Kitabı oku: «8 Magnificent Millionaires», sayfa 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘LEAVE that. I think you’ve done enough for one day, don’t you?’

‘I’m only setting the table for your dinner. It won’t take a minute. I haven’t made anything fancy tonight—just a lasagne with a salad.’

Flushing a little, because seeing him again had reminded her that he had all but reduced her to a puddle on the floor with that electrifying brush of his fingers across her breast, as well as his comment about her sweater, Liadan continued to lay the table. At lunchtime she had taken him soup and sandwiches, leaving the tray as usual on top of the beautiful grand piano that she itched to play. Apart from a polite inquiry about her head, he’d let her appearance pass without comment, his work commanding his attention again almost immediately. Liadan had been glad to leave him to eat his lunch in peace and return to the kitchen to eat hers.

But now Adrian wasn’t absorbed by work. Dressed in casual black jeans and a chocolate-brown sweater that highlighted his exceptional physique in a way that made Liadan a little more than hot under the collar, he smiled at her as he came into the room, his face looking less careworn than it had in days. That smile had her spirits soaring as high as a bird and she was fiercely glad that she had prevented him from seeing that despicable rag masquerading as a newspaper that Steven had shoved under her nose earlier.

‘Why don’t you join me?’

‘You mean, eat in here with you?’

‘Would it be such a hardship, Liadan?’

‘No.’ Liadan frowned as she straightened up from the table. ‘It wouldn’t be a hardship at all. That wasn’t what I meant. It’s just that—’

Looking amused, Adrian casually rubbed his hand round the back of his neck. ‘It’s just that what?’

Did he really have to ask? Liadan wondered in exasperation. He’d already emphasised more than once that he was paying her to do a job for him, nothing more. Sitting down in his grand dining room to eat dinner with him would be too awkward for words. It would make it hard for her to remember that she was just his housekeeper and not something far more intimate, and to Liadan’s mind it was best if she kept the distinction between their roles clear. At the end of the day, Adrian was her employer and she his employee. She needed to hold onto this job if she was going to keep her little house and that had to be her priority. Not some pie-in-the-sky hope that her relationship with her employer might become more personal.

‘It would be better if I just ate in the kitchen as normal. You should relax and unwind after your day’s work. Dinner won’t be long.’

She accidentally came into contact with his arm as she brushed past him to get to the door, and almost leapt out of her skin when Adrian caught her by the wrist to waylay her.

‘What if I’m in the mood for some conversation?’ he asked idly, his deep, penetrating gaze drifting over her features. Even with that stark white dressing peering out from under her unruly curls, her face was bewitching, Adrian thought hotly. Her pretty mouth had a naturally gorgeous pout to it and her cute retroussé nose was probably the envy of all her friends. But when it came to her eyes, those long-lashed sapphire-blue orbs that excited him with the merest glance…Well, if he were a poet instead of a fiction writer, he’d write poems to her beauty till the day he died. Feeling the fragile bones of her wrist beneath his fingers, he tightened his hold a fraction longer than necessary before letting go, just to remind himself what touching her could do to his already-heightened senses.

‘Did Kate ever join you for dinner?’ Her voice sounded a little breathless and with an undeniable throb of pleasure Adrian knew that his touch had been the cause.

‘No. She was a busy little body who liked to get on with her work so I never asked her.’

‘So you would have…asked her, I mean, if she’d been predisposed?’

‘Suddenly I’m in uncharted waters, Liadan. What exactly are you getting at?’

‘I’m your housekeeper, Adrian, not your dinner guest. It’s best we keep things clear, don’t you think?’

For a moment his expression was as implacable as iron. Then in the next second his facial muscles seemed to visibly relax and he issued her with a brief but slightly weary smile. ‘You’re right, of course. Thank you for the timely reminder.’

Knowing that she had been the cause of his sudden return to formality and realising it was probably too late to rescind, Liadan reluctantly left him alone to go and see to the dinner. But as she returned to the kitchen she was unable to easily dismiss the powerful longing that stirred inside her—even when she crossly told herself it was utterly and irrevocably futile.

