Burning Obsession
Carole Mortimer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

KELLY’S face paled and her breathing seemed to stop as she saw the tall arrogant man entering the hotel, the usual blonde on his arm. She would have to be blonde, Jordan had a passion for them. But at least it wasn’t Angela Divine. That didn’t surprise Kelly either; after five years there would have been a couple of dozen blondes, Angela Divine long ago replaced.

Jordan hadn’t seen her as he walked over to the reception desk, so she had ample opportunity to look at him without him being aware of it. He would be thirty-nine now, and he looked it, the grey hair at his temples lending distinction to his bearing, a startling contrast to his jet black hair. The grey hadn’t been there five years ago, and the deep lines of cynicism beside his nose and mouth had become all the more noticeable. The grey of his eyes was just as steely, his full mouth set in a firm line, the deep sensuality of his nature held firmly in check.

Kelly stepped back as Jordan and the beautiful blonde got into the lift, and she remained hidden until the lift began to ascend. It had been inevitable that this would happen, that they would meet again sometime, and yet Kelly found she still wasn’t ready for it.

Five years ago she had been eighteen, an easy victim to Jordan’s lethal charm. She had fallen in love with the leashed vitality of him on sight, and had remained in love with him until the day almost seven months later when her dreams of belonging to Jordan for ever had been destroyed, as surely as the child she had been carrying had been destroyed.

She could still vividly remember that day, could remember waking up in that cold clinical room, a sense of doom about her even though she couldn’t remember what she was doing there. She had soon found out!

‘I’m afraid the baby is gone, Mrs Lord.’

Kelly had blinked up at the young doctor, her mind in a fog. Baby? What baby, she wanted to ask. More to the point, whose baby?

‘Sleep now, Mrs Lord,’ a nurse soothed. ‘Sleep now and your husband should be back when you wake up again.’

‘Back?’ Kelly asked, her mouth very dry. ‘Back from where?’

The nurse tucked the bedclothes more firmly around her. ‘Mr Lord had to leave, to go to his office, I think.’

‘Oh yes,’ Kelly accepted bitterly. She had known it would be something to do with his office that would take Jordan away from her when she needed him. She turned away so that the nurse shouldn’t see her ready tears. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured huskily. ‘I think I should like to sleep now.’

The nurse looked concerned. ‘Would you like something to help you sleep?’

‘Why?’ Her voice was shrill as she looked up at the other girl. ‘I’m not ill, am I?’

‘No, of course not. But you must be feeling weak after the baby.’

Kelly frowned, her eyelids starting to droop sleepily without the necessity of drugs. The nurse had mentioned a baby now. She just wished she knew what they were talking about …

When she woke again the loss of her baby had shot into her like a knife, the baby she had only carried for five months, the baby who hadn’t stood a chance of survival when she had started to miscarry.

Her blue eyes were tightly shut to hold out the cold reality of daylight for as long as possible. Would Jordan have come back from his office yet, or would he still be putting that first? After all, she wasn’t ill, she had just lost the baby that had come to be the most important thing in her life, the baby Jordan had neither wanted or desired.

Her breath caught in a sob and she turned to bury her face in the pillow, crying out her misery and pain.

‘Kelly?’ A hand caressed her shoulder through the thin material of her nightgown.

She had flinched away from that hand, turning slowly to look at her husband. ‘Jordan,’ she greeted coldly, her eyes huge and bewildered in her pale face. ‘Did you finish your business?’ she asked bitterly.

Jordan frowned, a tall man, very attractive, who had stirred many a female heart before their marriage six months earlier, and still continued to do so, as she knew to her cost.

‘You were asleep,’ his voice was stilted, his manner withdrawn. ‘There was nothing I could do.’

‘Of course not,’ she replied distantly. ‘Did you deal with the matter?’ She gave a choked laugh. ‘Of course you did, what a stupid question.’

‘I haven’t been to the office, Kelly. I——’

She struggled to sit up, not wanting to listen to him. ‘Could you get someone to help me, please?’

He lent over her, his hard presence at once overwhelming her, as it usually did. ‘I’ll help you,’ he sat her forward. ‘Just hold on to me while I adjust the back-rest.’

‘No!’ She shrank away from him. ‘Get someone else to help me. Get a nurse. Get anyone but you!’ she cried hysterically.

He instantly moved away, his face a shuttered mask. ‘There’ll be other babies, Kelly,’ he said coldly. ‘I’m sorry about this one, but——’

‘No!’ she cried again. ‘There won’t be any more. I won’t have any more!’ She looked at him like a frightened child, her fingers clenching and unclenching on the coverlet. ‘No more,’ she repeated, suddenly all the life flowing out of her as she collapsed weakly back on to the pillows.

‘You’re tired,’ Jordan said abruptly. ‘Try to sleep now and I’ll come back and see you later.’

‘Going back to work, Jordan?’ she taunted. ‘Or could Angela be the main attraction?’

Those grey eyes narrowed ominously. ‘Angela? You mean my secretary?’

Kelly’s mouth turned back with a sneer. ‘If that’s what you choose to call her.’

‘You’re more tired than you realise,-’ her husband snapped. ‘You’re becoming fanciful. Sleep now and we’ll talk later.’

‘I only want to know one thing,’ she said coldly. ‘When can I get out of here?’

‘A couple of weeks, the doctor said, and even then you’ll still be very weak.’

‘I’ve always been weak where you’re concerned,’ her voice was distant, all emotion locked away, ‘but not any more.’

He frowned. ‘What are you saying now, Kelly? I realise you’re upset about the baby——’

‘What was it?’ she asked dully.

Jordan looked startled by the question. ‘Don’t dwell on it, Kelly. It’s best forgotten.’

Forgotten! She would never forget the loss of the baby, or the reason behind it. ‘What was it, Jordan?’

He gave an impatient sigh at her obstinacy. ‘A girl,’ he told her curtly.

‘Then perhaps it’s as well it died, you wanted a girl even less than you wanted a boy,’ she scorned to hide her pain.

His hand came out to painfully grasp hers. ‘I’d much rather have you alive and well—’

Kelly snatched her hand away. ‘Don’t spout insincere platitudes to me!’ she snapped coldly, turning away from him. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to sleep now.’ She snuggled down under the covers in a pretence of sleep.

‘Kelly?’ he touched her shoulders.

She shook off his hand. ‘I’m sleepy. Goodbye, Jordan.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ There was weary resignation in his voice, but Kelly remained hardened against him.

She waited for the soft click of the door as he left before she allowed the tears to flow. She could still remember it all now, calling at Jordan’s office that morning, eager to show him the tiny clothes she had bought for the baby, rushing happily into his outer office to find his secretary’s desk empty. She could hear Jordan’s even tone as he talked to the girl who had been his secretary for the last year, but it hadn’t bothered her that they were working. She had met the other girl a couple of times, and her presence in Jordan’s office was immaterial to her.

But the conversation hadn’t been! What she had heard that day had shown her all too clearly that Jordan’s relationship with his secretary continued outside the office.

She had rushed out of the building as though pursued by the devil. Jordan and his secretary! Oh, she had felt sick, so sick she just ran and ran, not sparing a thought for the baby until she had felt that first searing pain, a pain that was quickly followed by another, and another, until she had thought she would die.

So she had discovered the reason Jordan hadn’t been near her since her pregnancy had been confirmed—he had been getting that satisfaction from his beautiful secretary. She had vowed there and then that he would never touch her again, a decision she quickly apprised him of, on returning from the hospital to their home in fact.

‘Comfortable?’ Jordan tucked the blanket more firmly about her legs.

She nodded distantly. ‘Thank you.’

