‘What circumstances?’ Juliet could feel the anger building up inside her.
‘You are, at the moment, my business partner,’ he shrugged dismissively.
Juliet didn’t miss that ‘at the moment’. Did that mean he had already come to some sort of decision concerning Carlyle Properties?
But she was being side-tracked; she had no doubt that, whatever decision Liam had come to about the company, he would only tell her it in his own time. For now she had another issue to deal with.
‘I’m sure—in the circumstances!—both Diana and I can be relied on not to talk about your private life.’ She bristled. ‘Diana obviously knows better, and I, quite frankly, am not particularly interested in it!’ Her eyes glittered with anger as she looked up at him.
‘Aren’t you?’ he challenged softly. ‘That wasn’t the impression you gave last night!’
She could feel the colour receding from her cheeks. Last night had been—well, she didn’t quite know what had happened between them last night. It was an incident which she would rather forget had ever happened at all!
Liam’s mouth turned back scornfully. ‘You don’t even know if I’m married or not!’ he said sneeringly.
Hadn’t he said he wasn’t, back when they’d first met? Had he been lying?
She knew little about his private life since he had left here ten years ago, she admitted that, but surely she would have known if he was married? There had been no woman with him, other than Diana, in Majorca, and so she had assumed…
But she shouldn’t have assumed anything; not all wives travelled on business with their husbands. In fact, if there were children involved in the marriage too, that would be extremely difficult to do. Children. Oh, God, she just hadn’t thought…
‘Relax, Juliet,’ Liam taunted as he watched the deepening expression of horror on her face. ‘I’m not married. At least,’ he added softly, ‘I’m not any more.’
He had been married! Were there children? Where was his wife now? Did he…?
‘What is it, Juliet? Do you draw the line at married men?’ he taunted when he saw her stricken expression. ‘No future there, hmm?’ he added scornfully. ‘Very few men actually leave their wives for the mistress. It’s a fact of life that mistresses have a pretty raw deal.’ He shrugged unconcernedly.
She couldn’t find any reply; she was still reeling from the possibility that he might have been a married man with children. It had never even occurred to her…!
‘But not “companions", hmm?’ he continued remorselessly. ‘They seem to fare a lot better!’ He looked about the room appreciatively. ‘Big houses, half-shares in the business.’ His glacial gaze returned to the paleness of her face. ‘Not bad for a girl from the—’
‘That is enough!’ Juliet stood up forcefully, a nerve pulsing in her throat as she glared at him.
His mouth was a thin, angry line. ‘Believe me, I haven’t even started!’ he grated evenly. ‘Strange, I never thought of my father as a gullible man,’ he mused harshly. ‘But they say there’s no fool like an old fool. In my father’s case, that appears to have been the case!’ He shook his head disgustedly. ‘But I’m neither old nor a fool, so it isn’t going to work on me, Juliet.’
‘I don’t want anything to “work on” you,’ she protested heatedly. ‘William left me those things because he wanted to, not because of any supposed relationship between us. The only relationship between us was like that of father and daughter.’ And it would have been a factual relationship if her marriage to Simon had had the chance to take place.
‘Really?’ Liam returned drily. His insulting tone was unmistakable.
‘You——’
‘What is this?’ Liam ignored her outburst to reach past her to the desk behind.
Juliet turned to see what had so suddenly caught his interest. Colour flooded her cheeks as he looked at her with coldly accusing eyes after picking up the Walters file. She had been going to give him the file, for goodness’ sake, she just hadn’t had the opportunity to do so yet; he had been attackingly offensive more or less from the moment he had entered the study!
‘I found the file in William’s desk—’
‘And decided to have a look through it yourself before giving it to me,’ he said harshly. ‘Find anything interesting?’ he challenged.
Nothing at all. It was a file like any other file in the Carlyle Properties archives. The only thing that made it any different from the others was that it had been kept in the bottom drawer of William’s desk here.
Liam closed the file with a firm snap. ‘I’ll take this now,’ he rasped coldly. ‘And I’ll see you at breakfast in the morning.’
Juliet was left standing alone in the shadows of the study, feeling as if she had just been tossed around by a whirlwind!
‘LIAM won’t be in today,’ Diana told her brightly as she looked into Juliet’s office the next morning.
Juliet had spent most of the night lying awake; she had found it impossible to sleep after that conversation with Liam in the study. And, wanting to avoid him this morning, she had had coffee in her bedroom, missing breakfast altogether, only to discover from Janet, when she had gone down, that Liam had left the house very early that morning. And now it seemed that he was to be away all day. Her relief was mixed up with a certain amount of curiosity as to where he had gone.
‘Business?’ she asked casually, looking up from the work on her desk.
‘With Liam, who knows?’ Diana gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I’ll just carry on going through the papers you gave us yesterday,’ was her parting comment as she closed Juliet’s office door behind her.
Liam was right; Diana was very discreet! Had he found something in that file last night that she just hadn’t seen when she had looked through it? What was he looking for? Knowing Liam, he would probably never tell her unless it was something he wanted her to know!
God, she wished he would come to some sort of decision concerning the business. The waiting was killing her! All she had wanted from him was a straightforward yes or no, but she knew that he wouldn’t be rushed, and that his decision, when it came, would be made on a practical business level, would have nothing to do with love or loyalty towards his father. Basically because he didn’t feel either of those things towards his family.
And he wasn’t about to come to any decision when he wasn’t even here!
John came into her office later in the morning, and Juliet could see that he wanted an explanation of what was actually going on, which wasn’t surprising considering Liam had walked in and more or less taken over William’s office—at the least!
There wasn’t a lot she could really tell John; she had no idea herself what was happening. It could take Liam weeks to decide whether or not to keep the company going—which wasn’t a lot of help to John, she accepted, but it was all she could offer him at the moment.
‘Will Mr Liam be in for dinner tonight?’ Janet asked her when she arrived home later that evening.
She had no idea what Liam’s plans were for this evening; given that she hadn’t seen him all day, how could she possibly know? He hadn’t been into the office at all today, not even to speak to Diana. Not that the other woman had seemed concerned by his absence; she was probably used to it. Diana certainly seemed to accept working alone.
There had been no time for the two women even to take a hurried lunch together