The Jilted Bridegroom

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘They said that when you did the drug-addiction stories last year you actually took drugs yourself.’ She frowned at the danger of that much dedication, important as it was to expose the people who pushed and sold those drugs.

  ‘Never!’ he denied harshly, making a visible effort to regain his composure as he realised he had briefly lost it. ‘I wouldn’t get involved in that destruction for any price. No, Sarah,’ he shook his head, ‘I just gave a good impression of being involved. I was lucky enough to get away with it. Most of the people in that business play dirty.’ He frowned, the humour he made such an effort to maintain once again pushed aside in favour of a stronger emotion, anger this time. ‘Very dirty,’ he added grimly.

  ‘Is it worth risking your life just to get a story?’ She shook her head.

  His mouth quirked, the warmth back in his eyes, making Sarah wonder if she had imagined the cold anger in his face a moment ago. Looking at him now, lazily relaxed, it was hard to imagine him being anything else. He looked like a man who enjoyed life to the full.

  He tapped her lightly on the end of her nose with one long, tapered finger. ‘All of life is a gamble, little one,’ he drawled. ‘And if I didn’t achieve more than getting a story for all that effort maybe it wouldn’t be worth it,’ he added seriously. ‘But if it means just one of those ba—one pusher,’ he amended tautly, ‘can be put behind bars then that’s reason enough for me to take the risk. I can’t believe that you, as a nurse, don’t have a similar opinion,’ he cajoled.

  She did. Of course she did. But, ‘I don’t risk my own life trying to do something about it.’

  ‘You can’t seem to make up your mind whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing,’ he said teasingly. ‘Let’s forget about all that,’ he dismissed firmly. ‘And you can answer me a question that’s been puzzling me ever since I got here.’

  Sarah couldn’t look away from the warmth of those tawny-coloured eyes, mesmerised by their depths, held captive by the deep gold flecks within the light brown. ‘Yes?’ she prompted huskily.

  He grinned, the cleft looking twice as endearing. ‘Where the hell is Jasper?’ His mouth quirked with humour. ‘I haven’t seen the little devil since I arrived.’

  Sarah gave him a slightly scathing look for the frivolousness of the question after they had been talking so seriously. But then, maybe this was his answer to not being completely destroyed by the horrors of life that he wrote about. As a nurse, she too had to deal with life or death situations which, if she’d allowed herself to become too emotionally involved, could have driven her completely insane.

  ‘Mrs Major felt it would be better if her cat went to board at his usual place while she was away,’ she dismissed, just glad that Clarissa hadn’t volunteered her to look after the damned cat too! ‘Apparently, he needs a lot of care, and—’

  ‘Virginia has created a monster,’ he acknowledged. ‘It comes of not having any children, I believe.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that.’ Sarah was deliberately evasive, not wishing to get into a discussion about the other woman’s private life with a man who was, at least to her, a complete stranger. Even if he did seem to know Virginia Major and her lifestyle very well.

  It was in what capacity he knew the other woman that kept niggling away at her.

  She gave him a searching look, seeing past the humour and charm to the rugged leanness of his body, the sensual knowledge in his eyes. In his mid-thirties, there was no doubting that he was devastatingly attractive.

  But just where did Virginia Major fit into his life? Or, rather, he into hers, as he appeared to be the one who was a guest in her villa?

  The other woman was older than him by at least ten years, possibly as many as fifteen. But she was still a beautiful woman, had a sexily voluptuous figure that showed to advantage in the fashionably flattering clothes she always wore, her hair still silkily blonde, her face youthfully beautiful with the aid of expertly applied make-up.

  Sarah knew little or nothing about the other woman’s personal life, and she knew that much to her chagrin, Clarissa hadn’t been able to find out a lot about her private life either. Not that she hadn’t tried!

  Sarah wasn’t too proud of the suspicions she now had concerning the relationship between Griff Morgan and Virginia Major, but she couldn’t help wondering if the reason the other woman had kept so much to herself while living here was because she preferred the friends she had made while living in England—one very special ‘friend’ in particular. Goodness knew, Virginia Major would be far from the first woman to make a fool of herself over some unsuitable man. Who knew that better than Sarah herself?