He gave her a long searching look before moving impatiently to get in behind the wheel of the car.

They didn’t talk on the drive to their home, as they hadn’t talked in the two weeks since she had lost the baby. Kelly had nothing to say to this cold, hard man who was her husband, and he seemed to take his mood from her.

He held her elbow as they entered the house together, refusing to have his fingers dislodged.

‘Oh, it’s so good to see you, Mrs Lord,’ Mrs McLeod, their housekeeper, hurried out into the hallway to greet them.

‘Thank you, Mrs McLeod.’ She couldn’t even raise any warmth for the woman who had shown her nothing but kindness since Kelly’s marriage to her employer six months ago.

‘Tea in the lounge, I think, Mrs McLeod,’ Jordan suggested smoothly. ‘I’m sure Mrs Lord would welcome the refreshment.’

‘Of course, sir,’ the woman smiled. ‘I have it all ready. I won’t be a moment.’

Once alone Kelly had moved away from her husband and into the spacious lounge that even after six months still managed to convey none of her own personality but was all Jordan. The deep grey velvet curtains either end of the huge room perfectly matched the deep-pile carpet. The black leather armchairs and sofa were just as impersonal, and even the slightly feminine touches of ornaments and clear-cut glass seemed to bring no warmth to the room—as Jordan himself had no warmth.

She couldn’t even begin to guess why Jordan had married her in the first place; it certainly hadn’t been because he loved her, he didn’t know how to love. But love was the reason she had accepted him—her own love for him, a love that had died as her baby had died.

From the moment they had met at a dinner party given by her father, with her acting as his hostess, Jordan had begun to pay her attention. He had asked her out to the theatre that first evening, and for the next month they had met constantly. If Jordan had treated her rather like a child to be humoured she hadn’t minded. She had craved only his soul-destroying kisses that had always ended the evening, kisses and caresses that he was always in control of, no matter how she begged for more.

When he had asked her to marry him she had eagerly accepted, her love for him so strong by this time that she wanted only to be with him for all time.

Her father had been less delighted by the news, but despite his mild opposition the wedding had taken place only a month after their first meeting. They had honeymooned in Barbados, with Jordan introducing her to all the sensual delight her body was capable of, seeming to find pleasure in her pleasure, until they both reached the tumultuous climax of their senses.

It was during one of those sun-drenched, love-filled days and nights that Kelly had conceived their child, a child that had seemed the fulfilment of all her dreams. Jordan hadn’t shared her enthusiasm, but in her own happiness she hadn’t paid this much attention. She had put his reserve down to a reluctance to halt their nights of passion, although she hadn’t expected them to come to quite such an abrupt end, the very night she had told Jordan he was to be a father.

‘Your father is coming to dinner,’ Jordan informed her as they waited for Mrs McLeod to bring in the tea. ‘I haven’t told him the news. It didn’t seem the sort of thing I should tell him over the telephone, even if I’d known where to reach him in the States.’

Kelly’s mouth turned back. ‘Then I’m going to come as something of a shock to him.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed tersely, his expression grim.

She patted her flattened stomach bitterly. ‘Quite a shock,’ she repeated.

‘Yes,’ he said again, turning to fill a glass with whisky.

Kelly eyed him coldly. ‘Isn’t it a little early in the day for that?’

Grey eyes raked over her. ‘Do you care?’

She shrugged. ‘Not particularly.’

His mouth twisted tauntingly. ‘I thought not,’ he swallowed half the liquid in one gulp. ‘What the hell’s got into you?’ he rasped. ‘Losing the baby was traumatic——’

‘I’m glad you realise it.’ Her voice was harsh.

Jordan gave her an angry look. ‘I’m not completely insensitive. But I don’t expect this to have changed you out of all recognition.’

Kelly idly picked up one of the cut-glass vases that adorned the alcove, admiring its cool beauty with icy detachment. ‘Things like that have a way of making one grow up in a hurry. After all, Jordan, I’m not a child any longer,’ she scorned.

‘I wouldn’t call eighteen old. And I always liked your youthful enthusiasm for everything.’

‘Appealed to your jaded senses, did it?’ she taunted.

‘You see?’ he snapped impatiently, swinging her round to face him and knocking the vase out of her hand in the process. It shattered at their feet. ‘Oh hell,’ he swore, ‘now look what you’ve done!’

‘What I’ve done?’ she looked at him with accusing eyes, that vase a particular favourite with her. ‘You’re the one who had to use brute force—as usual,’ she sneered. ‘Take your hands off me, you—you——’

‘Yes?’ His narrowed eyes levelled on her mouth.

Kelly could tell he was going to kiss her and she jerked back, regretting her impulse as she saw the mockery in his eyes. ‘Just don’t touch me! I hate to be touched.’

‘That’s not the way I remember it.’

She blushed at his implication, remembering the nights when she had almost begged for his possession of her. Memories of other nights spent in his arms, of his lithe muscular body working a familiar magic on her, made her glare her dislike of him. ‘Forget the way you remember it. I don’t want——’

‘Here we are, then,’ Mrs McLeod bustled in with the tea things, beaming happily at the two of them. ‘Oh dear,’ she spotted the shattered vase, ‘did you have an accident?’

‘It slipped out of my wife’s hands,’ Jordan said smoothly.

Kelly compressed her lips to hold back her angry retort. After all, what he said was the truth, but it had only happened because of him. His touching her had been provocation enough for her to drop the vase.

‘Never mind,’ the housekeeper picked up the pieces. ‘It’s only glass.’

Kelly could see Jordan’s mouth twitch at the understatement. It had been a very valuable vase, one she had been very fond of, and although Jordan didn’t share her enthusiasm he could appreciate its value.

She sat down in front of the tea-tray. ‘Milk or lemon?’ she enquired coldly of her husband.

‘Milk,’ he drawled slowly. ‘There’s enough sharpness in this room already.’

Kelly glared at him, conscious of Mrs McLeod still picking up the broken glass. ‘Sugar?’ she asked with exaggerated politeness.

‘No, thanks.’ He sat down, his long legs stretched out in front of him. ‘But you have some—you need the energy,’ he added tauntingly.

She knew he hadn’t meant that at all, and her mouth tightened angrily. ‘How kind of you to think of my health. Isn’t he a considerate husband, Mrs McLeod?’

‘Well, of course he is.’ The housekeeper finally stood up. ‘We’ve all been very worried about you, Mr Lord most of all.’

‘But you had no need to be worrried,’ Kelly smiled warmly at the other woman. ‘I’m young and resilient.’

‘Of course you are. But I was telling Mr Lord he should take you away for a holiday, get you away from here and into the sunshine.’

‘No! No.’ Kelly studiously erased the sharpness from her voice. ‘I—I’d rather not.’ She didn’t want to go anywhere where she would have to be alone with Jordan.

The mockery in his eyes told her that he knew exactly the reason she had turned down the idea of a holiday. ‘Maybe later on,’ he said smoothly. ‘I can’t get away at the moment.’

He couldn’t leave his secretary! Angela Divine was beautiful, a tall shapely blonde. She was in her late twenties, ten years Kelly’s senior, and Kelly felt sure the other woman would make sure Jordan appreciate her added experience.

Kelly shivered as she remembered what it was like to feel like a woman in Jordan’s arms, to know the wonder of his caresses that could quickly turn to demanding passion.

He had been so patient with her on their wedding night, had gradually introduced her to the delights of her own body, until the initial pain of their consummation had seemed as nothing compared to the blinding pleasure that quickly followed.

She pushed these erotic thoughts to the back of her mind as she remembered the day of humiliation that had followed in Jordan’s office six months later.

