Читать книгу One Night With Her Ex - Kate Hardy - Страница 9

EVIE came back downstairs five minutes later, hoping to find everyone already gathered for lunch, but there was only Logan, with his back towards her as he stared out at the garden beyond. Evie paused in the doorway, not ready for this confrontation, dead scared of this particular ghost, but he turned and there was nothing for it but to take a breath, straighten her shoulders and move forward. ‘Where are the others?’

‘Down in the cellar, choosing a bottle of wine,’ said Logan. ‘They were discussing the merits of marriages of convenience along the way. They could be a while.’

‘Oh.’ Happy conversations all round. And where to begin with Logan? ‘I knew Max had a brother called Logan,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I didn’t know it was you.’

‘Fair enough. Now you do.’

His voice. How could she have forgotten that voice?

‘What do you want from me, Logan?’

‘You,’ he said, and Evie’s breath hitched. ‘Gone.’

‘We leave on Sunday.’

‘From my life.’

‘As far as I can be.’

‘It won’t be far enough, Angie. Not if you marry my brother. Not if you stay in business with him.’

‘I’m not Angie,’ she said with quiet firmness as thick black lashes came down to shield Logan’s eyes. ‘I grew up after you left me. I finished my studies and went to work on site in the construction business. I learned how to stand my ground. People call me Evie now. Evangeline when they’re cross.’

‘And is my brother cross with you, Evangeline?’ Logan’s black gaze swept up and over her, searing her. Lingering just a little too long on her hairline and the fringe that hid the faintest trace of an old, old scar.

‘It’s hard to say. What do you want from me, Logan? You didn’t have to tell Max you’d bedded me. It’s been ten years. More. Why didn’t you leave that memory in the past where it belongs?’

He didn’t answer her, just moved towards the drinks sideboard and poured clear liquid from a jug into two highball glasses. ‘It’s just water,’ he said. ‘Want one?’

‘Thank you.’

So he picked them up and came over to her, and wasn’t that a bad idea? Because now she could smell him and it was a scent that had haunted her, and now she could see the faint stubble on his jaw and the fine lines etched into his face. Older now, and wiser. Less inclined towards a smile.

He had a heartbreaker’s smile when he chose to use it.

He held the glass out towards her and she stared at it and the strong, long fingers that held it. Go find out what he wants, had been Max’s directive. Find out what you want.

So she reached for the water and deliberately brushed her fingers against Logan’s in search of the fire that had once poured over her at his touch.

And came away scalded.

One sip of cool water and then another as she held Logan’s gaze and fought that feeling of helplessness.

‘The trouble with memories like ours,’ he said roughly, ‘is that you think you’ve buried them, dealt with them, right up until they reach up and rip out your throat.’

Some memories were like that. But not all. Sometimes memories could be finessed into something slightly more palatable.

‘Maybe we could try replacing the bad with something a little less intense,’ she suggested tentatively. ‘You could try treating me as your future sister-in-law. We could do polite, and civil. We could come to like it that way.’

‘Watching you hang off my brother’s arm doesn’t make me feel civilised, Evangeline. It makes me want to break things.’

Ah.

‘Call off the engagement.’ He wasn’t looking at her. And it wasn’t a request. ‘Turn this mess around.’

‘We need Max’s trust-fund money.’

‘I’ll cover Max for the money. I’ll buy you out.’

‘What?’ Anger slid through her, hot and biting. She could feel her composure slipping away but there was nothing else for it. Not in the face of the hot mess that was Logan. ‘No,’ she said as steadily as she could. ‘No one’s buying me out of anything, least of all MEP. That company is mine, just as much as it is Max’s. I’ve put six years into it, eighty-hour weeks’ worth of blood, sweat, tears and fears into making it the success it is. Prepping it for bigger opportunities and one of those opportunities is just around the corner. Why on earth would I let you buy me out?’

He meant to use his big body to intimidate her. Closer, and closer still, until the jacket of his suit brushed the silk of her dress but he didn’t touch her, just let the heat build. His lips had that hard sensual curve about them that had haunted her dreams for years. She couldn’t stop staring at them.

She needed to stop staring at them.

‘You can’t be in my life, Evangeline. Not even on the periphery. I discovered that the hard way ten years ago. So either you leave willingly … or I make you leave.’

