Burning Obsession. Carole Mortimer

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!’