Up Close and Personal

Excerpt. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Laura, I know youre in there!Ronan Connolly pounded on the brightly painted blue front door a few more times, then paused to listen. Not a sound from inside the house, though he knew too well that Laura was in there. Hell, he could practically feel her, standing just on the other side of the damned door.Bloody hardheaded woman. How had he ever thought that quality attractive? Now that attractive hardheadedness had come back to bite him in the ass.Seconds ticked past and there was no sound from within, which only irritated him further. He glanced at the sunshineyellow Volkswagen parked alongside the househer carthen glared again at the stillclosed front door.You wont convince me youre not at home. Your bloody car is parked in the street, Laura.Her voice came then, muffled but clear. Its a driveway in America, Ronan. Youre not in Ireland, remember?Mores the pity. He scrubbed one hand across his face and rolled his eyes in frustration. If they were in Ireland right now, hed have half the village of Dunley on his side and hed bloody well get her to open the damned door.I heard that, she said. And feel free to hop onto one of your private planes and go back to Connollyland anytime you feel like it!If only he could, Ronan thought. But hed come to California to open an American branch of his business and until Cosain was running as it should, he was going nowhere at all.At the moment though, he was tired, on edge and in no mood to be dealing with more females. Especially one with a head as hard as Lauras.He had spent the past six weeks traveling across Europe acting as bodyguard to a sixteenyearold pop star whose singing was only slightly less annoying than her attitude. Between the girl and her grasping mother, Ronan had been more than ready for the job to end so he could get back to his life. Now that he was back, hed expected peace. Orderliness. InsteadGrinding his teeth together, he took a long moment or two and counted to ten. Then did it a second time. Whatever the hell you want to call it, Laura, your car is here and sore you.I might have been out, she shouted. Did you ever think of that? I do have friends, you know.The Connolly temper lifted a couple notches inside him and Ronan was forced to fight it back down.But youre not out, are you? he asked, entirely reasonably, and he gave himself points for it. Youre here, driving me to distraction and making me shout at a bloody closed door like Im the village idiot turned loose on his own for the first time.You dont have to shout, I can hear you, she said, her voice carrying nicely through the door.Laura Page lived on a tidy street in Huntington Beach, California, in one of a dozen town houses built to look like a Cape Cod village. When hed first seen her place, hed thought it charming. Now he glared at the building as if it were to blame for his current situation.A cool ocean breeze shot down the narrow street and rattled the limbs of the nearly naked elm tree in Lauras front yard. Roiling gray clouds overhead promised a storm soon, and he hoped to hell he wasnt still standing on this bleeding porch when it hit.Your neighbors can hear me, too, he pointed out with a brief nod at the man clipping his hedge with enough vigor to whittle it into a toothpick. Why not open the door and we can talk this out. Together. In private.Ive got nothing to say to you.He laughed shortly. That would be a first indeed, he told himself. A more opinionated woman he had never met. In the beginning, hed liked that about her. Too often, he was surrounded by smiling, vacuous women who agreed with everything he said and laughed at the lamest of jokes just to ingratiate themselves with him.But not Laura.No, from the first, she had been stubborn and argumentative and unimpressed with his wealth or celebrity. He had to admit, he had enjoyed verbally sparring with her. He