‘Couldn’t we just—’

‘No.’ And then he leaned forward and brushed his lower lip against the curve of hers, and she closed her eyes and tried to pretend that her response didn’t belong to her. That the thrill of pleasure that screamed through her belonged to someone else and that the hint of whisky on his lips wasn’t intoxicating.

‘You can’t marry my brother, Angie. Don’t even think it,’ he murmured against her lips, and brought his hands up to cradle her face, and they were gentle but the tongue that stroked the seam of her mouth open was not, and the kiss that followed was not. The kiss spoke of ownership and anger and a helplessness that Evie knew all too well.

Logan’s fingers tangled in her hair as he tilted her head back for better access to her mouth and the kiss continued. Not tentative. What Logan wanted, he took—that was just his nature, but the way he took it … oh … the sensual way he feasted … She’d never forgotten how deeply his enjoyment of sex had run. A pleasure seeker without equal. Giving it. Taking it. Owning it.

And then he drew back, breathing hard, and wiped the shine from her lips with his thumb, and his breath hitched and Evie plain forgot to breathe at all.

But she could still move, and she needed to move before Max and his mother returned, and there was something else she needed to know as well, so she wrapped her hand around his wrist and dug her nails into the vein, and watched for that tiny flare of pain and what he would do with it. Whether he’d resist it or chase it, and the increased pressure of his thumb crushing her lips into her teeth said chase and chase hard, but the curse that fell from his lips told of a resistance that ran equally deep.

Still fighting his own nature, then. Still that mad mix of sybarite and saint.

‘You have to go,’ he said.

He wasn’t begging. Logan Black did not beg. But it was close.

‘You hate it, don’t you?’ she murmured. ‘What I make you want. What I make you feel. You’ve always hated it.’

‘Yes.’

‘Was that why the only place you made for me was on my knees in front of you?’

‘Not only on your knees,’ he offered roughly. ‘I might be on mine.’

Which didn’t help.

‘Break the engagement, Angie. Find a way out of my brother’s business and go far, far away. Stay away,’ he said and abruptly let her go, moving back a step or two for good measure.

‘And then what?’

‘And then nothing.’

‘Being left with nothing doesn’t suit me these days, Logan.’ Evie kept her voice steady and her back straight. No way he could know how her legs trembled and her heart thudded against her ribcage in the aftermath of his touch. ‘I’m not the person you once knew. I’m stronger now. I’m a fighter now and I know what I want. The answer’s no.’

‘So,’ said Caroline Carmichael as she swept into the room, with Max behind her brandishing a bottle of champagne in one hand and a bottle of white in the other. Evie stood on one side of the room, Logan on the other, and Caroline noted the distance between them, and probably the flush on Evie’s face, with measuring eyes. ‘Max mentioned we have a slight problem on our hands. I trust everything’s been sorted?’

Logan said nothing. Instead, he let the silence stretch so thin you could see through it to the turmoil below.

‘Well, one could hope,’ said Caroline dryly. ‘Do sit down to lunch, everyone. I, for one, can’t problem-solve on an empty stomach. And make no mistake, this problem does need solving.’ She eyed her eldest son sternly. ‘Or would you prefer a fractured family?’

Logan’s havoc-wreaking mouth was a thin, grim line, but he pulled out his mother’s chair and saw her seated.

‘Max, you’ll pour?’ said the widow Carmichael and Evie caught a glimpse of the iron will behind the amiable mask.

Max cracked the white and filled his mother’s glass and then Evie’s. ‘You want me to get the Scotch?’ he asked his brother.

‘I’m done with the Scotch,’ said Logan. ‘Scotch is for shock.’ So Max filled Logan’s wine glass with the pale, straw-coloured chardonnay too, and then his own.

So civilised.

They filled their plates in silence. Evie had never felt less like eating. And then Caroline looked across the table at Evie and said mildly, ‘I hear you and Logan have met before.’

‘Yes.’ As Evie fought a blush and lost. ‘It was a long time ago.’

‘I heard that too,’ said Caroline, and lapsed into silence while Evie sliced a spear of asparagus into half a dozen little pieces.

‘It seems to me,’ continued Caroline, ‘that if you want this farce of a marriage to Max to continue, the best course of action would be to forget you and Logan ever met.’

‘Yes,’ murmured Evie. ‘I thought that too.’ Twelve tiny chunks of asparagus on her plate now, all lined up to make the whole. Very orderly.

‘Logan?’ said Max, and Evie looked up. No mistaking the question in Max’s eyes or the resistance in Logan’s.

