Two's Company

by Carole Mortimer

  She couldn't imagine what. And she wished he would stop playing with her hair like that. Several curls wound about the length of his fingers now— fingers that kept lightly brushing against her bare shoulder.

  'I don't think so.' She was pressed right back into the pillow now as she shook her head, keeping herself as far away from Liam as possible given the fact that she was lying in the bed while he sat beside and over her. 'It was a mistake coming here.'

  'I've never brought a woman here before,' he mused softly, that darkened gaze roaming slowly over her now flushed features.

  She thought that was the whole point; he hadn't brought her here now, and he resented the fact that she had intruded on his life in this way, considering her connection to his father—a connection that brought back memories he would rather forget.

  But at the same time she found it difficult to believe that he had never brought a girlfriend or mistress to this remote villa; it was the perfect place to come for privacy and relaxation.

  'You didn't bring one here this time, either,' she said. 'I came here to talk about your father,' she deliberately reminded him, knowing she had to put an end to this intimacy as soon as possible. It was far, far too dangerous.

  The mention of his father acted like a slap in the face to Liam, who sat back sharply, untangling his hand from her hair before rising abruptly to his feet. 'So you did,' he acknowledged harshly. 'I'll go and get some coffee on. Come through when you're ready.' He strode purposefully from the room, closing the door forcefully behind him.

  Juliet felt herself start to breathe again, deep, controlling breaths, and it took her several minutes to calm down her jangled nerves. Even so, she was still shaking slightly. And she didn't think that it had anything to do with the wine consumption of yesterday!

  What had Liam been doing? She hadn't been mistaken about the desire she had seen in his eyes; she was sure she hadn't. And, from a man who had shown her nothing but contempt since acknowledging that he knew exactly who she was, she found that more than a little disturbing. Had he been intent on seducing her himself, just to prove that everything he had accused her of was true? It seemed the most logical explanation, and it was one that Juliet viewed with horror. There had been no possibility of her responding to that seduction, but even so it wasn't pleasant to realise just what contempt Liam held her in.

  She threw back the bedclothes, swinging her legs to the floor to stand up and walk through to what she could see was an adjoining bathroom. At least, she would have walked through to that room if her legs hadn't given way the moment she stood up. Juliet felt herself falling and, unable to stop herself, knocked against the bedside table as she did so. The empty glass that had contained the juice fell too, smashing beside her on the cool marble floor.

  She sat dazed on the ground for several seconds, unable to take in properly what had happened. Surely this couldn't still be the effect of the wine?

  'What the hell…!' Liam burst back into the room, frowning darkly as he reached her side.

  'Mind the glass!' she warned, too late, as he began to swear after stepping on a piece of the glass with his bare feet.

  'Never mind that,' he dismissed, brushing the glass, which hadn't penetrated the skin, off his foot. 'What happened?' He came down on his haunches beside her.

  She swallowed hard, pushing back the heavy swath of her hair. 'I'm not sure. One minute I was standing up, the next I had—well, I fell over,' she finished lamely, wishing once again that she had more clothes on than her brief underwear; she had never worn so little in a man's company before. And Liam Carlyle of all people!

  His eyes narrowed to steely slits as his gaze ran over the slender length of her body. 'Are you sure you aren't pregnant?' he finally bit out.

  Juliet drew in a sharp breath, her cheeks flushed, her mouth a thin, angry line. 'I told you, no!' she snapped forcefully, meeting his gaze challengingly.

  Liam met that gaze for several seconds, then he shook his head. 'Then what the hell is wrong with you?' he rasped. 'Because this isn't a normal reaction to an excess of alcohol.'

  'I didn't drink that much—'

  'I don't really think that's relevant any more, Juliet,' he calmly interrupted her angry protest.

  'Then why do you keep mentioning it?' Her eyes flashed, deeply grey.

  'I think you should see a doctor,' he said thoughtfully, ignoring her outburst.

