by Sara Wood
Frantic to keep him, she pressed her aching body against his, the rigid peaks of her breasts scraping firmly, insistently, across his straining torso. Her arms twined around his neck and she kissed his tortured mouth.
‘Morgan,’ she whispered gently, seductively.
But his lips clamped together and she felt his jaw clench hard in denial. Firm hands clasped her arms, pushing her back. Bewildered and angry, she blinked up muzzily at his grim face.
‘I can’t!’ he grated. ‘Forgive me. I should never…’
He’d left the bed. Was picking up his shirt, jumper…shoes he’d somehow discarded…
‘You can’t…go like this!’ she gasped jerkily, raising herself on her elbows.
He stopped, his back to her. ‘I must!’ he insisted.
‘But…why? You wanted me!’ she accused, deeply hurt. And unable to pacify her screaming, demanding body. She’d been so sure of him. And now she felt confused. ‘What were you doing, Morgan?’ she demanded miserably.
He remained silent, his shoulders in that now familiar rigid hunch. She slid her feet to the floor, intending to get some kind of explanation. And then she found one.
The shirt must have caught one of his wife’s photographs which she’d arranged so carefully for him on the chest of drawers. It now lay face down on the floor, the glass smashed to smithereens.
Her stomach sucked in with nausea. Now she understood. He’d been desperate for sex. But smashing his late wife’s photo had shamed him. He felt as if he’d betrayed his wife’s memory.
Jodie curled up on the bed, her eyes huge as she quietly drew the covers over her near-naked body. Competition she could cope with. But not a dead woman.
‘If you’d keep your back turned for a while,’ she said, managing a reasonably normal voice, ‘I’ll get dressed and you can have your bed back.’
Morgan bit back an urge to tell her why he couldn’t make love to her. It had been a mistake to bundle the photos of Teresa on top of the chest. But Sam had said he couldn’t bear looking at her and being reminded of her: alive, beautiful, glowing with health.
Morgan had hoped that one day Sam would take them back, for Jack’s sake. Jack had a right to see what his own mother had looked like. They must not be lost or thrown away.
But when he’d turned moments ago and found Teresa staring at him with her wicked eyes he’d been reminded of his deceit. And something had clawed at his gut. Pounding relentlessly into his head had come the realisation that he couldn’t make love to the open and trusting Jodie under false pretences.
Either he had to tell her the whole truth of the situation or he had to leave her alone. Any kind of relationship based on a pack of lies and half-truths was doomed to fail.
His breath caught in his throat. Astonishingly, he felt that he wanted to build a lasting relationship with a woman he’d barely met, hardly knew. And yet in a strange sense it seemed as if he’d known her all his life.
His hands stilled. But what of Jack?
He let the pain scythe through him in punishment for losing sight of his most passionate hope for his son’s future.
Jodie—sweet, sexy, all woman—had turned his head. He dared not allow her to get too close. It was one hell of a risk. What if the relationship failed? She’d remain here with Jack, her ‘half-brother’. And he’d have no rights to see his son ever again. She’d marry some other guy whom Jack would learn to call Daddy…
God! Why did he want two people who were totally incompatible with his peace of mind?
‘I’m dressed now,’ she said, behind him.
Numb with anger at himself, he pushed his arms into his shirt. ‘I regret what happened—’ he began stiffly.
‘I understand.’
He whirled, his eyes intensely black. ‘No! You don’t—’
‘Give me some credit!’ she flared. ‘I know what happens when a man is virile and red-blooded. I’m not some ignorant virgin. I’m familiar enough with the male urges to realise that you needed sex and I was around and willing.’
Touchingly, she lifted her head, as if she had no shame in that self-revealing statement. But it hadn’t been the way she’d described: a purely animal desire to satisfy a rampant sex drive. It had been something different, something more profound. Though caution prevented him from saying so.
‘But it’s too soon, isn’t it?’ she went on, her voice jerking oddly. ‘You can’t bring yourself to betray your late wife…because you still l-love her.’
‘What?’ he muttered, puzzled.
