Flirting With the Forbidden (14 page)

Why had he even explained his past to Morgan? Where had that crazy impulse come from? Being side-winded after hearing that Michael was dead? Now he felt as if he was standing in front of her, his chest cracked open, and inviting her to wreak havoc. By allowing her inside he’d handed her his pistol and invited her to shoot him in the heart.

He was the closest he’d ever come to falling over that long cliff into love, and he couldn’t help thinking whether he would be feeling the same way if his father hadn’t died—if his feelings for her didn’t seem deeper because there was so much emotion swirling around him.

He just wanted to step away from this freakin’ soul-searching and get on an even keel again. He wanted to feel normal.

Morgan folded her arms across her chest. ‘Talk to me, Noah. Please.’

‘You’re not going to like what I say,’ he warned her.

‘Talk to me anyway,’ Morgan said, perching her butt on the side of the rickety dining room table. She stood in nearly the same place as he had when he’d taken a knife to his father’s throat...

He stared at the old television screen. ‘My parents are both dead and I should feel free. Except that I don’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re here.’

‘Do you want to explain that?’

Noah shoved his hand into his hair and tugged. ‘I don’t want you to think that just because you’re here we have something serious happening. I don’t want you thinking that we’re in some sort of relationship...’

‘We are. If nothing else, we are friends.’

‘Friends?’

Noah snorted, thinking that by allowing her to come with him he’d tied himself to Morgan, bound himself into some sort of relationship. He was furious that she’d pricked through his self-sufficiency and made him rely on her.

He looked around the room and felt anger whirl and swirl. ‘I left this place fifteen years ago and I swore that I would never feel vulnerable again. I vowed, after walking away from him, that I’d never feel weak again.’

Yet here he was, shortly before burying the person who’d taught him that lesson, putting himself in the same position. With her.

He was such a fool. He couldn’t,
wouldn’t
ever rely on someone else again...and this touchy-feely crap he had going on with Morgan stopped now.

‘I don’t want you here. I want you gone.’

Had he actually voiced those words? He must have because her head jerked back in shock and all colour drained from her face.

‘Noah...’

‘This—you and I—it stops. Right now.’

‘You’re tired and upset and not thinking straight,’ Morgan said after a moment, and he could see that she was trying to keep calm, desperately looking to keep the conversation, the situation, rational.

In normal circumstances her words might have jerked him back to sanity, but nothing about standing in his father’s filthy house, being bombarded with ugly memories and emotions, was normal. If he wasn’t in such a turbulent mood he’d readily admit that when it came to him she generally knew exactly what to say. How to make him laugh, think, want her with every breath he took.

He didn’t
want
to want her like this; didn’t want to deal with the tender emotions only she could pull to the surface. Didn’t want to deal with anything right now...

‘Why don’t I give you some space?’ Morgan sucked in her cheeks. ‘I’ll wait for you outside.’

Morgan turned to walk to the door but his harsh voice had her stopping just before she reached it. ‘No. I don’t want you to wait. I don’t want this—you—any more.’

He saw, maybe felt the shudder that rocketed through her, saw her head fall. He fought the urge to go to her, to soothe, to protect. The child in him protested that
he’d
never been soothed, protected.

‘I never promised you anything and I always said that I would leave.’

Morgan finally turned around, lifted her head and gave him a withering look. ‘Stop acting like an ass, Noah. I understand that this has been a rough time for you, but don’t take your anger out on the people who love you.’

Noah leaned backed and stretched out his feet. ‘So now you
love
me?’

Morgan’s eyes froze. ‘I’m not even going to dignify that with a reply. You’re angry and hurt and acting like a jerk. You’re just going through the stages of grief—albeit quicker than most. First shock, you skipped denial. and now you’re feeling angry.’

‘No, you’re looking for an excuse because you don’t want to hear what I’m saying.’

‘Which is exactly what, Noah? Put your cards on the table, Fraser.’

Well, okay, then. ‘I don’t want you in my life any more.’

‘That’s not how you felt this morning, last night, twenty minutes ago.’

That was the truth.

‘It’s how I feel now. I don’t like feeling this connected to someone—feeling like my heart wants to explode with joy just because you’re in the room. I want to feel normal again—me again... Not a twisted-with-emotion sap.’ Noah ground the words out, forcing them around his reluctant tongue. ‘I don’t want to love you! And I certainly don’t need you. I was perfectly fine on my own.’

He hadn’t been, his heart shouted, but he shut out its screams.

Morgan shook her head, blinked away the emotion in her eyes and bit her bottom lip. He felt lower than an amoeba infected with anthrax. What was wrong with him? He was tossing away the best thing in his life...
ever
.

‘Well, that was very clear.’