Because of Jordan’s inability to get away Kelly had suggested that perhaps she could go away on her own. She had known she had to get away from Jordan; the love she had had for him had turned to hate in such a short time, the love that had seemed to be the pinnacle of her life.

Jordan waited for the housekeeper to leave them before vetoing that idea. ‘You aren’t going anywhere without me,’ he snapped. ‘Even if you do have this ridiculous aversion to me at the moment.’

Kelly stood up. ‘Go to hell!’ she said fiercely, turning in the direction of her bedroom, the bedroom that she had slept in alone since telling Jordan of her pregnancy.

He swung her round before she reached the door, a dangerous glitter in his cold grey eyes. ‘Don’t ever talk to me like that again, little girl!’ he rasped. ‘I won’t stand for it.’

Tears flooded her huge navy blue eyes. ‘And what happens if I do?’ she choked. ‘I suppose you’re going to beat me.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘I suppose you’d like that.’

He shook his head impatiently. ‘You ridiculous child,’ he chided gently, pulling her against him to bury his face in her thick black hair. ‘Cry, Kelly,’ he encouraged. ‘It will help.’

She at once stiffened in his arm, feeling as cold to human warmth as a beautiful statue. ‘I have no intention of crying,’ she told him in a stilted voice, shrugging out of his arms with a cool dignity that didn’t encourage further contact between them. ‘Why should I cry?’

She had cried almost hysterically after losing the baby, and felt as if she had cried herself out. All that was left was a numb feeling—and her hatred of Jordan.

‘The doctor told me I have to expect strange moods from you,’ Jordan eyed her thoughtfully, ‘but don’t expect my patience with you to be limitless.’

‘I don’t expect anything from you,’ she said tonelessly. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to my room to rest before dinner.’

‘Our room, Kelly,’ he corrected softly.

She gave him a sharp look, dark colour creeping into her pale cheeks. ‘I consider it my room, as you haven’t chosen to share it with me for several months.’

‘I intend changing that now that——’

‘Now that I’m no longer pregnant!’ she finished shrilly. ‘You can do what you choose, but don’t expect me to welcome you back.’

‘Kelly——’

‘I believe I’ve already said this once today, Jordan, but go to hell!’ This time she managed to escape to the bedroom without further interruption.

Once inside she almost collapsed on to the bed, feeling curiously weak. If Jordan was serious about sharing her bed once again then she knew she had to get away from here as soon as possible. Not that she thought he would expect a physical relationship from her just yet, but she couldn’t even bear to have him sleeping in the same room as herself.

Why on earth had he married her? In the six months they had been married not one word of love had passed his lips, words of passion and possession, but never love. This had never particularly bothered her, their lovemaking seeming to show her the depth of his feeling for her, and yet even that hadn’t been hers alone; she had been sharing him with his sexy secretary, and heaven knew how many other women.

She had fallen asleep soon after going to her bedroom, woken up to find there was only half an hour left before her father arrived. As she swung her legs to the floor Jordan came in from the adjoining bathroom, dressed only in a navy blue towelling robe, Kelly instantly stiffened at the intimacy of the situation, although the cool look she gave him showed him none of her tumultuous feelings inside.

‘You should have woken me,’ she remarked distantly.

‘Should I?’ he drawled, rubbing his damp hair dry with a towel. ‘You said you wanted to rest.’

‘But not for this long.’ She pushed her hair back, forcing herself not to be aware of the way Jordan’s towelling robe had fallen open at the chest to reveal his smooth dark skin and the silky mat of dark hair that grew there. ‘You’ll have to entertain Daddy while I shower and dress.’ She turned away.

Jordan threw the towel on the huge double bed they were to share from now on, moving towards her with a determination she knew of old. ‘Entertaining your father wasn’t quite what I had in mind for my immediate future,’ he murmured, his eyes on her mouth. ‘Come here,’ he ordered huskily.

‘Not just now.’ She stood up to begin looking through her numerous evening dresses in the floor-to-ceiling wardrobe, dresses she hadn’t been able to wear the last few months with the thickening of her waistline. Looking down at her slenderness, it had seemed hard to think that she had ever been carrying Jordan’s child.

‘Kelly!’ his hands came down on her hips, pulling her back against him. ‘God, I’ve missed you in my arms,’ he groaned into her throat.

Kelly felt sick, his touch almost obscene to her. ‘Please, Jordan,’ she squirmed away from him. ‘This is hardly the time for that sort of thing.’

‘That sort of thing?’ he repeated softly. ‘All I wanted to do was kiss my wife, maybe hold her against me for a while.’

She gave him a vague smile. ‘We don’t have the time for that, Daddy will be here soon, and neither of us is ready to go down and greet him.’

‘Damn Daddy,’ he said viciously, his face darkening angrily. ‘You don’t want me to kiss you, is that it?’

She had shuddered at the very thought. As far as she knew he could even have been with Angela Divine while she was in hospital, and now he wanted to kiss her! ‘That’s right,’ she agreed unhesitantly. ‘I have no desire to be kissed by you.’

‘That’s what I thought.’ He turned away.

She had felt nothing in his arms, nothing but a cold emptiness that bore no resemblance to her former love for him. She felt nothing but hate for him, felt none of the love, and none of the pleasure of just being with him. She had known in that moment that their marriage had to end.

Kelly shuddered back to an awareness of her surroundings, sure that only minutes had passed since she had seen Jordan step into that lift, and yet in that time she had relived all the pain and disillusionment she had suffered at his hands.

To him their marriage vows had meant she became his exclusive property, while he still continued to live and act like a bachelor. He must have thought her so naïve, must have found her childish pleasure in being his wife so amusing.

Well, she was a woman now, five years older—and wiser, she hoped. She was a calm self-assured woman who was unnerved by little. She lived with her father, played his hostess, and had heard nothing from her ex-husband since the evening she had walked out on him. Not that he actually was her ex-husband, there had been no divorce. But although she had retained his name she had considered herself a free woman for the last five years. And Jordan had assuredly considered himself a single man!

Her father had been her strength from that first night, in the end accepting her pleas for him to let her go home with him. It had all been so much easier than she had thought it would be, as her fears of Jordan coming after her had never materialised. For all his threats that she would never be allowed to leave him she had been calmly allowed to walk out of his life for ever.

And now he was here, in the same hotel as she was.

She would have to book out of here as soon as possible. She hurried over to the reception desk, aware that once again she would be running away from Jordan, but also knowing that with him here it was the safest course. How he would love a situation like this, would find her embarrassment amusing.

She smiled at the beautiful girl behind the reception desk, subconsciously wondering whether Jordan had found the young girl attractive. Jordan had a passion for blondes, which made it all the more surprising that he had chosen to marry her. She had had long black hair when he had last known her, although it had now been styled into a becoming bob, framing the thinness of her pale face, emphasising the intensity of her navy blue eyes.

She had been a step out of character for Jordan, a deviation from the usual type of woman he was attracted to. But that he had been deeply attracted had been obvious from the first, and once they had been married not a day went by when she didn’t know the deep fierceness of his possession. Until she had told him about the baby! Knowing she was carrying his child had turned him off her physically, and with the added strain of this estrangement from her husband’s arms she had been forced to acknowledge they had little else to keep them together.

‘Mrs Lord?’ The beautiful curvaceous blonde behind the desk smiled at her enquiringly.

Yes, she decided, Jordan would like this girl. She was just his type, tall, with long shapely legs, her figure on the fuller side rather than slender. Jordan must have had a brainstorm when he married her, Kelly thought bitterly. She was very slender, boyishly so in recent years, and she wasn’t an inch over five feet tall. A little bundle of dynamite, her father jokingly called her.

