Two's Company. Carole Mortimer
no longer felt hungry as she looked down at the salad and fruit on her plate. What was she doing here? This wasn’t her sort of place at all; these weren’t her sort of people either. God, it was all such a waste of time, and——
‘I should eat that if I were you,’ murmured a familiar voice from above her. ‘You look as if a puff of wind might blow you away!’ Liam added grimly.
Juliet had looked up at him at the first sound of his voice, and her face became flushed with irritation now as she heard his last comment. ‘I would hardly have selected the food if I didn’t intend eating it,’ she bit out tautly, deliberately picking up her fork at his taunt to stab at a piece of melon and put it pointedly in her mouth, meeting his gaze challengingly once she had done so.
‘Fruit and salad…’ He was shaking his head as he lowered his lean length into the seat next to her. ‘It’s hardly going to pile on the pounds, is it?’
She swallowed the piece of melon, almost choking on it as she realised she had forgotten to chew it. ‘I don’t want to “pile on the pounds", thank you!’ she finally managed to snap.
Liam sat forward, his elbows resting on the table beside her, the hair on his tanned arms a golden blond too. ‘It may be fashionable to be thin, Juliet,’ he said softly, ‘but most men prefer a woman they can actually hold on to.’
She gasped at his familiarity; didn’t this man know how to take a hint? It must be perfectly obvious to him by now that she didn’t appreciate his intrusive company. God, she had told him bluntly enough that she wasn’t in the market to be picked up. But maybe that fact alone was a challenge to him, she wearily acknowledged; he looked like the sort of man who would relish any sort of challenge offered to him!
Well, she had said it, and she meant it; she had much more important things to do here than become the plaything of a man like Liam. ‘I really don’t care what “most men prefer",’ she told him with sweet venom. ‘Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I would like to eat my lunch in peace.’ She looked at him pointedly.
‘Don’t mind me.’ He relaxed back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest to watch her with narrowed blue eyes.
That was hardly what she had meant and he knew it! What was she supposed to do now? Because she had no intention of eating her lunch with this man sitting there watching her every move.
‘You——’ She broke off, looking past him to the table where he had been sitting minutes earlier.
A woman was now sitting at the table, looking across at the two of them enquiringly—a beautiful woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties, her blonde hair short but perfectly styled, make-up expertly applied. And she was obviously waiting for Liam…He hadn’t wasted much time since his arrival here; breakfast with Juliet, lunch with this other woman! And the other woman, with her slightly voluptuous figure, looked exactly the sort of woman a man could hold on to!
Juliet turned back to Liam. ‘I believe your luncheon guest has just arrived,’ she informed him directly.
He turned to glance casually over at his table, lifting his hand to the woman in an acknowledging salute, before turning back to Juliet. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you later,’ he said huskily as he stood up to leave.
Not if she saw him first! Avoiding this persistent man was going to make these last two days of her stay even more of a trial than the previous six had been. But maybe not, she thought with a grimace as she saw the way the beautiful blonde woman looked up and smiled at him as he joined her at the table; he looked as if he might have his time filled quite adequately by her. Thank God!
Men, especially of the type she guessed Liam to be, were not something she wanted in her life. She didn’t want any man in her life!
Except Edward Carlyle. She desperately needed to have him in her life, in the life of Carlyle Properties—otherwise there wasn’t going to be a company at all.
That thought put her totally off eating any more of her lunch, and she put the fork down, the food untouched—except for that piece of melon she had so defiantly eaten when Liam had been sitting with her.
She wanted to leave, having totally lost her appetite, but she was very conscious of the fact that if she did so Liam would no doubt watch her going.
What difference did it make if Liam watched her leave? she irritably admonished herself, standing up determinedly; it was none of his business whether or not she ate her lunch!
She walked past the table where he sat with the attractive blonde woman, her head held high. Deep in conversation with his luncheon companion, he didn’t even glance her way.
And Juliet was even more annoyed with herself for even thinking that he would have noticed her departure!
There was something so very beautiful about Majorca in the evening. The sunset brought into focus all the beauty of the orange-pink stonework of the buildings that were prevalent on this lovely island, of the hotel itself as Juliet walked along the sea-shore towards it on her way to dinner, bathed in the pink glow of sunset.
If only she could be like the other carefree holiday-makers here just wanting to enjoy themselves. But it seemed like years since she had been carefree. If she ever had been!
There had been years of being in foster care and then several more years of being out in the world on her own. Before meeting Simon…
At the thought of him she brought her thoughts to an abrupt halt. She hadn’t thought of him for years; refused to think of him. It was all too painful…
Then why was she thinking of him now? She frowned. She knew why. That man, Liam, in some way reminded her of Simon. Oh, not in his manner; Liam was much more self-assured and powerful than Simon had ever been. Simon had been so weak. But their colouring was the same; Simon had been blond as Liam, with the same deep blue eyes. He had been almost as tall as the other man too.
Maybe that was one of the reasons why Liam had evoked such a strong response within her; she could usually handle any advances made to her without feeling as if she was running away! But Liam had made her feel defensive from the first. And now she knew the reason why. He reminded her of Simon, the man she had once loved so deeply…
And, having realised that, Juliet found it was not conducive to her peace of mind that Liam was the first person she saw when she entered the hotel dining-room half an hour later. He was seated alone at a table near a window that overlooked the tranquil bay of this beautiful resort in the north of the island, his luncheon companion noticeably absent. And he looked devastatingly attractive in a white dinner-jacket and snowy white shirt with a white bow-tie, his blond hair brushed back from his face, his eyes deeply blue against his tan.
Juliet looked quickly away from him because he seemed to sense her gaze on him and turned in the direction of the doorway she had just walked through. Probably he had been expecting the beautiful blonde from lunch; he was obviously waiting for someone, as his table was set for two people. And the other woman would probably want to make a grand entrance when she did arrive— unlike Juliet, who just wanted to reach her table as quickly as possible, away from that piercing blue gaze which she could feel was watching her every move now.
The black dress she wore was plain but stylish, fitting neatly to the smooth contours of her body, showing the extent of her shapely legs beneath its knee-length hem. Her hair, the long red curls wilder than usual from the slight breeze that had blown up this afternoon, was loosely confined at her nape with a black slide this time, her make-up light, her lip-gloss a light peach colour.
She had checked her appearance before she’d left her suite, and knew she looked elegantly attractive rather than showily sexy—the way she had always liked to look when she had acted as William’s hostess during business dinners. It was a style of dress that made her feel comfortable. But not so with Liam watching her so intently!
She kept her gaze on the back of the maitre d’ as he took her to her table, looking to neither left nor right of the elegant candlelit dining-room