Boss Meets Baby(127)

‘I read a quote somewhere that most people’s troubles arise from the fact that they can’t sit alone in a room in silence. Maybe they’re afraid to face what might come up? It’s probably like stirring a great soup…you don’t know what might rise to the surface…and that’s why people have to stay busy to distract themselves. What do you think?’

‘We live in a world of commerce and achieving. We don’t all have the time to sit and contemplate our navels.’

His caustic comment privately pained her, but even so Georgia could tell that her reflections had disturbed Keir.

‘Well, then…it’s just as well that sometimes we’re fortunate to have opportunities like tonight—to sit and listen to sublime music that feeds the spirit and helps us contemplate other things besides the world of commerce!’There was deliberate challenge in her tone. ‘I for one would go mad if I wasn’t able to find some peace somewhere!’

Georgia had seen how moved Keir had been by the music, even though he might hurry to deny it. She would have registered his response even if she hadn’t turned briefly to glance at his riveted profile. The emotional tension in him had been palpable. It had made Georgia aware that there were hidden depths to this serious-minded businessman and Laird, and driven her to speculate that perhaps he did possess a less harsh and guarded side. A side he was determined not to expose to the world. Was he afraid of being hurt somehow? It was a provocative idea, even though Georgia told herself she’d be a fool to explore it any further.

‘Yes—peace. I suppose that’s ultimately what we all want.’ Surprisingly, he acquiesced, ‘So tell me…what other things besides music do you enjoy?’

‘Oh, there isn’t any lack of occupations. It’s just having the time to do them that’s the problem.’

‘For instance?’

‘Well…’ Georgia’s smile was as disarming as that of a little girl who’d just been told she was to be a bridesmaid for the first time. ‘Reading is a great passion—I love to lose myself in a good book…I also enjoy a bit of gardening myself from time to time…tiny though our little plot is! I also love hiking and swimming and going to the movies. Can I have a couple more?’ She sucked in a deep breath and laughed. ‘Taking long rambling walks with Hamish, and— finally!—spending time with my brother of course.’

‘You must be greatly looking forward to seeing him at the weekend.’

‘Oh, yes!’ Her eyes sparkled with undisguised longing. ‘I’ve missed him very much!’

Keir was mesmerised by the animation in her face.

‘How long has it been since you last saw him?’

‘At least three months. He came back home one weekend at the end of May for a brief visit. You were in New York on business—I remember him telling me.’

Keir remembered too. He’d been meeting with officials regarding Robbie’s car accident. His rental car had been hit side-on by a drunken driver. He hadn’t had a chance of saving himself. Keir’s gut clenched hard as iron.

‘Have you and Noah always been so close?’ he asked, the pain ebbing a little as he forced himself to concentrate on Georgia’s answer.

‘We lost our parents one after the other in the same year. Noah was fourteen and I was just five years older. We have no other living family, so I was determined to take care of us both.’

Her cheeks had turned an impassioned pink, and Keir absorbed what she had told him with a sense of shock—for a moment his own pain at the memory of Robbie’s death was banished.

‘That was an amazingly brave thing to do at nineteen,’ he said with admiration.

Georgia’s eyebrows flew up to her hairline. ‘It wasn’t brave at all! What else would I have done? Let them take him away from me? My own little brother? Let him go to strangers who wouldn’t love him like I do?’ Her hazel eyes sparkled with unshed tears. ‘I could never have lived with myself if I’d done that! And my parents would have turned in their graves! Families should stick together…especially when times are tough. Don’t you agree?’





CHAPTER FOUR


THERE WAS NO DOUBT in Keir’s mind that she meant emotionally and not just physically. But since his own parents had never been there for him or his brother in that way he could not immediately give Georgia an answer.

His mother had drunk herself to death when Keir was just eleven—no doubt to escape the foul black tempers of his father which had become increasingly worse and more threatening as the years had gone on.