Stay Through the Night Read online

  ‘Don’t you dare!’

  Rosa grabbed Colin’s arm, trying to stop him from going into the hall that led to the bedroom, but he wasn’t deterred. ‘Wakey, wakey!’ he called, pressing the switch and filling her bedroom with harsh light. Then he turned in some confusion. ‘There’s no one here.’

  Rosa wished her face was less expressive. She’d have liked to say, Who did you expect? but the shock she’d got was more than equal to his.

  And Colin knew her too well to be deceived. ‘Well, what do you know?’ he said mockingly. ‘He’s run out on you.’ His lips twisted contemptuously. ‘Didn’t I tell you? I’m the only man you can rely on, Rosa.’

  Rosa thought she would have laughed if she hadn’t felt so heartsick. She thought she knew exactly why Liam had left, and it had nothing to do with whether he was reliable or not. He must have heard them talking, and, remembering what Colin had been saying, she wanted to scream in frustration. She’d told Liam she was divorced, that she’d been divorced for over three years, yet he must have heard Colin boasting about the fact that she was still his wife.

  Of course she wasn’t. But if Liam had heard all their conversation it would have put some doubt in his mind. Colin was so arrogant, so smug, so sure she’d agree to go back to him. But, although she was sorry his second marriage had proved as unsuccessful as his first, there was no way she ever wanted to be with Colin again.

  ‘Just get out,’ she said now, pointing towards the door. And, although she’d thought he was going to argue, Colin had evidently decided he’d said enough for tonight.

  ‘Hey, the door’s unlocked,’ he said. ‘Obviously that’s how he sneaked out without us hearing him. Who is he, Rosa? Don’t I have a right to know who my competition is?’

  ‘You have no rights where I’m concerned,’ Rosa retorted coldly. ‘And don’t come here again. As far as I’m concerned, you dropped off the face of the earth three years ago.’

  Colin’s jaw sagged. ‘You don’t mean that, Rosa.’

  ‘Trust me—I do,’ she told him, pulling the outer door open. ‘I hope I never see you again.’

  Colin hesitated, and she briefly wondered what she’d do if he chose to ignore her. Scream her head off, she reflected. With a bit of luck her elderly neighbour would hear her and call the police. But in the event he went of his own accord, muttering that she’d regret this for the rest of her life.

  Only that you came here, she thought bitterly as she slammed the door behind him. Then, collapsing onto the sofa, she felt the tears streaming down her face. She couldn’t believe the evening that had begun so marvellously had ended so disastrously. And all because she’d agreed to speak to her ex-husband when he’d called her earlier in the day.

  She’d even made a special effort with her appearance because Colin was coming, she thought bitterly. She’d had a shower and put on her best underwear, just to make herself feel good. She had no feelings for Colin, but that hadn’t stopped her from wanting to look her best when he saw her. She’d wanted him to wish he’d never cheated on her, even if by doing so he’d probably—no, definitely—done her a favour.

  And now Liam would think the worst of her. But when Colin had knocked at the door all she’d thought about was trying to stop him from waking Liam. She hadn’t even intended to invite him in, but Colin had pushed past her anyway, evidently assuming she was glad to see him.

  It hadn’t been until she’d explained that there was someone new in her life that he’d got so abusive, lying about why he’d come here, trying to pretend that she’d agreed to start again.

  It had all been just a dreadful mistake. And it was her fault. If she’d never agreed to see Colin she wouldn’t be in this position now. But, dear God! She’d had no hope of ever seeing Liam again, let alone him coming to her apartment. To think he’d driven all this way just to believe she was no better than that woman he’d been engaged to.

  Of course he didn’t know she knew anything about his broken engagement. However, since coming home, Rosa had combed the internet for anything she could find about him.

  There was pathetically little, in spite of his success. But then, he’d said that he shunned publicity. In one interview she’d read, he claimed he let his books speak for themselves. He also maintained that authors weren’t necessarily interesting people just because they had the ability to tell a good tale.

