by Sara Wood
He groaned and, dipping his head, he greedily lapped at each thrusting nipple, loving the smell of her, the warmth of her satin skin against his face, the sensual feel of the hard, engorged peak in his mouth as it jerked in response to his impassioned suckling.
‘What are you thinking?’ she asked in a shaky little voice.
For a moment he couldn’t get his head around that. ‘Of you!’ he croaked.
She seemed to shudder throughout the length of her body and he looked up at her in surprise. Huge tears were seeping from her tightly shut eyes.
‘Jodie!’ He was holding her, cradling her head against his chest, then kissing and licking away the tears. ‘What is it?’ he murmured gently.
The enormous liquid green eyes opened. Wet lashes fluttered. ‘I’m afraid!’ she sobbed.
He drew her close again, stroking her hair. ‘Because you think we might not last?’ There was the briefest of nods, teardrops wetting his torso. Morgan pushed her back, slid off the bed and came back with a handkerchief. ‘Blow,’ he instructed. ‘Now,’ he said when she seemed calmer, ‘look at me.’ He gazed into those vulnerable eyes and felt his heart cramp. ‘For me, marriage is forever. Infidelity is all about opportunity and an attitude of mind. I am a loyal person, Jodie. When I love, I love. I have no intention of ever being anything but devoted to you. If there ever are any hitches in the future then we will work them out, because we are determined that our marriage will last. Trust me. We must not ever separate. Do you believe me when I say that?’
She nodded, though her eyes still looked tragic. ‘Yes, I do. You won’t want us to part,’ she repeated like an obedient child.
‘Come close—’
‘No…I feel a bit sick and heady again,’ she said in a forlorn tone. ‘I’ll just curl up and sleep it off.’
‘Of course. Anything I can get you?’ he asked in concern.
‘No,’ she mumbled. ‘Let me sleep.’
She seemed fine the next day, though more subdued than usual, and she didn’t want to put off their trip to London to choose a ring.
Morgan insisted on taking her to an exclusive restaurant for lunch as a treat—an old haunt of his—so that she could wave her left hand about a lot. It was good to hear her laughter when he said this, and he was glad she’d recovered.
Sitting in the restaurant’s lounge afterwards feeding Jack, he leant back in the comfortable chair and watched her talking to the waiter who’d brought their coffee. He noticed that she looked the young man in the eye instead of treating him like an object and addressing his stomach. He liked that.
‘You’re staring,’ she said in amusement.
‘No. Just blinded by you,’ he murmured.
‘Oh! Blinded?’ She looked pleased.
He decided to tease her. ‘Mmm. That flashy egg on the third finger of your left hand is like a car’s headlamps on full beam—’
‘How dare you?’ She made a face and waggled her hand in front of his nose. ‘It’s not an egg. It’s a whacking great diamond and I adore it, so you’d better get used to me flashing it about.’
‘Vulgar,’ he pretended. Jack burped and refused the rest of his bottle. ‘Right,’ Morgan said. ‘I’d better find the Mother and Baby room.’
‘It’s in the Ladies’ cloakroom!’ she said with a giggle.
He grunted. ‘Equality! Where is it when you need it? I can’t go into that gold-tapped flouncy-frilled boudoir!’
‘How do you know what it’s like?’ she asked, grinning at the accuracy of his description. ‘Anyway, let me change him. I do know how. He’s not going to be scarred for life by my ministrations.’
‘No. All right.’ He watched her slip the baby bag over her shoulder and then carefully take Jack in her arms. ‘Don’t forget the wipes. And the cream’s—’
‘In the front pocket; I know. Honestly, Morgan, I can manage! Inspect everything when I come back and give me marks out of ten! And you can get him regressed by a hypnotist when he’s twenty-four, and check that the experience wasn’t too traumatic!’
He laughed sheepishly. ‘Sorry. Cluck, cluck. Mother hen. Go and do your worst, woman!’
Laughing happily, she made her way to the powder room and the baby-changing area in an inner room beyond. It was empty when she began to lay out the little changing mat, but then she heard the click of high heels as a group of women entered the outer room, and after a while the sounds of handbags being emptied and lipstick applied as they chatted.
