‘Come and look at the view,’ Morgan said, rushing out to the terrace to help Carrie from the taxi Genifer had loaded her into. Morgan had already taken her case, it seemed. ‘In early spring it’s a ribbon of yellow mimosa between here and the sea.’
Normally so self-assured, it seemed to Carrie that Morgan was nervous now as he held out a hand towards her, as though he were anxious she might not take it.
But she did, allowing him to lead her through French doors and across a white marble tiled floor towards the window.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, slipping her hand from his. ‘There’s going to be a lovely sunset, I think.’
‘Without a doubt,’ Morgan said. ‘Oh, and I bought these for you. Sorry they look a bit droopy.’
He picked up a bunch of ranunculus – buttercup-type flowers in deep shades of yellow, orange and red. They were artistically wrapped in purple cellophane with a matching cascade of ribbons. The whole thing looked almost too beautiful to take apart.
‘They do look like they need water, poor things,’ she said. ‘Gorgeous colours. Thank you. Lead me to a vase and I’ll see if I can revive them.’
‘And then a reviving drink for us,’ Morgan said. ‘I’ve got champagne chilling.’ He picked up the bottle from its bucket of ice, twisted the cork, pulled.
‘More champagne?’ Carrie said. ‘Is that all anyone drinks down here?’
‘Or anything else you’d prefer,’ Morgan said quickly.
‘Champagne will be fine,’ Carrie said. ‘Seeing as you’ve already opened the bottle. I’m getting quite a taste for it. But just one glass – I’ve already had far too much with Gen in Monaco.’
‘Good, good. But before you even think it, I’m not trying to get you drunk. I’ve prepared a room for you.’
‘You didn’t have to do that. I can go to a hotel and pay with my credit card. You don’t have to put me up.’
‘But I do, Carrie. I invited you here and I hoped you would accept my hospitality. And besides, it’s a working holiday of sorts, because as you can see this room is in dire need of a radical makeover.’
‘Just a bit,’ Carrie laughed. She was hugging the bouquet, but lifted it away from her body and held it high in the air so that she had both arms to wave about the vastness of the space. ‘A room like this could take these deep shades. Which way does the sun come up in the morning?’
‘Over the sea. Now, have you brought something to make notes in?’ Morgan asked.
All the joy went out of the moment for Carrie – he’d only asked her here to work, hadn’t he?
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course.’
‘Oh my God!’ Carrie gasped.
The flowers having been placed in water, Morgan had shown her to her room, opened the door for her, and then closed it behind her before going back downstairs.
The room was enormous – twice the size of the room they’d been in downstairs.
But it wasn’t the room that had made Carrie gasp with surprise. On the bed, laid out beautifully, not a crease or a fold in it, was the kaftan she’d so admired, lusted after even, in Monte Carlo. Suddenly, Carrie was angry – angry with Genifer for going behind her back and buying it.
‘Morgan’s orders, no doubt!’ Carrie snapped the words out and walked towards the bed. Did he think he could buy her by buying her things?
Despite herself, and her deep misgivings about accepting it, she touched the fabric with a finger. Then she ran her hands over the silver embroidery.
It wouldn’t hurt to try it on, would it? And if it looked good on her she could always pay Morgan back – whatever it cost. She could work for half a day for nothing if that’s what it would take. No, correction – she would pay him back by whatever means.
So, after a hot shower in a bathroom that was bigger than Carrie’s sitting room back home in Farchester, she took a clean pair of white linen trousers from her case and put them on. Rummaging about in her case, Carrie realised she’d forgotten to put in a camisole – all she had was a few T-shirts and she couldn’t wear any of those underneath. But her best bra, she had put in. And as luck would have it, it was navy blue with just a tiny trace of lace and a few threads of silver embroidery – perfect.
Carrie was struggling to do up the clasp behind her back when there was a knock on the door.
‘Dinner in ten minutes, Carrie.’
‘Okay. Fine,’ she said, feeling anything but. She waited until she heard Morgan’s footsteps going down the wide wooden staircase to the floor below. Then she pinched herself hard on the back of her hand. ‘You really are here, then,’ she said, ‘and not in the middle of some sort of magazine romance?’
