Carole Mortimer - His Scandalous Mistress

Something this most certainly wasn’t!

Elizabeth didn’t fool herself for a moment, and knew that ordinarily Rogan wouldn’t have even noticed a woman like her. She felt sure that his usual taste in women ran to something a little more exotic than a university lecturer who, at the age of twenty-eight, neither drank, smoked, nor slept around.

In fact, the phrase ‘beggars can’t be choosers’came to mind!

Rogan scowled darkly. ‘I don’t remember saying when I was leaving.’

She frowned slightly. ‘I had assumed that you would only be staying until after your father’s funeral?’

‘Never heard the one about assumption being the mother of all cock-ups?’ he asked.

She gave an inclination of her head. ‘As necessity is the mother of invention?’

‘Something like that.’ Rogan grimaced. ‘I suppose I’ll have to stay until after my father’s funeral,’he accepted tightly.

‘I would have thought so, yes.’ Elizabeth frowned at his obvious reluctance.

‘I’m many things, Elizabeth, but I’ve never thought a hypocrite was one of them.’ His mouth twisted with distaste.

‘Even so… ’

‘Even so… ’ he conceded dryly. ‘No doubt you’re a dutiful daughter and visit your own parents once a week? Probably for Sunday lunch?’

Elizabeth didn’t know what to say in answer to that. What could she say when she hadn’t so much as seen her own father since the argument that had followed the reading of her mother’s will ten years ago?

‘No doubt,’ she answered stiltedly.

Rogan’s gaze became piercing as he heard the lack of conviction in Elizabeth’s tone. ‘Or perhaps dinner on a Friday evening?’

‘Perhaps.’

Rogan was certain of the hollowness to her tone that time… ‘Or perhaps, like me, you prefer to stay the hell away from them?’

Warm colour crept up into the pallor of her cheeks. ‘I don’t believe this conversation was about me—’

‘Sure it was.’ Rogan gave up all pretence of eating the smoked salmon and sat back in his chair to study her through narrowed lids. ‘We can do this the hard way or the easy way, Elizabeth. Your choice.’

‘I don’t think—’

‘Okay, the hard way.’ He shrugged. ‘Are both your parents still alive?’

Her jaw hardened. ‘No.’

‘Both dead?’

‘No.’

‘Mother dead?’

‘Yes.’

‘Father?’

A nerve pulsed in that clenched jaw. ‘Rogan—’

‘Don’t like to talk about yourself much, do you?’ he jeered. ‘Just humour me, hmm, Elizabeth,’ he murmured.

She gave a deep sigh. ‘My father is still very much alive.’

‘And?’

She scowled. ‘And nothing.’

Rogan gave a slow, taunting smile. ‘Admit it, Elizabeth—you don’t like the louse any more than I liked my own father!’

She winced. ‘It isn’t a question of liking or disliking. My father and I lead completely different lives. He—he remarried not long after my mother died, ten years ago.’

And that must have hurt, Rogan guessed easily. ‘Wicked stepmother?’

‘I wouldn’t know; I’ve never met her,’ Elizabeth answered coolly.

‘How about your father? Do you still see him?’

‘We exchange Christmas cards. And he has my mobile number in case of emergencies,’ Elizabeth admitted tightly.

‘And?’

Her mouth twisted humourlessly. ‘So far there haven’t been any.’

Rogan sensed the same anger that he felt towards his own father burning deep down inside her. ‘It would seem that we have more in common than we originally thought, Elizabeth… ’ he muttered.

On the surface Rogan knew that he and Elizabeth were nothing alike. But nevertheless he would guess that the two of them had both been shaped by their childhoods: the pre-mature death of an adored mother, and a fractured love/hate relationship with the father that remained.

Deep down, where it really mattered, he and Elizabeth were more alike than Rogan liked.

Or wanted them to be…

‘WHERE are you off to so early in the morning?’

Elizabeth had almost reached the bottom of the stairs, the rucksack containing her costume and towel draped over one shoulder, when she heard Rogan’s voice behind her and turned to see him standing on the wide gallery above, looking down at her.

As he said, it was still early in the morning—only a little after seven o’clock—but, like her, Rogan was already up and dressed, his T-shirt once again black, as were his jeans, the dark length of his hair slightly damp, probably from the shower.

As usual, Elizabeth was instantly, nerve-janglingly aware of him…

She maintained her cool expression with effort. ‘I like to go for a swim first thing in the morning.’

She felt even more in need of a wake-up swim today, after the conversation about her father at dinner the previous evening had brought back all those unhappy memories and caused her to have an almost sleepless night.

Rogan scowled darkly. ‘Where?’

‘At my health club when I’m in London, but here I make do with the sea.’ The sea water wasn’t doing much for her complexion or her hair, but Elizabeth had always enjoyed swimming as a way of kick-starting her day, and saw no reason to change that routine when she could so easily walk down to the sandy cove below the cliffs.

Rogan looked at her speculatively. ‘And my guess is you’ve been doing that every morning since you came here,’ he said.

Elizabeth’s brows rose. ‘Of course.’

‘Alone?’

‘Yes… ’

‘Without informing anyone where you were going?’ His voice had become dangerously soft.

‘Rogan—’

‘Hell’s bells, woman, are you stupid or do you just have a death wish?’ Rogan rasped impatiently as he descended the stairs two at a time until he was standing beside her, glaring down at her.

Elizabeth had to tilt her head back slightly in order to meet that glittering gaze head-on. ‘As far as I’m aware I’m neither of those things. I simply like to swim first thing in the morning—’

‘In a sea where the current is precarious at best and downright dangerous at worst!’ Angry heat emanated from Rogan’s body, and his hands were clenched at his sides.

Elizabeth frowned. ‘I assure you, I’m always very careful.’

‘This is Cornwall, Elizabeth,’ he snapped. ‘The worst place on the south coast for shipwrecks and drowning. There’s no such thing as being very careful!’

‘Rogan—’

‘Don’t even attempt to use that patronising tone on me,’ he bit out tersely. ‘I’m not one of your students, and I don’t scare easily!’

Elizabeth doubted she could teach this man anything! As for the scared part—in his present mood, Rogan was the scary one!

Her mouth firmed. ‘Look—’

‘No—you look,’ he retorted. ‘Either you change your plans and don’t go swimming. Or I come with you to make sure you don’t drown.’

Elizabeth’s chin rose challengingly even as the thought of seeing all Rogan’s muscled power in only a pair of swimming trunks made her pulse quicken. Just having him standing this close to her made her pulse quicken! ‘You may be in the habit of ordering other people around, but you certainly can’t dictate what I do.’

‘I can stop you swimming in what happens to be a private family cove. My private cove now,’ he returned calmly.

Yes, no doubt he could do that… ‘I’m twenty-eight years old and perfectly capable of deciding for myself what is and isn’t dangerous.’

‘My mother was forty-two years old—but that didn’t stop her from drowning in the cove you’re now proposing to swim in alone!’A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw.