‘Too defensive, Laura. Too outraged. Just too everything, really,’ he taunted. ‘The next thing you’re going to tell me is that the kindness, consideration and being wonderful far outweigh the fact that he doesn’t satisfy you in bed.’ He quirked mocking brows.
‘You’re completely wrong there, Liam,’ she replied scathingly, bending to pick up her clutch bag. ‘Because I have nothing further to say to you—about Robert or anything else!’ She stood up, looking down at him contemptuously. ‘You have changed in the last eight years, Liam—and certainly not for the better!’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake sit down, Laura,’ he said wearily. ‘Okay, I was out of order making those remarks about your husband.’ Even if they are true, his tone implied. ‘I apologise, okay?’ he prompted irritably as she still glared down at him.
‘No, it’s not okay,’ she told him from between stiff lips, completely unyielding.
He sat forward, reaching out to clasp one of her hands in his. ‘Did it ever occur to you that I might be feeling a little jealous?’ he asked. ‘After all, you used to think I was wonderful,’ he added self-derisively.
She gave a scornful laugh. ‘That was before I grew up enough to be able to pick the gold from the dross!’
Before he released her, Liam’s fingers tightened briefly about hers—the only outward sign he gave that he was angered by her deliberate insult.
And it had been deliberate, she inwardly acknowledged, provoked by his insulting remarks about Robert. She wouldn’t allow anyone to do that. Robert had been her salvation in a time of deep crisis.
She had also been thrown a little by Liam’s suggestion that he might actually be jealous of her feelings for Robert. Until she’d realised Liam might just feel put out, the feelings of adoration she had once had for him having now passed on to Robert!
For a moment, a very brief moment, she had actually thought she might have been mistaken about how unfeeling he had been in the past. She obviously wasn’t; Liam’s feelings of jealousy were just as selfish as all his other emotions had always been!
She gave a humourless smile. ‘I did try to warn you that this was a mistake, Liam,’ she said. ‘We have nothing in common now—if we ever did. Old friends meeting in this way—’
‘Old lovers!’ he corrected harshly, blue eyes alight with emotion. ‘Don’t try to totally negate our past together, Laura.’
She felt frozen to the spot, actually able to feel the colour drain from her cheeks. Negate their past? She would like to wipe it from her memory bank altogether!
Lovers… Yes, they had been lovers. But she had been determined, these last eight years, never to think of that again. She didn’t want to think about it!
‘Please sit down, Laura,’ Liam encouraged quietly. ‘I promise I’ll try not to be insulting again.’
‘You’ll try, Liam?’ she repeated dryly, giving a shake of her head at his arrogance. ‘You’ll have to do better than that if you expect me to stay!’
He gave a rueful smile. ‘You have to accept sometimes I can be insulting without meaning to be.’
Laura gave a pained wince. ‘And that’s the best excuse you can give for some of the things you’ve already said to me?’
‘Without actually lying—yes!’
She sat down abruptly. ‘You really are the most arrogant man I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet!’
He grinned, leaning forward to replenish their champagne glasses. ‘Well, at least I have that distinction—the most arrogant man you’ve ever met.’
‘Arrogance is not a virtue, Liam.’
‘I’ll try to remember that,’ he said wryly. ‘Now, let’s drink a toast…’ He held her full glass of champagne out to her before picking up his own glass.
He had hinted on the telephone that he had something to celebrate, and Laura had wondered if he might mean the prospect of publication for his new book. If it should turn out that was what it was, what was she going to do? To carry on pleading ignorance would be deceptive in the extreme. But to tell him the truth, after his bluntness already this evening, would be even more unacceptable…
She swallowed hard. ‘A toast to what?’
‘Old lovers and new friends?’ he suggested.
She gave the ghost of a smile, relieved the toast hadn’t been what she had expected—although the alternative hadn’t been much better! ‘The first I choose to forget—the second isn’t very likely,’ she told him honestly.
‘Let’s drink to us anyway,’ he encouraged huskily.
‘To ‘us’…?
‘Did you tell him about us?’ Liam asked slowly, once the toast had been drunk.
She stiffened. ‘Robert, you mean?’ she said delaying.
‘Of course I mean Robert,’ he confirmed laughingly. ‘Unless you’ve had any other husbands the last eight years? Just out of interest,’ he continued lightly, ‘how long ago did you marry him?’
‘Robert and I were married seven and a half years ago,’ she answered flatly.
‘No time for any other husbands.’ Liam answered his own question. ‘And only a few months after I left for California,’ he added pointedly.
‘Nowhere near as hasty as your own marriage,’ Laura returned harshly. ‘You had barely arrived on the tarmac at Los Angeles airport before your own engagement, and subsequent marriage took place!’
She could still remember her feelings of absolute desolation when she had seen the speculation in the newspapers concerning his relationship with Diana Porter. That desolation had been complete when the photographs of his wedding had appeared a few weeks later. If it hadn’t been for Robert—
‘It looks as if neither of us were too heartbroken at our separation,’ Liam acknowledged. ‘I suppose your beloved uncle approves of Robert too?’
Laura’s movements were deliberate and calm as she placed her champagne glass back down on the low table in front of her. They had to be; her hand was shaking so much she was in danger of spilling the bubbly wine.
Her parents had been killed in a car crash when she was only sixteen, leaving her without any close family to speak of. It had been left to her godfather, her honorary ‘uncle’ and guardian, also the executor of her parents’ will, to organise the continued payment of her boarding-school fees, so enabling her to stay on at school and sit her ‘A’ levels before going on to university.
Obviously when she’d met Liam, eight and a half a years ago she had told him about her beloved godfather in the course of their own relationship. But the two men had never met.
Obviously her godfather had expressed curiosity about this worldly-wise man in her life, and she had suggested to Liam several times that perhaps the two men should meet. It had been a suggestion he had chosen to ignore.
And the reason for his reticence had become obvious once he had gone to America and married someone else within a few months: the complication of meeting the guardian of the young student whom he had only been casually involved with for six months previously had not entered into any of his plans! That would have made everything just a little too serious—and Liam hadn’t ever had any serious intentions where Laura was concerned!
She looked at him coldly now. ‘I don’t happen to think of any of this—any part of my life now, in fact—is your business, Liam,’ she told him icily. ‘Just as I have no interest in your personal life now,’ she concluded contemptuously.
Liam looked completely