Jodie’s eyes looked sad. ‘Your wife. I saw you looking at the photos,’ she explained. ‘She was lovely, Morgan. The kind of woman you—you’d never forget,’ she finished, stumbling slightly over her words.
It sliced his heart in two to have Teresa referred to as his wife. As for never forgetting…that was true at least. He’d remember Teresa to his dying day.
‘We need to talk,’ he said, his mouth tight. ‘Come downstairs. I’ll fix the fuses and we’ll eat some supper. There are some things you need to know.’
But how much should he tell her? He wrestled with his conscience that insisted everything. He couldn’t go that far.
They went down the stairs in silence, avoiding contact, avoiding each other’s eyes. Which was ridiculous when they’d been so close a few moments before. He could still smell the faint fragrance of her skin, feel the firm pressure of her body…
His teeth clenched together as desire rocketed through him. In one stupid moment he’d let down his guard and succumbed to his hunger for her.
He shuddered at his precipitate action. He’d been totally unprepared. Supposing he’d made love to her? Supposing she’d become pregnant? What the hell would he have done then? How would he ever have lived with himself? God, he was a fool!
Jack needed him. Jack would need his support and presence right through his life. How could he have put his son’s future in jeopardy?
The easiest thing would be to ensure she didn’t stay long. When the opportunity arose, he must, must tell Jodie what it would mean if she was reunited with her father. The future for Sam was very bleak, and maybe, like Teresa, she’d hate the prospect of looking after a desperately sick man.
Then the problem would be resolved. He could keep her at arm’s length and then she’d leave and he and Jack would continue with their lives in peace.
But… He scowled. He didn’t want Jodie to go! Why, he had no idea; he knew only that she occupied his mind and body with every breath he took.
Wasn’t there a compromise somewhere? When he dwelt on the possibility of never seeing her again, the anger and resentment surged up within him, blocking out everything else. Dear heaven, what was happening to him?
His hands shook as he dealt with the fuse box. The lights snapped on, illuminating the house, all its surfaces sparkling where Jodie had obviously wielded a duster with spectacular results.
He didn’t look at her when he walked into the kitchen. Instead, he selected a pizza from the freezer and popped it into the roasting oven, then started preparing a salad. She watched him from where she sat at the kitchen table, quietly waiting for him to speak.
Placing the salad and a dressing on the table, he pulled out a chair and sat down heavily.
‘First, I want you to know that I have never been married, Jodie,’ he said, his voice tight and strained.
She frowned, staring at him with her startled green eyes. ‘But…the woman in the photos—’
‘Is Teresa. Sam’s fiancée.’
She sat back, stunned into silence. He could see her mind working on something which clearly puzzled her. And then she spoke, timidly, jerkily. ‘You have loads of framed snapshots of her…I thought she must be your—’
‘No!’ It came out as a tortured denial, but that was how he felt.
‘Then…why are they in your room?’
Cold inside, he leant his forearms on the table and stared down at the grain of the table, thinking ahead to the moment when he�
�d have to persuade her to go home. His breath raked painfully in his chest.
‘Your father wanted them thrown away,’ he said huskily.
‘But…he loved her!’
‘Yes. That’s exactly why—because he…loved her,’ he said, forcing out the words against his will. ‘When your father heard the news of Teresa’s death he went berserk, flinging the photos around like a man demented. He couldn’t bear to see her; it was too painful for him. Then he collapsed and I took him to hospital.’
He stirred in his chair, recalling the distaste with which he’d collected the scattered frames and flung them on the barely used chest in his bedroom.
‘So…why are you keeping the photos?’ she cried tensely.
‘For Sam and…’ He checked himself, realising he’d been close to involving Jack. Jodie would have demanded an explanation if he had. ‘For Sam,’ he amended, frantically trying to find a way to finish that sentence. ‘And,’ he said, relief flooding his face when the answer came, ‘my reason was that I knew he’d want them again one day.’
‘I see.’
It was a good answer—and perfectly possible. But Jodie knew something wasn’t quite right. He was evading her eyes. The story didn’t quite match up with what she sensed—or that telling little mistake which he’d hastily corrected.
For Sam and…who? For himself? Had he wanted some of those photos depicting Teresa at her sultriest? Could they still be a kind of shrine—not to his wife—as she knew now—but to the glamorous, utterly desirable Teresa?
Jodie felt her stomach turn. That slip of the tongue had betrayed his real feelings. For Sam and for me! She bit her lip as the truth brutally made itself known, and her eyes paled to a silvery hue. Morgan had been wildly infatuated with the stunning and provocative Teresa!
Rooting back in her memory, she now remembered the occasions when there had been some reference to Teresa. Every single time he’d responded with barely concealed grief—and there was only one possible explanation for that. Obsession.
Cold shivers ran down her spine. The situation, if it were true, was appalling. What about the woman who’d mothered his child? Morgan had been in a relationship with Jack’s mother—and yet at the very same time he’d coveted his boss’s mistress!
Helpless to stop herself shaking, she struggled with her sickening aversion to Morgan’s secret passion for her father’s lover. It couldn’t be true. It must not be. She had believed Morgan to be a man of honour—but where was honour, she thought sadly, where obsession was concerned? It hit you like a blow, wiping out all rational thought, compelling you to behave out of character. She knew that only too well.
She stiffened. Perhaps Morgan was using her now—as he’d used Jack’s mother…as a substitute for what he really wanted: someone to ease his frustration for the unattainable Teresa. She winced, unable to bear the degrading humiliation.
‘Morgan, there’s something I want to say,’ she said decisively, her heart lurching with misery. Warily his eyes flicked up then, and met hers in query. ‘It’s quite simple.’
Her tone hardened with bitterness that she could have been so deceived by a man’s coaxing words, the look in his eyes, the tender passion of his touch.
She’d believed he’d felt something special too. But when he’d touched her and looked at her he’d probably been picturing Teresa’s face, remembering her scent, the curves of her body—
‘You don’t know what you’ve just done!,’ she cried angrily, any restraint snapping with those images. ‘Oh, you might be hurt. You might be upset. But that doesn’t mean you can use me for therapy!’ she yelled.
‘What the hell do you mean?’ he barked, leaping to his feet and glaring down at her white face.
‘I mean,’ she ground out furiously, ‘that I will not be used as a sex object ever again! Not by you or by any man!’
‘Sex object? And what was I?’ he raged. ‘Have you miraculously fallen madly in love with me?’ Breathing hot and hard, he leant over the table, intimidating her. ‘Or did you feel a need to satisfy some ordinary, basic desires—the same ones you accuse me of feeling?’ he hurled ruthlessly.
‘That’s unfair!’ she cried, colouring up.
‘No, it’s not! You wanted me as much as I wanted you!’ He drew himself erect, simmering with temper. And something else. A dark, bitter expression permeated his entire face. ‘So, Jodie,’ he said in a low and gravelly tone, ‘it may surprise you, but I don’t want to be a sex object either. I don’t want a woman to use me as a stud because she misses rampant sex with her boyfriend—’
‘It wasn’t that!’ she gasped.
Suddenly still, his eyes veiled, he studied her for a long time. ‘What was it, then? An emotional crutch?’
She lowered her head. There was pride, or there was the truth; there was the counsel of silence…or an attack in the form of a question.
‘Is that what it was for you?’ she mumbled evasively.
‘Come to your own conclusion,’ he snapped.
‘I think I have! You wanted me because you’re grieving over Teresa’s death. You needed sex and you needed human comfort, the feel of a woman in your arms,’ she accused, her voice shaking with pain and resentment. ‘Get a whore for the job!’ she flared. ‘And keep your hands off me in future!’
Morgan drew in a long, chest-filling breath. ‘And if I can’t?’ he said softly.
‘You dare come near me again—!’ she began, close to hysterics.
‘Stop this, Jodie!’ he said curtly. ‘We’ve reached an impasse. You obviously can’t trust me.’