Absorbed with Jack, securely on the padded table, she didn’t pay much attention to the drawling, languid voice which was holding forth. Until she heard Morgan’s name.
‘…simply amazed to see him, darling!’
‘Not really… Damn!’ swore a woman with a screeching voice. ‘I’ve forgotten my mascara. Lend me yours, sweetie… No, he often came here with Teresa. It was his favourite dive when he worked in London.’
‘Looking gorgeous as ever, isn’t he?’ This woman was purring.
‘Hunky, darling. And a trillion times better than when we last clapped eyes on him. God!’ cried the screecher. ‘Was he grieving or what? I thought he’d keel over when they lowered poor T into the ground. I was ready to give mouth to mouth. Never got the chance.’ The woman tittered.
Jodie felt paralysed. Her hands stilled as the others acknowledged Morgan’s despair. She knew she ought to go out, but Jack wasn’t finished, and…and she couldn’t face them—or Morgan. He’d brought Teresa here! Angrily she glared at her shaking hands. And her eyes fixated on her engagement ring, the reason for their celebration lunch. Why choose this restaurant of all places? she thought miserably.
‘What about his current popsie?’ asked the languid one.
‘Not his type,’ replied the screecher loudly. ‘He’s always gone for blondes. He’ll never get over T. He probably needed his bed warmed. Sexy devil! T said his stamina was phenomenal.’
Jodie bit back a cry. Her fingers fumbled with the nappy. Morgan had slept with Teresa! Or not slept, she amended bitterly. And she hastened with her task, intending to stalk out and shock them all.
‘Maybe he needs someone to keep house. He can’t go on looking after someone else’s baby forever, can he?’ simpered the purrer.
Jodie snapped the poppers of Jack’s vest. Nearly done, she thought frantically…
‘Don’t be daft, duckie.’ Screecher was in full squawk again. ‘Remember I had a nice little gossip with T’s daily when T was living with Sam Frazer. The daily found T and Morgan half naked in his bathroom. That’s why she was sacked.’
No. No! Jodie’s heart bumped painfully. Almost blinded by angry tears, she was finding it almost impossible to do up the small buttons on the little jacket.
‘So it’s Morgan’s kid!’ gasped the drawler.
‘God, you’re quick, Annabel!’ retorted the screecher, as Jodie froze, quite incapable of any action whatsoever. She blocked her ears, but the speaker had a loud and raucous voice and it would have carried across a parade ground. ‘What do you think? A sick, ageing guy or a virile, healthy one? You know T adored Morgan. She wanted it all, didn’t she? Money, and a rich lover who was eternally bound to her because she’d produced his son.’
‘She got what she wanted,’ sighed the more gentle purrer.
‘Huh!’ barked the screecher. ‘Much good it did her!’
A baby wipe dropped from Jodie’s fingers. The women’s voices faded into the background as the blood rushed to her head and roared loudly in her ears.
She felt so sick she could hardly stand upright. She pressed her hands to her stomach, willing the nausea to vanish. Wave upon wave of it lurched upwards through her body and only her fierce will kept it back.
Teresa’s seductive face and body lurched into her mind. No man could have resisted Teresa’s advances, least of all one who loved her. Jodie dragged a whisper of air into her choking lungs. Morgan had slept with Teresa. The woman he’d loved. Perhaps still loved.
Jodie remembered his toast on
the day he proposed. To the woman I adore best in the world. He could have been raising his glass to Teresa.
She tried to search her memory for a time when Morgan had said ‘I love you, Jodie’. And failed.
She’d been used. Again. For sex, comfort, and to ensure that Jack was forever his. Jack, beloved, deeply adored Jack, the result of a passionate affair with her father’s fiancée.
Suddenly she needed to see Morgan’s face, as if she might find some hint of the truth written there. Her hand flattened on the wall, steadying herself, as she finished dressing Jack and packing the baby bag.
Her eyes were pale with anguish but she applied a slick of lipstick, pinched her cheeks and straightened her hunched, miserable body before walking into the outer room.