Morgan lifted her chin and he had to admire her courage.

‘Well, screw you and your lousy, spiteful, wimpy attitude.’ She grabbed her bag off the table and yanked it over her shoulder. ‘I’m going back to the hotel.’

Noah watched her take a couple of steps before remembering that she was still a target, Glasgow or not. ‘You can’t leave by yourself!’ he shouted.

Morgan bared her teeth at him and he was quite sure that her eyes were glowing red. He couldn’t blame her.

‘Watch me. I’d rather be kidnapped by rabid Colombians than spend one more minute with you!’

Noah stood up, pulled out his mobile and nodded, his face grim. ‘That’s easy to make happen.’ Pushing buttons, he held it up to his ear, and his voice was rough when he spoke. ‘Amanda?’ He waited a minute before speaking again. ‘Listen, I know that we’ve had our problems but do you have any agents in Glasgow who can take over Morgan Moreau’s protection detail?’ He waited a beat and spoke again. ‘No, I need him now. Like within the next half-hour...hour. You have? Great.’

Noah rattled off the address and bit his lip. ‘Thanks. Amanda. I think the threat level to her has mostly been neutralised. but tell him that if anything happens to her—if she breaks even a fingernail—he’s dead.’

Noah disconnected the call and slapped his mobile against the palm of his hand. He looked at Morgan, whose eyes were wide with shock, humiliation and hurt. He wanted to take her in his arms, apologise, but he knew that the smarter course of action would be to walk away from her while he still could. While his heart was still his and not walking around in her hands.

‘Your wish is my command, Duchess,’ he said with a mocking bow.

Now he just had to keep himself from hitting redial, cancelling the new bodyguard, gathering Morgan up and keeping her for ever.

It was the longest, quietest, hardest, most excruciating wait of his life, and when she walked out to the car with a kid who looked as if he should still be in school he stood in his old house, sank to the couch and, for the first time in fifteen years, cried.

TWELVE

A week
later Riley walked into Morgan’s studio, two cups in her hand, and Morgan sighed at the green logo of the twin-tailed mermaid on the cup. It was a mega hazelnut-flavoured latte, her favourite, and she needed it—along with Prozac and probably a padded cell.

‘Hey, I was just about to buzz you,’ Morgan said. ‘I need help.’

‘Okay.’ Riley took a seat on the stool next to her at the workbench. ‘You look like hell. Still crying?’

Morgan took a deep breath and nodded. ‘Yeah. You?’

‘Mmm... What a pair we are. You’ve heard the news?’

‘That James is on his way back from Colombia and a deal is imminent?’

‘Yeah.’

Morgan sighed and pointed out a word on her computer screen. ‘What’s this word?’

Riley bent down and peered over her shoulder. ‘Vichyssoise.’

‘Jeez, I can’t read in English and they throw French words in,’ Morgan grumbled. ‘Do you have some time? Can you go through this menu for the ball with me?’

‘Sure.’

She and Riley spent the next fifteen minutes discussing the ball, finalising the menu and the entertainment, the decorations and the ticket sales—which were going through the roof.

‘We also need to approve the design of the mannequin cages and we need Noah’s input there.’

Morgan stared at her fingers. ‘Feel free to call him. I won’t.’

She felt the tears in the back of her throat. His words from a week ago still bounced around her skull.

‘I don’t want you here any more.’

He’d preferred to face his demons alone than have her around. What did that say about her? She could understand him dumping her when they got back to New York, when he got bored with the sex, but she’d seen how much pain he’d been in, how he’d been struggling to deal with the memories of his past, and she’d thought that he’d want her there—that he wouldn’t want to go through that alone.

But, no, Noah hadn’t wanted her around.

All her life she’d tried to be good enough—for her family, for herself. She knew that she didn’t always reach the standard she’d set for herself, and mostly she was okay with that. But to be told, during such a sad time, that she wasn’t wanted or needed had lashed her soul.

She simply wasn’t good enough...

‘Horse crap, Morgan.’

She heard Noah’s words spoken at Bon Chance as clear as day and actually looked around for the source of that statement. When Riley didn’t react she looked inside herself and heard the phrase again.

‘The biggest, load of self-indulgent horse crap.’

Morgan almost laughed as emotion swelled inside her. She wasn’t sure where it came from, what its source was, but she recognised the power of it, saw the pure truth for the first time in a week, months—her entire life.

‘Bats on a freakin’ broomstick,’ she muttered.

‘Pardon?’ Riley looked up and frowned.

Morgan looked at her best friend and put her hand over her mouth in surprised shock. ‘What happened with Noah wasn’t about me...it was about
him
.’

‘Okay, I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Riley complained.