‘No. I can’t!’
‘In that case there’s only one solution. It’s time you moved out. We’ve just proved that being here together is asking for trouble.’
It was as if the wind had been taken out of her. ‘L-leave?’ she stumbled.
‘It would be best,’ he said harshly. ‘Why make life hard? If you go, there’s no problem. I don’t have to control myself.’ He shot her a thoughtful, assessing look, as if he had more to say. ‘And later, when your father returns here, it would spare you the worst of his illness.’
Jodie stiffened. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, puzzled.
His face a cold mask, he leant back against the Aga and folded his arms in an attitude which suggested indifference to her feelings.
‘He will never be well again, Jodie. His suffering will increase. Can you take more of the hard, blunt truth?’
Somehow she held herself together. Her eyes were wide and haunted when finally she managed to swallow back the clogging lump in her throat and reply.
‘It sounds as if I must,’ she said in a small, frightened voice.
‘I’ll get you a brandy.’
He was gone for a few moments during which she sat there shaking like a leaf. She felt as if she’d been through a sawmill. All her nerves were torn and ragged, her stomach lurching around as waves of nausea hit her.
A brandy balloon was thrust into her trembling hand. ‘Drink it.’
When she stared at the glass in her hand, he took it from her nerveless fingers and held it to her lips. ‘Drink!’ he commanded.
It was hot and fierce and seared rawly through to her stomach. But it did the trick.
Morgan fought to hang on to his objective. Jodie had to go. It was true: he’d been without sex and without a woman’s sweetness for too long. He’d misinterpreted his feelings for Jodie and in a short time he would forget all about her.
But Jack would still be there, Jack would be his—if he could only stick to his decision to keep Jodie at a distance—and keep her ignorant of the raw truths which could ruin Jack’s life.
But it was hard. He had to give a good performance in the next few minutes, depicting a man with sex on the brain and ice in his heart. That would drive her out.
And yet she was sitting there trembling, eyes great green pools in the ghostly pallor of her face, tragedy etched across her downturned mouth. He reined in all sympathy and harshly jerked out
the unvarnished facts.
‘Sam was in the Far East working on a project some years ago. They were spraying toxic chemicals nearby. Gradually he began to get headaches, lapses of memory, bouts of sickness and so on. Last summer he had a checkup and they discovered massive damage to the major organs of his body.’
Her hand flew to her mouth as a moan escaped. Like a child, she clenched her fist and bit on it to stop herself from crying out again.
Jack, Morgan kept thinking. I’m doing this for my son.
But it didn’t help. He wanted her to think well of him, not to appear an unfeeling monster. He ached to take her in his arms and explain gently. Forgive me, he pleaded silently, turning his back to her. And he occupied his hands by making a coffee, crashing china about unmercifully.
‘What…?’ Her voice had been just a hoarse croak. He heard her swallow and he gritted his teeth, spooning instant coffee into a mug. ‘What treatment is he having?’ she asked.
‘There is none.’
‘Oh, God!’
Sugar, he thought. Three. Anything to stop him turning around and seeing the misery on her face.
‘That’s why he wrote to me,’ she said jerkily.
‘Yes. He wanted to see you—and of course he wanted to marry Teresa before he deteriorated further.’
‘Tell me what will happen,’ she whispered. ‘And,’ she cried in agitation, her voice rising, ‘stop fiddling about with that biscuit tin and darn well face me!’
Perhaps he should. His punishment. He stirred his coffee and glanced across at her, his jaw tight with tension. Tears were swimming in her enormous eyes and her lip trembled.
‘I love him too,’ he shot tersely.
‘Yes. I know.’ She bit her lip. ‘Tell me.’
‘Over a period of time he will become progressively confused, with fewer and fewer lucid moments. His lungs will give out and his heart will be put under excessive stress. He’ll be forgetful and difficult, like someone with Alzheimer’s. And…I’m told he’ll lose control of all his functions.’
She said nothing and it seemed she was in shock. Unable to remain still, he restlessly quartered the room as he spoke in staccato sentences.