Lifelong Affair

'Janet?' he frowned.

Do you have another one?' she derided.

'What did she say to you?' His eyes were narrowed to grey slits.

'It isn't important that you know her exact words,' she shrugged dismissively; the enormity of what Janet Fairchild had said to her was still too new to take in—or share with this man. 'Some of it wasn't unlike the remarks you made to me when you came over to Los Angeles,' her head went back in challenge. His mouth tightened ominously. 'I thought we'd agreed that I regret that remark.'

'You agreed,' she said aggressively. 'I said nothing.'

'Morgan--- •'

'Yes?' She met his gaze defiantly,

A pulse beat erratically in his dark cheek. 'I'm trying hard to understand that your behaviour is because of the pain and loss you must be feeling today, but don't push me too far,' he warned softly.

'Don't pushjyow too far?' she repeated incredulously, angrily. 'I'm supposed to take any sort of insult this family dishes out, and you say I'm pushing you too far! Well, I have news for you—Oh!' she gasped as she was pulled roughly against the hardness of his body. 'Alex?' Her eyes were wide with apprehension at the fierceness of his expression.

'Yes—Alex,' he ground out, his eyes darkening almost to black as he looked down at her with savage intensity. 'God, Morgan, you're so beautiful!' he frowned, his head lowering as his lips claimed hers.

It was the last thing she had expected from this man, and her mouth parted in a gasp of surprise as his lips met hers, allowing him to deepen the kiss, to go further, deeper, into the moist recesses.

She had melted at his first touch, felt pleasure at the intimacy of his kiss as he continued the slow druging movement, curving her body into the hardness of his, his hands moving restlessly from her thigh to her breasts.

The kiss might have gone on for ever, might have become more than a kiss, both of them caught up in the breathless moment of passion. But the sound of a gasp from the open doorway had them pulling apart, to see Rita Hammond looking at them in horror.

CHAPTER FOUR

MORGAN was the first to move, pulling out of Alex's arms. For a moment they tightened about her, then he released her, turning to look at the woman in the doorway with steely eyes. 'Did you want something, Mother?' he asked coldly. Morgan had to admire his cool. Frankly, she was a little disconcerted herself. The kiss from Alex Hammond had been totally unexpected, her reaction volcanic. In fact, she couldn't ever remember responding to anyone as she had responded to Alex. Rita Hammond's interruption had been achingly unwelcome. Her mouth still throbbed from Alex's possession, her senses still aroused.

His mother drew herself up to her full impressive height. 'I came to tell you Uncle Simon is leaving. I had no idea I would be interrupting—something,' she looked at Morgan with haughty disdain, as if it were all her fault that she had walked in and found her son kissing her.

Alex strode over to the door. 'Shall we go downstairs, Mother?' he prompted hardly, giving no answer to her pointed reference to him kissing Morgan.

'I'd like to talk to Morgan—— 'It can wait,' he bit out abruptly.

'But--- '

Til talk to you later, Morgan.' Alex turned to her, cutting off his mother's protest. 'All right?' His voice had gentled. Er—yes,' she swallowed hard. 'Okay.' Alex took his mother with him, his hand firm on her elbow. Morgan was relieved at his thoughtfulncss; the last thing she needed was a run-in with Rita Hammond. Besides, she needed to assimilate her own feelings.

Alex Hammond had always seemed so distant, so remote, she couldn't believe he had kissed her with tuch passion. And she had kissed him back. It hadn't been an ordinary kiss cither; his mouth on hers had affected her like no other. She was adult enough to realise that something momentous had happened to her when Alex kissed her. She was also adult enough to realise she didn't welcome the complication of being sexually attracted to him. How could she even attempt to fight him over Courtney when he affected her this way, when he would only have to touch her for her to melt in his arms and give him anything he asked for— including herself! It was unbelievable, incredible, and yet she knew it was true.

The guests were starting to leave when she at last went downstairs, and she saw with some relief that Janet and her husband had already left. Although Rita Hammond eyed her with dislike, and Morgan couldn't quite meet that accusing gaze, feeling almost guilty. Which was ridiculous. Alex had initiated that kiss— she bad merely responded! And she would again if he should ever want to kiss her again; she knew that even though they argued constantly that Alex was the first man ever to elicit that unreserved response from her. Rita Hammond watched the two of them closely during dinner, almost as if she expected them to be unable to keep their hands off each other. Morgan held back her amusement with effort, although Alex looked angry by his mother's behaviour.

