Sweet Surrender With the Millionaire(4)

           



       

'I'm all right, girl.' He looked down into the trusting brown eyes.  'Thinking a bit too much, maybe, that's all.' He glanced over to where  Jim was still picking up fragments of charred paper, his progress  hampered by the other four dogs who were chasing bits here and there.  Then his gaze moved over the beautifully tended grounds until it rested  on the fine old house in the distance, the mellow stone and mullioned  windows set off perfectly by the exquisitely thatched roof.

He was a lucky man. He nodded mentally to the thought. Answerable to no  one and in complete control of every aspect of his life. And that was  the way things would stay. Snapping his fingers at Bella, he made his  way to the house, the dog following at his heels as she always did,  given half a chance.

Kitty looked up from rolling pastry as he walked into the kitchen, her  round, homely face enquiring. 'Put the fire out, did you?' she said,  asking the obvious. 'What was the lass thinking of to do that? I hope  you read her the Riot Act-she could have had the roof on fire. Bit  simple, is she?'

Ridiculously he didn't like that. Remembering the spark in the green  eyes, he said quietly, 'Far from it. She struck me as impetuous, that's  all.'

'Oh, aye?' Kitty was a northerner and always spoke her mind. 'Plain  daft, I'd call it. Still, let's hope she's learnt her lesson.'

Morgan wondered why he was feeling defensive on the girl's behalf when  she'd behaved so foolishly. With Bella following he walked through to  the drawing room at the front of the house, the windows of which  overlooked wide sweeping lawns and manicured flowerbeds. Pouring himself  a whisky from the cocktail cabinet in a corner of the room, he flung  himself into a chair and switched on the massive TV with the remote. An  inane quiz show came on the screen and after channel-hopping for a while  he turned the TV off, drained his glass and made his way to his study.

The room was masculine and without frills, a floor-toceiling bookcase  occupying one wall and his massive Edwardian twin-pedestal desk  dominating the space. The study could appear cosy in the winter when  Kitty saw to it a good fire was kept burning in the large ornate grate,  but now the room merely had the air of being functional. He sat down at  the desk.

Morgan gazed musingly at the tooled-leather writing surface without  reaching for the stack of files he'd brought back to work on. When he'd  got home at the weekend Kitty had been full of the news the village  grapevine had passed on. A woman had bought Keeper's Cottage and was  living in it alone, and to date she'd had no visitors. He hadn't been  particularly interested; if he'd thought about it at all he'd probably  jumped to the conclusion the woman in question was a middle-aged or  retired individual who wanted a bit of peace and quiet from the  hurly-burly of modern-day living.

He raised his head, his eyes taking in the tiny dancing particles of  dust the slanting sunshine through the window had caught in its beam.

But the occupant of Keeper's Cottage was far from being old. The woman  who had glared at him with such hostility was very young and attractive  and clearly had a mind of her own, which begged the question-why had she  chosen to live in such seclusion? Did she work? And if so, where? Who  was Willow Landon and why didn't she like men? Or perhaps it was him,  rather than the whole male gender, she didn't like?

This thought caused his firm, sensual mouth to tighten and he leaned  back in the big leather chair for a moment, drumming his fingers on the  padded arms.

This was crazy. Annoyance with himself brought him reaching abruptly for  a file. It didn't matter who Willow Landon was or what had brought her  to this neck of the woods. He'd probably never talk to the woman again;  in all the time he'd lived here he had made a point of not becoming  friendly with the neighbours. This was his bolt hole, the place where he  could be himself and to hell with the rest of the world. His London  apartment was where he socialised and conducted out-of-hours business  affairs-other affairs too, come to it.

Morgan opened the file, scanning the papers inside but without really  taking them in. He had ended his latest liaison the week before.  Charmaine had been a delightful companion and-being a high-grade lawyer  with nerves of steel and keenly intelligent-she was at the top of her  profession and much sought after. Only he hadn't realised she thought it  perfectly acceptable to endow her favours to other men on the occasions  she wasn't seeing him. Unfashionable, perhaps, but he had always had an  aversion to polygamy and he had told her so, as he'd thought quite  reasonably.                       
       