Her father! God, she had been so wrapped up in her thoughts of Jordan that she had completely forgotten the worry over her father. The two of them had been involved in a car accident four days ago, and while she had been uninjured, her father had been in a coma ever since. She had in fact just been on her way back to the hospital when she had seen Jordan arriving at the hotel.

‘If you’re looking for your husband, Mrs Lord,’ the receptionist spoke again, ‘he’s already gone up to your suite.’

That shook Kelly out of her wandering thoughts. ‘He’s gone where?’ she asked disbelievingly.

‘He just went up to your suite, Mrs Lord,’ the girl repeated, frowning her puzzlement.

Kelly’s mouth set mutinously. ‘Thank you,’ she said tightly, turning away.

So Jordan knew she was here. He was even now in her suite. Well, they would see about that!

There was no evidence of him when she let herself into the suite of rooms she had been occupying the last few days, everywhere in silence. Perhaps the girl on the desk had got it wrong. Before she could investigate any further there came a quiet knock on the outer door.

‘Mrs Lord,’ the young manager stood outside, ‘I just came to check that you have everything you need.’

Kelly frowned. On the brief occasions she had been back to the hotel this man had been courteous enough, but he had certainly never bothered to make this sort of effort as regards her welfare before. ‘Everything, thank you. Although my husband——’

‘Ah yes,’ the manager acknowledged eagerly. ‘Does Mr Lord have everything he wants too?’

‘Yes, thanks, John,’ answered a deeply masculine voice from behind them, a voice that was unmistakable to Kelly. ‘I have everything I want,’ he added, ‘or need.’

Kelly had swung round with a gasp at the first sound of that voice. Jordan stood in the bedroom doorway, fortunately not in the bedroom she had put her things in!—and he was dressed only in a white towelling robe, his damp hair evidence of the fact that he must have been taking a shower when she had presumed he wasn’t really here.

‘Jordan …’ she breathed his name weakly.

He didn’t look at her, smiling at the manager. ‘Thanks for your concern, John. If we find we need anything we’ll give you a call.’ When the younger man had left Jordan finally turned icy grey eyes on Kelly, his gaze narrowing as he took in the tailored dark grey suit and crisp black blouse she wore, her hair short and gleaming, her make-up light, her huge bewildered eyes the only splash of colour in her pale face. ‘Kelly,’ he greeted curtly. ‘What the hell have you done to yourself?’ His look was scathing now. ‘You look a bloody mess!’

CHAPTER TWO

HER temper sparked into life. ‘After five years is that all you have to say?’

He shrugged, strolling back into the bedroom. ‘It happens to be the truth.’

Kelly followed him. ‘How do you expect me to look?’ she snapped her resentment. ‘My father is lying dangerously ill in hospital, I’m hardly likely to look full of the joys of spring.’

Jordan took brown trousers and a clean cream shirt out of the wardrobe, pausing to towel dry his hair. ‘I didn’t mean you look a mess, I meant the way you look is a mess.’

She flushed. ‘What do you mean by that?’

He threw the towel down on the bed, looking at her consideringly. ‘You’re twenty-three and dress like a woman ten years older. Where on earth did get those prudish clothes? You look as if you’re on your way to a funeral,’ he added dismissively.

The cruelty of his words cut into her like a knife. ‘My father is ill, I would hardly wear a flaming red dress,’ she choked.

‘Why not?’ He untied his robe, smiling as she hastily turned away. ‘I’m no different to look at than I was five years ago,’ he taunted. ‘And you used to like looking at my body then—you used to like touching it too.’ He chuckled at the anger she couldn’t hide. ‘And why can’t you wear a flaming red dress? I’m sure it would cheer your father up more than that outfit.’ He made no effort to hide his derision for her smart suit and blouse.

‘My father can’t see my “outfit” at the moment,’ she informed him bitterly. ‘He’s unconscious, and has been since the accident happened.’

Jordan nodded, pulling on the dark brown trousers and cream shirt, leaving several buttons undone on the latter, revealing the thick mat of hair on his chest, this too liberally sprinkled with grey. ‘I ascertained that much from the doctor.’

Kelly’s eyes widened. ‘You’ve been in touch with the hospital?’

He gave her a derisive look. ‘Obviously,’ he said dryly.

‘And?’

Jordan raised his eyebrows. ‘And I don’t suppose they told me any more than they told you.’

‘What did they tell you?’ she asked desperately.

He shrugged. ‘Not a lot. Although the coma is apparently lightening.’

‘It is?’ Kelly said eagerly, watching as he pulled on the jacket that matched his trousers, the material fitting tautly across his broad shoulders.

He brushed the damp thickness of his hair back from his face, the style impeccable, as was the rest of his appearance. ‘So they said,’ he nodded.

‘Then I must get back to the hospital. I only came back to wash and change.’

‘So I gathered.’ Jordan gave her a searching look. ‘You’ve been sitting with him day and night since the hospital discharged you—and I must say you look as if you have.’

‘Will you stop insulting me!’ To her shame tears flooded her eyes, their colour even a deeper navy than usual. ‘I—I can’t take it at the moment!’ The tears started to fall, and she began to sob, unable to stop crying once she began.

She felt Jordan take her into his arms. ‘This is long overdue,’ he muttered gruffly.

Kelly stiffened the instant he touched her, trying to break out of his embrace, finding that she wasn’t as immune to him as she had thought herself to be the last five years. Whenever she had thought about Jordan during that time, which even though she hated to admit it, had been often, it had always been with the numb removed feeling, with the memory of what he had done to her and their unborn child.

But now he wasn’t removed at all, and the quicksilver excitement that coursed through her body made her struggles for release all the more fierce. ‘Take your hands off me!’ she ordered in a chilling voice. ‘Before I scream the place down,’ she threatened.

He stepped back, his hands held defensively in the air. ‘Never let it be said that I held a woman against her will.’

‘Is that why you let me go so easily five years ago?’ Kelly said bitterly.

Jordan’s air of taunting left him, his face taking on an expression of hauteur. ‘You wanted to go.’

‘Yes, I did. And I’ve never regretted it,’ she spat the words at him. ‘Never!’

‘Not even once?’ he scorned, his grey eyes blazing. ‘Are you telling me that you’ve never lain in your bed at night and wished for me to be at your side? That you’ve never longed for the perfect lovemaking we always had?’

Had she longed for those things? Not consciously! But subconsciously? Oh, yes, she had wanted him, had ached for him as an addict must long for his particular brand of addiction. But until this moment these longings had never been allowed free rein, any of the more intimate memories of their relationship put firmly to the back of her mind. And yet fifteen minutes ago, at the first sight of Jordan after five years, she had relived every moment of their time together as man and wife.

Their lovemaking had been perfect, without inhibitions, each partner desiring to give the other the extreme in pleasure. And for all of her initial inexperience Kelly had given Jordan pleasure, had excited him until he lost all control. At the time he had told her she was the only woman to affect him that deeply, and knowing of the tight control he had over the rest of his life, she could believe him. But even that hadn’t been enough for him, she hadn’t been enough for him, he had still needed his other women.

‘What did you mean just now about my crying being long overdue?’ She didn’t answer his intimate questions, pulling a shield over the erotic pictures they had conjured up from the past.

‘As far as I know, you’ve never cried for the loss of our child.’

Kelly paled when seconds ago she had been blushing. ‘Never cried …!’ she choked. ‘My God, I cried, I cried until there was nothing left.’

‘And when you’d finished crying?’ His eyes were narrowed. ‘Why didn’t you come back?’

‘Come back?’ she frowned. ‘To you?’ she scorned.

Jordan stiffened, his expression darkening. ‘I’m your husband.’

‘Oh yes?’ she taunted. ‘And what do you call the beautiful blonde who arrived with you just now?’

