8 Magnificent Millionaires

‘Nothing I could say or do could make it up to you, lass…for what Steven did.’ George lifted his head as though determined to face whatever punishment Liadan cared to mete out, and his pale blue eyes went strangely glassy when she merely smiled and pressed his hand warmly with her own.

‘You don’t owe me anything, George. You aren’t responsible for what your son did. He’s an adult. I certainly don’t think we should let it come between our friendship, do you?’

‘That’s very good of you, lass…more than I deserve. You know Mr Jacobs fired him, of course? I’m only grateful that he didn’t call the police, even though the stupid little bugger deserved it—pardon my language. I just wanted to reassure you that he wouldn’t be bothering you again. I’ve paid for him to go and stay with my sister Marge for a while down in Wales. Her and her husband are farmers and they’ll keep him busy, don’t you worry. He knows if he ever sets foot up here again, I’ll be the first one to call the police.’

‘All right, George. I’m sure you must have plenty of work to be getting on with—particularly now when we’re short-staffed. Liadan has work to do, too.’

Adrian walked up beside her, taking her by surprise, his tone ringing icy command and clearly expecting those commands to be instantly met. As she glanced sidelong at his formidably stern profile her stomach clenched hard at the pain of the little knot that was currently twisting her insides together.

Placing his cap back firmly on his head, George muttered, ‘I’ll be seeing you then, lass,’ and stepped rigidly back as though every inch of his body were covered in painful bruises. When he had gone, Adrian shut the doors firmly behind him, surveying Liadan with a cool regard as if the intimacy they had shared had never even taken place.

‘I’d find a vase to put those in and get on with lunch if I were you. My editor’s coming to see me this afternoon so I’m going to be pretty tied up for the rest of the day.’

Liadan had trouble swallowing down her shock and outrage—at his cavalier treatment of George as well as at the cold disdain with which he all but ordered her back to work. She felt as though she were having a bad dream. Her hands were clutching the daffodils too tightly, and her candid blue eyes couldn’t disguise her hurt and disappointment.

‘Did you have to speak to George so roughly? The poor man is obviously going through agonies over his son.’

‘The poor man’s son assaulted you in my house!’ Adrian snapped back through gritted teeth. ‘I would be perfectly within my rights to sack him too, under the circumstances!’

Unable to bite back the gasp that came to her lips, Liadan stared in disbelief. ‘You wouldn’t be so cruel, surely? George has worked here a long time and as far as I know he’s done a wonderful job. Where would he go? What would he do?’

‘That’s not my concern.’

‘Then what is your concern, Adrian, if you don’t mind my asking?’ Clutching the flowers tightly to her chest, Liadan finally couldn’t halt the flow of anger that was bubbling up inside her. The man wasn’t an automaton…he had to feel something, didn’t he? It wasn’t human not to feel anything at all. ‘All I can say is that it must be very cold in that empty place inside your chest where your heart should be. You seem to think you can protect yourself from every bit of hurt and trouble by shutting off all your feelings and emotions like a tap. But nobody can pretend not to feel things, Adrian. Not even you!’

‘I don’t have time for this pointless conversation. Just get on with your work, will you, and leave my feelings out of this?’ With a contemptuous glare that made Liadan feel as if an icy wind had just swept over her, he strode away as if the matter were completely at an end.

He hadn’t been able to concentrate on a damn thing that Lynne Scott, his editor, had said and he certainly couldn’t share in her excitement that, in her opinion, his current work in progress was going to be his biggest and most lucrative book yet. Truth to tell, Adrian had fallen completely out of love with the damned thing. When he should have been all fired up because he was so very near the graphically gruesome shock ending he’d been planning on, all he could think about was his lust for his pretty housekeeper.

Making love with Liadan had been amazing. The sexual drought he’d deliberately imposed upon himself after the messy entanglement with Petra couldn’t have been more thoroughly or satisfyingly brought to an end as it had been last night in Liadan’s cottage. Whenever Adrian closed his eyes—even briefly—all he could see were those sensuously darkened blue eyes of hers, all her feelings bruisingly laid bare as she gave herself to him over and over until he was sated.

To speak to her as coldly as he had done, to treat her almost with contempt when she had so readily jumped to George’s defence this morning, had been both despicable and unforgivable. But Adrian was still furious about that whole business with Steven Ferrers, uncontrollably enraged that Liadan had been hurt under his roof when he should have been there to protect her. Just as he should have been there to take the consequences of that explosion instead of Nicole…

Cursing out loud as he pushed out of his chair, he strode out of the room, determined to take a walk under the stars and to quell the rising sense of panic that was threatening to engulf him.