‘Him kicking me into touch wasn’t about me—wasn’t about me not being good enough. I just assumed it was because I always assume the worst about myself. I keep saying that it’s hard for people to deal with my dyslexia. but in truth I’ve never come to terms with it. And because of that I assume that everything is about me. My habitual reaction is to think that I’m not good enough, to think the worst of myself.’

Riley leaned back and clapped a slow beat. ‘Well, glory hallelujah, the child has seen the light.’

Morgan stood up and paced the area in front of Riley. ‘He told me what the problem was but I didn’t listen. He said that he didn’t like feeling so connected to me—something about his heart and feeling joy when I was around. That around me emotion twisted him up.’ Morgan pointed her finger at Riley. ‘
He’s
the one who’s scared, who doesn’t know what to do with me. He felt insecure and emotional and... Damn it, I’m going to smack him into next year!’

Riley smiled. ‘I’d like to see you try.’

‘He was hurting and not knowing why he was grieving for his father—the man was a waste of oxygen by all accounts—he didn’t know how to channel his emotion and he lashed out. He needed me, but he was scared to need me. Everyone else he needed had either left him or let him down. He had to push me away to protect himself.’

‘Look at you—you’re a female Dr Phil.’ Riley crossed her legs. ‘So, what are you going to do, Morgs?’

‘Go to him, of course. I might understand better, but I’m still mad that he kicked me into touch.’ Morgan smiled grimly. ‘Oh, I’m
so
going to kick some gorgeous SAS ass.’

Riley nodded. ‘That’s my girl.’

* * *

Back in London, in his favourite pub, Noah took a listless sip of his beer and looked up as his brothers sat down on the bar stools on either side of him. It seemed that Chris, who was outside taking a call, felt he needed reinforcements for the lecture he intended to dole out.
Wuss
.

Noah sent a look to the door and thought that he could get by Chris if he wanted to. He’d taken on a room full of Colombian thugs—nearly killing one in the process—and won.

Yeah, run away from this conversation like a coward, Fraser—like you did from Morgan
. Just to add to the long list of things he’d done lately that he wasn’t proud of.

Hamish slapped him on the back and placed their orders for drinks. ‘So, let me see if Chris has the story straight. You still haven’t spoken to Morgan and apologised?’

No small talk, no lead-up just...
pow!
‘Essentially.’

‘You really are a git, big bro’,’ said Mike, lifting his glass and toasting him. ‘Though admittedly it
is
nice to see that you have clay feet. But dumping Morgan...’ Mike leaned forward and frowned at him. ‘Did you get punched in the head? In other words,
are you freaking insane
?’

Noah lifted his hand to protest and saw that Chris had joined his merry group. ‘Thanks,’ he said, sarcastically. ‘Did they need to know?’

‘Sure they need to see their control freak big brother unhinged,’ Chris said on a smile.

‘I am
not
unhinged,’ Noah said through gritted teeth. Miserable and dejected, but still clear-thinking.

‘Mmm, that’s why you’re the model of efficiency at work.
Not
.’

‘You talk like a teenage girl,’ Noah muttered.

‘You’re acting like one,’ Chris countered.

‘And I am not unhinged! Unhinged was what I felt like when I saw that knife to her neck. When I contemplated what life would be without her...’ He hadn’t meant to add that.

‘You’re living a life without her,’ Mike pointed out. ‘And how’s
that
working out for you?’

‘Shut up, Oprah.’

Bloody awful, but the point was... What was the point? All he knew was that he was scared to love her, scared to lose her, and scared to live this half-life without her in it. He just wanted to go back to his life as it had been before he met her, when he’d been heartless and independent and unemotional.

When life had been easy and uncomplicated. It hadn’t quite worked out that way. Yet.

And he really didn’t want to have this conversation with his brothers and Chris. There was nothing wrong, in his opinion, with those old-fashioned men-to-men conversations, where they didn’t discuss emotions at all. But, no, he had to be saddled with three touchy-feely, new age guys who thought it was perfectly reasonable to discuss his broken heart.

‘The least you can do is talk to her,’ Hamish suggested.

‘Back off,’ he growled into his beer.

‘Either that or go to my bothy in the Highlands and lick you wounds in private,’ Chris suggested.

‘Will any of you follow me there and carry on bleating in my ear?’ Noah demanded.

They looked at each other, shook their heads. ‘Not for a day or two at least.’

‘Sold.’ Noah slapped his hands on the bar. It was exactly what he needed: time and solitude to think, recover and relive his time with Morgan.

No, that wasn’t right. To
get over
Morgan. Because that was what he had to do, the sensible thing to do.