Later that evening, long after Liadan had gone to bed, Adrian pulled out a single drawer in his writing desk and extracted the slim black volume that lay there. Flicking through its thickly embossed pages, he frowned down at an address and telephone number that he’d inscribed there long ago. His mind made up on what he was going to do, he picked up the telephone and started to dial.

The sun streaming into her room was too bright, like an upturned can of daffodil-yellow paint exploding onto a cream carpet. It was an assault on the senses—an abomination. Her head throbbing, Liadan groaned, got out of bed on legs that felt like rubber and irritably closed the offending gap between the curtains.

‘Liadan! Are you in there?’

A loud rapping on the door followed Adrian’s harshly raised voice making Liadan freeze where she stood as realisation dawned. What on earth did she think she was doing, going back to bed? It was seven-thirty in the morning, her clock said so, and she should have been up at least two hours earlier to lay the fire in Adrian’s study. Grabbing her robe off the bed, she hastily shoved her arms into it and opened the door.

Adrian glowered. ‘You scared the hell out of me! What’s wrong? Does your head hurt?’

Not wanting to admit that it did, that she was surely suffering from some kind of delayed reaction to her impromptu detour into the ditch, that her whole body felt as though she’d been knocked down by a marauding elephant, Liadan grimaced. ‘I’ll be okay in a minute. I’m sorry I overslept. Just give me a chance to jump in the shower and I’ll—’

‘Get back into bed.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve seen corpses with more colour than you.’

Not mincing his words or caring whether she was offended or not, Adrian strode menacingly into the room as Liadan backed feebly away towards her tumbled bed. One glance at the jumbled up bedclothes told Adrian what he’d already suspected. She’d had a bad night, a terrible one, most likely. Her pale skin looked almost translucent this morning even in the dimmed light of the room, and there were dark, telling circles beneath her drowsy eyes. He could have kicked himself for allowing her downstairs yesterday, never mind allowing her to prepare lunch and dinner for him.

‘Get back into bed and stay there. I’m calling out the doctor to come and check you over. I’d take you straight to the hospital if you didn’t look so damned incapable of putting one foot in front of the other right now!’

‘I probably look worse than I feel.’

Desperately trying to convince him that she wasn’t as feeble as she appeared, Liadan sank back down onto the bed without even realising she’d automatically done so. God, she was tired! Perhaps if she did allow herself to catch up a little with some shut-eye she would feel more like herself later on. Oh, why did this have to happen now, when she was just getting into the swing of her housekeeping role? Now Adrian would have to disrupt his schedule to tend to her and that was the last thing she wanted!

‘You and I aren’t going to stay friends for very long if you insist on lying to me, Liadan.’ Adrian’s dark gaze was ominously threatening and Liadan took a very big gulp. Was she his friend? Or was he just using a figure of speech to lure her into co-operating with his insistence that she stay in bed?

‘I—I didn’t want to let you down. My head’s throbbing a bit but it’s not bad. I think I feel worse because I didn’t get much sleep last night, that’s all.’

‘Get beneath the covers. Come on, be quick about it, I want to phone the doctor.’

‘No doctor—please!’ Her blue eyes beseeched him as she threw off her robe and swung the slender legs that were hidden beneath her long white nightgown onto the bed. As she settled herself Adrian tidied the jumbled bedclothes and remade the bed. When he’d plumped up her pillows, he stood back to examine her pale, unhappy face as she stared up at him.

‘You do not move from that bed unless it’s to go to the bathroom; do I make myself clear?’

‘I’m twenty-seven years old, not a child in kindergarten!’ Her retort was mutinous and for some reason Adrian’s heart squeezed unexpectedly.

‘Right now you’re not in a position to make intelligent decisions for yourself so I’m temporarily taking charge. Where did you get that nightgown, by the way? Your great-grandmother’s attic?’

As she saw the unexpected humour in his eyes Liadan’s heart did a pirouette as perfect as any prima ballerina’s inside her chest. But then irritation surfaced, quickly squashing the warmer emotion. She hadn’t bought the long antique nightdress to titillate anyone; it kept her warm and made her feel secure alone at night in her bed in the cottage. And what right did he have to criticise her nightwear anyway?

