‘How long have you owned this villa?’ She decided to try polite conversation again.
‘Long enough,’ Liam returned tersely.
So much for polite conversation! Why bother? she asked herself dismissively.
‘I only asked,’ she muttered, taking another sip of the wine.
‘And I only answered,’ he returned abruptly.
‘Not exactly,’ she challenged.
‘How “exactly” did you want me to answer?’ he derided. ‘Do you just want a year-month approximation of how long I’ve owned the villa, or do you want to know to the day?’
‘Oh, just forget it,’ Juliet snapped. ‘It wasn’t important anyway.’
‘Then why ask?’ he said scornfully.
‘I thought one of us should try to be polite,’ she returned scathingly. ‘Obviously only one of us is capable of it!’
Liam shrugged unconcernedly. ‘Obviously only one of us needs to be.’
Juliet drew in an angry breath; he was insulting to the point of rudeness! He didn’t know her, didn’t really know anything about her—except what he chose to make up in his more than fertile mind!— and he had no right to speak to her like this.
‘I’ve had enough.’ She put her plate, most of the food still on it, back on the table with her empty wine glass next to it. This had been a waste of her time, as well as his!
‘I think we both have,’ he acknowledged grimly. ‘You’ve brought something back into my life that I would rather forget about, Juliet,’ he bit out.
She looked at him with wide accusing eyes. ‘You can’t forget about your own father!’
‘Why not?’ His eyes glittered, deeply blue. ‘He forgot about me for ten years!’
‘William is dead, Liam,’ she said in exasperation, tears in her eyes now as she thought of the loss of the man who had cared for her so much. ‘Dead!’ she repeated forcefully. ‘You can’t retain bitterness towards someone who’s dead!’
He shook his head. ‘I stopped feeling bitterness towards him a long time ago. In fact, I stopped feeling anything towards him a long time ago!’ he added harshly.
Juliet stared at him for several long, seemingly timeless minutes, unable to reconcile inside herself the feelings Liam had for a man who had shown her nothing but tender kindness. And no matter what Liam said he did show bitterness towards his father. She knew that emotion only too well herself not to recognise it, but she had never felt it towards William.
‘I think I had better go,’ she finally said quietly, standing up.
Liam looked up at her, squinting in the bright sunshine. ‘You haven’t booked your flight yet,’ he pointed out softly.
And now that she had stood up she wasn’t sure she was capable of doing so, or of driving down to Palma; her head had started to spin, unaccustomed to wine with little food. God, the last thing she wanted to do, after bristling so indignantly at the suggestion that she might get drunk, was let Liam know that she really didn’t feel too well!
She shook her head, trying to think clearly. ‘I can do that when I get to Palma,’ she parried, just wanting to get away from here now before Liam realised the truth—that he had ‘a drunken woman on his hands’!
She wasn’t exactly drunk, she reassured herself; she just didn’t feel quite as capable as she usually did. In fact, she felt incapable of moving at this moment.
Liam stood up next to her, and looked down at her intently. ‘Are you all right?’ He frowned. ‘You’ve gone very pale.’
She knew she had; she had felt the colour draining from her face even as he had said the words. And the sun reflecting off the blue of the swimming-pool was starting to make her feel dizzy, although at the same time she felt mesmerised by the flickering light, unable to look away.
‘Juliet?’ Liam prompted again, sharply this time.
She looked up at him finally, blinking rapidly as she tried to focus. Liam’s face was just a hazy outline, and the more she blinked, the more unfocused it became.
Liam grasped her by her upper arms as she swayed slightly. ‘Juliet, what—?’
Juliet didn’t hear any more; blackness washed over her as she felt herself falling, falling, falling…
‘WELL, I can honestly say that’s the first time a woman has fallen for me in quite that way,’ drawled the voice that was becoming all too familiar.
Juliet opened one eyelid—it was about all she could manage to do at this precise moment. Her whole body, including her eyelids, felt like a lead weight. And the sun blazing into the room made her close even that eyelid as its brightness dazzled her.
‘Wakey, wakey,’ Liam encouraged—far too boisterously as far as she was concerned. ‘Come on, Juliet, drink some of this juice; you’ll feel better for it.’
At this moment she didn’t think she would ever feel better again. If this was what it felt like to drink too much she knew why it had never happened to her before! Her head was thumping, her body ached, and her mouth felt as if it had fur growing in it. And people actually drank alcohol on a social basis as a way of enjoying themselves; they must all be masochists, she decided.
‘Juliet, it’s time to wake up,’ Liam encouraged in that cheerful, over-loud voice.
Why was it? she wanted to know. She just wanted to go back to sleep until she felt human again. If she ever did!
‘What was that?’ Liam prompted jovially as she mumbled under her breath.
‘I said ‘ She winced even at the sound of her own voice. ‘I said,’ she said again, much more quietly this time, ‘stop talking in that loud voice. And it’s much too bright in here.’
‘I’m talking perfectly normally,’ he informed her lightly, although his voice did seem to be slightly softer. ‘And I’ll draw the curtains if that will make you feel better.’
Curtains? What curtains? Where…? Juliet opened both her eyes in time to see Liam walk across the room, feeling sudden panic as she realised that she was in a bedroom, actually lying in the bed! In the bed? What…?
‘There.’ Liam had turned back to her, dressed now in a dark blue shirt and light-coloured denims. ‘How are you feeling this morning?’
Morning? What…?
‘Dear, dear, dear, Juliet,’ Liam drawled as he walked over to stand beside her. ‘You are in a sorry state, aren’t you?’ He shook his head mockingly as he sat down on the side of the bed. ‘You’ve been asleep for about sixteen hours and you still can’t think straight, can you?’
Sixteen hours! Then she hadn’t misheard; it was morning!
She went to sit up—only to find herself trapped beneath the bedclothes because of Liam sitting on the bed in the way that he was. She swallowed hard. ‘How did I get here?’ Her mouth still felt as if it was full of cotton wool and her voice was husky.
Liam folded his arms across his chest. ‘How do you think you got here?’ he taunted. ‘I didn’t drag you here by your hair, if that’s what you think.’
Her scalp tingled enough for that to have actually been a possibility! But no, Liam must have carried her here. He must have put her to bed too.
She swallowed