8 Magnificent Millionaires. Cathy Williams
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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 true. You don’t need a wife, Adrian, and I don’t want to be some kind of second prize after Nicole.’
‘Second prize?’ Now he really did look furious. His mouth contorting in rage, Adrian stared at Liadan as though his gaze alone could turn her to stone. ‘How the hell do you figure that out, Liadan? Nicole is dead! It’s not like she just walked away and left me. How can you be jealous of a dead woman?’
Recoiling with hurt in her eyes, Liadan slipped her cold hands back into the pockets of her coat. ‘How can I? That’s easy when you wear her memory like some kind of invisible, impenetrable shield to prevent anyone else getting close. Think about it, Adrian. At least be honest with yourself, if not me.’ She walked to the door. ‘You’re a man of enormous drive and talent, clearly passionate about his beliefs. In my opinion you should be sharing all those gifts with the world—not shutting yourself up here in this vast house writing the stuff of nightmares! Anyway…I know it’s really none of my business.’
‘That’s right. It isn’t.’
Fielding the hurt that welled up inside her chest at his acid reply, Liadan glanced quickly away. She stared down at the beautiful parquet floor with its strategically placed Persian rugs, and reminded herself just who Adrian Jacobs was and how far apart they really were. He was clearly outraged that she had expressed her unstintingly frank opinions about him so readily. But after today, what did it matter? she asked herself. What more did she have to lose when she had lost everything already?
‘You don’t really want to marry me, Adrian,’ she said dully. ‘You don’t even really want a companion. As far as I can see you’re quite happy here in your magnificent solitude. You were right. All you really do need is a housekeeper.’
Liadan let herself quietly out of the room, and carefully closed the door behind her. Still reeling from her passionate words about Nicole, along with her damning accusations that he was still in love with her memory, Adrian let her go without even trying to stop her. Feeling chilled to the bone, he picked up his brandy glass from the mantel and dashed it into the fireplace, letting loose a violent expletive as it shattered into crystal shards in front of him.
Even though she told herself time and time again that she’d made the right decision, Liadan had still found it hard to come home. Opening the door of the cottage she’d been so eager to hold onto, she had no sense of joy or pleasure. Instead, her chest felt tight with pain and there was a hollow sensation of dread in the pit of her stomach that made her feel as though someone had just thrown a blanket over her head and bound her hands together with rope. Her beloved home felt like a prison and she an unwilling inmate inside it.
Since meeting Adrian and falling in love with him, how could anything be the same as it was before? The morning after the row—when she’d declared her decision to leave, explaining that she felt unable to work out two weeks’ notice under the circumstances—he’d merely nodded, disappeared into his study and returned with an envelope, which he’d brusquely told her contained her payment for ‘services rendered’. Then he’d carried her suitcase and bags to her car, loaded them into the boot, and, with a short, impersonal wave, watched her steer the car down the drive