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Really? Her mind seemed determined to play devil’s advocate. Was she sure about that? Had Piers ever stirred her inner self in the way Morgan did? Piers had been like a beautifully wrapped gift that turned out to be an empty box, worthless and of no lasting value. Morgan, on the other hand, was like tough brown paper done up with string, which held something priceless inside.
The thought shocked her and she sat bolt upright in bed, telling herself she was being ridiculous. Her heart was pounding and there was a lump in her throat, the feeling that she wanted to cry uppermost. Her head was trying to tell her something.
If only he had swept her off her feet last night—literally—and carried her inside and up to bed and made love to her all night so the decision wasn’t hers. That was what most men would have done in his place. Then it would have been a fait accompli. No going back.
But Morgan’s dead right, isn’t he? the nasty little voice pointed out. If he’d done that she would have felt terrible in the cold light of day and probably hated him as much as she loved him. Loved him? Where on earth had that come from?
Her body went rigid. She didn’t love him. She hugged herself, shivering, but the chill was within. She did not love Morgan Wright. She wouldn’t be so monumentally foolish as to fall in love with a man who had made it clear from the outset that he wasn’t interested in permanency or for ever or anything remotely approaching it. A man who conducted his lovelife with a ruthless determination to stay clear of the trap of matrimony.
Willow sat for long minutes, her head whirling, and when she slid down under the covers again she gave a short mirthless laugh. She had to be the most stupid woman on the planet. How could she have gone from the frying pan into the fire? She had loved one man who had turned out to be so, so wrong; how could she have fallen for another who was equally wrong, if for different reasons? This couldn’t be happening.
What was she going to do? She lay, fighting for composure and telling herself she was not—she was not— going to cry. He didn’t know how she felt and she hadn’t, thank goodness, made the fatal mistake of sleeping with him, which would have complicated things further. She was his weekend ‘friend’; she had no idea what he got up to in the week and she didn’t want to know. She had to face the fact she was only on the perimeter of his life and that when this desire for her body he had spoken of began to fade, most likely their weekend dates would become less and less. And that was OK, it really was. It had to be.
Over the next few weeks this resolve was tested. Morgan had taken to calling her now and again in the evenings; pleasant, warm, amiable calls, which sometimes lasted as long as an hour. He’d ask her how she was and what she’d been doing before telling her about his day, putting an amusing slant on his conversation, which often had her giggling helplessly. And the weekends—oh, the weekends…He took her to the theatre and to the cinema; dancing at a couple of nightclubs in the first big town some distance away from the cottage, and for some delicious meals out. Other times they’d dine at his home, watch TV or listen to music, and take the dogs for long walks when the weather permitted.
On her birthday in October he whisked her off to a superb restaurant where he’d reserved a cosy table for two; presenting her with an exquisitely worked little gold and ruby brooch in the shape of a tiny fire over celebratory champagne cocktails—lest she forget how they met, he murmured with a quirk of a smile.
Willow grew to know Kitty and Jim well, discovering the couple were lovely people with hearts of gold. She was even able to distinguish each of the dogs by name after a while and appreciate their varying personalities. Although she was uncomfortably aware her love for Morgan was growing the more she got to know him, she couldn’t seem to do anything about it, and he seemed determined she did get to know him. He shared more of his thoughts and emotions each time they met or spoke to each other on the phone during the week, but on the other hand his lovemaking was more restrained if anything, often leaving her frustrated and unhappy once they’d parted.
Monday to Friday became an eternity each week; she felt the longing for Morgan’s presence like a physical pain. In spite of that she continued to ruthlessly dissect her feelings and was honest enough with herself to acknowledge part of her was relieved Morgan wasn’t a for-ever type. It kept things strangely safe. He wasn’t for her. And because of that she didn’t have to decide whether she could trust him completely or if she was seeing the real man—all of him.
It was on the first weekend of November, a weekend which had ushered in the new month with a sudden drop in temperature and hard frosts, the glinting sparkle of spider webs and satisfying crunch of stiff white grass proclaiming it was going to be a cold winter, that things came to a head. In hindsight, Willow knew she had deliberately engineered the conversation which led to the row that followed. Seeing Morgan had become so bittersweet, her nerves were stretched as tight as a drum.