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You clearly have no idea how much old-fashioned Victorian nightgowns on young, sexy, blue-eyed red-heads turn me on.’ His expression was no longer humorous, but quietly, deadly serious, and Liadan closed her mouth on the follow-up retort she’d been going to make. Suddenly the air in the room seemed thick and heavy and disturbingly she felt as if she were melting into the mattress beneath her. Unconsciously wetting her lips, she raised her big blue eyes to nervously meet Adrian’s penetrating gaze. ‘My hair isn’t red. My mother said the colour was more like strawberry-blonde.’

‘Or red-gold…like autumn leaves.’

‘That’s the writer in you.’

‘No, Liadan.’ His voice husky, Adrian’s smile was dangerously seductive. ‘That’s the man in me.’

It was almost uncanny how right at that instant the pain in her head seemed to disappear. Instead, a new, far more delightful sensation was rippling through her body, making her feel as if she were floating on a warm, sensuous sea, and she was no longer weighed down by tiredness. On the contrary, she was gloriously, vibrantly awake.

‘I’ll try and get some sleep. Just an hour or two, then I should be able to come downstairs.’ As much as she desired him, Liadan badly needed him to go before something happened that they would only regret.

‘I’m still calling the doctor.’

‘No, Adrian, please!’ Unthinkingly, Liadan grabbed his hand and held it. ‘I’ll stay in bed for the rest of the day if you insist, but please don’t call the doctor out. I know I’m going to be fine.’

‘Okay.’ His dark brows drawing briefly together, Adrian glanced down at the small, pale hand that presently held him captive and mentally fought like a Trojan to stem the flood of sensual heat that infiltrated his blood and aroused him as he’d never been aroused before. She wasn’t well, he harshly reminded himself, so what the hell did he think he was doing lusting after her in her prim, unsuspectingly sexy Victorian nightgown? And Liadan wasn’t even his girlfriend. She was the woman he’d hired to be his housekeeper—a role that was as essential to his lifestyle as his computer, and no more emotional. He knew he had to get a grip. ‘Against my better judgement I won’t phone the doctor. But the second you feel worse or you’re in pain, that decision will rapidly change, and no argument!’ Reluctantly tugging his hand free, Adrian strode to the door. ‘I’ll give you a couple of hours, then I’ll bring you up a cup of tea.’

‘You don’t have to do that.’

‘Get some rest. I’m going downstairs to my study to work.’ His expression unreadable, he closed the door behind him without another word and Liadan had no choice but to sink back against her pillows and close her eyes.

About to go into the study at Adrian’s behest, she paused outside the door for a moment, letting the tinkling, soporific sounds of the most exquisite piano music wash over her. It was one of her favourite pieces of music, written by an Italian composer who had died an early and tragic death. Liadan knew it well and had played it often. Her throat welling with emotion as she listened, she had to shake herself out of her momentary trance to knock on the door. At Adrian’s curt, ‘Come in!’ she pushed open the door and went inside.

He was seated by the fire in a deep leather armchair, the silver in his hair an eye-catching contrast to the darkness of his clothing, his long legs stretched out before him as though he’d been relaxing for the first time in days, and Liadan was almost loath to disturb him. His expression was closed and unsmiling as he regarded her, but right then he exuded such strength, such irrefutable male beauty, that Liadan found she could forgive him for his less than warm welcome. Besides which, he’d let her rest upstairs in her room all day and had even brought her lunch. Not all employers would be so lenient and caring to someone who’d barely been in their employ for five minutes, and she should count her blessings. She was feeling much better, too. Her headache had definitely subsided and if she didn’t overdo things the following day, she would be more or less back to her old self. Now all she had to do was convince Adrian of the same.

‘You must be feeling better.’ He got to his feet and this time he did smile—albeit briefly. ‘You’ve got rosy cheeks.’

Catching the ends of the dark green pashmina shawl she had teamed with her maroon sweater and long, black skirt, Liadan smiled back. ‘I had a long hot bath and washed my hair and now I feel like a new woman.’