Hearing the front doors slam, Liadan paused in the task of removing her make-up. She glanced down at the slim gold wrist-watch she’d taken off and left on the edge of the sink, and saw that it was just after midnight. Didn’t the man believe in rest? Biting her lip and telling herself she must be some kind of masochist, she put down the cotton-wool pad she’d started to use and went back into the bedroom. She didn’t really know what she intended or whether she was actually going to make matters worse, but she pulled her short sheepskin jacket from the wardrobe, quickly stuck her stockinged feet into black leather loafers and hurried downstairs to the ground floor.

Bathed in moonlight, the gardens were an ethereal, magical place. As Liadan adjusted her gaze to the moonlit paths her heart raced a little as she searched for Adrian. She knew that the gardens were full of secret little places to make oneself scarce, and she realised she had a task on her hands if she was to find him. But find him she would. After his pleasant-looking editor had left, the atmosphere in the house had been as if somebody had just died. The weight of the gloom that had descended was making Liadan feel jumpy and miserable.

She might be determined to weather the storm, but how was she supposed to work when Adrian could hardly bring himself to speak to her with a civil tongue? Was he angry because he believed she might have some expectations where he was concerned? Especially now because they’d made love? Her sigh making a little cloud of her breath in the chill night air, Liadan shivered and turned up the warm collar of her jacket to ward off the cold.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing out here alone?’

‘Don’t do that! You almost gave me a heart attack!’

Her blue eyes huge, almost luminous in the moonlight, Liadan stumbled backwards in shock as Adrian came up beside her. Grabbing her arm tightly, he pulled her hard against his chest without thinking—his reaction automatic and unequivocal. Staring down into her startled face, he laughed harshly.

‘You should take better care where you wander. This garden is full of ghosts that only come out at night.’

Liadan believed him. Feeling his grip on her arm tighten with no indication that he intended releasing her any time soon, she nervously wet the seam of her lips with her tongue and tried to smile to show she wasn’t scared. Not of him or the supposed ghosts that haunted his garden.

‘I’m not scared of ghosts,’ she answered softly, a lock of red-gold hair drifting across her forehead.

‘Not even from your past?’ His warm breath fanning her cheeks, Adrian’s gaze narrowed darkly. He seemed to be searching for answers, but what answers could Liadan give him that would appease the voracious hunger in his eyes?

‘Perhaps I’ve made peace with my past? Maybe that’s what we all need to try to do so that we can move on.’

‘Easy for you to say. You’re twenty-seven years old and your face and your body are like places on maps hardly visited by life at all. Wait until you lose someone you love and you can’t bear the loss.’ His voice growing huskier, he suddenly released her and stepped away.

Feeling deathly cold, Liadan hugged her arms across her chest and tried desperately to find the words—any words—to ease his pain. He looked wretched. Wretched and haunted, and she longed for him to find some peace.

‘I came across the newspaper you had in your office the other day when I was in there. I saw that Petra Collins had retracted everything she said about—about your affair. So you see? You’re not the bad man you like to try and pretend to be.’

Adrian’s scowl was derogatory. ‘Don’t be fooled by appearances. I rang Petra and threatened her with a lawsuit if she didn’t retract her statement.’ That was what he’d been intending to do, anyway, but two minutes into the conversation he’d quickly realised that the once-vivacious actress had plenty of problems on her plate to be going on with. Adrian certainly wasn’t going to add to them with threats of any kind. She’d simply decided to retract her slander all by herself, apparently.

‘Why are you so determined to paint yourself in the blackest light possible?’ Liadan asked in frustration.

‘Did you read what else was in that report?’ Looking edgy and ready to break something, Adrian jerked his head disparagingly.

‘Yes.’ Her voice was a mere whisper floating on the breeze, her throat all but seized with tension. ‘I read that you lost the woman you loved in a terrible accident.’

‘Is that what you call the murder of an innocent woman? It was no accident, goddammit!’ His anger bounced off the air around him, hitting the walls of the house and echoing back to them. His lean, good-looking face was contorted with rage. ‘It was a terrorist bomb planted deliberately to cause maximum damage at one of the busiest times of the day! We’d had warnings that something might go off. We’d had warnings and we ignored them. I ignored them.’

‘You can’t go on blaming yourself for what happened. You were with a news team, weren’t you? They must have made up their own minds about whether it was a good idea to go ahead with your assignment, surely?’