* * *

Ten days from that momentous day—the one that had ended with Noah kicking her out of her life—and she was back in Scotland, Morgan thought, her hands on the wheel of the rental car. She was driving in a country halfway across the world.

James had worked out an agreement at the mine that was complicated and confusing, and the details of which she cared absolutely nothing about. What was important was that everyone was thoroughly convinced that the threat to their well-being was neutralised and her mother and father had come out of hiding thoroughly sick of each other. Her father had disappeared on a trip to investigate a mine in Botswana and her mother had started poking her nose into MI business and, more annoyingly, ball business. Situation normal there.

James and Riley were either snipping at each other, ignoring each other or avoiding each other. Situation... She didn’t even know how to categorise their situation...crazy?

The CFT guards—even more robotic than Noah—had gone back to being robotic with someone else and her apartment had become her own again.

Situation so very
not
normal there.

She hated it. She hated the silence and the fact that there was no one to drink wine with, chat with, curl up around at night, make sweet love to in the morning.

She missed him. With every breath she took. But more than anything else she was so steel-meltingly angry with him that he’d just walked away—because she couldn’t concentrate on a thing and because her stress levels were stratospheric.

She couldn’t design, couldn’t make decisions on the ball, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep.

She had a business to run, an important social event to organise, and after she’d given him many,
many
pieces of her mind she’d put him aside and resume her life—go back to normal. She was not going to beg, to tell him she loved him, adored his body, loved his generous, protective spirit. She wouldn’t tell him that she’d fallen in love with him eight years ago and never really stopped.
Dammit
.

Morgan felt the familiar cocktail of love and misery and anger churn in her stomach. How dared he throw comments mentioning joy and love at her head and then kick her out of his life? He was the most courageous man she knew except when it came to loving—
keeping!
—her. Well, she wasn’t just going to lie down and accept it...

Telling him where to get off and that she was worth taking a chance on were the
only
reasons she was on this godforsaken road in the middle of the Scottish Highlands, probably lost. Again.

Okay, depending on how wretched he was, she might let it slip that she missed him and that she loved him—maybe. Probably.

Morgan yawned and shoved her exhaustion away. She’d landed at Heathrow yesterday, threatened Chris with dismemberment if he didn’t tell her where he was and nearly bitten his head off when he’d offered to take her to the bothy close to Auterlochie. She could find it herself, she’d stated grandly, and now she wished she’d taken him up on his offer. Because this place was desolate, and it was getting dark, and there were scary cows with big horns that glared at her from the side of the road.

As night and the temperature fell Morgan saw the glimmer of a stone cottage off the road and wondered if this could possibly be the bothy Noah sometimes escaped to. There were no lights on in the house, and there wasn’t any sign of the deep green Land Rover Chris said he used up here.

There was only one way to find out, she thought, bunching her much hated map in her hand and storming up to the front door. After knocking and getting no response she found the door opened to her touch, and she looked around a large room: kitchen at one end, lounge at the other. Through the closed door she presumed there was a bedroom and bathroom. There were battered couches, one that held a jersey draped over its arm. Morgan picked it up and sighed when she inhaled Noah’s familiar scent.

The cabin was also ridiculously tidy, and she knew she was in the right place.

She loved him...but she was going to kill him when she saw him. For making her fall in love with him, for making her chase after him, for being a totally stupid, pathetically scared of commitment, moron
man.

‘
What? Not naked this time?’ Noah said from the doorway.

Morgan dropped the shirt and whipped around. Her heart bounced and then settled as her eyes drifted over him in the half-light of the cottage.

Kill him...slowly...

‘Can you put some lights on?’ Morgan asked politely.

‘Why?’

‘So that I can see your face when I scream at you.’

Morgan blinked as he flicked the switch on the wall next to the door.

Noah walked into the room and shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. Morgan cocked her head at him and saw that there were blue shadows under his eyes and his mouth looked grim. Tense. Possibly scared.

Good. He should be.

‘You don’t seem very surprised to see me,’ Morgan said.

‘Chris gave me a heads-up that you were on your way but I expected you hours ago. I was out looking for you. What happened? Did you get lost?’

With that comment he lit the fuse to her temper. ‘Of
course
I got lost, you idiot! Lots and lots of times! I forgot to check if there was a GPS when I hired the car! I have dyslexia and I can’t read a damn map at the best of times. When I’m sad and stressed and heartbroken and miserable and depressed it’s near impossible!’

She scrunched the map into a ball and launched it at his head.

‘Tell me how you really feel, Morgs.’ Noah struggled to keep his grin from forming.

Morgan looked at him, hurt and shocked. ‘You think this is a joke? That the pain you’ve caused me is funny? I’ve been travelling for days so that you can
laugh
at me?’