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‘There.’ The silence in the kitchen was gratifying as Darcy switched off the beater. ‘Now, can I get you a cup of coffee?’ she invited lightly. ‘I can finish the lemon meringues in a few moments,’ she explained easily, smiling at him brightly. ‘Oops.’ She grimaced as she obviously saw the way his expression tightened. ‘I forgot I’m not supposed to smile at you!’
Logan could have kicked himself for so plainly reacting to that smile that Darcy couldn’t help but notice it. It was time he got himself out of here. And stayed out!
‘I’ll pass on the coffee, if you don’t mind,’ he refused coldly. ‘I only wanted to confirm that there were no repercussions from your meeting yesterday.’ He moved away from the work unit. And Darcy. ‘Everything appears to be back to normal,’ he pronounced.
In fact, everything was so normal—Daniel Simon back in his restaurant, father and daughter obviously reconciled—that Logan was decidedly in the way.
How he felt it!
Darcy looked at him with dismay now. Without Logan’s help in meeting his mother—albeit reluctantly!—the situation between her father and herself could still be termed as one of armed warfare. The least she owed Logan was a cup of coffee. At most, she probably owed him an explanation of exactly what had taken place yesterday after his departure from the hotel. In fact, it would probably be better—for everyone!—if she were the one to tell him that!
‘Please stay for coffee, Logan,’ she pressed. ‘It’s already made, I only have to pour it.’ She indicated the perculator of coffee being kept hot on one of the worktops.
As she watched him, it was obvious Logan was having an inner battle with himself. No doubt a part of him was still angry with both Darcy and his mother. But the other part of him, the part that had compelled him to come here at all today, really wanted to know what was going on. As his mother had already stated, Logan was not a man who felt comfortable when he wasn’t one hundred per cent in charge of a situation, and this one was well out of his hands. More so than he could even imagine!
‘Okay. Coffee,’ he finally agreed tersely. ‘But I can’t stay long,’ he stated determinedly as she moved to pour the steaming brew into two mugs. ‘I have a luncheon appointment at one o’clock.’
In other words, get on with it, Darcy, because I’ve already wasted enough of my precious time on this ridiculous situation!
Which was probably fair enough, she conceded ruefully. But another part of her couldn’t help wondering who his luncheon appointment was with. It wasn’t one of the business lunches he occasionally held at his office; she would have seen the booking for that. Which suggested it wasn’t a business lunch at all…
So could his one o’clock appointment be with a woman?
After all, Logan might have kissed her—more than once—but those occasions had been spur-of-the-moment things and not the culmination of having spent an evening together. Which meant there might already be a woman in Logan’s life…
Somehow Darcy found the thought of that an unpleasant one. As were her thoughts of Logan dining with another woman. Logan spending time with another woman. Logan kissing another woman. Logan in bed with another woman…!
That last vision made her feel physically sick!
Indeed, she was so shaken by it, she had to put the mugs of coffee back on the work surface, her hands shaking so much she was in danger of spilling the hot liquid all over the floor if she attempted to carry them over to the table where Logan sat waiting for her.
When had it happened?
Why had it happened?
Because she had just made the earth-shattering discovery—for her!—that she was in love with Logan McKenzie. The very last man she should ever have fallen in love with…!
What had she once so scathingly said to Logan concerning her father’s feelings for Margaret Fraser? How can anyone possibly fall in love in just three weeks; she seemed to have done the same thing herself where Logan was concerned, in only a few days!
Oh, dear, he must never know of it, never even begin to guess how stupid she had be—
‘I thought you said this wasn’t going to take long?’ Logan snarled now at her delay in producing the offered coffee.
Darcy drew in a deep controlling breath before picking up the coffee-mugs and walking over to the table. After all, she might have just made a discovery that was in danger of rocking her whole world, but Logan wasn’t aware of it. And he must never be!
She simply couldn’t bear it if Logan were ever to realise how she felt about him. From what she already knew of Logan, and his feelings regarding love, he was likely to run a mile if he even half guessed that she was in love with him. In the circumstances, that just wasn’t possible…!
‘Biscuit?’ she offered, not quite able to look at him yet, suddenly shy in the realisation that if she never saw this man again she would be absolutely devastated.
Although again, in the circumstances, that wasn’t very likely, either. But to watch him through the years, perhaps even witness him making one of those loveless marriages he had talked about, was surely going to be even more painful than never seeing him again?
Darcy sat down abruptly at the table opposite him. How could she have been so stupid as to fall in love with Logan, of all people?
‘Apparently not,’ he dryly refused her offer of a biscuit, his gaze mocking now. ‘So, what did you think of my mother?’
Attack always seemed to be Logan’s own form of defence; perhaps it would be as well if she were to adopt that attitude herself towards him in future.
She straightened, looking unflinchingly into the mockery of those deep blue eyes. ‘I thought she was gracious, charming, obviously very beautiful—’
‘Let’s forget the general—totally unknowledgeable—consensus, shall we?’ Logan interrupted harshly. ‘What did you think of her?’ His gaze was narrowed now.
Darcy hesitated. ‘You aren’t going to like this…’
His mouth twisted. ‘She took you in!’ he realised scornfully. ‘She gave you the forlorn, poor misunderstood woman act, and you fell for it!’ he exclaimed with a disgusted shake of his head.
Darcy bit back her own angry retort with effort. The two of them ending up in a slanging match, over something of which they had absolutely no control, was ridiculous.
‘Not completely,’ she assured Logan.
