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‘Agreement on an editor for you,’ she reminded him impatiently.
‘I’ve already told you my preference—’
‘And I’ve already told you it’s completely out of the question!’ she interrupted briskly.
‘It’s stalemate, then.’
She drew in a quick breath. ‘Perhaps you should take your novel to another publisher, Liam—’
‘You little coward! He stood up forcefully, glaring at her with glittering blue eyes, at once dominating the office with his sheer size.
Laura stood up too, tension in every inch of her slender body. ‘How dare you?’ She was breathing hard in her agitation.
‘How dare I?’ he repeated scathingly. ‘I’ll tell you how I dare—’
‘Laura, I— Oops!’ A confused Perry stood in the doorway, grimacing his awkwardness at having apparently interrupted a heated conversation, his brief knock obviously having passed unheard between the two adversaries.
Because that was what they were, Laura inwardly acknowledged angrily. She couldn’t even be in the same room with Liam without her hackles rising!
‘You asked me to join you at nine-thirty,’ Perry reminded her uncomfortably.
She had asked her senior editor to join them at that time because she had thought—erroneously, as it turned out!—that she and Liam might have come to some agreement about his editor by then. She had forgotten how completely unreasonable Liam could be when he wanted to be!
‘Do come in, Perry,’ she invited, forcing some of the tension from her body as she smiled welcomingly across the room at him.
‘Do not come in, Perry,’ Liam told the other man grimly. ‘I’m sure it was very nice of Laura to invite you to join us—’ he rasped his displeasure ‘—but the two of us haven’t finished talking yet,’ he added with a challenging glance in her direction.
‘Oh, I think we have, Mr O’Reilly,’ she told him just as determinedly. ‘More than finished,’ she concluded forcefully.
Liam continued to look at her for several long seconds, and then he gave a barely perceptible shrug before turning back to the younger man. ‘It appears you had better come in, after all, Perry. Although I should warn you,’ he continued softly as the younger man did exactly that, closing the door behind him, ‘some of what you might hear in the next few minutes may come as something of a surprise to you.’
Laura didn’t miss the warning in his voice—she would be being particularly stupid if she had! Well, two could play at that game!
‘I think Liam is referring to the fact that he and I knew each other several years ago,’ she told Perry smoothly, indicating that he should sit down in the chair next to the one Liam had occupied until a few minutes ago. ‘Perry already knows that, Liam,’ she said as she resumed her own seat behind the desk. ‘It was the reason I was able to recognise you at the hotel two days ago,’ she reminded him.
Liam’s mouth tightened at the memory of that meeting, and the construction—with hindsight—he had put on her behaviour. ‘Very Sherlock Holmes,’ he grated.
She held up her palms. ‘Why don’t you sit down again, Liam?’ she invited. ‘I have just finished explaining to Liam that you will make him a wonderful editor.’ She smiled warmly at Perry.
‘And I have just finished explaining to Laura,’ Liam said forcefully, making no move to resume his own seat, ‘that, wonderful as you might be—’ his mouth twisted derisively as he looked at the other man ‘—if I decide to sign a contract for Shipley Publishing to publish my book, I have already chosen my own editor.’
Laura looked at him frustratedly. He wasn’t going to budge an inch!
‘You have?’ Perry looked completely puzzled.
‘Liam is—’ Laura broke off with a frown as the telephone began to ring on her desk. She had asked Ruth to hold all her calls until after Liam had gone. Which meant that this was a call Ruth had decided couldn’t wait. ‘Excuse me,’ she murmured, and took the call, the colour draining from her cheeks as she listened.
Bobby! Oh, dear Heaven, Bobby!
‘I’ll be right there,’ she managed to choke, before slamming down the receiver and standing up. ‘I have to go,’ she told the two men distractedly, picking up her bag and hurrying over to the door.
‘Laura, whatever—?’
‘I can’t talk to you any more just now, Liam,’ she told him impatiently. ‘Don’t you understand? I have to go!’ Her beloved Bobby was hurt, needed her! He had fallen down some stairs at school, was on his way to the hospital right now.
Steely fingers gripped her upper arm, spinning her round. ‘No, I don’t understand,’ Liam ground out. ‘What on earth is wrong?’ He groaned concernedly, as his narrowed gaze took in her white face and frantic expression.
Laura shook her head. ‘I don’t have the time for this, Liam,’ she snapped. Bobby was all that was important to her now. ‘Talk to Perry or don’t talk to Perry,’ she added with impatient dismissal as Liam seemed about to protest again. ‘Take your manuscript to another publisher if that’s what you want to do.’
Liam’s hand dropped away from her arm. ‘You don’t care either way. Is that it?’ he rasped.
She glared up at him with glittering eyes. ‘No, I don’t care either way,’ she confirmed, before turning to almost run from the room, her only thought now to get to Bobby as quickly as possible.
It had been the headmaster of Bobby’s school on the telephone. Her son had fallen down some stairs, seemed to be in considerable pain, and an ambulance had been called. Laura’s only concern was to get to the hospital as quickly as she could.
She arrived at the hospital at the same time as Bobby did, the teacher who had accompanied him in the ambulance at his side as he was wheeled into the Accident and Emergency Department on a trolley.
A trolley that was far too big for such a little boy, making him look younger and more defenceless than usual…
Tears filled Laura’s eyes as she hurried over to him, having to blink back those tears as she saw the look of relief on Bobby’s face as he saw her there, his own tears immediately starting to fall. Laura knew it wouldn’t help anyone to have the two of them in floods of tears!
‘I bumped my head and my knee hurts, Mommy,’ Bobby sobbed into her neck as she held him close to her.
‘Have you thought that there’s probably a dent or two in the stairs now, too?’ she attempted to tease, and was rewarded for her attempt at levity with a teary smile from her son.
‘I never thought of that,’ Bobby giggled, obviously less distressed now that his mummy was here.
She ruffled the dark silkiness of his hair as she smiled down at him. Bobby was so precious to her that from the time he was a baby what she had really wanted to do was gather him up in her arms, wrap him in cotton-wool and never let any harm come to him.
Robert had been the one to show her she couldn’t do that, that it wouldn’t be fair to Bobby to deny him all the fun and games that all little boys enjoyed.
Robert had also been the one to encourage her to go back to work once Bobby was old enough for kindergarten, and by the time Bobby had begun ‘big’ school, with Robert only recently dead, she had been more than grateful to have Shipley Publishing to occupy her time and thoughts.
But she did wish that Robert were at her side now, if only to help guide her through the pain of seeing their son hurt. It was at times like this that she missed Robert the most…
To Laura’s relief, an X-ray on Bobby’s knee showed that he hadn’t