Burning Obsession

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.