Kitabı oku: «One Night With Her Ex: The One That Got Away / The Man From her Wayward Past / The Ex Who Hired Her»

Accidentally educated in the sciences, KELLY HUNTER has always had a weakness for fairytales, fantasy worlds and losing herself in a good book. Husband … yes. Children … two boys. Cooking and cleaning … sigh. Sports … no, not really—in spite of the best efforts of her family. Gardening … yes. Roses, of course. Kelly was born in Australia and has travelled extensively. Although she enjoys living and working in different parts of the world, she still calls Australia home.

Kelly’s novels Sleeping Partner and Revealed: A Prince and a Pregnancy were both finalists for the Romance Writers of America RITA^® Award, in the Best Contemporary Series Romance category!

Visit Kelly online at www.kellyhunter.net.

PROLOGUE

THERE were limits—but Logan couldn’t remember what they were.

He lay on the bed, stripped-out and trembling, his body screaming out for oxygen and his brain not working at all. The woman splayed beneath him looked in no better condition. Boneless in the aftermath, just the occasional twitch to remind them that there was substance there, the shallow rise and fall of her chest that accompanied her breathing.

He looked to her skin; it had been flawless when he undressed her but it was flawless no more. There were marks on it now from his fingers and from the sandpapery skin of his jaw. Marks on her wrists and her waist and the silky-soft underside of her jaw.

He’d met her in a bar; that much he could remember. Some student hangout near the hotel he was staying at. This hotel. This was his room; he’d brought her back here. She’d given him her number but that hadn’t been enough for him. The hotel nearby. He’d walked her back to it. Invited her back to his room.

And those golden eyes had seen straight through to his soul and she’d tilted her lips towards his and told him to take what he wanted, all he wanted, and more. And he’d done so and discovered himself utterly in thrall.

‘Hey,’ he said gruffly, and reached out to drag his thumb across her stretched and swollen lips. Their last close encounter had been the wrong side of rough, and he felt the shame of it now, the black edge of guilt encroaching on the insane pleasure that had gone before. ‘You okay?’

She opened her eyes for him, and, yeah, she was okay. He smoothed her inky-black hair away from her face, tucked it behind her ear, combed it back from her temple. He couldn’t stop touching her. Such a beautiful face.

He stroked her hair back, smoothed his hand over the curve of her shoulder. ‘Can I get you anything?’ he offered. ‘Glass of water? Room service? Shower’s yours if that’s what you want.’ Whatever she wanted, all she had to do was ask.

And she looked at him and her lips kicked up at the corners and she said, ‘Whatever you just did to me … whatever that was—I want more.’

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU could marry me,’ said Max Carmichael as he stared at the civic centre drawings on Evie’s drawing table. The drawings were his, and very fine they were indeed. The calculations and costings were Evie’s doing, and those costings were higher—far higher—than anything she’d ever worked on before.

Evie stopped chewing over the financials long enough to spare her business partner of six years a glance. Max was an architect, and a visionary one at that. Evie was the engineer—wet blanket to Max’s more fanciful notions. Put them together and good things happened.

Though not always. ‘Are you talking to me?’

‘Yes, I’m talking to you,’ said Max with what he clearly thought was the patience of a saint. ‘I need access to my trust fund. To get access to my trust fund I either have to turn thirty or get married. I don’t turn thirty for another two years.’

‘I have two questions for you, Max. Why me and why now?’

‘The “why you” question is easy: (a), I don’t love you and you don’t love me—’

Evie studied him through narrowed eyes.

‘—which will make divorcing you in two years’ time a lot easier. And (b), It’s in MEP’s best interest that you marry me.’ MEP stood for Max and Evangeline Partnership, the construction company they’d formed six years ago. ‘We’re going to need deep pockets for this one, Evie.’ Max tapped the plans spread out before them.

She’d been telling him this for the past week. The civic centre build was a gem of a project and Max’s latest obsession. High-profile, progressive design brief, reputation-enhancing. But the project was situated on the waterfront, which meant pier drilling and extensive foundation work, and MEP would have to foot the bills until the first payment at the end of stage one. ‘This job’s too big for us, Max.’

‘You’re thinking too small.’

‘I’m thinking within our means.’ They were a small and nimble company with a permanent staff of six, a reliable pool of good subcontractors, and the business was on solid financial footing. If they landed the civic centre job they’d need to expand the business in every respect. If they got caught with a cash-flow problem, they’d be bankrupt within months. ‘We need ten million dollars cash in reserve in order to take on this project, Max. I keep telling you that.’

‘Marry me and we’ll have it.’

Evie blinked.

‘Shut your mouth, