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.
After several days of battling with the Aga cooker she’d finally got the knack of persuading it into action just before she’d resumed work, but she hadn’t lit it all week, making do with microwave meals. She could imagine the kitchen was a warm, cosy place with the range in action, but each evening she’d lit a fire in the sitting-room grate and sat hunched over it for the first hour until the chill had been taken off the room.
Putting a match to the fire she had laid that morning before she’d left for work, she walked through into the kitchen to switch the electric kettle on, shivering as she went. The last few days had pointed out her main priority was to get oil-fired central heating installed in the cottage as quickly as she could; the sitting-room fire would be a nice feature to keep but was woefully inadequate as the sole means of warmth.
Once she was nursing a hot mug of coffee she returned to the sitting room and threw a couple more logs and a few extra pieces of coal on the fledgling flames, fixing the guard round the fire before she went upstairs to change into jeans and a warm jumper. That done, and in spite of the fact the room was freezing, she sat for some time on the bed sipping the coffee as she stared at her reflection in the long thin mirror on the opposite wall, her mind a million miles away.
It had been a tiring week at work with several minor panics and she was still getting used to the long drive home, but it wasn’t that that occupied her thoughts, but how her life had changed in the last twelve months and especially in the two weeks since she had moved into the cottage. OK, it might be pretty basic right now but it was hers. She had done this on her own. Why hadn’t she had the courage to leave Piers long before she had done and make a new life without him? Why had she tried and tried and tried to make the marriage work long after she had known she’d married a monster? A handsome, charming, honey-tongued monster who had fooled her as completely as he did everyone else. At first.
