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Who would care if his photo appeared in a society column? It took a moment to board her train of thought. Ah...a wife, partner, girlfriend or significant other. He thought he saw curiosity in her eyes about whether he was involved with someone or not.
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
Frustration flicked across her face at his reply. Yep, definitely interested—which was, in itself, interesting.
‘Does that happen often? The cameras in your face?’
Morgan jabbed the ‘walk’ button to cross the road. ‘All the time. It’s deeply annoying and I wish they’d leave me alone.’
‘Well, you are one of the world’s wealthiest heiresses.’
Morgan’s pulled a face as they crossed the famous street. ‘Moreau International is wealthy—me, not so much. And I’m not that much of a social butterfly. Much to my mother’s despair,’ Morgan said quietly as she pulled oversized Audrey Hepburn sunglasses out of her black bag and slipped them on. ‘Would you believe me if I told you that I’d rather pound a stake into my ear than attend a soirée or a cocktail evening?’
He wouldn’t, actually. Look at her—she radiated confidence, class and poise. She was Morgan Moreau and her blood ran very blue. Unlike his, which was of the cheap Scottish whisky variety.
You’re a long way from home, lad. Remember that.
‘Then why do you do it?’
Morgan sent him a surprised look, opened her mouth to reply and shut it again. She dodged around a group of teenagers looking in a storefront window and looked resigned. ‘So, what did you think of Sylvester Cadigan?’ she asked a few moments later.
Change of subject, but he’d circle back round to her later. ‘He seems competent. He wasn’t happy that I demanded a complete and detailed dossier of the security arrangements they put in place for the last ball. He thought that I was questioning his professionalism.’
‘Weren’t you?’ Morgan sent him a direct look with those bottle-green eyes.
‘Sure I was. I don’t trust anyone.’ Especially when it was his rep on the line. ‘I’ll have a lot more questions for him tomorrow, after I’ve reviewed the dossier he’s emailing me.’
‘Do you need someone from Moreau to attend that meeting?’ Morgan asked as they approached the gold and white façade of Moreau’s Gems.
‘No. We’re going to investigate entrances and exits, look at the surveillance system. I think I can manage without someone holding my hand.’
‘Good,’ Morgan said, and gestured to the building in front of them. ‘MI’s flagship store, established in 1925.’
Noah looked at the façade of the jewellery store and swallowed down his impressed whistle. The very wide floor-to-ceiling window was lavishly decorated in a 1920s theme, Noah guessed. There were feather boas, deckchairs with tipped-over champagne bottles, strings of pearls hanging from or wrapped around silver ice buckets. Brooches pinned to berets left in sand, discarded chiffon dresses under a spectacular emerald and diamond necklace. Rings scattered in beach sand.
He hadn’t passed the window when he’d arrived that morning, going directly to the separate doors that led up to the MI corporate offices. The window was fantastic and made him want to explore the store and see what other treasures were hidden within. And that, he supposed, was exactly the point.
‘Amazing.’
‘Riley’s work,’ Morgan replied proudly. ‘She’s utterly marvellous at what she does. She changes the display every month and she keeps it top secret. On the first of every month we all traipse down here, along with a horde of shoppers, to see what she’s done. It’s like Christmas every month.’
‘She’s very talented.’
‘All the big stores keep trying to steal her away but she’s loyal to us. Although she and James knock heads continuously. She demands carte blanche to do what she wants with the windows; James demands that she runs her designs past him first.’ Morgan waved at a store employee through the glass. ‘Having Riley and James in the same room is fabulous entertainment. They argue like mad. I can’t wait to hear her ideas on themes for the ball.’
Oh, God, here comes the girly stuff. ‘Themes? What’s wrong with putting on some fancy duds and showing up?’
‘Pffft! You sound just like my father. How would that be different from the other sixty balls happening in the city alone? We organise the Moreau Ball, not just a ball.’
Morgan turned away and headed to the MI entrance further down the street.
‘How long will you be in New York for?’ she asked, super-casually.
It was the first vaguely personal question she’d asked him and he wondered if he had imagined the flicker of attraction cross her face.
He was pretty sure his attraction had flashing neon bulbs and a loud hailer.