           



       

Charmaine had called him pharisaical after throwing her cocktail in his  face. What was the difference, she'd hissed, in sleeping with other men  before and after an affair, and not during? They both knew they didn't  want a for-ever scenario, and they had fun together and the sex was  great; why couldn't he just go with the flow and enjoy it? Other men  did.

He had looked into her beautiful, angry face and known any desire he'd  had for the perfectly honed female body in front of him had gone. He  didn't want to go where someone else had been the night before; it was  as simple as that. He gave and expected fidelity for as long as a  relationship lasted, and he couldn't operate any other way. The scene  that had followed had been ugly.

Smiling grimly to himself, Morgan cleared his mind of anything but the  Thorpe account in front of him. He needed to check the figures very  carefully because something hadn't sat right with him when he'd glanced  at them at the office. He had found his gut instinct rarely failed him.

Sure enough, a few minutes later he found a couple of discrepancies that  were enough to raise question marks in his mind about the takeover that  was being proposed. He'd have to go into things more thoroughly once he  was back in the office, he decided, slinging the file aside and raking  his hand through his hair.

The movement brought the faint smell of woodsmoke into his nostrils and  he frowned, his earlier thoughts taking hold. Women were a necessary  indulgence but they were a breed apart, and Charmaine had reminded him  of the fact. Not that he'd needed much reminding. And that applied to  all women-angry, green-eyed redheads included. She certainly had a  temper to go with the hair, that was for sure. His mouth twisted in a  smile. Not that he minded spirit in a woman. It often made life  interesting. He'd never understood men who liked their women to be  subservient shadows, scared to say boo to a goose.

He stretched his long legs, reaching for another file and feeling  faintly annoyed at how he'd allowed himself to become distracted. Within  moments he was engrossed in the papers in front of him and everything  else had vanished from his mind, but the faint scent of woodsmoke still  hung in the air.

CHAPTER THREE

'How embarrassing. Poor you.' In spite of her words Beth's tone was more  eager than sympathetic and her face was alight with interest. 'And this  guy who owns the place, he must be worth a bit if the manor house is  just his weekend home?'

'I've got no idea how wealthy he is or isn't.'

'Is he young or old? I mean, grey-haired or what?'

'What's his age got to do with anything?' Willow found she was  regretting mentioning the episode at the weekend to her sister now. She  had called in for a coffee and quick chat after work mainly, she had to  admit, because she was still smarting from Morgan Wright's condemnation  and wanted someone to commiserate with her. She might have known Beth  wouldn't play ball.

Beth shrugged. 'I just wondered if he was tasty, that's all.'

Willow had to smile. 'He's a man, Beth. Not a toasted sandwich.'

'Is he, though?' Beth had got the bit between her teeth.

'Is he what?' said Willow, deliberately prevaricating.

'Fanciable.' Beth grinned at her. 'Hunky, you know.'

She was so not going to do this. 'I didn't notice, added to which he's  more likely than not married. Attractive, wealthy men of a certain age  tend to be snapped up pretty fast.'

'So he is tasty?' Beth sat forward interestedly.

Willow changed the subject in the one way that couldn't fail. 'So you've finished the nursery now, then? Can I take a look?'

She oohed and ahhed at the pretty lemon and white room, which already  had more fluffy toys than any one child could ever want, along with a  wardrobe full of tiny little vests and socks and Babygros, and then made  her escape before Beth returned to their previous conversation. Her  sister rarely let anything drop before she was completely satisfied.

The weather had broken at the beginning of the week and it had got  progressively colder day by day. Today, Friday, was the first of October  and the month had announced its intentions with a biting wind and rain  showers. It started to rain again when she was halfway home, but this  was no shower, just a steady downpour that had her scurrying out of the  car and into the house in record speed once she was home.