  Tawny-coloured eyes were narrowed on her as she looked up at Griff, his expression questioning. ‘Is there something wrong?’ He frowned.

  ‘Nothing at all,’ she denied briskly, breaking his gaze abruptly. ‘I really must finish up here and be on my way; I promised Stephen that I would take him swimming before lunch.’ And there was likely to be a temper tantrum if she didn’t keep her word. Of the three children Stephen was most like his mother, given to venting his temper if he didn’t get his own way.

  Living in such close contact with Clarissa these last ten days had certainly given Sarah a new insight into the woman who had always seemed so beautiful and charming on the few occasions she had been visiting Sarah’s mother at the same time as Sarah herself.

  ‘Look, if you would like to finish watering the plants while I throw on some clothes,’ Griff suggested briskly, ‘we can carry on talking over a cup of coffee.’

  ‘And how would—your friend, Mrs Major, feel about that?’ Sarah voiced her thoughts about that relationship, having no intention of becoming a bone of contention between the two over the simple sharing of a cup of coffee!

  ‘Virginia?’ He sounded surprised that she should even come into consideration over the casual suggestion. ‘She wouldn’t mind your having— Ah,’ he nodded slowly as her meaning sank in. ‘My friend Virginia,’ he repeated in amusement. ‘Well, I really don’t think she could object to my offering you a cup of coffee. And I’ve never known her to be the possessive type.’ He looked Sarah over speculatively. ‘So if you’re lonely during your stay here…’

  Sarah’s cheeks became flushed at the innuendo. ‘Just because you’re having an affair with a woman almost old enough to be your mother is no reason to think you can insult me!’ she bit out scornfully.

  ‘I wasn’t insulting you, Sarah,’ he mocked. ‘Far from it. Some women would have seen my suggestion as a compliment.’

  ‘Well, I’m not one of them!’ She shuddered at the thought of it; out of the frying-pan into the fire!

  ‘Obviously,’ he drawled derisively. ‘And I’m sure Virginia wouldn’t appreciate that remark you made about her being almost old enough to be my mother; she’s only in her forties.’

  ‘Still far too old for you,’ Sarah maintained stiffly.

  ‘I believe she might prefer to be called experienced rather than old,’ Griff taunted. ‘And don’t mock the fact that I stay here often between stories; my name may be known worldwide, all my expenses paid by my newspaper, but reporters themselves don’t actually earn that much money, and when I’m not working I like to enjoy life.’ He shrugged. ‘As you can see, by this villa, the pool out back, Virginia is rich enough to ensure that I do that.’

  Sarah looked at him with distaste as his meaning became clear. ‘And in return for providing all this luxury she gets you,’ she said with contempt. ‘I never imagined Griff Morgan as no more than a kept man!’

  ‘Well, now you know,’ he mocked.

  ‘Now I know,’ she echoed with disgust. ‘I think I had better be going.’ She turned to leave, totally disillusioned with the way this incredibly talented man chose to live. ‘I can finish watering the rest of the plants tomorrow.’ When he wouldn’t be here, she hoped!

  ‘Yes—you mustn’t keep Stephen waiting,’ he derided softly, following her out to the hallway. ‘I’d rather be answerabl
e to a beautiful woman like Virginia than a spoilt child,’ he softly mocked her.

  ‘Then that’s where we differ.’ She turned to glare at him as she reached the door, her head tilted back as he stood too close to her, the dark hair completely dry now, curling softly over his forehead and ears. ‘I only have another two and a half weeks of this to put up with, and then I’m never going to be answerable to this particular spoilt child again.’ She was only seeing it through this time because she knew her mother would never forgive her if she supposedly let down her good friend Clarissa. Sarah’s own sense of family loyalty was enough to make her see through what was turning into a hellish holiday.

