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.She hoped he wouldn’t think the generous cleavage it exposed was a deliberate come-on.She zipped her soft leather jacket just a little higher, and hoped she didn’t look too much like the black widow.‘Is this it?’The cab driver had turned into a lamplit square, and stopped beside a fairly new block of luxury apartments.Catherine looked up at the towering skyscraper, with the words ‘Jermyn Gate’ written in gold letters on a white-painted sign in the forecourt, and nodded her head.Thrusting open the door, she climbed out and paid the fare.She was tempted to ask him to wait, but that seemed an unnecessary safeguard.After all, if Morgan wasn’t in-or didn’t want to speak to her, she appended tensely-she could always pick up another cab.In this part of London, they were often running around, and, if not, she could always call a minicab.However, her first obstacle proved not to be Morgan himself, but the commissionaire who apparently vetted all callers.‘Is Mr Lynch expecting you, miss?’ he enquired, his manner not exactly insulting, but not exactly courteous either.Did Morgan often have young women coming asking to see him? she wondered uneasily.And if so, what on earth was she doing here?‘Er-no,’ she admitted now, half prepared to beat a hasty retreat, but the commissionaire was already picking up the phone.‘I’ll just tell him you’re here, miss,’ he said.‘What was the name?’ And Catherine, who didn’t want to give it, told him, simply because not to do so might have convinced him she was some kind of unsavoury character.The phone rang for some time before it was answered, and Catherine was just beginning to believe she had been granted a reprieve, when the connection was made.'There’s a Miss Catherine Lambert here to see you, sir,’ she heard the commissionaire say, in an insufferably deferential tone.‘She says you’re not expecting her.Do you want me to send her up?’Catherine couldn’t hear Morgan’s reply, and she was trying to decide whether it would be better if he refused to see her, or if he let her in, when the commissionaire replaced his receiver.‘You can go up, Miss Lambert,’ he said, with considerably more warmth to his voice.‘The eighteenth floor.Number five.’‘Yes, I do know that,’ said Catherine tersely, walking rather jerkily across to the lifts.Well, she really had burned her bridges behind her now, she thought.Dear God, please let her not make a fool of herself!The corridor was carpeted in a deep green pile, a luxury she had never experienced in any other apartment building she had visited.And Morgan’s door had the number on it in little gold figures.Nothing ostentatious, of course.Just plain cardinal numbers.Daunting, all the same, she thought, lifting her hand to tap at the panels, and then stepped back aghast, when the door was opened.Morgan was wearing a bathrobe, and she guessed that was why he had taken so long to answer the phone.His hair was damp and tousled, his legs and feet, below the hem of the robe, bare.But he was just as disturbing to her emotional balance as ever, and, pushing her hands into the pockets of her jacket, she endeavoured to adopt a casual pose.‘Hello.’‘Hi.’ The tawny eyes moved over her face with disruptive intensity, and settled on her mouth.‘Come in.’ ‘May I?’Catherine’s mouth was dry, but Morgan’s invitation was sincere.‘How could I refuse?’ he countered, stepping back to allow her to enter the hallway.‘You didn’t.’‘What?’ Catherine blinked behind the lenses of her spectacles.‘Oh-no."Understanding his meaning, she acknowledged the irony.‘Thank you.’The hall was wide and spacious, nothing like her hall, with its narrow passageway along to the kitchen.What was more, a curving staircase indicated a second floor above, with a crystal chandelier suspended above it that glinted with a thousand prisms of light.She had no time to absorb any more than this before Morgan closed the door behind them, and came to lead the way into an equally impressive drawing-room.At least, Catherine would have called it a drawing-room.She wasn’t sure what Morgan would call it.She only knew there was a silky Persian carpet on the floor, and a rich mixture of fine wood and leather in the chairs and cabinets that furnished it.There was a sofa, too, upholstered in a deep burgundy velvet, and curtains of a matching shade hanging at the long windows.‘Like it?’ Morgan asked, and Catherine, who had been thinking how the apartment mirrored the enormous gulf between them, gave a nervous nod of her head.‘It’s beautiful,’ she said politely.‘I-had no idea it would be like this.’‘Didn’t you?’ Morgan’s expression was unreadable.‘Well.’ He indicated the tray of drinks residing on the top of a polished cabinet.‘Do you want a drink? I could use one.’‘Why? Because I’m here?’The words just slipped out, and Catherine’s nails dug into her palms as Morgan’s eyes narrowed in sudden contempt.‘Could be,’ he responded coolly.‘You should have phoned before you left home.’Catherine held up her head.‘So you could have stopped me from coming?’‘Perhaps.’Morgan was non-committal, and it was only the thought of confronting that supercilious commissionaire again that kept her where she was.This had not been a good idea, she thought, trying not to blame her mother for unknowingly putting the thought into her head.He shrugged now.‘So, what’ll it be? Scotch? Gin?’Catherine wanted to refuse, but she thought having a drink in her hand might make her feel a little less tense.‘Do-er-do you have any sherry?’ she asked, and when he gave her an old-fashioned look she said quickly,‘Oh-Scotch, then.No ice
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