Burning Obsession Read online

  She pushed these erotic thoughts to the back of her mind as she remembered the day of humiliation that had followed in Jordan’s office six months later.

  Because of Jordan’s inability to get away Kelly had suggested that perhaps she could go away on her own. She had known she had to get away from Jordan; the love she had had for him had turned to hate in such a short time, the love that had seemed to be the pinnacle of her life.

  Jordan waited for the housekeeper to leave them before vetoing that idea. ‘You aren’t going anywhere without me,’ he snapped. ‘Even if you do have this ridiculous aversion to me at the moment.’

  Kelly stood up. ‘Go to hell!’ she said fiercely, turning in the direction of her bedroom, the bedroom that she had slept in alone since telling Jordan of her pregnancy.

  He swung her round before she reached the door, a dangerous glitter in his cold grey eyes. ‘Don’t ever talk to me like that again, little girl!’ he rasped. ‘I won’t stand for it.’

  Tears flooded her huge navy blue eyes. ‘And what happens if I do?’ she choked. ‘I suppose you’re going to beat me.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘I suppose you’d like that.’

  He shook his head impatiently. ‘You ridiculous child,’ he chided gently, pulling her against him to bury his face in her thick black hair. ‘Cry, Kelly,’ he encouraged. ‘It will help.’

  She at once stiffened in his arm, feeling as cold to human warmth as a beautiful statue. ‘I have no intention of crying,’ she told him in a stilted voice, shrugging out of his arms with a cool dignity that didn’t encourage further contact between them. ‘Why should I cry?’

  She had cried almost hysterically after losing the baby, and felt as if she had cried herself out. All that was left was a numb feeling—and her hatred of Jordan.

  ‘The doctor told me I have to expect strange moods from you,’ Jordan eyed her thoughtfully, ‘but don’t expect my patience with you to be limitless.’

  ‘I don’t expect anything from you,’ she said tonelessly. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to my room to rest before dinner.’

  ‘Our room, Kelly,’ he corrected softly.

  She gave him a sharp look, dark colour creeping into her pale cheeks. ‘I consider it my room, as you haven’t chosen to share it with me for several months.’

  ‘I intend changing that now that—’

  ‘Now that I’m no longer pregnant!’ she finished shrilly. ‘You can do what you choose, but don’t expect me to welcome you back.’

  ‘Kelly—’

  ‘I believe I’ve already said this once today, Jordan, but go to hell!’ This time she managed to escape to the bedroom without further interruption.

  Once inside she almost collapsed on to the bed, feeling curiously weak. If Jordan was serious about sharing her bed once again then she knew she had to get away from here as soon as possible. Not that she thought he would expect a physical relationship from her just yet, but she couldn’t even bear to have him sleeping in the same room as herself.

  Why on earth had he married her? In the six months they had been married not one word of love had passed his lips, words of passion and possession, but never love. This had never particularly bothered her, their lovemaking seeming to show her the depth of his feeling for her, and yet even that hadn’t been hers alone; she had been sharing him with his sexy secretary, and heaven knew how many other women.

  She had fallen asleep soon after going to her bedroom, woken up to find there was only half an hour left before her father arrived. As she swung her legs to the floor Jordan came in from the adjoining bathroom, dressed only in a navy blue towelling robe, Kelly instantly stiffened at the intimacy of the situation, although the cool look she gave him showed him none of her tumultuous feelings inside.

  ‘You should have woken me,’ she remarked distantly.

  ‘Should I?’ he drawled, rubbing his damp hair dry with a towel. ‘You said you wanted to rest.’

  ‘But not for this long.’ She pushed her hair back, 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!’

  CHAPTER TWO

  HER temper sparked into life. ‘After five years is that all you have to say?’

  He shrugged, strolling back into the bedroom. ‘It happens to be the truth.’

  Kelly followed him. ‘How do you expect me to look?’ she snapped her resentment. ‘My father is lying dangerously ill in hospital, I’m hardly likely to look full of the joys of spring.’

  Jordan took brown trousers and a clean cream shirt out of the wardrobe, pausing to towel dry his hair. ‘I didn’t mean you look a mess, I meant the way you look is a mess.’

  She flushed. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  He threw the towel down on the bed, looking at her consideringly. ‘You’re twenty-three and dress like a woman ten years older. Where on earth did get those prudish clothes? You look as if you’re on your way to a funeral,’ he added dismissively.

  The cruelty of his words cut into her like a knife. ‘My father is ill, I would hardly wear a flaming red dress,’ she choked.