  She shook her head impatiently at Griff Morgan. ‘I never would have believed this of you. All of your articles have dealt with a freedom of some kind, and now it turns out you’re no better than a—a gigolo yourself!’ Her eyes were full of the disillusionment she had suffered through this knowledge. This man had always seemed to represent a certain truth, a freedom, and yet he sold his own principles for a life of comfort and physical indulgence whenever he required it.

  ‘I am?’ He seemed amused at the prospect. ‘Maybe I should do a story based on that very subject.’

  Her eyes flashed her disgust. ‘You certainly wouldn’t have to go very far for the research!’

  She was still shaking with anger by the time she got into the hire-car Clarissa and Roger let her use to drive over here, colour darkening her cheeks as she turned from reversing down the driveway to find Griffin Morgan watching her from the open doorway of the villa, completely unconcerned by the fact that he still only wore a towel draped about his hips to hide his nakedness!

  She dragged her gaze away with effort, unable to deny his undoubted attraction, despite knowing what she now did about his personal life.

  Unfortunately, much as she tried, she couldn’t shake the man from her thoughts for the rest of the day. She had never met anyone quite like him before, and she found herself indulging in thoughts of him at the most inopportune moments, only giving half her usual attention to Stephen, a fact he took full advantage of by being more unruly than normal, culminating in his pushing a newly oiled Sally into the pool, the water a cool shock to her skin. Her outraged screams woke Clarissa up as she slept on one of the loungers beside the pool, and even the easygoing Roger looked irritated by the commotion as he rushed from inside the villa to see what all the noise was about.

  Sally created such a fuss that Sarah was left feeling the one responsible for the whole incident, Stephen gently but indulgently scolded by his mother for his ‘teasing’!

  ‘Just ignore Sally,’ Ben advised as Sarah prepared a salad for dinner, her movements controlled as she did her best to hold on to her own temper—and her tongue!

  Ignore that spoilt little madam! Sarah knew what she would like to do with the young girl—with the whole family, in fact.

  Of them all Ben was undoubtedly the nicest, often taking pity on her and helping her out with the numerous jobs that seemed to be included under the liberal title Clarissa had given her of ‘family help’.

  Sarah knew she wouldn’t have got herself into this situation at all if she hadn’t thought a break away from England was exactly what she needed right now. Not ‘what the doctor ordered’ certainly; Simon had been furious at her plans to go to France for a month, but it had been his very anger that had given her the impetus to accept Clarissa’s offer in the first place.

  He had a lot to answer for!

  It was almost nine o’clock that evening before she really had a chance to sit down and relax, indulging herself with the English newspapers that had been purchased that morning. They were one day old, but this reminder of home, of a promised end to this so-called ‘working holiday’, was another one of the things that kept her from telling Clarissa what she thought of her and her spoilt family.

  Sarah gave an inward gasp at the picture of Griff with a smilingly lovely woman at his side on the third page of the first newspaper she opened. The story that accompanied the photograph made her gasp even more.

  Saturday should have been Griff Morgan’s wedding-day!

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE woman standing at Griff’s side in the photograph was his fiancée, Sandra Preston, the daughter of the owner of the group of newspapers Griff worked for. Griff had waited at the altar for his bride for almost an hour, finally having to accept that she had no intention of arriving.

  My God, no wonder he had seemed so cynical and—and yes, slightly reckless today. Sarah wasn’t to have known it at the time, but that cynicism, at least part of it, obviously came from the recent hurt he had suffered at the hands of his fiancée, and in such a humiliating way.

  How could any woman leave a man standing at the altar in that way, knowing she had no intention of joining him there?

  It said in the newspaper article that Sandra Preston had gone off to the family home in the Bahamas to ‘get away for a while and think’, and the reporter wondered where the jilted bridegroom had disappeared to. In fact, the headline of the story was, ‘Where are you, Griff?’

  Sarah knew exactly where the jilted bridegroom was. He was staying at the villa of another woman, a beautiful older woman who— Bridegroom… wedding…? Virginia Major had gone to London to attend her brother’s wedding!

  Oh, dear God, Griff Morgan had to be that brother; it would be too much of a coincidence for it to be any other way.

