was rewarded with the sort of wide, flashing smile that would have melted rock, never mind her weak, foolish heart.
‘You’re an angel.’
‘It will only be instant…’
Desperately she tried to claw back some of the ground she had surrendered.
‘Fine!’
He punctured her sense of triumph quickly and easily, tossing the response over his shoulder as he headed back out to the car.
Struggling to keep her mind blank, Ellie moved to fill and switch on the kettle. One cup of coffee wouldn’t take very long. She’d be on her way in no time.
At least she didn’t have to worry about Rosie. Even if the little girl had woken from her nap, she would have Nan and Dee to take care of her. She’d known both women all her short life and had had them wrapped round one small, chubby finger since the day she’d been born.
‘You couldn’t rustle up a sandwich or something as well, could you?’
Morgan dropped a cardboard box of groceries on the kitchen table beside her, startling her out of her thoughts.
‘There’s bread and cheese in there somewhere.’
‘When did you last eat?’
It wouldn’t be held back, the sense of exasperation painfully familiar.
He paused briefly to consider, then shrugged his broad shoulders.
‘Don’t know.’
He was too close, that evocative scent setting her nerves prickling again. The sun slanting in through the kitchen window gleamed on hair of ebony silk, highlighting sapphire eyes behind a fringe of outrageously thick dark lashes. Narrow hips in snug fitting denim rested casually against the side of the table, and he had rolled up his sleeves revealing tanned and muscular forearms, lightly covered in soft dark hair.
‘Didn’t want to waste time stopping. And you know what motorway services are like.’
And she knew what Morgan was like. Motorway services, with his best-sellers on display in the shops, meant the possibility of being recognised, something he avoided like the plague. Ellie bit down hard on her lip as she struggled with the twist of pain in her heart that came with yet another reminder of just how well she had once known this man.
‘But a sandwich would be very welcome…and if you could slice up some tomatoes as well…’
‘What did your last servant die of?’ Ellie flung after him, his laughter in response infuriating her further.
But she was only protesting to save face, she knew. She would do it, dammit. She would make him his coffee and his sandwich not just because she felt she had no option. She couldn’t even deceive herself with the thought that she would do the same for any new guest who had had a long journey.
She would do it because she couldn’t help herself. Because she could no longer deny herself the opportunity to do this small thing for this man who had once meant all the world to her. Sighing, she rooted in the box, pulled out bread, cheese.
It was as she was slicing into the crisp crust of the loaf that memory struck, hard and sharp, stilling her hand and holding her frozen, staring straight ahead with sightless, unfocussed eyes.
It had been—what?—over two years ago. A warm June evening, not unlike today. The night she had moved to Morgan’s London apartment following his suggestion that she come and live with him. Of course, she hadn’t hesitated. She’d been crazily out of her mind with love, her ‘Yes’ had been out of her mouth almost before he’d finished asking, and she had moved in the very next day.
Then, as now, Morgan had directed her into the kitchen, suggesting she prepare something for them to eat while he unloaded her belongings from the car.
The knife shook in Ellie’s hand, tears stinging cruelly as she recalled how he had whistled as he’d worked. How each time he had passed her he had flashed that wide, devastating smile that had turned her insides to molten liquid, and snatched a kiss or simply let his hands trail along her back, her shoulders, her hair. It was if he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her and had had to keep reassuring himself that she’d been there.
And then, when everything had been unloaded, he had come up behind her, sliding strong, warm arms around her slim waist, resting his head on her shoulder, his breath warm against her cheek…
This had been a mistake, Morgan told himself as he slammed the now-empty boot of the car shut and turned to the last box that still lay on the back seat of the Alfa Romeo. One hell of a stupid mistake.
It was no wonder that he’d had a sense of déjà vu. No wonder that it seemed as if he’d lived through this before. It was almost an exact replay of the day that Ellie had first moved in with him.
‘Oh, hell!’
Forgetting the box for a moment, he rested his arms on the sun-warmed top of the car, his chin supported on one hand as he let the memories roll over him.
He’d never been so happy. Or so scared. Never in all his twenty-eight years had he known a feeling like it. He still couldn’t actually believe that he’d made the move, spoken the words that he’d been sure he’d never say to anyone.
Or that she had agreed.
He hadn’t known that he was going to say anything. No rational thought, no careful preparation had come into his head. One moment he’d been lying there, his heart still thudding, his skin still slick with sweat after the blazing passion of their lovemaking, the next he had turned and looked into her face and just known.
But the feeling had been still too new, too delicate, to share with anyone, even Ellie. Ellie who’d declared ‘I love you’ as easily as breathing, who’d seemed to have no fear, no doubts.
And so he’d gone for the casual approach.
‘I think, after that, saying goodnight and going home alone has definitely lost its appeal. How do you feel about making this into a—more logical arrangement?’
‘Coffee’s ready!’
Ellie’s call from the kitchen splintered his memories, bringing his head up sharply, reminding him where he was.
It was just as well he’d held back on his true feelings, he reflected cynically as he forced his mind back on to the present and, collecting the last box, headed inside once more. Ellie’s ‘love’, so carelessly given, had been just as easily taken away again. They had had perhaps eleven months before he had felt her attention drifting and barely two weeks after that she had told him she was leaving.
‘Is that the last one?’
Ellie was buttering bread, her attention fixed on what she was doing, and she glanced up casually as he came in.
‘Just dump it somewhere and come and get your coffee while it’s hot. Not that dump is the appropriate word,’ she added as her eyes focussed on what he was carrying. ‘That’s a laptop, isn’t it?’
‘The newest, state-of-the-art, portable wonder machine.’
