Lifelong Affair

by Carole Mortimer

  But settling the problem of Janet's lies hadn't helped her find Alex, and the fact that he had been with another woman all night became a stronger possibility by the minute.

  She stopped off at the shops and bought a few things for Courtney before going back to her mother-in-law's, remembering that she was supposed to be shopping; she doubted if either Janet or herself relished the idea of their conversation of this morning becoming known to anyone but themselves.

  Courtney was asleep when she got back to Rita's, so she carried him straight out to the car, anxious to get home in case there had been any word from Alex, making her hasty excuses to her mother-in-law after thanking her for taking care of Courtney.

  There hadn't been so much as a telephone call from Alex when she got back, and her heart sank. Where was he!

  She carried out the normal routine of her day as if by instinct, taking care of Courtney, instructing Mrs Whitney on the menus for the rest of the week, subconsciously wondering if she would still be around to eat the food. After last night she doubted it.

  She lay down herself while Courtney had his afternoon nap, and the next thing she knew it was mid-afternoon—and she was no longer alone in the bedroom! She had drawn the curtains before she went to sleep, but even in the gloom of the room she could clearly see a figure in the bedroom chair. Alex!

  She struggled to sit up, suddenly wide awake. 'You came back,' she said huskily, uncertainly.

  He moved slightly in the chair, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. 'Yes,' he answered abruptly. 'It is my home, after all. Would you like me to ring Mrs Whitney for some tea?'

  Her tongue was cleaved to the roof of her mouth, but she knew the dryness owed nothing to thirst. Shecould hardly believe Alex was here. And although he still seemed distant, he no longer appeared to be angry. 'No, thank you,' she refused gruffly. 'Alex, I think we should talk'

  'I quite agree. He stood up to switch on the bedside lamp, the room instantly bathed in a golden glow. 'And I think it had better be now.'

  If she had been tired from her sleepless night Alex looked doubly so, with deep lines etched into his face, his mouth a forbidding line. 'The baby '

  'Downstairs with Mrs Whitney,' he dismissed abruptly, and sat beside her on the bed, looking down at her with dark eyes. 'I'm so angry with you I should strangle you!' he ground out.

  Morgan swallowed hard. 'I know. And I'm sorry. I have no excuse for the way I've been behaving. I

  'No excuse?' he repeated grimly. 'No excuse/' he repeated fiercely.

  'No,' she shook her head, grasping his arms so that he shouldn't leave her, quivering just from the feel of his warmth. ' can't explain why I've been acting the way I have, I just—I want you to know I'm over it now, and—and if you'll forgive me I would very much like to be your complete wife again.' She looked at him anxiously, searching for some sign of softening towards her in that hard face. There was none.

  His eyes were narrowed to icy slits. 'Why can't you explain? Don't you think I'm owed an explanation?'

  'God yes,' she groaned. 'But I can't give you one.'

  'Why'not?'

  'I just can't!'

  You little fool!' He shook her, his eyes glittering dangerously. 'How can you still protect her after the harm she tried to do to us?'

  Morgan stiffened, her eyes widening at the fierceness of his expression. 'Wh-What do you mean?' she quivered, this time with uncertainty.

  I

  He sighed. 'Janet came to see me,' he told her flatly. 'She told me all that she'd taunted you with— everything.' He stood up, moving away from her.

  She swung her legs to the floor and sat up to look at him anxiously. 'Janet came to see you?' she repeated dazedly. 'How did she know where you were?' she frowned.

  ' wasn't too difficult to find,' he derided. 'I'm usually at my office at two o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon.'

  'Your office...' she choked weakly. 'I never thought to look for you there.

  Alex looked at her sharply. 'Why would you look for me at all? You wanted to leave, remember?'

  She swallowed convulsively. Janet had told him everything, and he was so disgusted with her for believing such lies about him that he couldn't bear her around any more.

  'I think your sister is ill.' She didn't answer his question.

  'I know that now,' he nodded. 'And so, thank God, does she.'

  'She does?' Morgan frowned.

  'Yes,' he sighed, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets. 'She didn't come to see me to cause more trouble, Morgan, she came to try and make right a serious wrong. Whatever you said to her this morning certainly brought her to her senses. She's going to seek professional help.'

  'But why is she like that?' She tried to delay the inevitable, that of having Alex ask her to leave his life.

  'Janet isn't the only one to blame for the way she is—we all are. Oh, not you,' he dismissed. 'You weren't even here when it happened. It's the rest of us that have been so damned insensitive,' he bit out grimly. "You see, eighteen months ago Janet lost a baby. She hadn't realised she was pregnant, and she continued with the hectic pace of her life as usual. By the time she realised what had happened it was too late. She lost the baby at only three months—a little boy,' he finished softly.

  Tears filled Morgan's eyes at the suffering Janet had kept hidden from everyone, the agony of losing a baby.

  Alex seemed not to notice her tears but continued talking. 'Of course we all expressed sympathy, the sort of inane remarks that everyone spouts at such a time, nothing that really meant very much, or eased her pain. Then Glenna became pregnant,' he said harshly. 'Everyone was overjoyed by the news, and Janet's loss was forgotten. Can you imagine what it did to her, to see Glenna growing with a healthy child, to see the attention she was getting, and know that some of it should have been hers?'

  'Yes,' Morgan choked. 'Oh, poor Janet!' She had never dreamt that such heartache was the reason for Janet's need to cause others pain.

  'Yes,' he agreed dully. 'I think when Glenna died, and you became Courtney's mother, her hate passed on to you.'

  'Will she—will she be all right?'

  'I think so,' Alex nodded. 'With professional help and a damned sight more thoughtfulness from her family. Now we come to the lie she told you about Glenna and me.'

  She chewed on her bottom lip at the chill that came into his eyes. 'I was a fool, I knew that as soon as you left last night. Glenna was married to your brother.'

  'But she was unhappy here.'

  'Not that unhappy!'

  'No,' he acknowledged tautly. 'Although you've probably guessed, from your own experience with her, that my mother made Glenna's life here almost unbearable?'

  'That much was obvious!'

  He sighed. 'Mark was my mother's baby, no woman would have been good enough for him. She chose to believe what she wanted to, never seeming to realise how deeply Glenna and Mark loved each other.'

  'Then Courtney wasn't a way of keeping the marriage together?'

  'Something else one of the charming members of my family implied?' Alex derided almost disbelievingly. 'No, Courtney was a wanted and loved baby, a result of their love for each other. But how did you feel about him when you thought he was my son?'

  Morgan frowned. 'I loved him, the same as I always have,'

  'And me? How did you feel about me?' He seemed tensed as if for a blow.

  Honesty—she had to give him honesty. 'The thought of you and Glenna— hated it, she told him

  heatedly. 'And I hated you for making me her substitute '

  'Dear God, you thought that?' he groaned.

  'Yes,' she admitted miserably. 'And it tore mc apart. I knew you didn't love me, but I thought what we did have was for me, not—not—I was a fool,' she repeated shakily.

  'And what do we have, Morgan? Alex asked softly. 'A good relationship in bed?

  'Definitely that. And—and my love for you,' she faced him fearlessly. 'I love you, Alex,' she told him strongly. 'I loved you before I marri
ed you, and I've loved you ever since.'

  For a moment he seemed not to want to look at her, he was so deep in thought, then he gave a ragged sigh. 'Your honesty has always—shaken me,' his eyes glowed deeply grey as he looked at her. 'It isn't something I'm used to in women.'

  'I'm sorry you were hurt in the past,' she said withgentle sincerity, 'But I would never use my body to blackmail our relationship. This other woman '

  'My mother, he told her harshly. 'I watched her control and manipulate my father from the time I knew what was going on. God, what a family you and Glenna both married into!' he said disgustedly. 'My mother, who used her body to control her marriage, my sister, who's more deeply scarred inside than any of us realised, my brother, who never quite grew up, and—and an emotional cripple.' He looked at her with pained eyes. 'The last one is me,' he admitted raggedly.