  ‘Why not?’ He untied his robe, smiling as she hastily turned away. ‘I’m no different to look at than I was five years ago,’ he taunted. ‘And you used to like looking at my body then—you used to like touching it too.’ He chuckled at the anger she couldn’t hide. ‘And why can’t you wear a flaming red dress? I’m sure it would cheer your father up more than that outfit.’ He made no effort to hide his derision for her smart suit and blouse.

  ‘My father can’t see my “outfit” at the moment,’ she informed him bitterly. ‘He’s unconscious, and has been since the accident happened.’

  Jordan nodded, pulling on the dark brown trousers and cream shirt, leaving several buttons undone on the latter, revealing the thick mat of hair on his chest, this too liberally sprinkled with grey. ‘I ascertained that much from the doctor.’

  Kelly’s eyes widened. ‘You’ve been in touch with the hospital?’

  He gave her a derisive look. ‘Obviously,’ he said dryly.

  ‘And?’

  Jordan raised his eyebrows. ‘And I don’t suppose they told me any more than they told you.’

  ‘What did they tell you?’ she asked desperately.

  He shrugged. ‘Not a lot. Although the coma is apparently lightening.’

  ‘It is?’ Kelly said eagerly, watching as he pulled on the jacket that matched his trousers, the material fitting tautly across his broad shoulders.

  He brushed the damp thickness of his hair back from his face, the style impeccable, as was the rest of his appearance. ‘So they said,’ he nodded.

  ‘Then I must get back to the hospital. I only came back to wash and change.’

  ‘So I gathered.’ Jordan gave her a searching look. ‘You’ve been sitting with him day and night since the hospital discharged you—and I must say you look as if you have.’

  ‘Will you stop insulting me!’ To her shame tears flooded her eyes, their colour even a deeper navy than usual. ‘I—I can’t take it at the moment!’ The tears started to fall, and she began to sob, unable to stop crying once she began.

  She felt Jordan take her into his arms. ‘This is long overdue,’ he muttered gruffly.

  Kelly stiffened the instant he touched her, trying to break out of his embrace, finding that she wasn’t as immune to him as she had thought herself to be the last five years. Whenever she had thought about Jordan during that time, which even though she hated to admit it, had been often, it had always been with the numb removed feeling, with the memory of what he had done to her and their unborn child.

  But now he wasn’t removed at all, and the quicksilver excitement that coursed through her body made her struggles for release all the more fierce. ‘Take your hands off me!’ she ordered in a chilling voice. ‘Before I scream the place down,’ she threatened.

  He stepped back, his hands held defensively in the air. ‘Never let it be said that I held a woman against her will.’

  ‘Is that why you let me go so easily five years ago?’ Kelly said bitterly.

  Jordan’s air of taunting left him, his face taking on an expression of hauteur. ‘You wanted to go.’

  ‘Yes, I did. And I’ve never regretted it,’ she spat the words at him. ‘Never!’

  ‘Not even once?’ he scorned,
his grey eyes blazing. ‘Are you telling me that you’ve never lain in your bed at night and wished for me to be at your side? That you’ve never longed for the perfect lovemaking we always had?’

  Had she longed for those things? Not consciously! But subconsciously? Oh, yes, she had wanted him, had ached for him as an addict must long for his particular brand of addiction. But until this moment these longings had never been allowed free rein, any of the more intimate memories of their relationship put firmly to the back of her mind. And yet fifteen minutes ago, at the first sight of Jordan after five years, she had relived every moment of their time together as man and wife.

  Their lovemaking had been perfect, without inhibitions, each partner desiring to give the other the extreme in pleasure. And for all of her initial inexperience Kelly had given Jordan pleasure, had excited him until he lost all control. At the time he had told her she was the only woman to affect him that deeply, and knowing of the tight control he had over the rest of his life, she could believe him. But even that hadn’t been enough for him, she hadn’t been enough for him, he had still needed his other women.

  ‘What did you mean just now about my crying being long overdue?’ She didn’t answer his intimate questions, pulling a shield over the erotic pictures they had conjured up from the past.

  ‘As far as I know, you’ve never cried for the loss of our child.’

  Kelly paled when seconds ago she had been blushing. ‘Never cried…!’ she choked. ‘My God, I cried, I cried until there was nothing left.’

  ‘And when you’d finished crying?’ His eyes were narrowed. ‘Why didn’t you come back?’

  ‘Come back?’ she frowned. ‘To you?’ she scorned.

  Jordan stiffened, his expression darkening. ‘I’m your husband.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ she taunted. ‘And what do you call the beautiful blonde who arrived with you just now?’

  ‘Janet? She’s my personal secretary.’

  ‘How original!’ Kelly drawled, picking up her handbag. ‘Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to the hospital.’