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‘You think so?’ he asked softly.
Hurt him, urged an inner voice. Hurt him badly, as he hurt you. She gave him a supercilious little smile. ‘How did you make your money, then, Liam?’ she said patronisingly. ‘Labouring?’
‘But I thought you liked all that kind of thing, sweetheart?’ he drawled. ‘Your bit of rough,’ he added with insulting emphasis.
She felt all the blood drain from her face. ‘Why, you arrogant blackguard!’ she gasped out. Her eyes hardened to match the coldness in his. ‘Take me home, Liam!’
Soft snowflakes were fluttering onto the jet hair which the light breeze ruffled as he shook his head. ‘Not yet. I want to talk to you,’ he said, with the kind of steely emphasis used by a man not used to taking no for an answer.
‘See my solicitor.’
‘What’s the matter, Scarlett?’ he mocked. ‘Afraid to go inside? Does the past repulse you so much?’
As he drew her attention to the cottage she gave him her haughtiest look, narrowing her eyes so that he would be unable to read any of the nostalgic pain in her eyes. Not here, anywhere but here, where her love for him had been born. It had been in there—in that cottage—that she’d given herself to him one summer afternoon.
On a dusty floor he had slowly bared her flesh, had kissed her and possessed her with such exquisite sweetness. She had cried afterwards, salty tears of grateful joy sliding into his shoulders and down his chest. But even as the shudders had died away in his own body she had felt his anger. As though he had already sensed the repercussions of that sweet, wild mating...
‘Quite frankly, I can hardly remember the place,’ she lied frostily. ‘But, as you know, my stepfather owns it. So, as well as abduction we can add trespassing to your charge-sheet.’
He gave a short, abrasive laugh. ‘I think not,’ he said arrogantly. ‘Come inside, Scarlett. I told you—we need to talk, and it’s too cold to stay out here.’
He pulled her out of the car, not roughly, but with that gentle strength which had always been at the heart of his lovemaking. And for one bizarre moment of insanity Scarlett had to steel herself not to sink into those powerful arms.
‘I’ll never forgive you for this!’ she said fervently as he guided her towards the door and unlocked it.
‘That is purely academic.’ The handsome face was impassive, as if he didn’t care one way or the other.
Scarlett walked in, and her mouth fell open in surprise. In her mind’s eye she had imagined that the cottage would look exactly the same—neglected and run-down, bare and dilapidated—but to her astonishment someone had done the place up. And had done it up beautifully too.
The floorboards had been properly waxed to a deep shine, and Persian rugs in vibrant hues of sapphire and turquoise silk were scattered around. The walls had been recently covered in a pale wash and hung with several superb watercolours. Soft and pale modern furniture provided the seating. Someone had put central heating in too. Whoever had decorated had exquisite taste, and it had nothing of her parents’ rather predictable penchant for old-fashioned polished mahogany.
‘Who owns this?’ asked Scarlett suddenly.
‘I do.’
‘I don’t believe you!’ But her denial was merely automatic; his words had held the unmistakable ring of truth.
‘That is, of course, your prerogative,’ he said coolly.
Scarlett was growing more confused by the moment. ‘But my stepfather would never sell it—certainly not to you!’
‘So sure?’ A kind of smile curved the corners of his lips upwards, though his blue eyes stayed as cold as the temperature outside, and something in the oddly confident look on his face filled her with a strange kind of dread. Of course her stepfather wouldn’t have sold him the cottage! Why on earth would he have had any dealings with a man he detested almost as much as she did?
‘Sit down, Scarlett, while I light the fire. Coffee? Or perhaps you’d prefer something stronger?’
This was crazy! Any minute now and they’d be discussing politics—and here, of all places! She needed to get out—before the past, with its shockingly poignant memories, started that aching in her heart all over again. ‘I want out, that’s what I want—back to my party! You said you wanted to talk, Liam—then start talking. I’ll give you five minutes.’
‘We need some heat first.’ And he crouched down to start the fire. Flames leapt up and licked realistically at logs, and suddenly the room looked deceptively and cloyingly homely. Scarlett sat down on one of the squashy leather sofas, feeling as though her whole world had tipped upside-down, her reality totally distorted as she watched him pour brandy into two glasses and put them both onto a small table which sat in front of the sofa.
She glanced at her watch. It was approaching eleven. ‘I can’t wait for my stepfather to get here,’ she said calmly.
‘But not Henry?’
Henry? Scarlett stared at the hands which were clasped in her lap, wondering why she’d made the Freudian omission of neglecting to use Henry’s name. She looked up, and her eyes burned a golden fire as she met his steady blue stare. ‘Henry will take you to pieces. You can’t just walk into my house and carry me off against my will—you bloody great brute!’
‘But I just did,’ he pointed out.
‘If you wanted to speak to me didn’t it occur to you to just pick the phone up, like anyone else would have done, and ask to meet me?’
He gave her a coldly mocking smile. ‘And would you have agreed to meet me?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Well, then—I rest my case.’ And he lifted his glass to her in mock toast. ‘What shall we drink to?’ he asked conversationally.
‘How about divorce?’