  'Don't be ridiculous,' Juliet scorned, holding on to the bed as she got slowly to her feet. The world wasn't spinning quite so much now. If she just took things slowly…

  'Get back into bed,' Liam ordered as he straightened. 'I'm going to call a friend of mine who's a doctor.'

  'I don't want to see a doctor,' she insisted stubbornly—but she got back into the bed none the less, her legs starting to shake once again.

  'I don't recall asking you what you wanted,' Liam told her arrogantly. 'You're a guest in my home, you obviously aren't well, so you'll see a doctor.'

  So there! God, he was the most bossy man! 'I don't have any say in this at all?' she challenged.

  'None whatsoever,' he confirmed flatly.

  'You don't want a corpse on your hands!' she said derisively.

  He looked down at her coldly. 'A corpse would be more difficult to deal with than a sick woman,' he announced before once again leaving the bedroom.

  Juliet's mouth set mutinously as she sat up in the bed. She was convinced that whatever was wrong with her it was nothing serious. And she still intended leaving here—as soon as she could stand up long enough to get dressed!

  'Exhaustion!' Liam said disgustedly, once again sitting on the side of Juliet's bed, which was in the guest bedroom, she had discovered once the doctor had arrived.

  Liam's friend Tomas had been very friendly and nice but extremely thorough in his medical examination of her, finally announcing that she was obviously suffering from exhaustion, and that she didn't eat regularly, or often enough, to sustain her busy life. The last point Juliet could really have done without, given Liam's remarks already about her eating habits.

  'What the hell have you been doing to get exhausted?' Liam demanded now, his gaze narrowed on her pale face. 'I thought you had been on holiday for the last week,' he added accusingly.

  Juliet saw red at his attitude. What had she been doing? 'I've been trying to run a company for the last two months with a partner who refuses to be co-operative!' She glared up at him.

  'So it's my fault, is it?' he said scathingly.

  'Not completely,' she accepted, knowing it hadn't just been the last two months that had been so fraught with tension and hard work; that she had been working long and hard for Carlyle Properties for a long, long time. But it had filled her life, kept her busy, hadn't allowed her time to think or brood on other things.

  'But your attitude certainly hasn't helped.' She wasn't about to let him off that easily; the last two months of just trying to speak to him had been absolute hell. 'And as for being on holiday this last week…' she gave him a pitying look '… we both know that isn't true.'

  He stood up abruptly. 'So you are saying that this is my fault because I've been difficult about Carlyle Properties?' He walked over to the window, staring out down the valley to the clear blue sea.

  Juliet looked at the rigidity of the broadness of his back. She could say that the strain of the last couple of months had nothing to do with the way she felt now, but it would be a lie; the last two months had been a nightmare as far as she personally was concerned.

  'I said it hasn't helped,' she said again quietly.

  Liam turned abruptly to face her. 'I need to think about this.' He strode over to the door. 'I'll bring you some lunch in a short while.'

  'Er—could I have my suitcase from the car?' Juliet asked almost timidly, sensing that Liam was very close to exploding—he wasn't a man who liked to be made aware of his shortcomings. 'I would like to get dressed in some clean clothes before I leave,' she explained, at his frowning look.

 
His mouth thinned. 'I'll get your suitcase, Juliet, so that you can put a nightgown on or something, and be more comfortable in bed. But you aren't leaving just yet,' he added grimly.

  Her eyes widened. 'But—'

  'Nothing is going to change concerning Carlyle Properties in the next twenty-four hours or so. And Tomas said you needed to rest, and improve your diet,' he rasped uncompromisingly. 'And I told you, I need to think.'

  And she could damn well do what she was told while he thought! Really, the man was impossible. But if at the end of that thinking he decided to be more helpful where the company was concerned maybe this one extra day would be worth the wait. Although she couldn't give it any longer than that, as she needed to get back.

  'I don't need to stay in bed.'