Her quiet, reasonable voice should have soothed him. But instead all it did was press every explosive button inside him that could be pressed. Adrian saw red. ‘I thought I was indestructible. A golden boy. I was riding on the crest of my so-called brilliant career and I got carried away with the idea of my complete infallibility, my invulerability towards danger. I persuaded a young woman who I loved with all my heart that it was safe to go ahead into the embassy. Only moments before it happened she was laughing…laughing.’ He turned away from Liadan to hide the pain that shone starkly from his eyes.

‘It wasn’t your fault, please will you listen? How long must you go on blaming yourself? If anyone is to blame surely it’s the cold-blooded killers who planted such a terrible device? Adrian…do you think that your—your Nicole would want you to spend the rest of your life so racked with pain that you can’t enjoy a single moment of happiness ever again?’

Clearly wrestling with the impact of her words, Adrian turned slowly back to face her.

‘Go to bed, Liadan. It’s been a long, trying day and you must be tired.’

‘Don’t dismiss me so easily!’ Now it was her turn to be angry. He was shutting her out again. Shutting her out as surely as if a wall were being deliberately constructed, brick by brick, between them. If he was left alone, soon it would be too high for her to climb and she might never be able to reach him again. The knowledge terrified her. ‘You veer between treating me like some silly little schoolgirl with cotton wool for brains, or some foolish airhead who somehow drifts through life without a care in the world and without ever being touched by pain or sorrow or sadness! That’s a mighty dangerous assumption from a supposedly intelligent man. Even a two-year-old feels pain, Adrian—whether it’s actual, physical pain or the pain of rejection from a mother or a loved one. Without a doubt that leaves scars. So please don’t write me off as though I had no right to empathise with your sorrow. I do. If I could turn back the clock and bring Nicole back for you, I would! Do you hear me? I would!’ Her voice broke then, and tears, hot and relentless, momentarily blinded her.

He’s still in love with a ghost, Liadan thought chillingly. And he’ll never love me like I love him…Unable to stay, she turned and ran back up the path towards the house.

Adrian stood outside her room. His mind had told him to go straight to bed and forget her, but his body clearly had other ideas. Past the point of understanding any of it—his life, his work, his failure to move on in any meaningful way—all he craved right now was the temporary peace he knew he would find in Liadan’s arms. Even if she hated herself for it in the morning, he knew she wouldn’t deny him what he sought. He would hate himself for using her in that way if he didn’t despise himself enough already.

He knocked briefly, listening for sounds of life from behind the door. He told himself if she didn’t answer in the next ten seconds he would leave and go back to his room. But the door opened before he even finished the thought.

Her russet hair tumbling all around her shoulders, her blue eyes red with crying, she glanced up at him forlornly like a child who’d lost a beloved pet and didn’t understand why it had had to die.

‘Yes?’

Adrian didn’t speak. Instead he commandingly swept her up into his arms as if she weighed less than a feather and carried her to the bed. Without words, he laid her down on the white lace counterpane, then stripped off his shirt and sweater. Kicking off his shoes, he climbed onto the bed on all fours, positioning himself above her with all the precise intention of a man who was certain that his desperate need for comfort would not be repelled—even though he no doubt deserved it to be.

Liadan’s heart was thumping so hard inside her chest that she was grateful for the fact that she was lying down. Now, staring up at Adrian as his gaze burned down at her, hotly and without tenderness or mercy, she gulped and bit down hard on her lip. She drew blood and in the next instant felt his tongue against her flesh licking it clean. The eroticism of that sexy little gesture all but paralysed Liadan, and set up such a clamouring of raw, naked lust inside her that she barely knew herself. Then, his hands settling on her shoulders, his mouth moved across hers, barely touching at first, teasing her response and stoking her desire with a ruthless expertise that right then she wanted to kill him for. He had no right, she thought a little desperately, no right at all to do this to her body and her mind, to enrapture her with delights of the flesh that she was pathetically helpless to deny.

‘I want all of you,’ he breathed against her mouth. ‘No half measures.’

‘No.’ Liadan twisted her face away only to feel her jaw captured by warm, firm fingers and brought round again. Her blue eyes went round as saucers as she looked dazedly up into his handsome face. ‘How dare you? What makes you think I want you after the way you spoke to me? Get out!’

He silenced her with a crushing, passionate kiss that obliterated the rest of her world in one fell swoop and filled her with a fire so burning hot that she thought they would both ignite. Seconds later, he raised his head to glance down at her with sardonic amusement. ‘Still want me to go?’ he asked.

Silently cursing every weak, malleable bone in her body, Liadan slid her arms up around his neck and urged him recklessly down towards her again.

‘God help me,’ she whispered brokenly as his hands shockingly ripped the front of her antique lace nightgown straight down the middle, ‘I don’t want you to go.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘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!