‘So cruel,’ he remonstrated mockingly. ‘And yet, really I am the injured party—wouldn’t you say? After all, I was the one you trapped into marriage in the first place, wasn’t I?’
‘I didn’t...’ But her words of denial died away. Because wasn’t he right, in a way? She had trapped him. She had wanted him, and had lured him with all calculation of the spoilt child she’d been at the time. But she had loved him, or so she’d thought. And oh, how she’d paid a hundredfold for her youthful desire for Liam Rouse.
She watched as he slid down onto the squashy sofa opposite hers, the long black-trousered legs spread out in front of him.
Lord, but he looked good, she thought reluctantly. Still the same firmly packed muscular body, without a scrap of fat on it. The same broad chest, narrow hips and long, powerful thighs. But there was a change in him too.
She had known Liam in the very first flush of manhood, his virility untempered by anything other than need. But now... Now there was an element of rigid self-control about him, a steely determination—it was easy to see in the unperturbed watchfulness on that harshly handsome face, and even easier to read in those cold, blue eyes which unsmilingly underwent her scrutiny.
She took a deep breath and looked at him steadily, wanting to know what had turned Liam from that untamed and beautiful lover into this urbane and sophisticated man who now sat before her.
‘Have you been in England all this time?’
His mouth twisted in a parody of a smile. ‘Why?’ he mocked softly. ‘Did you miss me?’
More than he would ever know. ‘I missed you like the proverbial hole in the head!’ she shot back archly.
‘But I bet you missed my body, Scarlett?’ he murmured with ruthless accuracy. ‘Mmm?’
To her horror, just the thought of his body in the context to which he was referring was enough to produce a reaction: that familiar tug which hardened her nipples to frustrated tips which just cried out for the suckling of his moist, ravening mouth; the warm pooling sensation which culminated in a hot, hot aching at the juncture of her thighs. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, feeling the scalding flush of shame and arousal stain her cheeks, and knew that her eyes had darkened in conjunction with his. And knew that he’d missed nothing.
‘Yes,’ he affirmed softly. ‘You missed my body like hell, Scarlett.’
Hell was appropriate enough—the smug, arrogant devil! She took a slug of brandy and managed a chilly stare. ‘How tedious you can be sometimes, Liam. Have you lost all the art of polite conversation?’ She gave him a mocking little smile. ‘Oh! How silly of me! I forgot, of course, that you didn’t really have the skill to begin with—’
‘Such condescension,’ he reprimanded. ‘Really, Scarlett—did no one ever tell you that’s a sign of low intelligence?’
And why was it she never seemed able to get the better of him in an argument? she thought furiously. ‘Go to hell!’ she snapped.
‘Succinct,’ he murmured. ‘Now, what were we talking about before you sank to playground level? You were, I believe, quizzing me about my life, weren’t you?’
She should stick her nose in the air and tell him that she wasn’t in the slightest bit interested in anything he’d done—so it was rather strange to find herself asking, ‘Where have you been all this time?’
He sipped his own drink and put the glass back down on the table. ‘First I went to Australia. Then the States. My main home is still in Australia.’
And now? she thought with a sinking heart. Even out of sight, Liam had never been entirely out of mind. Surely he wasn’t planning to re-enter her life? ‘So now you’re back for good?’ she said, voicing the fear.
‘That rather depends,’ he said obscurely, ‘on the outcome of our talk.’
Something in the way he said it alerted alarm bells in Scarlett’s head. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. ‘You’d better tell me what this is all about, Liam.’
‘I told you. I have a proposition to put to you.’
Curiosity got the better of her. ‘What kind of proposition?’
He gave a distinctly wolfish smile. ‘I need a favour from you.’
She actually laughed aloud. ‘Well, if that doesn’t take the biscuit for arrogant, bare-faced cheek! You reappear after ten years and then try bargaining with me? You’re not in a position to negotiate.’
‘Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, Scarlett,’ he said, in a tone of chilling assurance. ‘I always operate from a position of strength. It’s a lesson I learned very early on in life.’
Something about this new Liam made her feel uneasy. The years had redefined that ridiculously primitive masculinity he’d always exuded. Oh, it was still there, but tempered beneath the cool and worldly assurance he now carried with him. And, in a way, the impact was all the greater under its new guise. The hand of steel masked beneath the velvet glove...but just as hard and as impenetrable as ever...
He had been cold and unfeeling, she thought bitterly. He had walked away without giving her a second thought—well, she was damned if she’d let him back into her life on any terms!
She studied him, feigning impartiality. ‘Tell me what you’re asking,’ she said. ‘But I haven’t any money to give you,’ she added insultingly.
This brought a reaction. It was so fleeting that someone who had not made a hobby out of studying his harsh features might have missed it completely. But it was there, and Scarlett saw it. Rage, in about as undiluted a form as you could get it, burned like a blazing fire in those blue eyes. Rage, which somehow—sinisterly—managed to convey some kind of threat. And as she felt her heartbeat pick up she realised that it was a sexual threat, communicated silently to her traitorous and willing body.
