Two's Company

by Carole Mortimer

  What was it about this man that put her so much on edge? He had had that effect on her even before she had known who he was, but the feeling had only increased since she had found out his identity. And it didn't help that she seemed to respond to him physically in a way that she found totally disturbing!

  'I'll have whatever the ladies are having,' Liam told the waiter when he came for his order.

  Diana looked at him with amused blue eyes once they were all alone again. 'You may change your mind once you see what we've ordered!' she told him teasingly.

  He gave her an easy smile. 'Probably,' he accepted wryly. 'So you thought the two of you had earned a break?' he added mockingly. 'Work all done, is it?'

  Juliet opened her mouth to give him a cutting reply—at least some of them had been working this morning!—but Diana got in before her.

  'Slave-driver!' she told him good-naturedly.

  'Possibly,' he conceded dismissively. 'I've been back to the house, Juliet, the file isn't in my father's desk. And the filing cabinet there is locked.'

  Juliet just stared at him. He had been back to the house this morning? She didn't understand. What was so special about this particular file? Pet project of his or not, it seemed rather extreme!

  'I have the key,' she told him dazedly.

  He nodded as if he had already guessed that. 'Can I have it, please?' He held out his hand pointedly.

  She frowned. The filing cabinet in William's office held all his private papers; he hadn't believed in safes, because he'd thought that they just encouraged people to think that there was something worth stealing. So he had always put important papers in the filing cabinet in his study in the house.

  Of course, William might have left the house to her, but things like his personal papers must surely belong to Liam. Nevertheless, she still felt reluctant to give Liam the key to the cabinet.

  'It's back in my office,' she answered evasively, at the same time feeling as if Liam might be able to see into her handbag, see the key in a zipped pocket there.

  He met her gaze challengingly, as if he had guessed exactly that. But other than calling her an actual liar… 'I'll have it later, then,' he finally answered, sitting back as the waiter arrived with their coffee and pastries. 'I see what you mean,' he said ruefully, looking at the sweet, sickly food.

  'I did warn you,' Diana laughed at his expression.

  There was such an easy camaraderie between these two, and yet Juliet was still convinced that her second impression of them was the correct one—there was nothing romantic between them. Maybe there had been once, a long time ago, and that accounted for their easy familiarity with each other, but it was certainly over now. Besides, she and William had been the best of friends and there had never been anything between them either—no matter what Liam might think to the contrary!

  He turned probing blue eyes on her just as she was about to eat a forkful of sticky pastry. 'Has the first day been as bad as you thought it would be?' he asked drily.

  The pastry never got as far as her mouth as she stared at him; what did he mean, 'the first day'? Just how long did he and Diana intend to be at Carlyle Properties?

  'That's hardly a fair question to ask her in front of me, Liam,' Diana reproved lightly, having no qualms about eating her own pastry, and obviously relishing its sweetness.

  He raised dark blond brows. 'I don't ever remember telling Juliet I was going to be fair,' he drawled mockingly.

  He hadn't told her that he was going to be anything—that was the trouble! She just didn't know what was going on when this man was about.

  'To answer your question,' she said quietly, 'if I knew what you wanted from Carlyle Properties, perhaps I could be more helpful.'

  His eyes took on a glacial sheen. 'The truth,' he bit out harshly. 'That's what I want from Carlyle Properties!'

  She frowned across at him. 'Carlyle Properties has nothing to hide,' she told him slowly, giving up on the pastry, her appetite once again deserting her. 'Everything is up to date. You're perfectly free to go to any of our work sites, view any of the paperwork—' She broke off as she realised that there was one file he couldn't view, for the simple reason that she couldn't find it. And that appeared to be the only one he was interested in!

  'Exactly.' Liam nodded abruptly at her hesitation.

  Her eyes glowed, deep grey. 'What is so special about this one file, Liam?' she snapped.

  'I believe that is my business,' he returned icily. 'Literally. You weren't even involved in the company then!'

  Juliet was very aware of Diana as their audience, a Diana who seemed slightly nonplussed by Liam's aggressive attitude towards her.

  She put down her fork, giving up any pretence of eating; she was only here at all because she had thought she was keeping Diana company. Now that Liam was here that was no longer necessary. And she certainly didn't want to spend any more time in his company!