‘Janet? She’s my personal secretary.’

‘How original!’ Kelly drawled, picking up her handbag. ‘Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to the hospital.’

‘What a coincidence, so am I.’ He moved to open the door for her.

‘You are?’ she gasped. ‘But why?’

Jordan gave her a look of open disgust. ‘I’m going to see my father-in-law. A natural courtesy, I would have thought.’

Kelly allowed him to take her elbow and guide her out of the hotel and into the waiting limousine. ‘I wouldn’t have thought that relationship counted,’ she said stubbornly.

Jordan relaxed back against the cream leather upholstery, his hair even darker against the light colour. ‘Maybe it doesn’t,’ he lit a cheroot with lazy enjoyment, the familiar aroma soon filling the car. They were a special blend, made exclusively for Jordan, and Kelly found she had missed their smell.

Jordan had always liked to smoke one of these cheroots after they had made love, when they would relax in bed together, and Jordan would tell her about his day. Then they would make love again before dozing off into a contented sleep.

‘Your father is still a friend of mine,’ he continued. ‘And was long before I met and married you.’

‘Yes,’ she acknowledged jerkily. ‘I’d forgotten. I’m sorry.’

He gave a haughty inclination of his head. ‘I realise you’re distressed,’ he accepted. ‘How did the accident happen?’

Kelly swallowed hard, instantly reliving that split-second crunch of metal upon metal, the front of their Rolls-Royce almost caved in completely on her father’s side. The young couple in the other car had been unhurt, Kelly had received only cuts and bruises, and her father had been unconscious ever since.

She shrugged now. ‘It was just one of those things, no one’s fault.’

‘And you?’ Jordan looked at her closely. ‘You weren’t hurt?’

‘No.’

The hospital told me you were admitted for two days.’

Her eyes flashed. ‘They had no right——’

‘They had every right, damn you!’ He stubbed out the half-smoked cheroot with savage movements. ‘I have the right to know about the health of my wife!’

Kelly sat stiffly at him side. ‘How did you know about the accident?’

‘I was in the States on business, and a friend of mine wired me the news.’

‘A friend?’ she probed.

Jordan gave a humourless smile. ‘I do have one or two, you know.’

‘Yes, I do know,’ she said tightly ‘I just wondered if I knew them too.’

‘Ian Smythe,’ he supplied tersely.

‘Ian!’ Her face lit up with pleasure. ‘Does he still work for you?’ Ian had been Jordan’s personal assistant five years ago, and Kelly had always liked him.

Jordan scowled. ‘No. He works for himself.’

‘He does?’ she asked interestedly.

‘Mm.’ Jordan’s mouth twisted with derision. ‘He very sensibly married Anthony Miles’ only daughter.’

Anthony Miles had been a big industrialist, very rich, who had died suddenly of a heart attack just over a year ago. ‘Ian is married to Laura Miles?’ Kelly asked dazedly.

He nodded. ‘He has been for a few years now.’

‘Then I’m sure it wasn’t “sensibly” done at all,’ she defended indignantly. ‘Ian wouldn’t marry for any other reason than that he was in love.’

‘Love!’ Jordan scorned. ‘Laura is attractive enough, in a sweet way, but I wouldn’t want her for my wife.’

‘But then she isn’t, is she?’

‘Thank God!’

‘Are they happy together?’

He shrugged. ‘They seem to be.’

‘Then that’s all that matters.’

‘Not really,’ he drawled. ‘We seemed to be happy, but you still walked out on me.’

‘And you know why,’ Kelly said tightly.

‘It was my child too! But you didn’t see me walking out on my responsibilities——’

‘Responsibilities!’ she cut in shrilly. ‘You call our child a responsibility?’ she demanded angrily.

‘In a way——’

‘What way?’ Kelly was furiously angry. ‘Because you didn’t want it? Because it was a nuisance to you? Because——’

‘Shut up!’ he ordered through gritted teeth. ‘Shut up if you value your life.’

There was such a dangerous glitter in his eyes that Kelly instantly went quiet. Dry sobs racked her body. Jordan had just told her more than adequately his true opinion of the baby she had loved so much, and she hated him anew for his cruelty.

‘I’m sorry,’ he finally said in a calmer voice. ‘We never were able to converse reasonably about the subject. They found nothing wrong with you after the accident?’ he returned to their conversation of a few minutes ago.

‘I was only in for observation, just a standard thing.’

He dismissed the chauffeur when they reached the hospital, and Kelly felt very small and vulnerable next to Jordan as he guided her to her father’s room. She had forgotten how protected she had always felt with him, how fragile he had always made her feel. And after the last few days of trauma it was nice to let him take charge, to lean on him a little.

Her father lay pale against the pillows, a sterile white dressing on his forehead, the thin tube in his arm feeding him the necessary fluid for his body.

‘He looks better than he did,’ Kelly told Jordan. ‘He did have electrodes on his chest attached to this huge machine, and instead of that little dressing on his temple he had a huge bandage around his head.’ She shivered as she remembered her first sight of him after the accident. ‘I thought he was dying,’ she revealed huskily.

‘The doctor told me that they’re hopeful of a complete recovery,’ Jordan told her gently.

‘They told me that too.’ She sat down in her usual chair beside her father, taking his hand into her own. ‘I usually talk to him for a while. I know it sounds silly, but I think it helps.’

‘I’m sure it does.’ Jordan stood at the foot of the bed. ‘You go right ahead, I’m going to see if I can talk to the doctor.’

Kelly hardly noticed his departure, her attention all on her father. She had first started talking to him hoping that the sound of her voice would jog something in his memory, break this deadlock. She talked about everything and nothing. So far there hadn’t even been the flicker of an eyelid, but the doctor had told her constant talking on her part certainly couldn’t do her father any harm, and it could do him a lot of good.

Today she had something new to talk about. She told him of Jordan’s arrival here, of how he had unexpectedly booked into her hotel. That was another thing she had to ask Jordan about, what he had been doing in her suite. She had been too angry to think of asking him that earlier.

‘No change,’ Jordan reported when he came back. ‘He’s slowly coming out of it, but it could take a few more days.’ He pulled up a chair and sat beside her.

Kelly nodded. ‘Thank you. Jordan, earlier, at the hotel, what were you doing in my suite?’

‘Our suite,’ he corrected unhurriedly.

She gave him a sharp look. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means, my dear Kelly, that you are in fact staying in my suite. When you booked in as my wife you were automatically put in the suite I rent all year round.’

She gasped. ‘I’m in your suite?’

‘Correct,’ his mouth twisted tauntingly. ‘You don’t like that, do you?’

‘No,’ she agreed tightly. ‘I had no idea … I’ll get another suite when I get back.’

Jordan’s eyes became palely grey. ‘You’ll do no such thing.’

‘I——’

‘You’ll stay put, Kelly,’ he told her grimly. ‘How do you think it will look if I’m in one suite and my wife is in another?’

‘Since I’m your estranged wife I would have thought it would look perfectly normal.’

‘You’ll stay put,’ Jordan repeated tautly.

‘No——’

‘Yes! Don’t be so damned ridiculous. I’m not about to claim my conjugal rights, so you have no need to worry on that score. Besides, we’ll rarely be there at the same time.’

‘We won’t? Her cheeks were still flaming from his reference to ‘conjugal’ rights.

‘No. The doctor thinks that your method of talking to your father is what’s helping him. So I propose we take it in turns to sit and talk to him.’

‘You have no need to do that, Jordan.’ She looked down at her father. ‘I realise how busy you must be, how important your work is to you. There’s no reason for you to——’ she broke off as he roughly grasped her chin, forcing her to turn and look at him.