  'Alex. ..?' She was shocked by what he had just told her. There hadn't been another woman who had hurt him, only his mother, and the friend she had thought he was talking about yesterday had been his father! Somehow she couldn't see his mother in the role he had painted for her.

  'Oh, it's true, Morgan,' he seemed to read her thoughts. 'Even her children were produced with precise regularity, at four-yearly intervals. My father worshipped the ground she walked on, and she used that, she used it to control him!'

  'Maybe she loved him too, Alex, she comforted him. 'After all, she's been a widow for some time'

  'Twenty years, he confirmed.

  'And she never remarried. It can't have been easy bringing up three children on her own, even when she sent you all to boarding school. Wouldn't it have been easier for her to remarry? She's still an attractive woman; she must have been beautiful-then.'

  'She was, he nodded. 'And maybe she did love him, in her own way. But it was a destructive love, not the sort of love I wanted for myself. When we married, on our wedding night, and all the nights after that, when you gave yourself to me so completely, I knew you loved mc. And I was afraid of that love, afraid of what it might do to me.'

  'Love can't hurt you, Alex,' she told him throatily. 'Only hate and loneliness can do that.'

  He closed his eyes, breathing deeply. 'When I realised you loved me I think did hate you for a while.'

  'Alex!' she gasped her hurt.

  He turned to look at her, his mouth twisted into a wry smile. 'You haven't heard why I hated you yet. Knowing, guessing, how you felt, made mc examine my own feelings for you. And I didn't like what I found,' he admitted hardly. 'I think it started that day we arrived back in England together and you expressed concern for how tired I looked, and told me to rest. Everyone else seemed to think I could go on indefinitely, that I could accept the deaths of my brother and Glenna as if I didn't give a damn. Only you seemed to see that I was as deeply affected as the rest of you.'

  'You hid it well, Alex,' Morgan said huskily. 'You know that at first I thought you were very cold-blooded about it too.'

  'I felt guilty,' he rasped. 'There'd been one hell of a row before they left. You see, they weren't coming back here, they were going to stay in the States. Glenna was becoming increasingly unhappy here, and Mark had no idea how to break away from the family. I arranged for him to run the branch of Hammond Industries in the States. When my mother found out she was furious—with all of us,' he added grimly. 'It was far from a pleasant parting for them.'

  'But I'm sure they were happy to just get away.'

  'I'm sure they were too,' Alex nodded. 'But I still couldn't help my feelings of guilt. Maybe if I hadn't arranged for them to leave they wouldn't have been on that plane, they would still have been alive. Then you came back here with me, and I couldn't seem to stop the desire I felt for you. I told myself it could only be desire. But instead of having the affair with you that I wanted asked you to marry me. I had no idea why I'd done that.'

  'Courtney-- '

  'Had nothing to do with it,' he shook his head. The situation could have been resolved by my moving to the States—I didn't need to marry you. No, I wanted you, but I just didn't want to have to admit that I did. Then after we were married there seemed no reason to admit anything; we were happy together without my having to make any kind of emotional commitment. When you suddenly turned against me three days ago I didn't know what to do. I didn't understand it, and I couldn't seem to stop it either. So instead I walked out.'

  'Last night- '

  'Spent on the couch in my office,' he admitted grimly. 'Both times I've walked out on you, last night and the day we came back from our honeymoon, I've spent there.'

  'You should have just come home,' Morgan choked.

  'I couldn't. I was still afraid of what I might have to do to get you to stay, to remain my wife.' Alex swallowed hard, looking very pale. 'I still can't say it, damn it!' he ground out harshly. 'Even though I may lose you if I don't.'

  Morgan stood up to run to him, her arms about his waist as she pressed her head against his chest. 'You won't lose me, and you don't have to say anything, Alex. I don't need the words,' she smiled up at him tearfully. 'I can say it for both of us; I love you, Alex. I love you so much.'

  His arms closed about her fiercely. 'You deserve the words,' he spoke roughly into her hair.

  'But I don't need them.' She kissed the hard line of his jaw, knowing this man was truly hers, that he always had been. 'All I need is you.'