She giggled, the fastening of the bra taking longer than it ever had before.
Then she slid the kaftan down over her body, feeling the fabric caress her almost. It awoke all sorts of feelings in Carrie – the foremost of which was that although she knew she would resist sharing the big bed in this room with Morgan, she had a feeling she might be putty in his expert hands if he were to suggest it.
Chapter Nine
‘Wow!’ Morgan said as Carrie walked down the stairs towards him.
‘I’m going to pay you back,’ Carrie said. ‘I know this will have been expensive, but I will pay you back – I’ll work for half a day or whatever to cover the cost.’
‘You don’t have to, honestly.’
‘I want to. I love it so much.’
‘Good.’
She’d stopped walking and was now on the first step up, their heads more or less level.
‘You’ve caught the sun,’ Morgan said. He made to touch Carrie’s cheek but before their skins connected he whipped his hand away.
‘Have I?’
‘On your cheeks. You’ve got more freckles than you had when you arrived.’
‘Don’t remind me!’ Carrie said.
‘I think they’re lovely.’
‘You wouldn’t if you had them! You should see me in August – I’m more freckles than face.’
‘August isn’t far away,’ Morgan said. ‘I can wait. Now come and eat. Outside on the terrace all right for you?’
‘Lovely,’ Carrie said. She sidestepped around him across the tiles of the hall, the ceramic chill beneath her bare feet. She only had the pair of shoes she’d travelled in and they’d pinched her feet walking up and down the steep hills of Monaco.
‘This way, then,’ Morgan said. ‘Lobster salad to start with. And then there’s a lamb couscous warming in the oven. Apricot roulade for dessert.’
‘Is that all?’ Carrie said laughing.
‘And a cheese platter. Plus fruit. Ice cream if you’ve still got space.’
‘Don’t tempt me!’ she said.
‘What are your plans?’ Morgan asked, as Carrie helped herself to a huge mound of lobster.
‘How do you mean?’
‘For the future. Now that your mother seems to have got herself a beau.’
‘A beau? What a quaint, old-fashioned term! But I don’t know that that’s what he is. He’s been bringing her meals in the week from the hotel I order them from, that’s all.’
‘Hmm. It looked as though he was doing more for your mother than that from where I was standing!’
‘You don’t know anything about my mother. It’s going to take a special man to take her, and her medical problems, on.’
‘Maybe he is that man. Give him a chance, Carrie.’
‘I didn’t say I wasn’t,’ Carrie said. She grabbed a hunk of baguette and began buttering it thickly, roughly. ‘Paul hasn’t been around long enough for me to make any sort of judgement yet.’
She swallowed back a glass of champagne barely giving it a chance to touch the sides of her throat. Then she held out the empty glass towards Morgan and he refilled it for her. And she drank that too. Dutch courage.
‘Sometimes,’ Morgan said, refilling her glass again, ‘a man knows in the first second of meeting a woman that she’s the one for him.’
&n
bsp; ‘Not you though!’ Carrie laughed. ‘I saw that newspaper with the “Love at first sight” article in your waste bin, and you’d written “Rot!” across it in black felt tip!’
‘How do you know it was me?’ Morgan asked.
‘Got you! You’ve just fallen into the trap – that last sentence was as much of a confession as I’ll ever hear!’
‘Well then,’ Morgan said, ‘women give themselves away at times too.’ He reached under the table and brought out a piece of rolled paper. Slipping off the rubber band he smoothed out a drawing. ‘Someone, not a million miles from here, drew this.’ He waved the drawing at Carrie. ‘And I would bet the deeds of this villa that the subject of this drawing is me.’
‘Oh my God!’ Carrie said. ‘Where did you get that?’
‘I picked it up off my lawn. My lawn. So, I’m safe in saying it’s now mine.’
‘I must have dropped it. You weren’t ssup, sshup, shupposed to find it.’
‘I thought not,’ Morgan laughed. ‘And you’re a little drunk.’
‘No, I’m not! Can I have it back?’