  There was little about the attack that had caused his injuries either. Rosa guessed Liam’s attitude had forced the press to back off. Besides, the man who’d done it had killed himself after believing he’d killed his victim. There’d been no prolonged investigation, no infamous court case. Liam had spent several weeks secluded from the public in hospital, and then returned to his penthouse apartment with a security firm to guard his privacy until he’d recovered.

  His girlfriend had abandoned him publicly after he’d left the hospital, but Rosa wondered if she’d really waited that long. According to the reports, she’d left him for a South American playboy who rode polo ponies for a living. She’d professed herself heartbroken for hurting Liam, but said she loved Raimondo. It had been love at first sight and there was nothing she could do to change it.

  That had made the headlines. One of the many articles made much of the fact that beautiful model Kayla Stevens had soon been seen on the arm of her new lover, Raimondo Baja.

  Miss Stevens used to be the girlfriend of hot new author Liam Jameson, who recently suffered a near-fatal attack from a crazed fan. Jameson, whose first book, Hunting the Vampire, has just been optioned by Morelli Studios for a slated seven-figure sum, wasn’t available for comment. But his agent, Dan Arnold, says Mr Jameson wishes the couple every happiness for the future.

  I bet he did, Rosa had thought cynically, when she’d read it, but now all she could think about was that she’d let him down again. What twisted truth had he thought he’d gained from Colin’s lies about her? What had he heard that had convinced him she couldn’t be trusted either?

  Scrubbing the tears from her cheeks, Rosa got to her feet. She shouldn’t sit here feeling sorry for herself. She should do something about it. But what could she do, short of getting dressed and going looking for him? And that would surely be a wasted effort. She had no idea where he might go—except as far away from her as possible, she appended bitterly.

  She didn’t know where he might spend the night. She didn’t even have the castle’s phone number. And there was no way she could desert her responsibilities and go looking for him. She was due in school again tomorrow, at eight-thirty sharp.

  Leaving the living room, she went through to the bedroom, looking about the room that had been such a heavenly haven an hour ago and now looked as abandoned as she felt. She stood in the doorway, blinking back another bout of tears, and then went into the room and flung herself on the bed.

  Burying her face in the pillow, she could still detect his scent, a mixture of some citrusy fragrance and the clean male scent of his body. And something else: the disturbing aroma of sex.

  How was she going to get over this? She felt as if she’d been hollowed out inside so that she was totally bare, totally bereft.

  She didn’t need to pretend any more, she thought. She was in love with him. In love with Liam. And how futile was that?

  And then a name crept into her mind. Dan, she recalled, pushing herself up from the pillows with a feeling of excitement. Dan Arnold. Yes, that was it. Dan Arnold. Liam’s agent. Surely he would know Liam’s phone number? And, although she didn’t hold out any hope of him giving it to her, he might be prepared to give Liam a message from her.

  Flinging back the covers, she thrust her feet to the floor and stood up, only to groan in pain as her toes encountered something hard and unyielding beneath the sheet. Wincing, she pulled the sheet aside, prepared to see one of the shoes she’d discarded earlier. But it wasn’t a shoe. It was a mobile phone.

  Feeling peeved, Rosa bent to pick up the offending article with impatient fingers. ‘Damn thing,’ sh
e muttered to herself, taking a moment to massage her bruised toes. What the devil was her phone doing on the floor in here?

  And then she realised it wasn’t her phone at all. Goodness, she was so stupid! This had to be Liam’s phone. Liam’s. It must have fallen out of his pocket when he’d tossed his jacket on the floor. Evidently his lack of contact on the island didn’t prevent him from carrying a cellphone on the mainland.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ she whispered, sinking down onto the side of the bed again. He probably used this phone to ring his agent and his publisher and anyone else he needed to get in touch with when he was travelling. In her hands, she probably held the means to solve her problem. Was it really going to be that easy?

  The phone had been turned off, she saw, and now, taking a breath, she turned it on. Immediately a screensaver of the castle appeared, before clearing again to reveal the fact that Liam had three messages.

  Three messages! Rosa wet her suddenly dry lips. Dared she access them? Dared she take the chance that one of them might be from Dan Arnold?