Conversation stopped. In the deafening silence, Jodie checked her lipstick unnecessarily and flicked back her hair. She saw that her eyes looked like two glowing dark coals in her pale face.
Unable to speak, she looked at the three women with a bright, mocking smile on her lips and felt she’d won a small victory when they hastily glanced away. With the utmost dignity she swept out of the powder room and into the warmth of the crowded restaurant.
Not able to meet Morgan’s eyes yet, she gently placed Jack in his arms.
‘All in one piece,’ she trilled, though she’d been shattered into fragments.
Morgan laughed, pretending to check. Jack cooed and gurgled and gave a gummy grin which made Jodie’s heart somersault. No one could doubt that he loved the baby with all his heart.
Because Jack was his. Because Jack was Teresa’s.
She shook uncontrollably, and masked this by fussing with the cushions of her chair then vigorously stirring the coffee he’d begun to pour out when he’d seen her walking towards him.
He smiled his heart-destroying smile, and even in the depths of her anger and misery she felt the terrible lurch of her idiotically romantic heart.
‘You deserve a prize,’ he murmured lazily.
What? she thought furiously. A medal for stupidity? She stared at the dish of bon-bons blankly, marshalling all her self-control.
‘I certainly do,’ she muttered, taking four, and ate them quickly to conceal her splintered emotions.
They tasted of cotton wool in her dry, parched mouth. Horror sucked at her heart and lungs, accelerating her pulses and robbing her of breath. Oh, dear God, she couldn’t bear this!
‘I thought we’d go shopping,’ Morgan said. ‘Buy up Bond Street.’
There was a jagged rip inside her now. She’d felt so close to him. Had trusted and admired him. But to cover up his own guilt he was fooling them all. These people, herself, and her father! So much for Morgan’s supposed loyalty. How could he live with himself, knowing what he did?
She surveyed him from beneath her brows. ‘I hope you mean that,’ she said with a calmness that amazed her. ‘Because I’m in a spending mood.’
You swine! she thought. Rat! Worm! Cheat, liar… Her face paled. Morgan was betraying his own flesh and blood. A tiny, defenceless baby.
She saw the women come in, and on an impulse she waved to them. Morgan turned around, stiffening. His eyes narrowed and she saw that his hands had clenched. Guilt, she thought dully.
‘Do you know those women?’ he demanded abruptly.
She continued to smile, despite feeling ice-cold to the core. ‘They were in the cloakroom,’ she answered casually, sipping her coffee. ‘What gossips!’
He seemed quite incapable of speaking for a moment. Alarm was written all over his face and she continued to play the contented fiancée while her heart shrivelled to dust.
‘What…what were they gossiping about?’ he enquired.
‘You. Morgan,’ she said quickly, before he could say anything, ‘when we’re married…’ She paused. He’d visibly relaxed, a huge rush of air escaping his lungs. Oh, it’s not over yet! she thought angrily. ‘How do you see our lives panning out?’
‘I work from home, you study to be an architecht, we both look after your father and also Jack—now that you’re a world expert in nappy-changing. We share the cooking. I burn the meal one night, you the next.’ His dark eyes glimmered. ‘Then,’ he murmured, ‘we’ll take turns to go wild in bed. My turn first.’
She could bear it no longer. Eyes like green glass, she flicked a scornful glance at him. ‘Hmm. You’re not too good at self-control, are you?’
Morgan stiffened, sensing that this was no tease. He shot a quick look at the group of women at the far end of the restaurant.
‘Meaning?’ he asked menacingly.
‘I mean, that you find it hard to keep your hands off any female in the same house. I thought you’d fallen for my abundant charms. It seems I could have been anyone—though preferably blonde—’
‘What did they say, Jodie?’ he asked, his voice whisper-soft.
She quivered at the granite clench of his jaw, the coldness of his eyes. ‘Does it titillate you to keep your liaisons in the family?’ she asked frostily. ‘To have both my father’s fiancée and his daughter in your bed?’
He gave a quick intake of breath. And only she, with her deeper knowledge of him, could tell how overwhelmingly angry he was. To all appearances he was smiling pleasantly and having a casual conversation with her.
‘This is not the place to discuss our affairs—’
‘Correction. Your affair.’
