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‘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.
CHAPTER THREE
THE problem with the truth was that people so often hated hearing it. Logan was no exception. He didn’t want to admit the darker aspects of his nature. The possessiveness. The passion that coursed through him, unbridled and deep. He’d only ever lost himself in a woman once and that was with Angie. Never again.
Not once since then.
His mother knew how dark he ran on occasion. Mothers knew. Half-brothers who were eight years the younger did not always know such things, and the furtive glances Max kept giving him set Logan to seething.
‘Don’t judge until you’ve been there,’ he snapped.
‘No judgment here,’ said Max quickly. ‘None. Just trying to figure the best way forward.’
‘Get rid of her.’
‘He means the best way forward for everyone,’ his mother said pointedly.
His mother was not the weakest link at this table. Neither was Max.
Logan turned once more to Evangeline. ‘You really want to cross me?’
‘What I want is for MEP to land the civic project and for you to stop being such a dog in the manger,’ she said evenly. ‘You don’t want me, and that’s fine. I get it. I got it ten years ago when you walked away. So stay away. Stay out of my business and I’ll stay out of yours.’
‘You’re in my home.’
‘Actually,’ his mother said gently, and reached for her wine, ‘this is my home.’
‘Logan, you’ll be gone in a couple of days,’ said Max carefully. ‘Evie and I will be back in Sydney. Out of sight, out of mind.’
‘No,’ said Logan curtly. ‘She won’t be out of mind, she’ll be within reach, and if you think your sham of a marriage will keep me in check, think again.’
‘You still want her,’ said Max slowly.
Logan didn’t want to answer that question. For over ten years he’d avoided that particular question, contenting himself with less, always less. Touching no one too deeply and making damn sure no one tapped the darkness in him.
‘Yes,’ he admitted through clenched teeth, and pushed back from the table, intent on leaving before he made a bad situation worse. ‘It appears I do. Which is why if you have any care for her whatsoever you’ll get her the hell out of my way.’
Evie gave up all pretence of eating once Logan had stalked from the room. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Stop it, Evangeline,’ said Caroline Carmichael sharply. ‘When you’ve done wrong you can apologise. But I see no reason for you to apologise for the behaviour of my son.’
‘We can call off the wedding,’ said Evie. ‘I’m happy to call the wedding off. This isn’t going to work.’
‘No kidding,’ murmured Max.
‘There’ll be other civic centres,’ she said, and almost believed it. ‘Better ones.’
‘Evie, you know how often projects like this one come up,’ said Max tightly. ‘Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture here for you and me and MEP. I’ll talk to Logan again. He’ll come round, I know he will. Because that wasn’t my brother, just then. That’s not who he is. He’s just … jet-lagged or something.’
Evie said nothing. Caroline said nothing.
And Max drank deeply of his wine.
‘Are you strong enough to withstand my eldest son’s desire for you?’ Caroline asked her bluntly.
‘No.’
‘Are you still submissive?’
‘No.’ Evie smiled faintly. ‘I was very young. I found my strength.’
‘You might want to consider ramming that particular development down Logan’s throat,’ said Caroline.
‘I thought I just did.’
This time it was Caroline’s turn to offer up a faint smile. ‘Harder.’
Evie stood.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Max.
‘To abuse your brother’s throat.’
She found him in one of the bedrooms, slinging clothes into a suitcase with little care as to how they landed.
‘Get out,’ he said when he saw her in the doorway.
‘No.’ Evie made herself continue forward, shutting the door behind her, and moving forward again until she was well into the room, but not so close as to be within reach. ‘You’re being childish, Logan. You’re letting your fear of behaviours long gone colour your vision of the present. You need to learn how to deal with the person I am now. I need to learn how to deal with you.’
‘Childish?’ he said incredulously.
Was that really as far as he’d got with her words? ‘Don’t forget fearful.’
He pinned her with a fierce gaze.
‘Why else would you be running away?’ she pointed out as gently as she could.
And received silence in reply.
‘Do you feel guilty about some of the things we did together? Is that it? Because you shouldn’t. You had my consent.’
‘I know that, Angie.’
‘Is it because you exposed your deepest desires to me, and I just fed them to your family?’
‘Those desires started—and finished—with you. They don’t belong to me any more. And, yeah. You could have kept them to yourself.’
‘Maybe I thought your family needed a better explanation than the one they’d been served. I didn’t realise you were only interested in being truthful up to a point.’
‘You should have.’
She wanted to rattle him, Evie realised. Pick away at his anger and his armour and see what was underneath. ‘You can’t dominate me any more, Logan. You need to realise that.’
‘I don’t want to dominate you,’ he muttered. ‘I never wanted that.’ He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and looked away. ‘But it happened.’
‘I thought I was in love with you. Week one of an intensely sexual, sensual relationship,’ she argued. ‘So much to feel and to learn and, yes, my focus was on pleasing you. I like to think I’d have regained my equilibrium at some stage. That the relationship dynamic would have evened out in time. But I guess we’ll never know.’
‘I don’t want to dwell on the past, Angie. I just want you gone from my life now.’
‘Which is in itself an exercise in enforcing your will over mine.’ Evie moved forward until she was crowding his space; nothing weak about that move. ‘That seem right to you?’
‘You can’t marry him, Angie.’
‘You really think Max would still have me after the fuss you just made?’
‘He’s got fifty million reasons to ignore the fuss I just made,’ said Logan gruffly. ‘You don’t. You need to end this now.’
Logan’s hand went to the back of his neck. From there, it was only too easy for Evie to let her gaze run over the hard angle of his jaw, the stubble just starting to show, and from there to his lips. A woman could fixate on those lips.
‘Don’t,’ he warned huskily.
‘Don’t what?’ Wonder if she could coax them open? Wonder what it would take to make them say the name Evie instead of Angie? ‘Don’t tempt you? Don’t wonder what we might have had if you’d stuck around long enough to find out? Because I do wonder what we might have had together, Logan. I can’t help it. And I’m sure as hell wondering it now.’
‘Nothing good.’
‘You don’t know that. You barely know me. What if I am a match for you now? Ever thought of that?’
‘No.’
‘Maybe you should,’ she cautioned gently, and touched her fingers to his lips and he went still as a statue but he let her do it. ‘What if we could bring this passion between us under control?’
‘We’d get lost,’ he muttered as her fingertips strayed to his jaw. ‘I’d get lost and I can’t afford to, Angie. I can’t.’
‘What if I know the way?’
‘Do you?’ he asked, and then his hands were on her waist, dragging her towards him, and his lips crushed down on hers, desperate and tortured, no half-measures with this man and there never had been. It was all or nothing, and his kisses inflamed her as desperation turned into desire hot and sweet. And then he took his tongue to her mouth and lit an inferno.
A step backwards towards the bed for him as Evie set her palms to his chest and drank deeply of his passion and his pain. A step forward for her, and then they were falling, and he was beneath her, and his eyes were closed and his ravenous mouth never left her skin.
Her dress proved a poor barrier against Logan’s clever hands, the thin shoulder straps sliding down, and then he swept the bodice down to reveal the swell of small breasts and the tips of her nipples. He set his tongue to one, and then lips, and suckled hard and Evie gasped as he took her to the edge of pain, and he knew exactly where that edge began, damn him, and when to retreat and bring pleasure coursing in its wake.
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