  'Tomas said you were to rest, and rest is what you will damn well do!' Liam bit out challengingly.

  Juliet had never met a man like this one before. He was certainly nothing like William, who had been very gentlemanly and caring, welcoming her opinion on things, treating her as his equal. Liam just treated her like a rather wearing complication in his life. Which she supposed she was.

  'Just the suitcase, then,' she accepted—although if he thought she was staying here any longer than the stated twenty-four hours he was in for a disappointment; she simply didn't have the time to waste lying around in bed doing nothing!

  He nodded abruptly before leaving, but Juliet had no sooner sunk back on the pillows with a weary sigh than he was back again, with the suitcase, which he deposited just inside the bedroom, giving her a glaring look before leaving again.

  And a good day to you too, Juliet thought ruefully as she got out of the bed to find some fresh clothes in her suitcase. She realised that she was a nuisance to him, that he didn't want her here, but he was the one insisting that she had to stay!

  Men! No… she slowly corrected herself. Just Liam Carlyle. He had been alternately challenging her and taunting her since the moment she had first met him—except for those few brief minutes when she had thought he wanted something else from her. But she didn't want to think about them, didn't want to admit that, for a very short time, she had been extremely aware of him as the attractive man he undoubtedly was. As he had seemed aware of her.

  But that was no good; he was William's son, and, more to the point, he was Simon's brother…!

  'Now eat,' Liam instructed tersely, having allowed her to get up and join him for lunch beside the pool when she had refused to have the meal on a tray in bed. 'I don't know what my father has been doing with you, but you look as if you would snap in half if any more pressure were put on you!' he added disgustedly.

  'I told you—' Juliet kept her own temper with effort '—William didn't do anything with me.'

  'Just kept a fatherly eye on you, did he?' Liam sneered. 'Well, he did a damn awful job of it!'

  She had been trying to eat some of the fruit, cheeses and fresh bread that Liam had provided for lunch, but it seemed that every time she even at-tempted to eat in this man's company he started an argument. They were never going to agree over their opinion concerning William, and so to talk about the older man at all was futile.

  'Why are you selling your hotel complex over here?' She attempted to change the subject.

  Dark blond brows rose over cool blue eyes. 'Who says I am?'

  Juliet frowned. 'Your secretary—' She broke off, looking at him closely, finally putting down the orange she had been attempting to eat. 'Did you enjoy playing your little game with me, Liam?' she said sharply, suddenly knowing that that was exactly what he had been doing, realising too late that no secretary of Liam's would have been so indiscreet as to reveal such privileged information concerning his whereabouts, and the apparent sale of one of his hotels, to a complete stranger over the telephone. Unless she had been meant to!

  The pig! The absolute lousy, rotten, manipulative—

  'Not particularly.' He shook his head. 'Certainly not once I had met you,' he added grimly. 'You aren't what I expected, Juliet.' His eyes were narrowed on her thoughtfully, as if part of him still wasn't sure exactly what she was, just that she wasn't what he had 'expected'!

  She could imagine only too well what he had expected and it wasn't very pleasant. Oh, she realised that, on the face of it, it didn't look too good in her favour: she was a young woman who had apparently been living with a much older man for several years. But it had been something which she was sure that William had never actually thought about, and she certainly hadn't—not until Liam's obviously cutting remarks about the relationship had forced her to do so.

  'And considering the state of you my father obviously got his pound of flesh out of you,' Liam added harshly.

  Juliet gasped—something she seemed to do all too often around this man. But he made such outrageous remarks it was impossible not to!

  'Work-wise, I meant, of course,' he added scornfully.

  'Of course,' she acknowledged bitingly.

  'I thought I told you to eat.' He looked down pointedly at the food still on her plate.

  'And you're used to people doing what you tell them to, aren't you?' Juliet derided.

  'Usually, yes,' he said without conceit. 'I run a multi-million-pound corporation, Juliet; someone has to give the orders.'