‘There’s a damned good reason,’ he snapped angrily. ‘You!’

‘Me?’ Her eyes widened.

‘Have you taken a good look at yourself lately?’ His gaze ran slowly over the gauntness of her body. ‘I bet in denims and a shirt it’s hard to tell what bloody sex you are!’

Kelly put up a selfconscious hand to her hair. ‘I know I’ve lost weight——’

‘Lost weight!’ he scorned. ‘You’re skeletal! Look at you, girl, you’re all eyes.’

She blinked back the tears. ‘I haven’t felt like eating the last few days.’

His hand left her chin to rest lightly on the side of her father’s bed, drawing attention to the lean strength of his fingers, the fine mat of hair on the back of his hand and wrist. ‘This has been going on a damned sight longer than the four days your father has been ill. And you never used to be tearful like this either. That’s the third time in a matter of minutes that you’ve started to cry.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she sniffed inelegantly.

‘Don’t be—it’s a damn sight healthier than the ice you were encased in the last time I saw you.’

Kelly’s hold on her father’s hand tightened. She was so defenceless without her father’s support, making her realise how much she had come to depend on him since leaving Jordan. She would, in all probability, never have left Jordan if it hadn’t been for her father’s strength, would have stayed with Jordan knowing of his other women. Her father hadn’t liked the fact that she had wanted to leave Jordan, had begged her to reconsider, but in the end had accepted her decision. He had never asked for her reasons, and she had never volunteered them.

‘I wasn’t encased in ice, I’d just come to my senses, emerged from the stupid dream I’d had of us living happily ever after. How childish you must have found me, Jordan,’ she added lightly.

His expression was bleak. ‘I found you—enchanting. You were like a breath of fresh spring air after having been in a smoke-filled room.’

‘You mean I was naïve,’ she scorned dryly.

His grey-eyed gaze ripped into her. ‘I mean you were enchanting,’ he repeated tautly.

She drew a ragged breath. ‘Well, I’m sure you’ve met plenty of other women you’ve found just as—enchanting. Janet, for instance.’

‘Janet is my secretary, nothing more.’

‘Maybe you just don’t think of it that way, maybe you just consider sleeping with your secretary as part of her usual duties,’ she said with remembered bitterness. ‘I suppose it’s easier if it’s all treated in a businesslike manner.’

‘You suppose what’s easier?’ Jordan bit out.

‘You know very well what I mean. How many—secretaries have you had since we parted?’

He was frowning darkly. ‘What are you implying?’

‘How many, Jordan?’

‘I’ve had three secretaries——’

‘Only three?’ she taunted. ‘You do surprise me.’

‘Kelly!’ he warned angrily.

‘Were they all blondes?’

Jordan frowned. ‘Blondes?’

‘Well, you’re one of those men who prefer blondes.’

‘Then why did I marry you?’ He looked pointedly at her black hair.

‘I’ve thought of that myself, and I think you must have just had a temporary lapse. Anyway, that’s all past history,’ she dismissed curtly. ‘Do you want to stay here now or do you want me to?’

‘We were in the middle of a conversation,’ he told her grimly. ‘Neither of us is going anywhere until it’s finished.’

‘As far as I’m concerned we were finished years ago. Now are you going or staying?’

‘I’m staying.’

Kelly stood up. ‘Then I’m going.’ She bent to kiss her father gently on the cheek.

Jordan stood up too. ‘Don’t think this conversation is over, it’s far from that, but we’ll continue it at a more—convenient time.’ His last words were in the form of a warning.

Her head went back challengingly. ‘I’ll look forward to it. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.’

‘Kelly …’ he stopped her as she reached the door.

‘Yes?’ She turned to look at him, her breath catching in her throat at his blatant masculinity, the sexual magnetism he emitted without any visible effort on his part. He was thirty-nine now, and Kelly didn’t doubt that he would still be lean and attractive in twenty or thirty years’ time.

‘Didn’t you forget something?’ he asked softly.

She looked down at her handbag, the only thing she had brought with her. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she frowned.

‘I happen to think that you did.’ He came slowly towards her, a look of determination in his face.

Kelly started to back away, not liking that look at all. There was a definite air of threat about him. ‘Wh-what do you want?’

‘What do you think?’ he drawled, reaching out and pulling her slowly into his arms.

‘No …’ she had time to cry before his mouth claimed hers.

It was as if she were fainting, everything starting to spin, the only reality Jordan and the firm strength of his body. He crushed her to him, every bone in her body seeming to snap with the fierceness of him. His mouth ravaged hers into submission, kissing her like a man in a desert must grasp at a glass of sparklingly clear water.

Kelly’s hands clung to his shoulders, her body bent like a reed to the hard demand of his. It was like she remembered it being, the mad excitement that made her quiver, the inability to do anything other than kiss him back, standing on tiptoe to more than meet the response he demanded.

Suddenly his mouth gentled on hers, tasting her lips as if they were nectar, holding her head immobile by his hands in the silky softness of her hair, finding the sensitive nerve in her nape, groaning his satisfaction as she trembled against him. Jordan knew her body better than she knew it herself, knew everything that gave her pleasure—and he hadn’t forgotten a single thing!

Kelly’s sensibility returned to her with effort, and she wrenched away from him, breathing heavily as she gazed up at him with wide apprehensive eyes.

His hair was ruffled, a slight flush to his hard cheeks. ‘You’ll have to get some more meat on you before I do that again,’ he drawled, straightening his tie. ‘It’s like holding a sack of bones in my arms.’

Her eyes burned with a fierce anger. ‘Then don’t hold me! I would prefer for you never to touch me again.’

‘Can’t be done, I’m afraid,’ Jordan told her calmly. ‘You see, I like touching you, kissing you, I always did.’

‘Me, and a hundred other women!’

His mouth twisted. ‘There don’t happen to be a hundred other women here at the moment.’

‘Then wait until you get back to the hotel and pay Janet a visit!’ She closed the door decisively behind her as she left.

‘Ah, Mrs Lord,’ the young Sister who had been helping with the care of Kelly’s father smiled at her as they met in the corridor. ‘Your father is improving all the time.’

‘Yes,’ Kelly gave a jerky smile. ‘Jordan—my husband is with him now.’

‘Ah yes,’ the smile the other woman gave indicated that she had already met Jordan—and liked what she had seen. ‘You must be relieved that you were at last able to contact him so that he could come home and be with you.’

So that was the story Jordan had given them! ‘Yes.’ There was no point in disputing what he had told them.

‘He’s in with your father now, you said?’

‘Yes,’ Kelly confirmed.

‘I’ll take him in a cup of tea, shall I?’

‘He would like that. Thank you.’ Kelly gave a tight smile. Yes, Jordan would like that very much. This young Sister, Sister A. Fellows it said on her plastic name-plate, was a honey-blonde, and her uniform showed what a perfect figure she had, her legs long and shapely. Just Jordan’s type. It seemed to be that wherever she went there were women who were just his type!

Sister Fellows patted the smooth style of her hair. ‘I’ll see to it now. Perhaps I’ll see you later, Mrs Lord.’

But Kelly could tell the other woman was already thinking of her next meeting with Jordan. ‘Perhaps,’ she agreed tightly, walking away with hurried steps.

She had plenty of time to think when she got back to the hotel, plenty of time to think of the way Jordan had just kissed her. To say she had been surprised by the move was putting it mildly, it had been absolutely the last thing she had expected to happen.

Remembering the way she wouldn’t even let him touch her after losing the baby, she found it all the harder to accept that she had gone into his arms just now as if it hadn’t been five years since it had last happened.