  Yes!

  Dialling the required number, she waited in anticipation for the first recorded message to be replayed. ‘Liam?’ she heard an unfamiliar woman’s voice say. ‘Where the hell are you? I thought you told me you’d be checking into the Moriarty at about half-past seven. It’s past eight o’clock now, and I’ve been sitting in your suite for the past hour. Give me a ring when you get this, there’s a sweetie. You know I worry about you.’

  Rosa cancelled the call at that point. Now she was the one who felt stupid. She’d thought Liam had come to see her, when in fact she’d evidently just been an afterthought. He must have decided to call in on her on his way to London to meet this other woman. And whether she was his mother, his sister, or his girlfriend—she shuddered—she’d totally misunderstood his reasons for coming to Ripon.

  Not caring if she broke it or not, Rosa flung the phone across the room and, getting off the bed, started stripping the covers from it. She wanted no trace of Liam Jameson left in this apartment, she told herself savagely.

  Only when the bed was remade with clean sheets did she again give way to the scalding tears that had never been far away…

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘WELL, I THINK you’re crazy!’

  Lucy Fielding turned from making her brother a cup of coffee in the state-of-the-art kitchen of the suite, and gave him an impatient look.

  ‘You’re entitled to your opinion, of course,’ said Liam tightly, giving in to the temptation to lift his aching leg onto the sofa beside him. He glanced behind him. ‘Isn’t that coffee ready yet?’

  Lucy pursed her lips, but she obediently poured a mug of dark Americano from the jug and carried it across to him. ‘There you are.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Although Liam’s system was already buzzing with the amount of caffeine he’d consumed in the last few hours, he made a play of taking a hungry mouthful from the mug Lucy had given him. ‘Yeah, that’s good.’

  Lucy acknowledged his thanks with a careless shrug of her shoulders, and then came to sit on the opposite end of the sofa so that he was forced to face her. ‘Not that I consider coffee an adequate substitute for breakfast,’ she added reprovingly. ‘But it’s such a relief to see you I’m prepared to be generous.’

  ‘Gee, thanks.’ Liam looked at her from beneath his lashes. ‘Sorry you had to wait so long.’

  ‘So you should be.’ Lucy shook her head. ‘You know when you rang I was considering phoning the police and asking if there’d been an accident on the motorway.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I explained about that, didn’t I?’ said Liam ruefully. He’d realised he’d lost his mobile phone just after he’d got onto the M1. ‘I had to wait until I reached a service area before I could call.’

  ‘Okay.’ Lucy inclined her head. ‘And I was so relieved to hear from you I’d have forgiven you anything then.’

  ‘What, and you’ve changed your mind now?’ suggested her brother mildly. ‘Well, tough.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ Lucy sighed. ‘As Mike’s away until Friday, I’d planned on spending the night in town.’ She paused. ‘So, tell me again: you say you took a detour to see some woman you met in August and her husband turned up—is that right?’

  Liam’s expression darkened. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘I think you should.’ Lucy regarded him closely. ‘What’s going on, Lee? There’s more to this than what you’ve told me. How did you meet her, anyway? I thought you didn’t take women to Kilfoil.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘So what was she doing there?’

  Liam expelled a weary breath. ‘Looking for her sister.’

  ‘On the island? Or at the castle?’

  ‘Both,’ said Liam flatly, wishing he hadn’t asked for the coffee now. It was too hot to swallow in one gulp, and politeness forbade him from just leaving it after Lucy had taken the trouble to make it. ‘Forget it, Lucy, please.’

  Lucy’s lips tightened. ‘I can’t,’ she told him shortly. ‘You forget, I was around when Kayla walked out on you, and I don’t like the idea that some other woman has been playing you for a fool.’

  Liam groaned. ‘Rosa’s not like that,’ he said wearily, tipping his head back against the cushions.

  ‘So what is she like?’

  ‘Tall, slim, red-haired.’

  Lucy snorted. ‘That’s not what I meant and you know it, Lee. What’s she like really? Is she like Kayla?’