  And a little company like Carlyle Properties wasn't even worth the trouble of thinking about, she could see that. Except that it had been his father's company. But William had been a father he obviously despised, for some reason.

  'I'm not one of your employees, Liam,' she told him calmly. 'And arguing like this when I'm trying to eat does not help my appetite!'

  He gave a grimace. 'So I'm to blame for that too, am I?' He shook his head ruefully. 'I bet you're formidable in business, aren't you? No one would believe there's a woman of steel under that fragile-looking exterior!'

  'Woman of steel'? He had to be joking! Oh, she had learnt to adopt a certain barrier to a lot of the knocks of life, but she certainly wouldn't call herself steely!

  'Maybe I can understand why the old man kept you around, after all,' Liam mused. 'If all else failed, he brought in the big guns!'

  'Liam—'

  'Or, in this case, the little guns,' he continued derisively, pointedly looking her up and down. 'Who could possibly be a hard-headed businessman to a little runt like you?' He shook his head again.

  He could, Juliet could have pointed out. But didn't. She was far too busy taking exception to the 'little runt' remark. 'Your father kept me on as his assistant because I was—am!—good at my job,' she told him stiltedly. 'For no other reason!'

  Liam shrugged. 'But it's obviously proved too much for you since my father died.'

  She drew in a ragged breath. Of course it had been too much for her since William died; she had been swimming upstream for the last two months— without any help from this man sitting beside her, she might add!

  She sat very straight, her back rigid. 'Maybe if you had cared, just once, to come and actually look at Carlyle Properties you would have seen just how well it's run,' she bit out tautly.

  Liam gave a considering nod. 'I intend to do just that.'

  Juliet looked at him sharply, but his expression was enigmatic, his gaze steadily meeting hers. 'What do you mean?' she prompted warily.

  He shrugged again. 'I've been giving the matter some thought and I've decided to come back to England with you after all and take a look at the books of Carlyle Properties.'

  Juliet stared at him. Just stared at him. Just exactly why had he changed his mind so suddenly?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  'Good God, nothing has changed!'

  Juliet turned as she stood in the large reception area of Carlyle House, her brows raised, to look at Liam who was standing just behind her.

  They had returned to England only that morning. On Liam's private jet. As she should have predicted! However Liam might have left this house, and his family, ten years ago, he certainly travelled and lived in style now, his jet of luxurious p
roportions, the formalities at the airport dealt with so quickly that Juliet had barely had time to catch her breath before going outside and being shown into the sporty Jaguar that Liam apparently liked to drive himself around England in.

  He had unerringly driven both of them to Carlyle House this afternoon; he might not have visited the family home since he walked out all those years ago, but he certainly hadn't forgotten where it was.

  He was looking about him now with rueful derision, and Juliet tried to see the house through his eyes. It was as William had always liked it, with antique furniture and furnishings, vases of fresh flowers in all the main rooms, a huge arrangement in creams and orange on a round table in this reception area. And Juliet knew that when they walked through to the family sitting-room there would be a log fire burning in the fireplace. Yes, everything was still exactly as William had liked it. And she personally saw no reason to change that.

  Liam, as he looked around the house he hadn't seen for ten years, didn't look quite so happy with what he saw. His expression was grim as he slowly walked about looking at things that must once have been very familiar to him—were still familiar to him—which was probably why he looked so grim!

  Juliet couldn't say that she was feeling exactly happy with the way things were either, but that had nothing to do with Carlyle House.

  Liam had followed through on his announcement of his intention to return with her by arranging for them both to fly back three days later. There had then been two days during which he had arrogantly ordered her to rest completely, ignoring all of her protests that she would rather return immediately now that the decision had been made. In fact, he had just ignored all her protests, period! Nothing she had said during those two days had deterred him from his decision that she rest, and although she inwardly had to admit that she was feeling slightly better she certainly hadn't enjoyed having Liam waiting on her. It made her uncomfortable to accept his attention in that way.