  'Then perhaps I had better not waste any more time, and should go back to the office to carry on looking for the damned file!' Her own anger was barely contained.

  'Perhaps you had better,' he agreed forcefully, his gaze never wavering from her angrily flushed face.

  'Liam—'

  'Stay out of this, Diana,' he advised her hardly, not even glancing at her. 'You just don't understand.'

  'You're right, I don't,' she acknowledged in a puzzled voice. 'I've never seen—'

  'This is between Juliet and me,' he cut in harshly. 'Isn't it?' he prompted her coldly.

  It certainly was, but she wasn't quite sure what 'it' was! When they weren't angry with each other they appeared to be in each other's arms—and neither of those situations was what she particularly wanted. How could they possibly sort out the business side of things when they were always so angry with each other? And as for being in Liam's arms…! That just clouded the issue.

  Juliet bent to pick up her bag—the bag containing the key Liam had asked for… 'I'll see you both back at the office,' she said stiltedly, standing up.

  Diana gave her a sympathetic grimace. 'Thanks for joining me for lunch.'

  Juliet gave her first genuine smile since Liam had joined them. 'I enjoyed it.' Until they had been interrupted! 'Perhaps we can do it again some time before you leave?'

  'Don't worry.' Liam was the one to answer with soft menace. 'You girls will have plenty of time to go out to lunch together again; I have a feeling we're going to be at Carlyle Properties for some time!'

  Juliet didn't answer him, just walked away, her back ramrod-straight as she crossed the restaurant to the door. Just how long was 'some time' going to be? However long it was, it was going to be too long as far as she was concerned! And she didn't just have Liam all day at the office; he was actually at the house too. Wonderful!

  Except he wasn't at the house that evening. Juliet returned from the office on her own at six o'clock, Liam and Diana having left some time during the afternoon and not come back. And Liam didn't return for dinner either, leaving Juliet to face Janet alone.

  It was the first time she had seen the housekeeper on her own since the older woman had come into her bedroom the evening before and found Liam there too. Although Juliet knew her well enough to know that Janet wouldn't mention that fact if she didn't—and she had no intention of doing so—she nevertheless felt slightly embarrassed at facing her again.

  'Mr Liam rang to say that he won't be back until much later this evening,' Janet told her as she served the soup.

  Well, he could have told her that too—then she wouldn't have spent the whole afternoon dreading seeing him again!

  'He always was a thoughtful young man,' Janet lingered to remember fondly. 'And he was a lovely little boy.'

  Of course, Janet had been here long enough to remember that. Strangely, Juliet couldn't think of Liam as ever having been a 'lovely little boy'!

  Janet's expression clouded slightly. 'It was a pity he and his father argued so much when he was older. Of course Simon—' She broke off awkwardly. '
Well, a lot of young men argue with their fathers; it's all part of the male ego,' she amended dismissively.

  Juliet looked at the older woman curiously. 'Is it?' she prompted softly. She had to admit she was curious about the relationship which the three men had once had. She had known them all as individuals, but somehow couldn't quite imagine them as a family. Of course, Liam had been several years older than Simon, so the two of them had probably had little in common, but they had still been brothers, and it was a relationship that she found hard to imagine.

  'Oh, yes.' Janet nodded knowledgeably. 'My own brothers were horrors during their teenage years, arguing with anyone and everyone.'

  'Did Liam and Simon argue?' she asked.

  'Like cat and dog.' Janet sighed heavily. 'William—Mr William was always having to get in between the two of them. I think he thought they might kill each other one day if he didn't.' She shook her head at the memory.

  Juliet tried to imagine Liam and Simon, five years apart in age, as two hotheaded young men. Simon had always been a bit wild, which was why William had been so pleased when he seemed to settle down slightly in his relationship with Juliet, but somehow she could never imagine Liam as a wild young man; he looked as if he had always had a wise head on young shoulders. Or maybe it was just the way he always looked so damned superior!

  And Juliet hadn't missed the way that the housekeeper had slipped up and called her former employer William. Perhaps Liam was right after all about Janet's feelings towards William, although she doubted whether Janet would appreciate her prying into those feelings now.

  'Instead of which it was William and Liam who argued, causing Liam to leave,' Juliet said thoughtfully.