She’d left her hair free of binds this evening and it tumbled down her back in a riot of waves, like a fall of the most exquisite silk on display at a Bedouin market. For a moment Adrian was truly lost for words. The air he breathed was disturbed by the sweetly heady fragrance she wore, and its spellbinding impact registered a sensual punch deep in his belly, stirring feelings and emotions and needs he’d long trained himself to dismiss. But it was becoming more and more difficult to distance himself from this enchanting woman, he realised. He could no longer deny that he could barely think about anything other than seducing her. Even that nonsense with Petra had ceased to occupy him and last night, for the first time in ages, he hadn’t dreamt about Nicole at all…

‘Come and sit down.’ Indicating the other chair beside the fireplace, Adrian waited for her to sit before doing so himself.

‘I love this piece of music,’ she enthused, wrapping her shawl more securely in front of her chest. Adrian stared. Her blue eyes sparkled like jewels in the fire-light and all the gold lights in her hair seemed to dance and shimmer just for him. ‘Do you play?’ She directed her glance briefly across the room to the stately grand piano she had been fascinated with from the moment she’d set eyes on it.

Relaxing back into his chair, Adrian shrugged, the beginnings of a smile touching his lips. ‘A little. Do you?’

‘I do.’ There was no point in being falsely modest, Liadan thought, not when she had been playing the piano since she was five. The only reason she hadn’t gone to music school was because her parents had needed her to help them in the hotel. She could have refused, but at the end of the day she hadn’t wanted to disappoint them because her brother Callum had sworn that no way was he going to go into the hotel business. So once again she had sacrificed her own needs for somebody else’s…Liadan dismissed the uncomfortable thought with a slight frown between her brows.

‘Would you like to play me something?’ Before she could answer, Adrian moved across the room to switch off the CD that was playing.

‘You don’t mind?’ Uncertainly Liadan got to her feet, her whole body in a state of quiet excitement at the idea of playing such a beautiful instrument.

‘Be my guest.’

Settling himself back in his seat, Adrian made a steeple of his fingers and watched with interest as Liadan settled herself on the piano stool, then almost reverently lifted the lid to expose the keys. As soon as her fingers touched them she closed her eyes and began to play. The music that ensued was nothing short of wonderful. There was barely a difference from the CD recording that had been on a moment ago. The short hairs on the back of his nape standing on end, Adrian watched transfixed as Liadan continued to play, a quiet but powerful sense of excitement building slowly but inexorably inside him. Clearly at one with the music flowing from her fingertips, she kept her eyes closed mostly—as transported as he was on waves of sound so sweet, so poignant, and yet so powerful, that it almost brought tears to Adrian’s eyes.

When she had finished, the silence in the room was profound. Glancing shyly across at him, Liadan smiled, her lovely face unable to conceal her joy. Without saying a word, Adrian got up and walked over to her. Taking her utterly by surprise, he bent down to capture her mouth in a long, deep, soul-stirring kiss that effectively blotted out his past as easily as though God had finally taken pity and obliterated it for good. Today was a new day. With this woman he was made anew. There was no stain on his soul to stop him completely giving himself to the moment…His hands cupping her face, feeling the strong yet delicate bones of her small jaw, Adrian explored the sensation of skin as soft as a newborn child’s beneath his fingers and something settled irrevocably inside him. Something profound and good and natural that reconnected him back to a world where good things really happened. Where all was not lost in a tangled dark web of death, deceit and destruction.

Liadan could hardly believe he was kissing her. When she’d seen him approach she had secretly hoped, imagined…a peck on the cheek maybe? Something affectionate but polite that wouldn’t strain the bounds of their professional relationship too much. Something to show his pleasure at her playing. But, instead, the moment his lips took possession of hers she was shaken by a deep and stirring connection that unravelled her to the core. She was still shaking. The reality of his touch was so much more satisfying and passionate than anything she could have imagined. He kissed her as if he meant it. He kissed her as if he meant that kiss to lead to so much more. Liadan shivered. Need and want and carnal longing poured into her body, filling her with a profound, restless, scalding heat that begged for fulfilment.

When his mouth finally released hers, Liadan stroked her fingers gently across her throbbing lips, her heart going wild. She could still taste him, still feel the sensuous exploration of his tongue and smell the exotically sexy tang of his aftershave.

‘What was that for?’ Was that really her voice? That soft bedroom huskiness?

‘That was for reminding me that grace and beauty still matter in the world. Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’ What else could she say? I would gladly play for you any time, day or night, till we both grow old?