  'I need you too, Morgan,' he groaned. 'Without you now I think I'd die!'

  'Darling . . .' she raised her face to his, kissing him with all the love inside her. 'Come to bed, Alex,' she invited breathlessly. 'Come to bed and let mc love you.'

  And as they made love Alex told her the words she longed to hear, told her over and over again until they became one being, one person, drowning in that love.

  He grinned down at her a long time later. 'I feel— free, he said lightheartedly. 'For the first time in years I don't feel a need to hide the way I feel. And it's all due to you, my darling.' His arms tightened about her. 'I've said it before, and I don't think I'll ever stop saying it—you're one hell of a woman, Morgan Hammond.'

  'And you're one hell of a man, Alex Hammond,' she laughed up at him happily, sobering suddenly. 'Alex, I have something to confess to you.' She played with the dark hair on his chest.

  'Confess away,' he invited indulgently.

  She drew in a deep ragged breath. 'When Janet told me—what she did, I—I—There were special circumstances why I think I believed her so readily.'

  His brows rose. "There were?'

  'Mm.' She chewed on her top lip, unable to meet his gaze. 'I've been a little emotional lately, and '

  'A little!' he scorned.

  'Well, there's a reason for it!' She gave him an indignant look. 'I had something I was going to share with you, to share with everyone at Courtney's christening—if Janet hadn't spoilt it with her lie,'

  'I had some cake, thank you,' he taunted her.

  'Alex, will you please be serious!' she said crossly.

  He did his best to keep a straight face. 'Of course. But can I tell you one more time that I love you first?'

  'Never stop telling me that.' She kissed him deeply,knowing by the gleam in his eyes as she raised her head that his desire had been aroused once again.

  'Alex, I—I '

  'Well, spit it out, woman,' he growled, nuzzling into her neck. 'I have three nights of abstinence to make up for.'

  'Well, make the most of it now, buster,' she snapped, 'because in a few months I'll be so fat you won't be able to get near me!' She watched as he slowly raised his head, passion and amusement both gone now as he looked from her face to her still flat stomach, lingering there, his hand moving to frame the slight swell he had detected. 'I know it doesn't look much at the moment,' she giggled at his awestruck expression. 'But another month or two and your daughter will be kicking about like a soccer player."

  'Football,' he corrected. 'It's called football over here,' he explained at her puzzled look.

  Morgan
gave an angry snort. 'Is that all you have to say about your child?'

  'How do you know it's going to be a daughter?' he teased, desire rekindling in the depths of his eyes.

  She gave him a haughty look. 'Because I've decided it is, that's why. Another boy and I would be outnumbered by the Hammond men three to one— and that's no fair contest for any woman.'

  'You could handle it,' Alex assured her softly. 'You could handle a whole army of us—with your love and fierceness.'

  She swallowed hard, knowing how privileged she was to have his trust, his love. 'How do you really feel about the baby?'

  'I love it. I love you. I love the whole damned world!'

  'Just me is enough for this moment.' She pulled him down to her. 'I'm a very demanding woman.'

  Alex laughed throatily. 'You certainly arc—thank God! I never knew I had such strong sexual urges until I met you.'

  'I know,' she teased. 'And after telling me you'd keep them to a minimum too!

  'Wanton!'

  'Sex-maniac!'

  '.Lowe-maniac,' he corrected huskily, suddenly serious. 'I love you so much, Morgan. I want nothing more than to take care of you and our children. After all, Courtney will need more than one sister to spoil,'

  'He certainly will,' she agreed softly, before all the teasing stopped and the serious loving began.

  Harlequin Vws

  LOVE SUPERSTITIONS

  Many of us who are single may sometimes wish for a crystal ball to tell our futures-especially in the area of love. Failing that, there are a number of little incidents that are said to prophesy what the future holds. We are not suggesting that these things have any real basis in fact, of course, but just for fun you might like to know of a few. If you find that one comes true for you, we'd be delighted to hear about it!

  If a cat washes its face in front of a group of people, then looks at you, you will be the first in the group to marry.

  You know that the man you love will propose if a white pigeon lands on your doorstep.