His mouth compressed. ‘Don’t judge me yet,’ he said with barely a trace of tremor in his voice. ‘I’ll drive us home. It’s not what it seems, Jodie. Don’t be upset.’
‘Do I look upset?’ she said sweetly, producing a saccharine smile.
‘Yes. Your skin is taut across your cheekbones, there’s a hectic pulse beating in your throat and your eyes are dead. Let’s go,’ he said curtly.
Hysteria was building up inside her. She needed an outlet. A release of some kind. In silence she slid into the passenger seat of his Mercedes; in silence she endured the journey. Morgan tried to speak to her but she ignored him, and after a while he gave up.
When they got back she poured brandies for them both in the drawing room and then she stood, back to the fireplace, in an attitude of possession. It was deliberate. He would learn that she wasn’t to be played around with.
‘So. You had an affair with Teresa. Did you father her baby?’ she asked, deciding not to beat about the bush.
He let out a short, sharp profanity.
Something terrible happened inside her. Morgan had gone white, his face drained of all colour by the shock of her words. And she took no pleasure in tormenting him. Misery flooded through her, bringing her to the brink of tears.
‘Let’s get things straight. One thing at a time. Who is his mother?’ she flung.
‘I told you. He’s Teresa’s child,’ Morgan replied hoarsely.
‘And his father?’
Everything depended on his answer. Her life, her future, Jack’s, her father’s…
‘Why don’t you look on his birth certificate?’ Morgan threw back his head and downed his brandy in one long gulp. Then he looked at her levelly, almost in challenge. ‘Your father’s name is on that document. He adores Jack. You know that the very existence of the baby has given him delight, hope, something to live for—’
‘In that case,’ she said, her eyes hollow with despair, ‘you are no longer needed. I intend to look after my dying father. It doesn’t matter how awful his last days are. I, and I alone, will be with him, because I’m family. I don’t care what you do or where you stay—providing you’re not in this house…my father’s house, I might remind you. Because I will be here. You can visit—he’d expect that—and we will be perfectly civil to one another for my father’s sake. And when…when my father dies, I will bring up my half-brother and you will disappear out of our lives forever—because you’ll only have visited here on sufferance. And without my father there’ll be no need for you to come.’
For several seconds he stared at her, the naked hor
ror in his eyes eating like acid into her bruised heart. He tried to speak and couldn’t. She knew then for sure that Jack was Morgan’s baby and he was facing his worst nightmare.
Time ticked by. She was rooted to the spot by the despair in his face.
Deny it! she begged. Say it is my father’s baby, that you made a mistake with Teresa and never loved her—say you love me, me, me!
He looked diminished. Robbed of energy and life. His whole body was hunched in an attitude of total anguish.
Because she loved him it tore her apart to see him so hurt. But she knew that he’d destroy her if she weakened. He’d insist that she remained with him: first for her father’s sake and then for Jack. And she would spend the rest of her days passionately, hopelessly in love with a shell of a man.
‘I love you,’ he jerked out. ‘You love me! We…I thought we’d have our own children together…’
Déjà vu. It was Chas all over again. One more selfish man who thought he had the world and his bit of fluff all sorted: adoring, obedient and pliable—but a tigress in bed.
‘It seems I don’t love you after all,’ she snapped, her eyes flashing sparks. ‘Otherwise I’d fall on your neck and say I understood. But I don’t actually care. I think I must have been hungry for sex. Chas kept me well topped up in that area,’ she said cruelly, hating herself, hating him and what he was doing to her. ‘You were right to advise caution. I jumped into your arms when I was vulnerable—for all kinds of reasons. And now I’m jumping out again. I will look after Jack well. He is my half-brother, isn’t he?’
No answer. No denial. Perhaps the women were wrong. Morgan surely couldn’t give up his baby. He’d say it was his, plead with her for some kind of trade-off, ask for custody…
She passed a hand over her eyes. It didn’t matter who had fathered Jack, in a way. She could never trust Morgan again.
He stood there, just breathing. Barely breathing. ‘I’ll go.’ It was a voiceless, silent agreement shaped by an unyielding mouth beneath tragic eyes.