it to.

‘She was a fine journalist. Great sense of humour and…beautiful.’ Deliberately keeping his description to the minimum, Adrian glanced at Liadan’s face and realised with a little frisson of shame that he could hardly remember what Nicole looked like. Instead, his gaze devoured the pale, almost ethereal beauty of Liadan’s bewitching features like a man who’d been invited to a sumptuous banquet, then told he wasn’t allowed to eat.

‘And she’s the reason you turned your back on being a war correspondent? The reason you locked yourself away in this huge house and started to write fiction instead?’

‘What happened to Nicole merely confirmed the futility and pointlessness of what I was doing. What was one more bloody death to people back at home who just accepted the inevitability of war and the casualties it wrought? People who could read about it in their newspapers over their toast and orange juice and then go to the office as if nothing had changed, because what did one more life taken in some Third World country mean to them in the grand scheme of things?’

‘But it meant something to you,’ Liadan said softly, registering the passionate fury in his voice.

A dark shadow seemed to pass across his eyes. ‘Yes. It meant something to me.’

And in that unguarded moment Liadan knew that Adrian wasn’t as totally cynical about life as she’d first believed him to be. Perhaps he was just the opposite? Maybe once upon a time he had been passionate and idealistic about people making a difference in the world. Maybe he had believed that if he brought the terrible details of war and the atrocities committed in its name to the attention of everyone else, they could share in his outrage and ultimately try and do something to stop it?

‘You two must have made a hell of a team.’ Her blue eyes shimmering, Liadan attempted a smile.

‘We did,’ Adrian agreed, his gaze distracted. ‘But that was then.’ Lifting his head, he levelled his gaze at Liadan, his dark eyes blazing back at her with an intensity of purpose that made her catch her breath. ‘It’s the present I’m more interested in right now.’