The two women might have eaten cream cakes together like giggling schoolgirls, Darcy might have accepted that Margaret Fraser did genuinely love Darcy’s father, but that did not mean she wasn’t quite capable of knowing the other woman had her faults, that she was far from perfect. Or did he think that, as his mother, Margaret Fraser should be? It wasn’t a very realistic view if he did believe that. Even Darcy, who absolutely worshipped her father, didn’t expect him to be infallible.
Logan gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘I can’t believe you let her fool you,’ he said almost angrily.
Darcy leaned forward over the table. ‘Logan, what I did or didn’t think of your mother is not important,’ she told him softly. ‘It isn’t my opinion that counts,’ she reasoned, having come to that conclusion all too painfully herself over the last few days.
He didn’t look convinced. ‘Don’t tell me, your father, even though she’s broken their engagement, still thinks she’s wonderful!’
‘My father,’ she began slowly, ‘is far from the stupid man you take him to be.’ And far from the besotted widower she had believed him to be, too!
She and her father had talked long into the night after Darcy had accompanied Margaret Fraser back to her apartment, and Darcy was utterly sure now that he knew exactly what he was doing, that he loved the other woman in spite of her faults. As the actress obviously loved him in return.
She moistened dry lips, swallowing hard before she began speaking, aware even now that, at almost twelve o’clock, her father should really have returned to the kitchen by now, that he was deliberately allowing her this time alone with Logan. ‘Logan, the engagement is very much back on,’ she informed him gently. ‘In fact, the two of them are going to be married—’
‘You can’t be serious!’ he cut in incredulously.
‘Perfectly,’ Darcy affirmed.
He gave a disgusted snort. ‘That is not a word I ever associate with my mother!’
Darcy sighed, wishing there were some way she could help alleviate the pain he had known in the past that had caused him to feel this way about his mother. But at the same time knowing, as Margaret Fraser did herself, that until Logan was receptive to what she wanted to say to him concerning the past, that she, and Darcy, would be wasting their breath.
‘Nevertheless, the two of them are going to be married,’ she continued determinedly.
His gaze was glacial now. ‘I hope you aren’t expecting me to offer them my congratulations?’
She shook her head sadly. ‘I think that might be expecting a bit much,’ she conceded.
‘But no doubt you’ve given them yours’,’ he guessed. ‘And—don’t tell me—you’re going to be a bridesmaid!’ he scorned.
Darcy drew in a quick breath. ‘Logan, has no one ever told you that bitterness is simply a form of selfdestruction? That—’
‘I believe I have already made my views on your amateur psychology more than plain,’ he cut in coldly.
‘Oh, yes, Logan, you can be assured you’ve made your views on several subjects more than plain!’ She was becoming angry herself now. ‘But it just so happens you aren’t a primary player in this particular situation. As I’m not.’ Something she had learnt all too painfully over the last couple of days! ‘So, like mine, your opinion is not of particular importance to either your mother or my father.’
‘In other words, our parents are going to marry each other, with or without our blessing,’ Logan acknowledged hardly.
Darcy nodded. ‘But they would obviously rather it was with.’ She looked at Logan expectantly.
He remained impassive. ‘You might feel prepared to play happy families, Darcy,’ he told her. ‘But I am not.’
She looked across at him with narrowed eyes, her frustration with this situation rapidly rising. ‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning they will have to get married without my blessing. In fact, as I have no intention of attending the wedding, they will have to get married without my being present at all!’
He was so obstinate, so stubborn, so uncompromising! What was it really going to cost him to be present at his own mother’s wedding? Nothing as far as she could see. Unless he considered his own personal pride more important than wishing the older couple well?
Nevertheless, she tried one last time to reach him. ‘Logan, you’re being unreasonable—’
The loud slamming down of his empty mug interrupted her, Logan’s own expression one of fury now. ‘I don’t see what’s in the least unreasonable about it. I certainly wasn’t present at my mother’s first wedding—’
‘You weren’t even born!’ At least, she presumed he wasn’t…?
‘Correct,’ he confirmed icily. ‘But I was very much alive when her second marriage took place, and, as she and Malcolm sneaked off to be married and told the family about it afterwards, I didn’t attend that one either. I see absolutely no reason to break the habit of a lifetime!’
Darcy stood up, two spots of angry colour in her otherwise pale cheeks. ‘You’re not twelve years old now, Logan.’
He remained in his seat. ‘No matter how old I was, my answer would still be the same.’
Darcy breathed hard in her frustrated anger towards this man. ‘Logan, Meg and my father have asked me to be one of their witnesses at the wedding—’
‘How nice for you!’
‘They would like it very much if you would agree to be the other one!’ she burst out.
‘In their dreams!’ Logan remained unmoved.
‘I—you—’
Logan leant back in his chair, a half-smile curving his lips. ‘So now you can report back to both of them that their little ploy in getting you to be the one to ask me didn’t work,’ he told her contemptuously.
Darcy saw red at that. Neither her father nor Margaret Fraser had so much as suggested she should do that—she had done it because she’d thought Logan might have been less insulting in his answer to her than he would either of them. She had been wrong!
‘You are the most unforgiving, pigheaded man I have ever had the misfortune to meet!’ Her voice shook with rage, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.
Again, Logan looked unmoved by her outburst. ‘And you, my dear Darcy, are the most naively gullible young lady I have ever met,’ he returned with insulting coolness.
She didn’t think, didn’t reason, reacted purely on instinct, which told her to pick up the bowl of recently whisked egg-whites—and put it over the top of Logan’s head!
Then, as he slowly removed the bowl and placed it carefully back on the table-top, the fluffy egg-whites slowly congealing on his hair and face, Logan’s expression through the gooey mess one of stunned surprise, Darcy could only stare at him in horror for what she had just done.
She had done some terrible things to him in the short time she had known him, but Logan was never going to forgive her for this one.
Never!
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