Carrie held out her hands towards him, but instead of placing her drawing in them, he dropped it on the floor and instead folded his hands around hers.
‘No.’
‘Yes,’ Carrie said, wriggling her hands free. ‘It’s only a sketch. I was going to do an oil painting of you. For the drawing room in Oakenbury Hall. There ishn’t one of you in the house, I noticed, so I thought I’d paint one. As a preshent. For taking me on, sight unsheen, and letting me loose on your home.’
‘In that case,’ Morgan said, retrieving the drawing from the ground, ‘you can have it back. And now couscous, yes? To sober you up?’
‘Loads, please,’ Carrie said. ‘I think I’m going to need it to soak up thish lovely, lovely, champagne.’
‘I feel … shick,’ Carrie groaned. She felt like she was floating. And Morgan was very close to her, wasn’t he?
‘You won’t be sick, sweetheart,’ he said.
‘You’re shouting at me.’
‘No I’m not. My mouth is close to your ear, that’s all.’
‘I still think I’m going to be shick.’
‘I hope not. I’ve given you peppermint oil.’
‘Oil. Oil,’ Carrie said. ‘Gen says I’ll need oiling before sex.’
‘Gen said that?’
‘Yesh.’
‘Why?’
‘Becaushe … becaushe … I am almosht a born-again virgin.’
‘You’re a bit too drunk for sex right now.’
‘I’ll have to do it again shometime …’
‘And I’m not the man to take advantage of you, the state you’re in at the moment.’
‘Pleashe.’ Carrie made a pouty-kiss shape with her lips. ‘Gen says I’ve got to shtop thinking sho much. I’ve jusht got to be.’
‘Very wise words,’ Morgan said. ‘But perhaps not right at this moment. Now, here we are.’
Carrie felt herself sinking into something soft. She looked around the room, saw her clothes where she’d left them on the floor when she’d changed into the kaftan. She ought to tidy up, but she couldn’t move.
‘We can’t sit here like this all night, Carrie,’ Morgan said.
‘We’ll lie down then,’ Carrie said, suddenly throwing herself back on the bed. ‘I don’t shnore.’
‘Oh Carrie,’ Morgan groaned. ‘I’m not going to …’
‘Not going to …’ Carrie said, quite forgetting what she had intended saying.
‘Arms above your head, sweetheart,’ Morgan said. ‘Can’t let you mess up this lovely dress, can we?’
Gently, Morgan eased the kaftan up Carrie’s body, slid her arms from the sleeves, and pulled it over her head. Carrie moaned and rolled over onto her stomach.
‘You’re making this too easy for me, sweetheart,’ he said, as he unclipped her bra strap. ‘But you’ll probably hate yourself for it in the morning. And no doubt me as well. Roll back over, can you?’
‘Yesh, shir,’ Carrie said, doing as she was told, struggling to sit up at the same time. ‘Where are you taking me?’
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Morgan told her.
Then he kissed the top of her head before laying her gently back down on the bed, and covering her with the duvet.
‘Kith me again,’ Carrie said.
‘No,’ Morgan said. ‘Not now.’
Carrie finished showering, pulled on the robe she’d found folded neatly on the chair in the bathroom and tiptoed back to the bed. Oh my God! It was still only 7.37 a.m. –so the clock beside the bed told her.
She hoped she hadn’t woken Morgan – wherever he was. Then she saw her clothes neatly hanging on the wardrobe door. How had they got there? Had she taken them off – or had Morgan? She’d been naked when she’d woken up, and if truth were told she still felt warm and fuzzy – the way she’d felt last night sitting opposite Morgan on the terrace in the moonlight.
Carrie spun round towards the bed. Was Morgan in there somewhere? And if he was, what might she have let him to do her? Frantically, Carrie patted the mounds of the duvet but there was no one underneath. Then she heard a tap on the door.
‘Carrie? Are you okay?’
Morgan came into the room before Carrie could answer. He was carrying a tray with a cafétière of coffee and some croissants – as though he’d known she’d gone for a shower and was now back. And if he knew that then he’d been beside her in the bed all night, hadn’t he?