  ‘She’s nothing like Kayla,’ he said forcefully, looking at her again. ‘I wouldn’t insult her by using her name in the same breath as Kayla Stevens.’

  ‘Kayla Baja,’ Lucy corrected him drily. ‘Who, by the way, is back in London. I’ve heard that she and Raimondo have split, and she’s been telling anyone who’ll listen to her that you’re the only man she’s ever loved.’

  Liam gave her an incredulous look. ‘You’re kidding?’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘No, I’m serious. She cornered me in Harrods the other day and asked me if I’d seen you recently.’ She smiled. ‘Naturally I let her think we were seldom out of one another’s pockets. I didn’t think it was wise to tell her that we only see you a couple of times a year.’

  Liam pulled a face. ‘You know where I live.’

  ‘But you’re not exactly accessible, are you?’ Lucy protested. ‘And you hardly come down to London anymore.’

  Liam sighed. ‘I’m a writer, Lucy. I do work, you know.’

  ‘I know.’ Lucy hesitated. ‘And Kayla?’

  ‘Kayla can go—screw herself,’ said Liam, moderating his language for his sister’s sake. ‘I don’t care if I never see her again.’

  And it was true, he thought incredulously. For so long he’d avoided talking about Kayla, even thinking about Kayla, but suddenly he didn’t care what anyone said. Whatever hold Kayla had had over him was gone. He could think of her now without either pain or regret. He shook his head at the feeling of freedom it gave him.

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ remarked Lucy, her smile appearing. ‘Obviously Rosa—what is it you said she was called? Channing? No, Chantry. Yeah, Rosa Chantry—obviously she must have something none of the others have had.’

  Depression descended abruptly. ‘Leave it, Lucy.’

  ‘How can I leave it?’ She stared at him frustratedly. ‘Didn’t she tell you she was married?’

  ‘She’s not married,’ muttered Liam reluctantly. ‘Or at least I don’t think she is.’

  ‘What?’ Lucy blinked. ‘But you said—’

  However, Liam had had enough. Thrusting his half-empty mug of coffee onto the low table in front of him, he got heavily to his feet. ‘I need a shower,’ he said grimly, cutting her off with a sweeping movement of his hand across his throat. ‘Then I want to speak to Dan before I go and see Aaron Pargeter. You’re welcome to stay here, if you want to. But don’t expect me to entertain you today.’

  ‘So what’s new?’ said Lucy in a cool voice. ‘But I mig
ht stay another night, if that’s okay with you. You still owe me dinner.’

  Liam regarded her with an expression that mingled affection with irritation. ‘Okay,’ he said, in an entirely different tone. ‘Dinner tonight it is. So long as you promise not to tell me how to run my life.’

  Lucy’s face cleared. ‘Bastard,’ she said succinctly, and Liam was smiling when he left the room.

  The next couple of days were bloody.

  Rosa wasn’t sleeping well, and although her mother had called a couple of times, asking her to go round for a meal, Rosa didn’t think she could be civil to Sophie in her present frame of mind.

  Her sister had abandoned her course at university about a month after the start of the autumn semester. It was too dull, too boring, she’d told Rosa and her mother. It wasn’t what she’d expected, she said, and she was presently filling in at an advertising agency in Harrogate, who apparently considered her appearance more than compensation for her lack of experience.

  Rosa had to admit the job suited her. Occupying the reception desk, she was the perfect image the agency wanted to promote. And, although Sophie would probably get bored with that, too, in time, for the moment she was content.

  Nevertheless, that didn’t make Rosa any more enthusiastic about spending an evening listening to her boast about how important her job was. Particularly as every time she saw Sophie she couldn’t help thinking about Liam and what she’d lost. It had been bad enough before, but it was much worse now. She didn’t even want to think about what had happened—or admit, if only to herself, that she’d known all along it couldn’t last.

  Wasn’t that what she’d told him, for heaven’s sake? Wasn’t it she who’d promised him she expected no commitment from him? Maybe she was just kidding herself by thinking it was what he’d heard Colin say that had driven him away. Maybe all he’d wanted was a one-night-stand, a little diversion on his way to London.