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.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘THE present?’
‘I asked you to be my wife.’ Putting down his brandy glass on the mantel, Adrian grimaced as though under a strain. ‘Will you marry me?’
‘No, Adrian. I won’t marry you.’ Her spine stiffening as hurt and anger swirled like a hurricane inside her, Liadan knew with the utmost certainty that she could not sacrifice her self-respect, even for the man she loved. He had all but graphically illustrated out loud that he was still in love with Nicole. He had highlighted her virtues—her accomplishment, her sense of humour, her beauty…and in stark contrast he had told Liadan that he found her presence soothing. Well, she was sorry, but the man she married would have to do a hell of a lot better than that to show her that he loved her. The problem was that Adrian patently didn’t love her. How could he when he had clearly built a mental shrine to a dead woman?
‘I won’t marry you because your proposal frankly insults me!’
‘Insults you?’ His brow creasing in shock, Adrian looked stunned.
‘Yes, insults me! As far as I can see, you are wallowing in your grief. As long as you carry a torch for Nicole that can’t ever be extinguished, you won’t ever allow yourself to be truly close to anyone else. You might play around with the idea of marrying someone because it’s convenient, but not because there’s an emotional connection like love! How could there be? You’re so…self-indulgent and self-pitying that it doesn’t even cross your mind you’re inflicting pain on others. The reason you won’t even entertain the idea of redemption and keep on insisting that you’re a bad person is because you can use that as an excuse for your selfishness! You can’t change the past, but you can change the future, Adrian—unless of course you’re too damn scared to try.’
His eyes darkening with fury, Adrian took a step towards Liadan, thought better of it, dragged his fingers savagely through his hair, then swore out loud. ‘What the hell are you talking about? You don’t know the first damned thing about me!’
‘I may not know a lot, but I do know that what I’ve said is