She plonked herself down on the bed as realisation hit her – she’d been drunk out of her mind, Morgan had brought her up to bed, helped her undress, hung up her clothes … and probably had sex with her as well, hadn’t he?
She pulled the belt of the gown tighter.
‘I’ve seen it all before,’ Morgan said.
‘That’s all right, then. You don’t need to see it again,’ Carrie said.
God, the sooner she could get out of here and get back to Farchester the better – she should never have come in the first place. Morgan had got her in a weak moment. Well, he wasn’t getting her in another one.
‘Need and want are two different things, Carrie,’ Morgan said.
‘Did … did …’ Carrie began.
‘I didn’t take advantage of your champagne-induced state if that’s what you were going to ask.’
‘I didn’t think for one moment you would have done, but …’ Carrie’s eyes strayed to her clothes hanging on the wardrobe. She felt herself burn up with embarrassment remembering she hadn’t put any knickers on because they spoiled the line of her linen trousers.
‘I’ve known enough women to know how clothes come off, how bra straps work,’ Morgan said. ‘So I did what needed to be done. That is a very expensive kaftan, after all.’
‘I’ll pay you back.’
‘You will?’ Morgan said, raising an eyebrow.
‘For the kaftan I mean. With money. In case you thought I meant something else.’
‘Well, last night you did make me a most tantalizing offer.’
‘I’ve just withdrawn it, whatever it was.’
Carrie leapt into the bed, pulled the duvet up high around her neck.
‘Oh, Carrie, you are so easy to wind up.’
‘Then stop winding me up,’ Carrie said. ‘I don’t usually get drunk and offer myself to men. Oh my God … I wasn’t sick, was I?’
‘No,’ Morgan said, ‘you weren’t. But you fibbed a bit.’
‘Fibbed?’
‘Fibbed. You said you don’t snore. But you do. Very loudly. All night. I’ve hardly slept a wink.’
Carrie put her face in her hands. This was getting worse and worse.
‘Go away,’ she said. ‘Please.’
How deeply un-sexy was snoring, for goodness’ sake?
‘Not until you’ve had some coffee.’
‘And then you’ll go?’
‘It all depends.’
On what, Carrie didn’t want to even t
hink about. She held out her hand for the cup of coffee Morgan had now poured. She’d cleaned her teeth but still her mouth felt dry from all the champagne. And, almost unbelievably, given what she thought she’d eaten last night – she had a vague memory of the sensation of sweet apricots and cream on her tongue – she was hungry. So the croissant would go down well.
‘We’ll get crumbs in the bed,’ Carrie said.
‘So we will,’ Morgan said, lifting the duvet on the other side of the bed to Carrie and getting in. ‘But it won’t matter because my housekeeper will be back later this morning to change the sheets.’
‘How much later?’ Carrie asked. The memory of Genifer urging her to go with the flow – just be – floated into her mind and refused to float out again. There was a very handsome man getting into the bed beside her right now. He’d already seen her with no clothes on, seen her drunk beyond belief, knew that she snored, yet still he wanted to share her bed.
And he’d been kind enough to make her coffee he knew she needed on the morning after the night before.
‘I could always ring and ask her to make it a bit later?’
‘Um,’ Carrie said, ‘I can’t make decisions on an empty stomach. Could I have a piece of croissant, please?’
‘With pleasure.’
Morgan broke off a piece of croissant and held it towards her lips. But it was a big bit – too big to get into her mouth at once. So Carrie placed her teeth around the croissant and as elegantly as she could – given she was shaking with fright at what her body was telling her she wanted of this man – she bit off a mouthful. But her lips touched Morgan’s fingers, and she didn’t want to take them away.
So she didn’t. Instead she swallowed the morsel of pastry and gently sucked on Morgan’s fingers.
‘Oh my God, Carrie,’ Morgan said, kissing her forehead, then her eyelids, then her nose, before covering her lips with his; his kiss urgent and probing.
His lips then found the side of Carrie’s neck and he half kissed, half sucked against her flesh.
‘Be gentle with me,’ Carrie whispered. ‘It’s been a long time.’
Gorgeous Reads for Christmas (Choc Lit) Page 34