  'Only because— Well, it's water under the bridge now,' Janet said briskly, straightening. 'Eat your soup before it gets cold,' she instructed firmly before leaving the room.

  Juliet was used to the other woman's proprietorial manner by now, knew that it was really Janet that ran the household, and that she had done so for years. And, realising now how Janet had felt towards William, Juliet could only sympathise with the other woman's situation.

  But she would have liked Janet to talk further about what had happened ten years ago, would have liked to know what had really happened. She knew William had regretted it, whatever it was, but even so he had never tried to heal that breach with his older son. Until his death. And now it was all too late.

  Janet made it more than obvious by her manner, when she served the main course, that she had no intention of continuing the conversation, and so Juliet ate the rest of her meal in contemplative silence.

  She intended going to William's study once she had eaten, to see if she could find this file that Liam seemed to want so badly. She had been putting off the moment when she would have to look through William's desk; his study was another room she found it painful to enter, and she hadn't been near his desk in the house since he had died. But if she didn't do it then Liam would, and somehow she found that thought even more unpalatable.

  It felt as bad as she had thought it would. All of William's personal papers were in his desk, and to look through them was like reading someone's private diary. Consequently, Juliet kept her search to a minimum; after all, the file had to be of a certain size, and it certainly wasn't locked away in the small box in the bottom drawer of the desk where she knew William had kept really personal things.

  However, there was a large brown envelope beneath the box, of a very similar shape to the drawer itself, so that at first Juliet thought it was a drawer liner, but as none of the other drawers had a liner she realised it couldn't be that.

  The name Walters fairly leapt off the top of the first piece of paper that Juliet drew out of the envelope, and she felt her heart sink. It was the Walters file. And what was this single file doing hidden away in William's private desk?

  Even after reading all the documents inside, Juliet was no closer to answering that question!

  It all looked perfectly in order to her—a project that William had supervised himself from start to finish, the building finished on time, all bills paid, all contracts honoured. So why was this file so important to Liam?

  'Burning the midnight oil?'

  She looked up with a guilty start at the sound of his voice. The only light in the room came from the desk-lamp that stood on one side of William's desk. Liam looked dark and ominous as he stood in the open doorway.

  He was still wearing the suit and shirt he had worn all day, although the formal tie was missing now and the top button of his shirt undone. 'Isn't it a little late still to be working?' He moved with cat-like grace further into the room, the single light throwing his face into dark shadow, giving him a menacing appearance.

  Juliet glanced briefly at the clock on the wall. Midnight. She had had no idea it was that late! She must have been poring over this file for over two hours. And she was still none the wiser!

  She sat back tiredly, her shoulders aching from where she had been leaning over for so long. 'Did you have a good evening?' she said politely—distantly, she hoped. It had been a long evening, and she had no wish to prolong this conversation more than was necessary. If she had heard him enter the house it probably wouldn't have been taking place at all—she would have made sure that he hadn't found her here. But he moved with all the quiet and grace of a jungle cat, so that she never seemed to hear his approach.

  'Not particularly,' he rasped, sitting on the edge of the desk to look down at her.

  What did that mean? She supposed it all depended on whom he had spent the evening with; if it had been a woman he was home very early, probably hadn't expected to be back at all. She couldn't help but feel curious about the fact that there must be a woman in his life somewhere. He was too sexually attractive for it to be any other way.

  'I'm sorry.' She frowned, not knowing what else to say.

  'Are you?' he derided sceptically. 'Just how much did Diana tell you at lunchtime before I arrived and interrupted your cosy little chat?'

  Diana? What did Diana have to do with the fact that his evening hadn't been very successful? She knew that she had had her suspicions concerning the two of them, but Diana had talked so lovingly about her family today that she had become convinced that she had to be wrong about that. Surely Liam wasn't now saying that she hadn't been wrong at all?

  'We had only just arrived and ordered, ourselves,' Juliet told him stiffly.

  He nodded abruptly. 'I have no objection to the two of you having lunch together, but I do not want my private affairs discussed,' he said coldly.

  Juliet stared up at him. 'We didn't discuss your private affairs!' she gasped indignantly.

  He stood up. 'I'm just reiterating that I don't want you to do so. Diana has always been extremely discreet, but she could be put in an awkward position where you're concerned, given the circumstances.'

  '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.