‘If I get all the information I need I’ll try and fly out tomorrow evening. I’ll draw up my report, with recommendations and time-frames, then email it to you, James and your mother,’ he said as they stepped up to the entrance of MI and the automatic doors swished open.
A guard gestured him to move away from Morgan; he stepped up to sign in at the security desk and to be patted down for the second time that day. Then he followed Morgan through the metal detectors and on to the bank of elevators.
‘I’ll arrange security clearance for you so you can swipe your way through,’ Morgan said as they waited for a lift. ‘Where are you staying tonight?’
The lift doors opened and they stepped inside. He could smell her scent, feel her heat, and their eyes collided in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors as he answered her question. ‘In the MI company flat in the Lisbon Building, on West and Fifty-Seventh Street.’
‘I know where it is. I live in the apartment above it. James, when he stays in town, is above me in the penthouse. My parents are in the family house in Englewood Cliffs.’
Noah shook his head. ‘Never heard of it. Where is that?’
‘Northern New Jersey, Long Island. About...hmm...ten miles from downtown Manhattan.’ The tip of her pink tongue peeked out from between her luscious lips. It made him wonder what that mouth would feel like, how that tongue would taste. Still the same? Better?
‘So, I’m single.’
Morgan looked confused. ‘Okay. Thanks for sharing that.’
‘You?’
Where was this going? ‘Um...me too.’
Noah placed his shoulder against the mirror and couldn’t believe what he was about to say next. His accent deepened as he spoke softly. ‘Do you know something?’
‘What?’
‘MI have not, officially, signed any contract, so I’m technically not affiliated or contracted to MI yet. I don’t think we’re going to be working together, because you don’t seem to have much inclination or willingness to organise this event...’
‘Try none—and can you tell my mother that?’ said Morgan, then frowned. ‘And your point is...?’
‘My point is that, technically, I can do this...’ Noah stepped closer to her, placed his hands on her hips and dropped his head so that his mouth lined up with hers. ‘I want to see if you taste the same.’
Morgan’s eyes widened as her hands came up to rest on the lapels of his suit jacket. ‘Uh...what are you doing?’
‘Kissing you. Because we’re both single, we’re not linked by business, and because I want to,’ Noah whispered against her lips.
They were as soft as they looked, as piquant as he remembered. They softened under his and he lifted his hand to push it under the weight of her hair, encircling her slender neck with his large, hard hand. Morgan whimpered and arched towards him, her hands snaking up his chest to link behind his neck. She stood up on her tiptoes and his tongue darted out to touch hers.
All sense of propriety and sensibility left him as he spun her around and pushed her up against the wall. His hand roamed the backs of her legs and under her butt cheeks as he lifted her hips into his erection, felt her breasts flatten against his chest. She was so hot, so feminine, and she was as into this kiss as he was.
All he could think was, where had he found the strength to walk away all those years ago? He wanted her—now—and considered pulling her to the floor...except that they were in a lift and the doors could open at any second...any freakin’ second.
Noah pulled his hands off her butt and yanked his mouth off hers. He backed away—two steps, big deal—and tried to control his heaving breath. Morgan looked no better: shell shocked, kiss-bruised lips, strips of colour across her cheekbones. Anybody who saw them now would know exactly what they had been up to.
Morgan kept her eyes on his face and when the lift opened onto the executive floor, where they’d been earlier, she watched him get out. When Noah realised she wasn’t following him he placed his hand on the door to keep it open and looked back at her.
‘You aren’t getting out here?’
‘I’m going up to my studio. Top floor. Bye. And, Noah?’
‘Yeah?’
‘That was one helluva kiss.’
FOUR (#uf6c227df-31e3-5de5-a4f8-0bf30a950bc2)
Morgan had deliberately not thought about his kiss all day. Well, she’d tried not to think of his kiss... Okay, truth: she hadn’t thought of much besides his kiss!
To put it another way, she’d done little more than stare out of the window for the whole afternoon.
She was glad to be home, glad to be in her apartment where she could drop all manner of pretence and admit that Noah’s lips on hers had rocked her to her core. She staggered over to her plump red and white striped couch, dropped her bag to the floor and sank down into its welcoming softness.
She’d kissed Noah Fraser.
