Tall, Dark... Collection

‘I thought you were returning to Ireland this evening?’ she queried as she picked up her shoulder-bag.

‘I was,’ Liam confirmed, walking over to the door with her.

‘What happened to change your plans?’ As if she really needed to ask that!

Since his telephone call to Perry this morning Liam had found out that she was Shipley Publishing—and he was enjoying playing the cat-and-mouse game with her that he had initially accused her of playing with him. Well, that stopped right now!

‘Never mind,’ she said suddenly. ‘I really do have to go now—’

‘Could you drop me off somewhere?’ Liam suggested sardonically.

‘No, I couldn’t!’ Her face was red from anger now. ‘Liam—’

‘In that case, before I go I’ll make an appointment with Watch-dog Ruth for the two of us to meet tomorrow morning,’ he told her unconcernedly.

Laura paused with her hand on the door. ‘Liam, I have no intention of having a meeting with you tomorrow morning, or indeed any other time,’ she said frustratedly, all the while aware of the time ticking away. ‘Perry is more than capable of dealing with any queries you may have—’

‘Not the ones I want answers to,’ Liam put in softly.

Laura gave him another sharp look, not liking the way this unexpected meeting had gone at all. But she really did not have the time to deal with this just now; she had Bobby to think of.

‘Make what appointments you like, Liam,’ she advised him impatiently. ‘But I will have nothing to say to you in the morning that I haven’t already said.’

Liam gave her a considering look. ‘Is he important to you?’ he finally asked consideringly.

She gave him a startled look. If it hadn’t been for the fact that she had to leave immediately she would have made sure Liam was fully aware of exactly how this situation lay! As it was…‘Who?’ she prompted irritably.

He folded his arms across the width of his chest. ‘The man you’re going off to meet—and don’t say it isn’t a man,’ he stated, as she would have spoken. ‘I recognise that flush in your cheeks, that glow in those incredibly beautiful eyes, only too well.’

‘You do?’ she said sceptically.

‘I most certainly do,’ Liam rasped. ‘You always glowed like this when you were excited or pleased about something.’

She didn’t want to hear how she looked when she was excited or pleased—or to remember the occasions when Liam must have seen her in that particular state.

‘Goodbye, Liam,’ she told him with blazing dismissal, wrenching open the door to hurry from the office without a backward glance, giving Ruth a brief wave before she hurried out to the lift and downstairs to the waiting car.

But she couldn’t bring herself to relax as Paul drove in the direction of Bobby’s school, aware that she was cutting things very fine for picking her son up on time. Secure and confident as Bobby was generally, he was still only seven, and he tended to become anxious if there was no one there to meet him when the school bell rang at the end of the day.

‘With a minute to spare,’ Paul told her with satisfaction as he pulled the car into the school car park.

‘Thanks, Paul,’ Laura told him with relief, before hurrying off to Bobby’s classroom.

Liam had said she looked pleased and excited, but he had obviously mistaken the reason for those emotions. She was always pleased to be with Bobby, and in his case her excitement was actually maternal pride.

She smiled with that love and pride as she watched her son through the classroom window as he packed his books away for the day. The tallest in his class, he was a very handsome little boy, dark hair curling slightly, blue eyes bright and alert, his features still showing signs of babyhood.

Liam’s son…

Laura frowned as she acknowledged the likeness between father and son. It wasn’t just that their colouring was the same; Bobby had a certain proud bearing in his stance, and was obviously going to be as tall as his natural father.

For the first time, as she watched her son unobserved, she pondered the question of whether or not one day—when Bobby was old enough for Liam not to be able to even attempt to have a share in his son’s childhood or teenage years!—she would have to tell him about his real father.

For her own sake, she answered a definite no; after the pain of the past she couldn’t contemplate sharing even Bobby’s adulthood with Liam! From Bobby’s point of view she was less sure. He had loved Robert as his own father, been devastated at his ‘daddy’s’ death two years ago. But the truth of the matter was Bobby’s real father was still very much alive…Was she right to deny him all knowledge of that?