Then it was gone. Instead, the eyes were narrowed, ill-concealed distaste replacing rage. ‘You think I need your money?’ he questioned softly. ‘That even if I did I would ever come crawling back to ask you? And I can imagine what you’d like in exchange for your money too.’ His eyes glittered with censure. ‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Scarlett, but I played the role of stud just once in my life—and that was once too often.’
Scarlett stared at him in horrified disbelief. He couldn’t believe that—he just couldn’t! Surely he didn’t believe that it had just been the bed thing for her? He had been her entire world, her universe. For her, the sun had risen and set in Liam’s eyes. She shuddered at the memory before answering him.
‘While you may have the time or the inclination to sit around here discussing an episode of our lives best left forgotten—I do not.’ She stared at her wristwatch pointedly. ‘I have a party going on, guests waiting—so come on, out with it, Liam.’
There was the faintest upward pull at the corner of his mouth, and to her consternation she felt her cheeks flame at his silent acknowledgement of sexual innuendo.
‘Get on with it!’ She glared at him. ‘And tell me about your proposition.’
‘So delightfully put,’ he murmured, then crossed one long leg over the other. ‘Very well. We’ve tarried for long enough. You see, it’s not your money I need, Scarlett—it’s you.’
To her fury, her heart had resumed its excited little pitter-pattering. Some long-forgotten yearning deep within her flared into tentative life. She found herself swallowing. ‘What did you say?’ she whispered.
He smiled. ‘I want you to do me a little favour, Scarlett,’ he said softly.
The yearning crumbled into dust, but some glittering message which sparked at the depths of his eyes warned her not to simply ignore his statement. ‘What kind of favour?’
He smiled again. He looked invincible. ‘I have a big business merger going through. Contracts are about to be signed. All I need to do is put the icing on top of the cake, so to speak, so I’m holding a house party at one of my homes in Australia for my prospective business colleagues and their wives. I want everything to run like clockwork, and I need a hostess—someone who knows how to play the part to perfection—and who better than you, Scarlett?’ he finished mockingly.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_7668fc1c-1c5d-533d-a0fb-35c4f612a8d9)
SCARLETT stared at Liam as though he had just spouted horns and a tail. She shook her head from side to side in disbelief. ‘It’s a preposterous suggestion! Laughable! It doesn’t even deserve the dignity of an answer.’
He didn’t seem in the least bit perturbed by her negative response. ‘You won’t do it, then?’
She nearly choked on the last of the brandy she had been drinking to gain a bit of Dutch courage. ‘Of course I won’t do it! I don’t know how you’ve got the brass neck to even consider it! As if I’d endure even a minute more of your company than I have to—let alone take part in some farcical ‘‘house party’’ to impress your business cronies. And if I did meet any of them, I’d take great delight in telling them—’
‘How great I am in bed?’ he mocked softly, giving a deep laugh as he saw the colour which scorched over her pale skin.
‘That was completely unnecessary, and below the belt!’
He raised his eyebrows infinitesimally and gave a very sexy smirk. ‘I certainly hope so,’ he drawled.
Scarlett gave up. His sexual innuendo she couldn’t cope with—not when she was marooned out in the middle of nowhere with him. It was time to put her foot down—once and for all!
‘How many times do I have to tell you? Watch my lips, Liam! I am engaged to someone else! And, just in case that’s still not clear enough, watch my lips again! In five weeks’ time you and I will be divorced!’
‘So I take it the answer is no?’ came the mocking reply.
‘Have the last ten years done something to your powers of reasoning?’ she demanded. ‘Of course the answer’s no!’
He shook his head, as though mildly irritated, nothing more. ‘Oh, dear. And there was me hoping that we would be able to agree on this amicably.’
‘Which just goes to show how wrong you can be!’
‘Scarlett,’ he drawled, ‘I’m afraid that there isn’t really a pleasant way to say what I’m about to say—’
‘Then why bother?’ she cut in.
‘You’ll see. Do you have any knowledge of your stepfather’s affairs?’
She shot him a bewildered look. ‘What are you talking about?’ she demanded. ‘He’s always been completely faithful to my mother.’
‘Not those kinds of affairs,’ he chided. ‘Heavens, Scarlett—you always did have a one-track mind. I’m talking about his business affairs.’
What on earth did Liam know about Humphrey’s business affairs? ‘What about them?’
‘Your stepfather is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy,’ he stated baldly.
There was something about the flat, unequivocal statement that had the undeniable ring of truth about it. Scarlett tried to swamp the sudden fear which rose in her throat.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said quietly.
There was a grim expression on his face which hardened the brilliant blue of his eyes into shards of glittering sapphire. ‘Believe it,’ he said flatly. ‘This cottage I now own—as I do the majority of your stepfather’s old estate.’
Scarlett’s heart started thudding loudly. ‘Liar,’ she whispered.
He ignored the interruption. ‘His business is in trouble and his house is mortgaged up to the hilt. And if the bank were to call in its loans, well...’ He gave a sardonic smile as he paused for dramatic emphasis.
‘And why should the bank want to do that?’ she asked steadily. ‘And what has all this got to do with you? And me?’