Inside her body, every single cell she possessed was in revolt. A picture of the little molecules on a protest march flashed in her head...grumpy little cells each carrying placards with various sayings like: Do Him!, We Want Orgasm Reform!, or simply, Sex! Now!
She couldn’t argue.
Her body craved Noah, and she wished she could use the excuse that she’d had none for a while...but she had, surprisingly, not so long ago. It hadn’t been ‘rock my world’ sex, but it had been nice, pleasant, fulfilling and, best of all, very, very discreet.
With her high profile she valued discretion. She just hadn’t realised that in that case discreet had been a synonym for married. She’d been surprised and shocked when—at the last minute, admittedly—she’d decided to attend a cocktail party she’d said she wouldn’t be at. He’d been there with his very beautiful, very thin Venezuelan wife and they’d both known that her tipping a glass of red wine into his lap, accidentally on purpose, had been a poor substitute for her slapping him into next year.
Morgan placed her thumb on one eye and her index finger on the other and pushed.
She had kissed Noah Fraser. Again.
Actually, kissed was totally the wrong word... She’d inhaled him, Frenched him...devoured him. She could still feel his long fingers searing through her pants, the rasp of his two-day beard, the silkiness of his hair as she pulled it through her fingers.
He kissed liked a dream, like a man should kiss: with authority, skill, strength and tenderness. If he made love like he kissed... Morgan whimpered as she felt the pool of heat and lust drop to her womb. She was minutes off an orgasm and that was from just the memories of his kiss!
What if he touched her breasts, slid his fingers...? She didn’t know if she was strong enough to survive the experience.
It took her a moment to realise that someone was pounding on her door and she wrinkled her nose. James frequently came by when he was in town and hung out, mostly to avoid their mother nagging him into attending an event. James was as allergic to the social swirl as she was... Was she a bad sister if she pretended not to be here?
She didn’t want to talk to anybody. She just wanted to relive Noah’s lips on hers, his scent in her nose, the hard muscles she’d felt in his shoulders.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Bats...
‘Who is it?’ she demanded in a croaky voice as she pushed herself to her feet.
‘Noah.’
The only person she wanted to see and the last person she’d expected. Morgan yanked the door open and there he stood, jacket and tieless, his fist about to connect with the door again.
Morgan put out one finger and pushed his clenched fist down. ‘You pounded?’
Noah placed his hands on her hips and without a word pushed her backwards and kicked the door shut behind him.
‘Oh, well, just come on in,’ Morgan said, trying for sarcastic and hitting breathless.
Noah dropped his hands from her hips and slapped them on his. ‘I’ve been thinking...’
‘Did you hurt yourself?’ Morgan asked sweetly.
He ignored her. ‘On a scale of one to ten, what are the chances of you being in charge of this ball?’
‘About...hmm...minus one thousand and fifty-two.’
‘Thank God.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I don’t sleep with my clients. Or my colleagues. Ever.’
‘You nearly beat down my door to tell me that?’
‘Try and keep up, Moreau. I don’t sleep with clients.’
Morgan, starting to catch a clue, felt her heart-rate accelerate. ‘And since I’m not going to be organising the ball I won’t be your client,’ she said slowly as she wrapped her head around the implications of those words.
‘There you go.’ Noah nodded ‘I walked away years ago...’
‘I know. I was there.’
That was a conversation for another day, and right now she didn’t give a foo-foo. She wanted to know if he was here for the same reason she wanted him here. So that they could take that hot kiss they’d shared in the lift to its logical conclusion. And if he was toying with her again she’d have MI Security toss his gorgeous body off the roof.
Noah’s eyes glinted blue fire. ‘I don’t want to spend the next eight years wondering...’
Morgan forced the lust away in order to think. It was hard, but she had to do it. ‘You’re leaving tomorrow to go back to London?’
‘More than likely. There’s nothing more I need to do here workwise...at this time.’
‘So you are here for one night...one incredible, exceptional, crazy night.’ she said, enunciating each word. ‘Are we on the same page, here?’
Noah pushed a hand through his messy hair. She could tell it wasn’t the first time he’d done that this evening. ‘Yeah. Deal?’
Phew! She was going to get lucky! All her little cell protestors threw down their placards, lay down and assumed the ‘do me’ position. Morgan considered doing the same.
‘What do you say, Morgan?’