Why did Liam have to come back into their lives in this way and present her with this dilemma?

‘Why are you frowning, Mummy?’ Bobby asked curiously at her side, having joined her without her even noticing, and with his hand now nestling comfortably in hers as he looked up at her.

She determinedly pushed away her disquieting thoughts, smiling down at her son. ‘Was I, darling?’ she parried, taking his school bag from him. ‘I was actually just wondering if you would like to go out and have a burger for tea?’

As she had expected—and hoped!—the thought of going out for tea instead of going straight home totally diverted Bobby from the fact that she had initially looked less than happy.

She pushed thoughts of Liam away into a locked compartment in her mind. She intended keeping it that way. If she knew Liam—and she was sure she did!—then he would have made that appointment to see her in the morning; she could think about him again then.

Easier said than done! She had managed to get through tea at the burger restaurant, had bathed Bobby at home, done his homework with him, read him a story after she’d put him to bed, all without allowing a single thought of Liam to interfere. She wasn’t so lucky now she was alone in her own bedroom later that evening!

Eight years ago Liam, a lecturer when he wasn’t actually writing, had come to her university to give a talk on modern literature. She remembered that the hall had been packed that day, all of the students, having read at least one Liam O’Reilly book, now curious to see and listen to the man himself.

Laura hadn’t heard a word he’d said!

As soon as Liam had stepped on to the podium she had been mesmerised—by the way he looked, the way he moved, the soft, lilting seduction of his voice.

The lecture had passed in a daze for Laura, and she had still been lost in daydreams of the handsome author when she’d gone to the refectory for her lunch, picking uninterestedly at the pasta salad she hadn’t remembered choosing, sipping lukewarm coffee she had forgotten to put any sugar in.

‘Did you know there’s a contact-lens in your tea?’

Those words! Ill-fated, if she had but known it. But at the time all she had cared about was the fact that the man she’d been daydreaming about had just spoken to her, the lilting attraction of his voice unmistakable.

Her cheeks had been fiery red as she’d looked up to see Liam O’Reilly standing beside her table with his own laden luncheon tray, and her breath had caught in her throat as she’d gazed up into the rugged handsomeness of his face.

She’d moistened suddenly dry lips. ‘I don’t drink tea,’ she returned shyly. ‘And I don’t wear contact lenses either,’ she added, well aware that he had to be referring to the differing colours of her eyes.

He grinned down at her. ‘I know. Oh, not that you don’t drink tea,’ he explained as he put his tray down next to hers on the table. ‘I meant the contact lenses; I couldn’t help but notice the incredibly unusual beauty of your eyes at the lecture earlier.’

Those eyes widened now, even as she swallowed hard. ‘You—saw me there?’

He grinned. ‘Second row, third seat in. Mind if I join you?’ He indicated the otherwise empty seats around the table at which she sat.

‘Er—no. I mean, yes. No, of course I don’t mind if you join me,’ she corrected self-consciously.

All the time at the lecture, when she had been gazing at him like some besotted idiot, he had actually noticed her too! Or maybe he had noticed her because she’d been gazing at him like a besotted idiot…?

‘I enjoyed the lecture,’ she told him nervously as he lowered his lean length into the chair beside hers.

He gave her a sideways glance, a smile still playing about those sculptured lips. ‘Did you?’ he drawled teasingly. As if he were well aware of the fact that she hadn’t heard a word he said!

‘Don’t look so stricken,’ he advised gently as the colour first came and then as quickly receded from her face, leaving her very pale, her eyes huge pools of colour in that paleness. ‘You weren’t the only one who looked ready to fall asleep,’ he assured her humourously. ‘I’m well aware that for most of you a degree is the only goal, that a lot of the work that precedes obtaining that degree can be boring in the extreme—’