8 Magnificent Millionaires. Cathy Williams
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.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TWO days later, as she made her way up to the topmost floor of the house to open windows and dust pictures, Liadan marvelled at the fact that she was still working for Adrian Jacobs. She was either the biggest fool who ever lived or simply some kind of martyr, because after the agony of hearing words designed to hurt her and ‘enlighten’ her as to what he insisted was his true character, she had wrestled with two conflicting desires. A very understandable need for self-preservation where her heart was concerned, possibly leading her to hand in her notice, and a surprisingly compelling desire to stay and tough it out—because, quite frankly, how much worse could it get? For two whole days now the atmosphere between them both had been as jagged as broken glass. When she looked at him, he looked away. When she had to ask him anything he answered her in as few words as possible. And when he’d finished speaking, his hostile brown eyes would be coldly dismissive and hurt Liadan all over again, like a rusty blade digging into a wound not yet healed.
Apart from him telling her this morning that he’d arranged for her car to be brought back from the garage ‘some time today’ and to insist upon taking her to the hospital himself this afternoon to have her stitches removed, their conversation had been minimal. Now the thought of having to spend time with him driving to and from the hospital was like anticipating root-canal work at the dentist.
Telling herself over and over again that he hadn’t meant what he’d said, that he really was a good man underneath that coldly forbidding façade, Liadan forced herself to believe that she’d made the right decision in staying. And she didn’t think that he used people as Petra Collins did. Adrian Jacobs was fighting demons from his past and all he was doing by assuming an air of hostility was adding another protective layer to prevent Liadan from getting close. But until he found a way to reconcile himself with the past, and see that there was light round the edges of his darkness, then he would continue to live out the rest of his life in torment.
Raising the colourful feather duster to dust down a venerable old gilt-framed print of horses and hounds off on a hunt, Liadan determinedly applied herself to the task in hand, grimacing at the very idea that things might get much worse before they got better.
‘Liadan Willow? Dr Thomas will see you now.’
As she stood up to follow the slim, bright-eyed nurse into the designated room, the familiar hospital smells of disinfectant and fear making her stomach lurch, Adrian put his hand on Liadan’s arm to waylay her. ‘Want me to come in with you?’
Meeting his intense, concerned gaze with a little shock of surprise, she drew back her arm and shook her head. ‘I’ll be fine, thanks. I don’t need you to hold my hand.’
Escaping before he could make some cryptic remark in response, Liadan was appalled at the ache that arose in her throat. She wasn’t a coward and could handle having a few stitches removed without needing a babysitter, but, all things being equal, she wouldn’t have been averse to having Adrian hold her hand. But that was before his crude remark about wanting her in his bed…Her thoughts broke off at his graphic description of how. Right now she wouldn’t let him hold her hand if he were the last man on earth!
‘Did the doctor say you’d have a scar?’
As he negotiated the purring Mercedes out of a bend in the country road, Adrian glanced sidelong