  Not that Sarah could exactly blame him for letting her go on assuming the couple were lovers rather than siblings; she had made that conclusion on only a few minutes’ acquaintance, and, after Griff’s recent disillusionment, he must have just decided it was yet another kick in the teeth from a woman.

  It was no good telling herself it wouldn’t have happened at all if she hadn’t been feeling so angry and frustrated by all the Forbes family. There was no excuse for the things she had said to Griff, for the assumption she had made; she had just been taking out her bad temper on him.

  He must have been angry himself after the hurt and humiliation he had so recently been put through.

  She put the newspaper down and stood up. ‘I—I think I’ll just go out for a stroll,’ she announced to no one in particular, knowing that each member of this family was so self-engrossed that it wouldn’t matter to any of them what she did—as long as none of them wanted something doing in her absence!

  Clarissa looked up from the magazine she had been flicking through, a tall leggy redhead, still very beautiful, despite being in her early forties. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Sarah,’ she dismissed scathingly. ‘You’ll get eaten alive by the bugs out there!’

  ‘Oh, but—’

  ‘Besides,’ the other woman added firmly, ‘Roger and I are going down to Cannes shortly, so I’ll need you to stay here with the children.’

  There were the usual protests at being called a child from Ben and Sally.

  Sarah felt like protesting herself. She had spent almost every evening of their stay with the children while Clarissa and Roger went off to one night-spot or another. The couple usually arrived back in the early hours of the morning, and then spent the following day sleeping it off in the sunshine.

  Roger himself gave a groan of protest at this proposal, a much less social person, but the protest was quickly talked down by his much more dominating wife.

  Sarah knew she might as well give up any idea of going for a walk tonight.

  ‘Never mind, Sarah,’ Ben grinned at her, as darkly good-looking as his company-director father, but with more of his mother’s vivacity for life, ‘you can beat us at dominoes if you like!’

  That was the extent of her own night-life on this holiday!

  But she gave a weary nod of acceptance as Sally flounced off to her bedroom after requesting to go into Cannes with her parents and being firmly refused.

  Loud music soon blared out from her bedroom, and Sarah gave an inward plea for it not to wake Stephen—he would be awake half the night once he was disturb
ed. And, consequently, so would she!

  But her mind was far from on the game of dominoes, the subject of Griff Morgan uppermost in her thoughts. She felt so awful about the way she had behaved with him now. And what sort of woman was Sandra Preston to do such a thing to him?

  ‘Don’t wait up for us, Sarah,’ Clarissa told her coyly when she emerged from changing a short time later, her black dress clinging to her revealingly, her hair loose about her shoulders, her make-up heavier than she wore during the day. ‘We expect to be late!’ she added suggestively, clinging to Roger’s arm as the couple left the villa.

  No, Sarah frowned, she refused to believe there could be another woman like Clarissa. And yet Sandra Preston’s behaviour seemed vaguely familiar in its selfishness…

  * * *

  She couldn’t escape thoughts of Griff Morgan the next day either, wishing the time away until she could go over to the neighbouring villa, but knowing she would have to see the Forbes family settled in relative peace about the pool before excusing herself to go to the Major villa and water the plants.

  It seemed a little out of place to use the key Mrs Major had left for her now; if Griff Morgan was still here—and she sincerely hoped he was!—then it could be a little awkward for both of them if she just walked in on him as she had the last time.

  This time he might not even have got to the stage of wrapping the towel about his waist!

  Sarah decided it might be wiser—and safer!—to knock on the door and wait to see if he answered it, moving restlessly on the doorstep as she waited for a response to her knock.

  There wasn’t one, and her disappointment was acute as she dejectedly let herself in with her key, coming to a startled halt as Griffin Morgan walked down the hallway towards her, wearing only a pair of bathing trunks this time!

  ‘Come in, Sarah Williams,’ he invited huskily, as she still stood in the doorway. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

  She swallowed hard, watching dazedly as he walked past her, the slight thud of the door closing behind her somehow seeming final—and irrevocable.