‘Or you can call off your engagement, I buy Evie out of your business and finance you until your trust fund comes in,’ Logan told Max curtly.

‘And where would that leave Evie?’ asked Max.

‘Gone.’

Why was there always a part of her that agreed with Logan? Why?

‘I’m right here,’ she said tightly. ‘No need to talk around me. And you can have my share of MEP when I’m dead, Logan. I thought I made that clear. MEP is mine just as much as it is Max’s and I will not give it up. Not to you. Not to anyone.’

‘No one’s saying you have to give it up,’ said Max soothingly. ‘No one but Logan’s saying you have to give it up.’

Evie reached for her wine glass, only to change her mind before her fingers reached the glass. Her hands were too shaky; now was not a good time for alcohol.

‘I think it’s a very good time for alcohol,’ murmured Logan, as if reading her mind.

‘I’m not you,’ she bit back.

‘They can’t even be in the same room with each other,’ said Max to his mother.

‘So I see,’ murmured Caroline. ‘Logan, I do think you’re being a touch unreasonable,’ she offered, before turning back to Evie. ‘It’s his father’s fault. My first husband was utterly vulnerable to his emotions once they were roused. It used to scare him witless too.’

Only a mother could have that take on this situation. ‘Logan doesn’t strike me as particularly vulnerable, Mrs Carmichael.’

‘Please, call me Caroline. I insist.’ Caroline turned to Max. ‘Do you have to have access your trust-fund money now?’

‘We need ten million dollars to kick off the civic centre build, and they want to see our financials,’ said Max. ‘We’ve already explored several other avenues of financial backing. They weren’t attractive.’ Max speared Logan with a level gaze. ‘Make us an offer that’s attractive and Evie and I won’t need to get married.’

‘I just made it,’ said Logan.

‘Then the answer’s no,’ said Max with a tight shrug. ‘When it comes to my marital status, I’m prepared to humour you. When it comes to MEP, Evie’s an integral part of it. She stays.’

Impasse.

‘Why so much float money?’ asked Caroline finally. ‘I don’t know much about the construction industry, but it seems excessive.’

‘Because we don’t receive first payment until we’re out of the ground on this one,’ said Evie. ‘It’s a common enough clause in building contracts. But most of the foundation work for this particular build will have to be done underwater. Makes it expensive.’

‘Sounds like you’re out of your league,’ said Logan.

‘No, just our price range,’ said Evie.

‘Then get your client to advance you the funding for stage one.’

‘They won’t.’

‘Then find another client.’

‘You’re right.’ Evie eyed Logan steadily. ‘Would you like us to build you an innovative, high-profile civic centre?’

‘I wouldn’t employ you to build me a bookshelf.’

‘What do you think she did to him all those years ago?’ Max asked his mother, dividing his gaze between her and Logan warily. ‘He’s not usually this intractable.’

‘You should have seen him as an infant,’ said Caroline. ‘He could be extremely recalcitrant if he didn’t get his way. I like to think I nudged it out of him. Perhaps not.’

‘I’m right here,’ said Logan, between gritted teeth. ‘No need to talk around me.’

His mother studied Logan with sympathetic eyes. Max just studied him, and then, as if judging a walnut that would not be cracked, Max turned to Evie.

‘So what’d you do to him?’ asked Max. ‘Did you reject him?’

‘No,’ said Evie quietly. ‘I did everything your brother asked of me.’

‘Never a good move,’ said Caroline gently, and Evie shrugged and returned the older woman’s gaze and thought she saw a glimmer of understanding.

‘I’m still not seeing the reason for the extreme hostility,’ said Max. ‘You haven’t seen each other in years. You were together for one week and then you parted ways. How bad can it be?’

He’d never been in thrall, thought Evie gently. He’d never known obsession. Ignorance was bliss.

‘Would you like to tell him or shall I?’ said Evie when the silence threatened to smother her.

‘By all means, let’s hear your take on it,’ said Logan with exquisite politeness.

‘Our time together was all-consuming,’ she offered, and wore Logan’s burning black gaze and didn’t flinch. ‘I was very … malleable, and Logan liked it that way. The combination worked a little too well for us. And then one day someone held a mirror up to our actions and Logan didn’t like what he could see, and so he left and spared us both.’ Evie arched a slender eyebrow and Logan met it with a bitter twist of his beautifully sculpted lips. ‘Am I close?’

Logan inclined his head.

And for once, neither Max nor his mother had anything to say.