'Will you come to my study for a while?' he requested huskily of Morgan after the meal. 'I'd like to talk to you before you leave tomorrow.' Her pulse began beating faster at the thought ofbeing alone with him again, and she wondered if he would kiss her.

'Surely whatever you have to say to Morgan can be said in front of me, Alex?' his mother put in curtly.

'No,' he pulled back Morgan's chair for her as she stood up, 'I don't think it can.'

The older woman flushed. 'Why not?'

He viewed her arrogantly. 'If I were to tell you that I wouldn't need to talk to Morgan alone.'

'Then---- '

'If you'll excuse us?' Alex said tautly.

'But, Alex--- '

'Later, Mother,' he dismissed hardly, manoeuvring Morgan out of the room with his hand firm on her elbow.

Morgan studied him beneath lowered lashes. He certainly was forceful! When he said no one argued with him, he really meant no one. Rita Hammond had looked furious!

And Alex looked magnificent, his black dinner suit fitting him superbly, emphasising the lean strength of his body, the white silk shin making his skin appear darker. Morgan wondered why she hadn't been aware of his attractiveness earlier.

A small fire had been lit in the study, the evenings beginning to cool to autumn now. Morgan moved to the chair opposite his across the desk, unconsciously graceful in the clinging black dress, her arms and throat bare, the dress caught over one shoulder in a Grecian style.

'Come and sit over here,' Alex invited huskily, standing next to the leather sofa in front of the fire. 'It's more comfortable.'

She frowned, but stood up to move to the sofa anyway, feeling a sense of surprise as he sat next to her, his thighs almost touching hers. Almost .. . That made her more aware of him than ever! 'Do I need to be more comfortable?' she asked lightly.

He grimaced. 'For what I have to say, yes, I think to.'

Morgan instantly tensed. 'It sounds ominous.'

'I'm hoping not,' he said dryly. 'My talk concerns Courtney.'

'Of course. Now why should she feel disappointment in that? Courtney was the only reason she was in England. Wasn't he ...?

'Although my problem of solving the problem is unorthodox,' he added reluctantly.

'Courtney is a little young for boarding-school,' she derided.

There was no answering smile from Alex, just a renewed tightening of his mouth. 'I don't plan to send him to boarding-school—ever,' he bit out.

Morgan's eyes widened. 'I thought all you Hammonds went to boarding-school?' she frowned.

'Wc did,' he growled. 'Which is precisely the reason I would never send a child of mine to one.'

She stiffened. 'Courtney isn't your child.'

"Not yet,' he acknowledged softly. 'But I plan for him to be. And I think you should be his mother.'

She swallowed hard. 'What do you mean?'

Alex shrugged, staring into the fire. 'You obviously love the baby very much. And I think those reporters may have come up with the solution to our problem.' He turned intense grey eyes on her. 'I think we should get married.'

Morgan stared at him with widely shocked eyes, the pupils dilating in her surprise. Marry Alex Hammond? That wasn't unorthodox, that was ridiculous!

'I can see the idea surprises you,' he drawled derisively. 'But I can see no other solution. I refuse to give Courtney up, and so do you, and unless we want him to become a child who's tugged from one side of the Atlantic to the other on a six-monthly basis I don't see what else we can do.'

'But my work is in the States.' It was the first objection that came to mind—but not the only one!

Alex looked grim. 'You enjoy your career?'

'I—Yes.'

'Then we'll have to find a way round that.' He frowned thoughtfully. 'I could always move the Hammond head office to the States so that Courtney and I could be with you.'

'No! I mean—You would really do that?' she asked incredulously, knowing by the seriousness of the suggestion that he was in deadly earnest about marrying her.

I ie nodded. 'If I have no other choice. Courtney has to come first.'

'And what about you?' she queried breathlessly. 'Don't you want to marry a woman you love?' She looked at him with tense curiosity; his answer to this was suddenly important to her.

His mouth twisted, the grey eyes cold. 'Love is a destructive emotion. It tends to leave the people who really love with no will of their own, completely vulnerable to the other person's whims. No,' he met her gaze steadily, 'I have no wish to be destroyed in that way. Ours would be a marriage of convenience '

'That went out with the Victorians!' Morgan snapped, deeply confused by his views on love. He must have loved—and lost—someone once, someone who took advantage of his love instead of treasuring it.

'I didn't say it would be platonic,' Alex drawled. 'I have no intention of living the rest of my life celibate. I have had—relationships, in the past. You didn't find my kisses unpleasant this afternoon, I'm sure you wouldn't find me unsatisfactory in bed.'