Carole Mortimer Romance Collection. Carole Mortimer

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СКАЧАТЬ do you mean you’re going to lunch with Juliet?’ he snapped angrily. Diana had left the office door slightly ajar when she’d gone back into the office.

      Juliet cringed at the anger in his voice, wishing she were anywhere but standing in this corridor, an unwilling listener to the exchange. She didn’t hear Diana’s quietly spoken reply, only Liam’s response.

      ‘How else should I feel?’ he challenged harshly. ‘I’m wasting precious time even looking at this damned company, when I have interests of my own that need attention. You’re pregnant, and—God, I’m sorry, Diana!’ His voice had softened in his hurried apology. ‘I know you feel badly enough about that already. Don’t worry, we’ll work something out. It isn’t the end of the world. Tom will come round. He’ll understand. Oh, God, Diana, don’t cry; you know I don’t know what to do when you cry! Diana…’

      Juliet didn’t stay to hear any more, but turned and walked in a daze from the building, sure that she had been forgotten by both Diana and Liam. Interests of his own that needed attention, Diana pregnant, her husband Tom would understand. It all added up to one thing: Diana was pregnant with Liam’s child!

      Juliet was stunned, totally shocked; she sat in her car for several minutes, unable to move.

      What had she expected, hoped? That somehow during her conversation with Liam this evening she might have been able to salvage something, some sort of relationship with him?

      God, she did love him. And he was having an affair with a married woman—a woman who was now expecting his child. What a mess!

      How she drove back to the house she never knew afterwards; she couldn’t recall the journey at all. But she knew, after the conversation she had just heard, that she couldn’t return to Carlyle Properties, that she couldn’t see Liam again. The only course left open to her now was to collect her things and go. She would leave a note for Liam in his father’s study explaining what she was doing, and saying that he would hear from her lawyer concerning the business and house. There was no way she could actually talk to him herself now. Whatever awareness there had been between them, and no matter how she might feel about Liam, she had no part to play in his life.

      As he had no part to play in hers…

      A perplexed-looking Janet met her in the hallway as she entered the house. ‘Miss Juliet, I’ve seen the suitcases in your room…’ She frowned heavily. ‘Are you going away on holiday?’

      She was sure that the older woman must have realised that all of her things were packed in those two suitcases—everything she wanted to take with her, which was really only clothes and a few personal things. She wanted nothing that any of the Carlyle family had ever given her.

      ‘Not a holiday, Janet,’ she told the other woman gently. ‘I’m leaving the house for good.’

      The older woman looked stricken. ‘But—’

      ‘It’s for the best, Janet.’ She squeezed the other woman’s arm reassuringly. ‘I think we both know that I should have left seven years ago whenwell, after Simon died.’ She shook her head. ‘I just wasn’t feeling strong enough to make the break then.’

      ‘Would you care to explain that remark?’

      Both women spun round at the sound of Liam’s voice. He stood in the doorway behind them, his expression grim.

      Juliet just stared at him. How had he got here? She hadn’t heard the car in the driveway, but she supposed he must have driven here. Had he known she was here too?

      ‘Well?’ He looked at her challengingly, closing the door firmly behind him.

      She couldn’t even remember what she and Janet had been talking about when he arrived, so shocked was she by his presence here!

      ‘Why weren’t you feeling strong enough to leave seven years ago?’ he prompted harshly, blue eyes narrowed.

      There was so much anger in this house—always had been, Juliet realised now. ‘My fiancé had just died,’ she answered quietly, not quite able to meet the intensity of that probing gaze.

      ‘Simon?’ Liam said scornfully. ‘Was he really any loss to anyone?’

      ‘Master Liam!’ Janet gasped in a shocked voice.

      He looked at her slightly regretfully. ‘I’m sorry, Janet, but you know that there was no love lost between my brother and myself; we just didn’t have anything in common, except the same parents. If we hadn’t been related, we would have disliked each other intensely the first time we met.’ He shook his head disgustedly. ‘Simon was a spoilt child who grew up into a spoilt, destructive man, a man who felt—God knows why!—that the world owed him something.’

      He had so perfectly described the Simon whom Juliet had come to know as the real Simon, not the Simon she had imagined herself in love with. She had thought he was wonderful, a golden-haired Adonis, and miraculously he had seemed to find her equally attractive.

      But it had all been a lie, a deception for his father’s benefit; Simon hadn’t really loved her at all, had just been trying to prove to his father what a steady, responsible adult he had become, so that William would retire and leave the business in Simon’s complete control. She knew now, after what Liam had told her of the past, exactly why William had had reason to doubt that!

      Janet shot her a concerned look. ‘I don’t think it helps anyone to dwell on the past, Liam,’ she told him quietly.

      ‘The past created the present,’ he rasped harshly.

      ‘The past is dead,’ the housekeeper insisted firmly. ‘Along with your father and Simon.’

      A spasm of emotion crossed Liam’s face at those words, but it was too fleeting for Juliet to be able to gauge what it was. ‘But my father made sure, by leaving me half control of the company on his death, that I would have to come back here,’ he bit out angrily.

      Janet shook her head. ‘You didn’t have to come back, Liam. It would have been easy enough just to sell your shares; something inside you must have wanted to come back,’ she pointed out softly.

      His mouth twisted. ‘My curiosity was aroused, I’ll admit that,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Even more so once I had actually met Juliet. She wasn’t quite what I had expected.’

      And had expected from the information he had had on her before he had even arrived in Majorca! ‘What did you expect, Liam?’ She frowned, able to guess, from the things he had said to her since they had first met, exactly what he had thought! She had lived with his father, had been left a halfshare in the company; it was obvious what he had surmised about the relationship. And he was wrong, so very wrong. As she had been too, she now knew, but for different reasons.

      Liam looked at her coldly. ‘Not the waif-like creature you turned out to be!’ he rasped. ‘I thought my father went in for more…shapely women!’ he added insultingly.

      Juliet gasped, looking concernedly at Janet, sure now, even though she had never realised it while William had been alive, that the other woman had cared for him very much. And Liam was the one who had first pointed that out to her, which made his insult to her doubly hurtful.

      Janet had stiffened, looking censoriously at Liam. ‘That is enough, Liam,’ she said steadily. СКАЧАТЬ