Cathy Williams - 8 Magnificent Millionaires

Walking through the gardens, his feet sliding and crunching on the snow-covered earth, Adrian finally felt he could breathe unencumbered once more. It didn’t matter how big the house was or how many rooms it had—at times like these he simply needed the unconfined space of the outside. Only then would the prickling discomfort in his chest ease and his ensuing panic start to subside. It had been that way ever since Nicole’s death and after eight years he wasn’t holding out much hope for a change. What made him furious was that he didn’t seem to have any control over his claustrophobia. It wasn’t as if he spent every day dwelling on the terrible event that had indelibly shaped his future, but still the condition seemed to descend on him out of the blue. His psychologist friend, Andrew, had told him he mustn’t blame himself and had tried to teach him strategies for coping. But Adrian hadn’t wanted strategies, or advice—no matter how well meant. He simply wanted the ability to turn back time: to sit in the Jeep for a few minutes longer with Nicole on that mercilessly hot day and prevent her from going anywhere near the embassy gates.

Turning in the dark to stare at the huge house in front of him, with just one or two lights on downstairs and one shining from the first floor—Liadan’s room—Adrian knew he didn’t really want to stay here for the rest of his life. However long that was. On this freezing winter’s night, when the only sound to disturb the silence was the distant, repetitive hooting of an owl, Adrian yearned for warmer climes and the hot tropical nights of Kenya, his boyhood home. Instead of owls hooting, he suddenly longed for the sound of rasping cicadas and the short, warm rains that fell from October to December. Anything but this dead, lifeless snow that made him feel as though he were encased in a tomb…

‘Can I help you?’

Dropping her basket of laundry in the hall behind her, Liadan pushed some hair out of her eyes, smoothed a hand down her jeans and smiled pleasantly at the smartly dressed blonde who stood on the doorstep.

‘I’d like to see Adrian, if I may?’

The woman was clearly about to step inside without being invited, her too-heady perfume was as pushy as she was, and as Liadan’s eyes locked on her brittle blue gaze she suddenly recalled Kate’s dire warning about reporters trying to inveigle their way in to get interviews with Adrian. Resolved to do everything in her power to prevent any unwanted invasion of her boss’s privacy, Liadan quickly stood in front of the woman to block her entrance, her heart missing a beat at this unexpected confrontation.

‘Do you have an appointment with Mr Jacobs?’

‘He’ll see me. My name is Cheryl Kendall. Tell him I’ve had some new information about his affair with Petra Collins. Tell him I’m going to go ahead and print it unless he gives me an interview.’

Two reactions hit Liadan simultaneously. First, how much she despised the woman’s blackmailing tactics, and second, the name Petra Collins. Five years ago she had been one of the hottest properties in Hollywood, a beautiful raven-haired actress with a widely publicised taste for high living and seriously wealthy men. It was well known that since then her career hadn’t prospered. Her last film had been three years ago, and that had been a resounding flop at the box office. If the papers were to be believed, the latest news was that she was in some fancy drying-out clinic in California, getting help for her alcoholism. Liadan didn’t read the papers much herself but her friends Jennie and Mel were avid consumers of the gossip columns.

‘I’ll tell him no such thing! Now, please just go. Mr Jacobs is working and he doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s—’

‘It’s okay, Liadan. I’ll speak with Ms Kendall.’

She spun round in surprise at his voice, and her limbs went strangely weak at the sight of her employer. He was dressed in his usual black; the silver in his hair seemed even more eye-catching against his otherwise sable locks and his eyes were very dark and grave. Weary, almost. The wave of sympathy that rushed through Liadan couldn’t be tamped.

‘I’ll give you five minutes, ten at the most. Come into my study.’ His voice curt, Adrian waited briefly for Cheryl Kendall to step inside before striding ahead of her down the corridor.

The stop-start hum of the dryer resounding in her ears, Liadan folded the pile of clothing she had already dried on top of the washing machine, her movements automatic and efficient even as her mind was distracted. Both curious and concerned about the conversation that was going on upstairs right now in Adrian’s study, she prayed that Cheryl Kendall’s paper or magazine, whatever it was, was not going to print anything injurious or wounding to him. How had Adrian come to meet the famous actress in the first place, and why had their affair ended? Had Petra found him as cold as he appeared? Had she ever managed to get past some of those impenetrable layers that Adrian so obviously protected himself with?

The thought made Liadan stop what she was doing and stare unseeingly ahead. How had she known that? Adrian Jacobs had been deeply wounded—maybe beyond repair—and now strove to do everything in his power to prevent himself from ever being so badly hurt again. One only had to read his books to know that he was a man who had delved deeply into the realms of his own shadow. You’d have to have spent a lot of time exploring the darker side of the human psyche to come up with some of the twisted and terrifying plots that Adrian came up with in his work. And Liadan’s summing-up of what she’d read had been right. There were no redeeming solutions for the human condition in his stories. Not even the merest flicker of light.

‘Liadan? Where are you?’

Hearing him call her name, Liadan put her hands up to quell the sudden rush of heat in her cheeks, took a moment to compose herself, then ran up the back stairs into the open hallway to find him waiting for her.

‘I’m here. What’s wrong?’

For a brief second, Adrian almost forgot what he’d called her for. Again, that gentle perfume reminded him of May blossoms, and the sudden sight of her—all flushed cheeks and big blue eyes and pretty red-gold hair seizing an unexpected chance at liberty from its bun—made him think impossibly of spring. Of hope renewed and life restored after the dead of winter…For a moment the tightening in his throat made it impossible to speak.

‘Nothing’s wrong. What, did you think I’d be intimidated by some pushy little journo wearing too much make-up with an inflated sense of her own importance? You clearly don’t know the newspaper game like I do.’

‘Oh.’ Feeling the full disturbing force of his gaze, Liadan linked her hands together in front of her, then in the next second unlinked them and folded her arms self-consciously across her chest. Those deep, dark eyes of his were profoundly unsettling. They made Liadan far too aware of her own femininity in a way that no other man had made her feel before. Yet when he glanced away again, clearly too aloof to have stirred such an intimate response, it was as if she’d dreamt the whole thing and her feelings had seriously misled her. ‘You’re all right, then?’

He grimaced. ‘Yes, I’m fine. Come into my study, will you? I need your help.’

The sight that met her on entering Adrian’s room had Liadan’s blue eyes widening in shock. Practically every inch of floor space was covered in loose pages of manuscript, a chair was upturned and the broken remains of what was once a charming blue and white porcelain coffee cup littered the rug by the piano.

‘You can see why I need help,’ Adrian said dryly.

‘What happened?’ Getting down on her knees to recover some of the loose pages, Liadan sensed Adrian start to do the same behind her, the warm, woody drift of his cologne catching her unawares and making her stomach turn hollow.