Of hope renewed and life restored after the dead of winter…For a moment the tightening in his throat made it impossible to speak.
‘Nothing’s wrong. What, did you think I’d be intimidated by some pushy little journo wearing too much make-up with an inflated sense of her own importance? You clearly don’t know the newspaper game like I do.’
‘Oh.’ Feeling the full disturbing force of his gaze, Liadan linked her hands together in front of her, then in the next second unlinked them and folded her arms self-consciously across her chest. Those deep, dark eyes of his were profoundly unsettling. They made Liadan far too aware of her own femininity in a way that no other man had made her feel before. Yet when he glanced away again, clearly too aloof to have stirred such an intimate response, it was as if she’d dreamt the whole thing and her feelings had seriously misled her. ‘You’re all right, then?’
He grimaced. ‘Yes, I’m fine. Come into my study, will you? I need your help.’
The sight that met her on entering Adrian’s room had Liadan’s blue eyes widening in shock. Practically every inch of floor space was covered in loose pages of manuscript, a chair was upturned and the broken remains of what was once a charming blue and white porcelain coffee cup littered the rug by the piano.
‘You can see why I need help,’ Adrian said dryly.
‘What happened?’ Getting down on her knees to recover some of the loose pages, Liadan sensed Adrian start to do the same behind her, the warm, woody drift of his cologne catching her unawares and making her stomach turn hollow.
‘My temper happened. People like Ms Kendall have a way of bringing out the worst in me.’
‘I can see that.’ Reaching forward to grab a further wad of papers, Liadan sensed Adrian grow still. ‘What’s the matter?’ Turning her head, she saw a tic in the side of his jaw and his eyes turn dark as molasses.
‘Why don’t you start on the other side of the room?’ he said lightly, the beginnings of a very wry smile tugging at the edges of his usually severe mouth.
‘Why?’
‘Take it from me, your current position is far too distracting, and I’m only human.’
Feeling her face flame red-hot, to her shame Liadan quickly understood what he meant. She’d been wriggling around on the floor retrieving papers with her bottom stuck up in the air, and with not one notion that Adrian was behind her appreciating the view…
Getting quickly to her feet she beat a swift retreat to the other side of the large room. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise, Miss Willow. It’s the best thing that’s happened to me all day.’
Concluding it was probably wise not to say anything for the next few minutes in case she embarrassed herself even further, Liadan concentrated on the task in hand, her mind racing, wishing she could erase what had just happened and start all over again.
‘I have to commend your lack of curiosity, Liadan,’ Adrian drawled. ‘You didn’t ask what Ms Kendall was threatening to print about me and Petra Collins.’
‘It’s none of my business.’ Straightening the pages in her hands, Liadan chose to keep her gaze on the neat, uniform type rather than direct it at Adrian.
‘They’re threatening to print that Petra was expecting my child—that I made her have an abortion.’
Swallowing hard, Liadan finally looked up. She met Adrian’s steady dark gaze without a flinch. ‘What do you expect me to say to that?’
‘It’s a rare woman in my experience who has no curiosity.’
‘Your personal business is your business, Mr Jacobs. I’m only your employee.’
‘What if I choose to confide in you, Liadan? Would that be too big a burden for those slender shoulders of yours? And by the way…my name is Adrian.’
Feeling heat overwhelm her like the rising steam from water being poured onto hot coals, Liadan lowered the papers to her lap and told herself that she was imagining this whole unbelievable scenario. Why on earth would a man like Adrian Jacobs confide in a woman he had known barely a scant three days when Kate had warned her that he was a closed book, a taciturn loner who wanted the least possible contact with the rest of the human race?
‘If you want someone to talk to, then of course I’m willing to listen. You have my word what you say will go no further than this room.’
‘I think I already know that, Liadan. That’s why I’m going to tell you.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I WAS introduced to her at dinner at the Dorchester in London by a mutual friend who happens to be a film director.’ Straightening to his full height, Adrian paused as if carefully weighing the words he was about to speak. A sudden ferocious gust of wind rattled the windowpane, startling them both with an eerie whistling sound that sent a chill racing down Liadan’s spine. On the mantel, the ticking of the clock seemed to grow louder to her suddenly hypersensitive hearing.
Drawing his fingers through his hair almost wearily, Adrian sighed. ‘To cut a long story short…we had a fling, a brief sexual liaison that didn’t last longer than a couple of weeks. It was stupid of me. I should never have got involved with Petra even for a second. The woman was unstable—irrational. The pressure of superstardom had seriously started to unravel her. We made love, yes, but I took precautions. There was no way that the baby she was supposedly expecting could be mine—if there was ever a baby at all.’
‘But someone is saying that there was?’
As if suddenly noticing that she was there, Adrian frowned in surprise as his glance swept over her calm, pretty face. Strangely, it seemed to anchor his thoughts somehow and he felt oddly reassured by her presence.
‘Someone?’ He laughed harshly. ‘Petra’s publicity machine, don’t you mean? Apparently they seem to think that because my star is on the rise, I could provide a whole lot of free advertising to get Petra Collins’ name back in the headlines. That’s all this whole farcical abortion business is about. I never even saw her again after the two weeks we were together were over. She certainly never contacted me to tell me she was pregnant, never mind me “forcing” her to have an abortion!’
‘They’re not going to print those lies, are they?’ Liadan spoke in hushed tones, mindful of jarring any further unhappy, unwanted memories.
‘Out of the goodness of their hearts they’re prepared to buy my side of the story to counter the claims Petra Collins’ people want to make public. Damage limitation, they call it.’
‘And…have you decided what you’re going to do?’
His expression turned suddenly savage. ‘I told them to go to hell.’
Her blue eyes taking silent inventory of the mess before her, Liadan concluded that that must have been when he had gone ballistic. And who could blame him? It was sickening that Petra Collins and her publicity machine could dream of slandering Adrian’s reputation just to put her back into the spotlight. She secretly hoped that he had put the fear of God into the brittle Cheryl Kendall before she’d left so that the reporter would seriously think twice before darkening
