Sweet Surrender with the Millionaire. HELEN BROOKS
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Morgan’s surprise, he felt a certain part of his anatomy respond to the memory, becoming as hard as a rock. In answer to his body’s reaction, he said out loud, ‘She’s too young.’ She didn’t look a day over twenty, all brighteyed and bushy-tailed. He preferred his women to be sophisticated and worldly-wise, happy to be shown a good time but without any delusions of till-death-us-do-part and definitely charming, easy company. He worked hard and played hard and he was sufficiently wealthy to do both on his terms.
His mouth hardened, although he was unaware of it. When he had first entered the business world he’d been taken for a ride once or twice, but it had been valuable experience and he’d learnt from it. Very quickly he’d understood he couldn’t afford to take anyone or anything at face value. The same applied to his love life. At twenty-four, just before he’d hit the big time, he’d met Stephanie. Stephanie Collins. Blonde, bright, beautiful. When they began dating he thought he was the luckiest man in the world but after six months she’d sent him a typical ‘Dear John’ letter and disappeared into the blue yonder with a balding, wrinkled millionaire. Ironic, really, because if she’d waited a year or so he could have given her everything she’d ever wanted and without being pawed over by a man old enough to be her grandfather. But, again, the episode had taught him plenty for which he was grateful.
He nodded mentally to the thought. In fact the Stephanie thing had woken him up to the fact that the whole for-ever scenario wasn’t for him. His parents having been killed in a car crash when he was just a baby, he’d been shunted round various relatives until he’d gone away to university at the age of eighteen. From that point he’d made his own way in the world, but until Stephanie he hadn’t faced the need he had of belonging to someone, of putting down roots and having a home that was his. The need had made him realise he was vulnerable and he hadn’t liked that.
Morgan straightened and threw the net to one side. No, he hadn’t liked that at all. But then the money had started to roll in. He had been able to buy this place and also a chrome and glass one-bedroomed apartment in London where he stayed weekdays. And nowadays all he required of his women was honesty, which was why he made a point of only dating successful career women who were as autonomous as he was. And he was satisfied with that. His square chin came up, thrusting slightly forward as though someone had challenged him on the statement.
One of the dogs pushed its nose into his hand and he didn’t have to look down to see who it was. Bella had been the first of the German Shepherds he’d bought a couple of years after acquiring the manor house and she was still his favourite. As a puppy she’d had a weak stomach and been prone to vomiting attacks that could swiftly put her life at risk; many a time he’d sat up all night giving her sips of a rehydrating formula prescribed by the local vet. Maybe it was that that had created the special bond between them. She had grown into a strong, beautiful animal who was as intelligent as she was gentle, but in spite of her sweet temper she was the undisputed leader of his five dogs. And she always knew when he was disturbed about something or other.
‘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