She could still remember the last kiss Jordan had given her, his anger and utter frustration. Her father had duly arrived for dinner the night she had got home from hospital, and his shock on seeing her had been quite understandable.

‘It’s terrible, terrible,’ he kept muttering, obviously deeply upset.

‘Yes,’ Jordan had finally put a stop to this, ‘but there’ll be other babies, in time.’

‘No!’ Kelly cried. ‘No more. Not ever.’

‘The doctor said there was no reason why you shouldn’t be able to have another baby in a year or so.’

‘Damn what the doctor said!’ she said shrilly. ‘I meant I don’t want any more.’

‘Of course you do,’ Jordan chided, doing his best to keep his temper with her. ‘You’ve always wanted children.’

‘Not yours,’ she spat at him. ‘I don’t want any more children by you!’

‘Kelly——’

‘Keep out of this, David,’ Jordan ordered tautly. ‘This is between my wife and myself.’ His narrowed eyes fixed on Kelly. ‘Are you saying you don’t want to sleep with me any more?’

‘Jordan, I don’t think——’

‘Stay out of this, David!’ he was told fiercely. ‘If you don’t like the conversation then go and wait for us in the lounge.’

‘Yes, do that, Daddy.’ Kelly’s defiant gaze hadn’t left Jordan, the naked fury in his face.

‘Jordan——’

‘Just leave us for a while, David,’ Jordan had told him, and with extreme reluctance he had finally done so. ‘Now,’ Jordan once more turned to her, ‘just say what you have to say and let’s have this out in the open.’

‘I’m leaving you,’ she told him calmly. ‘Tonight. Right now. I’m going home with my father.’

‘And you think I’ll let you do that?’

‘I know you can’t stop me,’ she said coldly.

‘Like hell I can’t!’ His chair went back with a clatter as he stood up from the dining-room table, pulling her to her feet too. ‘There’s always been one way I can reach you.’ His mouth came ruthlessly down on hers.

Kelly had stoood like ice as he devoured her with a restless hunger, trying his damnedest to evoke a response in her. But she hadn’t given him one, had been revolted by his touch as she thought of him kissing Angela Divine in exactly the same way.

Finally he pulled back, thrusting her away from him with a moan of self-disgust. ‘So you can’t even kiss me now,’ he sneered. ‘Okay, go with your father, and when you come to your senses give me a call. I’ll come and bring you back to me, where you belong.’

‘I belong to no one,’ she snapped icily. ‘Especially you. I hate you!’

‘And God knows that at this moment I hate you too!’ Jordan slammed out of the room, and seconds later out of the house too, the silence deafening after his departure.

Her father had tried to persuade her to leave it for a few days, to give herself time, but she had refused, packing a suitcase and leaving with him before Jordan returned.

Maybe Jordan’s question this afternoon about why she had never gone back to him had been referring to that scene. He had left the door open for her it she ever wanted to go to him. But she hadn’t even thought about it, had travelled with her father on business, had been his hostess in his Hampshire home. Going back to Jordan had never occurred to her.

Then why had it occurred to her now?

Kelly was sitting with her father when he woke up late the next afternoon. She had been talking to him as usual, had been telling him of her confusion about Jordan.

Jordan had been right, they saw little of each other, and when they did meet he was always coolly polite, almost as if that incident in this very room had never happened.

It was as she was telling her father this that his eyelids had begun to flicker, his lips to move slightly. When his eyelids suddenly opened Kelly almost burst into hysterical sobs, pressing the button by the bed to bring the doctor to the room.

She stood up, smiling down tremulously at her father. ‘Daddy?’ she said huskily, her tears choking in her throat. ‘Daddy, it’s Kelly.’

‘Hello, darling,’ he spoke as if he hadn’t been unconscious for the last five days, as if he had just woken up from an afternoon nap. ‘What time is it?’

She looked at her watch. ‘Four o’clock in the afternoon. How do you feel?’

‘Well, I’ve got a headache,’ he grimaced. ‘And I’m thirsty.’

‘A good sign.’ The doctor who was in charge of her father’s case entered the room, a tall, loose-limbed man of indiscriminate age. His face was young, but his hair was sparse and streaked with grey.

‘Good afternoon, Doctor,’ Kelly’s father greeted politely. ‘Where’s that son-on-law of mine?’

‘You remember him being here, Daddy?’ Kelly said excitedly.

He turned puzzled eyes on her. ‘No, I can’t say that I do. But it follows that if you’re here then so is Jordan. I’m sorry I interrupted your holiday, darling.’

She frowned. ‘But, Daddy——’

‘Could I examine your father alone, Mrs Lord?’ the doctor interrupted. ‘You can talk to him in a few minutes. Perhaps you would like to telephone your husband while you’re waiting.’

‘Oh yes, yes, of course.’ She squeezed her father’s hand. ‘I won’t be long, Daddy.’

The telephone at the hotel suite was answered by Janet Amery. ‘Mrs Lord?’ she acknowledged. ‘Yes, Mr Lord is right here,’ she said in answer to her query.

‘Kelly?’ Jordan’s sleepy voice came on the other end of the telephone line.

‘Resting, Jordan?’ Kelly asked bitchily.

‘You know damn well I’m not,’ he rasped. ‘Janet and I have some work to get through.’

I’ll bet!’ Kelly scorned.

He sighed wearily. ‘What do you want, Kelly?’

‘Oh, oh yes.’ She had momentarily forgotten her reason for calling him on finding him with his beautiful secretary. Janet Amery was quite a nice girl, actually, and yet the intimacy of her relationship with Jordan precluded Kelly becoming friends with her. ‘Daddy’s awake,’ she explained.

‘Why the hell didn’t you say so in the first place?’ he snapped impatiently. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

He got there so quickly that he arrived before the doctor had even finished examining her father. ‘How is he?’ he demanded to know immediately.

‘Quite well, actually, although a bit confused.’

‘That’s only to be expected,’ Jordan dismissed, sitting down beside her in the waiting-room.

‘I suppose so,’ Kelly agreed slowly. ‘But he seems to think I’ve been on holiday.’

‘Well, you did just get back from France.’

Kelly didn’t ask how he knew that, no doubt he had his sources. ‘That wasn’t a holiday, Daddy was working the whole of the time we were there.’

Jordan shrugged. ‘Confusion, as you said.’

‘I’m not so sure——’ She broke off to look anxiously at the doctor as he emerged from her father’s room.

Jordan stood up. ‘Doctor,’ he politely shook hands with the other man.

‘Mr Lord,’ Michael Jones nodded.

Kelly joined then. ‘How is he?’ she asked eagerly.

‘Would you both like to come along to my office?’ the doctor invited. ‘We can talk more freely there.’

She could barely control her impatience as they all became seated in the ward office. Was there something wrong? Was her father more ill than they had first thought?

The doctor took his time, fiddling idly with the paperweight on his desk. ‘I realise this may seem a strange question,’ he said finally. ‘But could you tell me how long the two of you have been married?’ he spoke to Jordan.

Jordan looked as puzzled at Kelly. ‘Five years. Why?’

‘Mm, just as I thought,’ the doctor nodded, his expression grave.

‘What is it?’ Kelly’s voice was shrill. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing too serious,’ Dr Jones instantly assured her. ‘But serious enough. It seems that the bump on your father’s head caused slightly more damage than we first suspected.’

‘But you said there was no fracture——’

‘There isn’t, Mrs Lord,’ the doctor soothed her. ‘You see,’ he took a deep breath, ‘your father, he—well, he—A few minutes ago he apologised for interrupting your holiday, remember?’ he quirked one eyebrow at her.

‘Yes,’ she nodded frowningly.

He sighed. ‘The holiday he referred to was your honeymoon. I’m afraid this bump on his head has caused your father to have a slight lapse of memory.’