‘Where did you learn to play like that?’

‘I had lessons from the age of five. I guess I never saw piano practice as a chore, as some of my friends did.’ Shrugging, she carefully closed the lid on the keys and got to her feet.

Her scent was all around him—not just the fragrance she wore, but the sweet, unique lovely scent of the woman herself. Liadan. Even her name seemed imbued with magic. Adrian’s senses were totally confounded by her. Right now he didn’t even feel like putting up a fight against the soft but deadly power she wielded.

‘You are an exceptional woman…you know that?’

‘No, I’m not.’ Glancing down awkwardly at her hands, Liadan tried to shrug his compliment off. As lovely as it was and as much as she secretly thrilled to have him bestow it, she knew it was ultimately wrong to allow this much intimacy with a man who was, after all, her employer. Somehow she was going to have to reassume the role he was paying her for as quickly as possible. No matter how much she longed to be closer to him…In a few days’ time, when things got back to normal, hopefully Adrian would forget that he’d ever let his guard down so carelessly around her.

As for her own heartfelt reaction to his kiss—well, she would have to forget that, too. Adrian Jacobs’ world and hers did not equate, no matter how carefully you did the maths. All of a sudden, quite uninvited, she heard Steven Ferrers’ mocking voice. He might bed you…he’ll marry some posh tart whose daddy is loaded. As much as she hated to admit it, Liadan knew he was probably right.

‘With respect, if I were exceptional—what am I doing working as a housekeeper?’

‘Not all exceptional people call attention to themselves, Liadan. Most go quietly about their work, doing it with honour and integrity, happy to stay out of the limelight.’

‘That’s true, I suppose. I wouldn’t want fame if you paid me.’ Tossing back her hair, Liadan grimaced. ‘It certainly doesn’t seem to have brought people like Petra Collins much happiness, does it?’

‘You’re right.’ Adrian’s voice was sober. ‘She is a very unhappy woman and fame is definitely not all it’s cracked up to be.’

‘She might already be regretting dragging your name through the papers with that awful slander. Hurting you won’t make her feel better. How could it?’

‘Are you so quick to believe my innocence in all of this, Liadan?’

Absorbing the steady, direct perusal of his sensual dark gaze, Liadan had no hesitation in stating her feelings on the matter.

‘You have too much good in you to treat someone in such a disrespectful way,’ she said quietly.

Adrian was stunned by her assertion, and it painfully dawned on him that Liadan’s insistence on his goodness might be pointing to deeper feelings on her part than he had realised. The thought immediately made him want to set the record straight—to disabuse her before, God forbid, she should do something so useless as to fall in love with him. If he didn’t quickly destroy those hopeful illusions she had about him, he would only end up destroying her innocence more cruelly.

He reached for denial and pain—those long-time friends of his who never let him down, who reminded him exactly why he chose to live as he did, away from the public eye and away from his friends. He deserved the life he led. He had been complicit in the death of a beautiful young woman because of his egoism and arrogance and there was no good in him at all. None. That was why he spent his time creating shadowy, dangerous characters in his stories who lived on the periphery of life. He easily identified with the pain and self-loathing in every one of them.

‘That’s where you’re wrong. Very wrong. I’m a selfish man, Liadan. I take what I want, and to hell with the consequences. As much as you might hate to hear it, Petra Collins and I were kindred spirits—that’s why I don’t entirely blame her for using me to further her own ends. If you believe that I kissed you because I’m nurturing some deepening affection based on the fact that you’re a sweet and lovely girl, then I really have to enlighten you. I want to sleep with you. That’s all. And other than getting you naked and sweaty in my bed, I need your services as a housekeeper. Sorry if that sounds brutal, but facts are facts.’

If he had lashed out at her physically, Liadan couldn’t have been more shocked or more taken aback. Her mouth opened in protest to express her abhorrence of his cruel, base words, but nothing would come out. His ferocious burning glance was effectively slicing her heart in two, and in the next second he turned abruptly away as though he couldn’t tolerate her company a second longer. Uttering a curse beneath his breath, he strode from the room as if suddenly there weren’t enough air to breathe and he desperately needed to find some.