of man he seems to be, I suppose he couldn’t help himself when I’m the nearest female for miles around.’
It was hard for Adrian to believe she could be so self-deprecating. Didn’t she have any idea just how beautiful she was? How much any red-blooded heterosexual male would look at her and fantasise about making her his?
Seeing the telling muscle flinch in his jaw, Liadan thought it best to keep quiet about just how much Steven Ferrers had frightened her—and not just today when his threats had finally tipped over into actual physical violence. The sting of that slap suddenly stealing into the edges of her consciousness, she couldn’t help but shudder. If that vase hadn’t been so close to hand, if she hadn’t had the chance to bring it down upon his head and steal the opportunity to escape…The possibility didn’t bear thinking about. An overwhelming urge to be at home in her little cottage, to light the fire and sit by it with Izzy on her lap, to be safe and warm again, swept through her with such force that her body prepared itself immediately for flight. Unable to conceal her longing for home, she looked straight at Adrian and told him exactly what was on her mind.
‘I need to go back home for a while. Do you understand? I need to be by myself and try to make myself feel better. Is that okay with you?’
Understanding her need and yet dreading being alone in the house without her, Adrian nodded reluctantly. The evidence of her presence—both physical and intangible—was all around, impressing itself upon him and the house almost indelibly, like invisible golden cobwebs that he couldn’t brush away. Without her both he and the house would be stark, empty shells.
‘Whether it’s okay or not with me, I know it’s what you need to do. Go and pack some things, then. I’ll come and carry your bag to the car for you when you’re ready. I’m not letting you drive yourself. I’ll take you.’ To Liadan’s surprise, he was gone from the room before she even had the chance to rise up out of her chair.
‘Come on then, Izzy. Come and finish this lovely salmon left over from my dinner…even though you’re getting impossibly fat!’ Admiring the gusto with which her beloved pet was tucking into her unexpected treat, Liadan lifted her gaze to glance round her warm, snug kitchen with something akin to contentment. After two days of being back home, with her own things around her—not least Izzy and the old Victorian piano she had haggled for at a local auction—her spirits had definitely started to heal. The only sting in the tail was the fact that Adrian wasn’t with her.
She missed him. Missed him with a slow, burning ache in her chest that felt as if it would never heal. When he had dropped her off at the cottage two days ago he had declined to come in. Instead he’d left her bag on the porch step and backed away as though he couldn’t escape quickly enough. His face had appeared coldly distant once again, even when he’d insisted on her assurance before he left that she would be all right on her own and didn’t need him to call someone to come and be with her. Then he had climbed into his Jeep, gunned the engine, and sped off down the small country lane as if he had a posse of trigger-happy mercenaries on his tail.
Returning to her living room and settling herself in the cosy nook before the fire, Liadan picked up the book she had been half-heartedly trying to read, telling herself that tomorrow she would go back to the house and resume work. That was, if Adrian hadn’t decided in the interim that it was more trouble than it was worth keeping her on. Even now in her absence he could be interviewing other prospective candidates for her job. The thought made her heart stall. If she didn’t work for him any more, what excuse would she have to ever see him again? He was a high-profile, well-known author and she was…Well. She was twenty-seven years old, possibly without a job and alone again. She eased the sudden aching cramp in her throat with a harsh breath.
When the echo of the doorknocker rudely broke into her thoughts, she jerked her head round in alarm, knocking her book off her lap and watching it land on the floor with a spine-jingling thud. As it was nearly ten o’clock in the evening, she told herself she had good reason to be alarmed. What if Steven Ferrers had somehow found out where she lived? What if he wanted to punish her for what she had done in her own defence? Clutching the white towelling robe that she had donned straight after her bath tightly round her, she padded barefoot across the carpet to the white-panelled door, then peeped cautiously out through the spy-hole. Her startled gaze settled on the face that had been occupying most of her thoughts from morning through till night—albeit looking as stern as she’d ever seen him and soaked through to the skin from the pounding rain—and Liadan’s fingers shook uncontrollably as she turned the key and lifted the latch.
‘Adrian! What are you doing here?’
She couldn’t believe she was shaking so. Trembling because his sudden, unexpected presence was almost too much to bear…
‘Are you going to invite me in or do I have to stand here getting even wetter?’ There was no answering smile, no teasing lift of a dark brow, just a scowl that would put the fear of God into a grizzly bear. Feeling strangely light-headed, Liadan stood back to let him enter.
‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I’ll get you a towel.’
She was back in an instant, pressing a large pink towel into his hands, then anxiously standing back while he unzipped his dark green waterproof, shook it off and hung it on the hook at the back of the door where Liadan’s bright orange scarf presently hung.
‘It’s a foul night out there.’ Roughly drying his sodden hair, he combed his fingers through it almost impatiently, then threw the towel on the arm of the nearest chair.
‘You didn’t come by car?’
‘I decided I needed the walk.’
That explained why the sound of the doorknocker had taken her so much by surprise. Moving automatically across to the fire, he held out his hands to the flickering flames, his expression suggesting he was lost for a moment in the pictures he seemed to find there. The room was alive with his presence, the air crackling with electricity. The plain fact of the matter was that he would be impossible to ignore, no matter where he was. His strong, muscular physique was both reassuring and awesome at the same time, and right now Liadan was more awed than reassured. Studying him for a long moment without speaking, secretly appraising every fascinating inch of him as though her gaze had been starved of his presence for too long, she couldn’t help but release a sigh.
‘How are you?’
He turned to examine her, his dark gaze more probing than the most powerful microscope, seemingly stripping her of every secret she ever had, his relentless study making everything inside her drown in heat. Automatically touching her fingers to her cheek, Liadan withdrew them again just as quickly, in case he thought she was looking for sympathy.
‘I’m fine. Luckily I don’t bruise easily.’
Scanning the flush that brought a revealing rose pink to her cheeks, Adrian was not so easily placated. Yesterday and today he’d suffered agonies of doubt and fear wondering how she was—whether after this appalling incident she would want to come back to his house at all. Finally, unable to stand the tension of not knowing any longer and disparagingly dismissing the phone as a less-than-adequate method of communication, he’d donned his waterproof, stepped out into the rain and headed to her cottage to confront her. For a man working to an impossible deadline, he reminded himself, it was crazy behaviour.
‘Can I get you a drink or something? I’ve got some brandy if you want something a bit stronger than tea or coffee. You must be cold after being out in the rain.’
Ignoring her question, Adrian asked what he was most desperate to learn. ‘When are you intending coming back to work?’