‘Which means?’ Jordan prompted impatiently.

‘Which means Mr Darrow has, temporarily we hope, lost five years of his life. As far as he’s concerned the two of you have just returned from your honeymoon.’

CHAPTER THREE

KELLY was stunned, speechless. Her father had lost his memory! Well, not all of it, just the relevant part that would tell him she and Jordan were no longer together.

‘He has to be told,’ she said unthinkingly, looking up at the doctor. ‘He’ll have to be told that Jordan and I——’

‘I doubt it’s wise to tell him anything?’ Jordan interrupted coldly. ‘Am I right, Dr Jones?’

‘Quite right, Mr Lord,’ the other man nodded gravely. ‘At the moment he simply couldn’t cope with the knowledge that five years of his life are total blackness to him. His heart condition——’

‘Heart condition?’ Kelly repeated dazedly. ‘I don’t know of any——’

‘I know,’ Jordan acknowledged. ‘David told me about it years ago.’

‘How many years ago?’ she demanded to know.

‘About four.’ he replied calmly.

Dr Jones nodded. ‘That would be about the time he first found out about it.’

‘But I wasn’t told,’ Kelly said dully. ‘My father said nothing to me.’

‘He probably didn’t want to worry you,’ the doctor excused. ‘After all, he’s still a young man, he wouldn’t see any necessity for telling you of something that may never happen, to worry you unnecessarily.’

‘Now that he’s lost his memory he probably doesn’t even know about it himself,’ she pointed out bitterly.

‘I would say it’s a certainty that he doesn’t, which is all the more reason why he must receive no undue shocks. Normally he knows to avoid any unnecessary stress or strain, without the knowledge of his condition he won’t take the necessary precautions, so we must try to protect him all we can.’

‘But how long will he be like that?’ Kelly sat forward in her seat. ‘How long before he remembers?’

The doctor shrugged. ‘It could be hours, days, even weeks. I have no way of telling.’

‘Weeks?’ she echoed. ‘But he—In the meantime what do we do?’

‘The safest thing is to act as if it really were five years ago. His memory will come back of its own accord, if we try to force the issue it would in all probability make things worse.’

‘But we can’t—Jordan and I—we don’t——’

‘What my wife is trying to say,’ Jordan cut in dryly, ‘is that she and I are separated.’

A ruddy hue coloured the other man’s cheeks. ‘I see,’ he said slowly. ‘That makes things a little difficult.’

‘In what way?’ Jordan’s eyes were narrowed.

‘Mr Darrow has no other injuries other than the cut on the head. Medically he’ll be able to leave hospital in a few days’ time. Normally he would go home to you, I wouldn’t recommend that he be alone at the moment. But if you’re divorced——’

‘We aren’t divorced,’ Jordan put in smoothly. ‘Just separated, as I said.’

‘I see. Then perhaps it would be possible after all.’ He stood up in preparation of ending the meeting. ‘I strongly recommend that you seriously consider a temporary reconciliation for Mr Darrow’s benefit. Obviously I can only advise you …’

‘Obviously,’ Jordan accepted dryly. ‘We’ll discuss the problem and let you know what we decide.’

‘I’m not going back to living with you,’ Kelly told him as soon as they were alone.

‘I knew you’d say that,’ Jordan said disgustedly, standing up to pace the room. ‘As usual you’re only thinking of yourself.’

‘I’m——’

‘You’re a selfish little bitch!’ he dismissed. ‘You always were. You aren’t thinking of your father at all, are you? Think what will happen if he suddenly finds out that far from being an ecstatic couple just back from our honeymoon we’ve in fact lived apart for the past five years.’

An angry flush coloured her cheeks when he called her a selfish bitch, but the rest of what he said basically made sense. ‘We can’t turn the clock back,’ she said desperately, knowing that she couldn’t live with him, especially after responding to that kiss yesterday. She would be leaving herself open to further attacks of that sort.

Jordan’s expression was cold and removed. ‘I’m not proposing we turn the clock back, I wouldn’t want that either. Marrying you at all was sheer madness, I should have had more sense. No, we won’t be returning to that, Kelly, but I’m willing to make a show of things for the sake of my friendship with your father. Of course, the ultimate decision lies with you.’

‘I—I can’t think! I don’t want to be with you any more than I have to, and yet—There’s my father! I don’t want him harmed.’

Jordan’s expression was remote. ‘You don’t have to decide now, I doubt if he’ll be discharged for a while.’

‘Couldn’t you—well, couldn’t you go away on business or something?’ she looked hopeful.

‘That wouldn’t be the natural move of a man just back from his honeymoon,’ he derided.

‘No,’ Kelly agreed reluctantly.

Jordan sighed his impatience with her. ‘Let’s go in and see him now. You can think about this other business later.’

Think about it! She wouldn’t be able to do anything else. The last two days of knowing Jordan was here had been bad enough, if she had to actually put on a show of living with him, of loving him, she didn’t think she would be able to cope with it. The whole idea of it was ridiculous!

And yet what other solution could there be? At least Jordan was willing to be co-operative, which he didn’t have to be. After all, it couldn’t be all that convenient for him to suddenly, to all intents and purposes, become a husband again. Janet Amery was just one of the women he would have to explain this strange occurrence to; there could be numerous others. Knowing Jordan there would be.

‘Don’t think about it now,’ he ordered tersely as he looked down at her and saw her pensive expression. ‘Try and look the ecstatic bride,’ he added derisively.

Her eyes flashed violet. ‘I’m trying to remember what it was like to be naïve about you!’ she snapped insultingly. ‘And I can’t think how I could have been taken in by you.’

‘I can tell you that in one word, Kelly—sex,’ he scorned.

She gasped. ‘That’s a lie!’

‘You enjoyed being made love to,’ his gaze ran slowly over her body, his mouth quirked in a humourless smile. ‘And I enjoyed making love to you.’

Her eyes sparkled, her mouth set in an angry line. ‘For a time,’ she nodded. ‘Until I bored you. I can’t think why you married me.’

‘Can’t you?’ he drawled, casually flicking her dark hair back from her cheek.

‘No!’ she snapped, flinching away from his long sensitive fingers.

‘For a very good reason, Kelly.’ He strode out of the office.

She hurriedly followed him, her short legs having trouble keeping pace with his much longer ones. She looked up at him questioningly. ‘What was the reason?’

Jordan suddenly stopped dead, causing several other people in the corridor to give them curious looks. ‘Now listen, Kelly,’ his voice was harsh. ‘The time to ask for these explanations was before you walked out on me and our marriage. I certainly don’t intend having a postmortem on it now.’

‘Why have you never divorced me, Jordan?’

‘Why?’ he laughed softly, unpleasantly. ‘Quite simply you’ve proved a valuable deterrent.’

‘Deterrent …?’

‘To any other woman who thought she might like to be my wife,’ he explained tauntingly. ‘Now smile, my love,’ he drawled mockingly. ‘We’re going in to see your father.’

‘But——’

‘Smile, Kelly!’

She did so with extreme difficulty, resenting the way he deliberately laced his fingers through hers, the smile of intimacy he gave her as they went into the hospital room.

Her father was very pale, although he brightened somewhat as they came in. ‘Did you enjoy Barbados?’ his eyes twinkled merrily.

Kelly’s blush was perfectly genuine. ‘It was very nice,’ she told him in a stilted voice.

Jordan’s fingers tightened painfully on hers before he released her hand, putting his arm about her shoulders and pulling her against his side. ‘Kelly’s shy,’ he told her father. ‘In actual fact we hardly left our villa,’ he smiled down at her, a warning in his eyes.

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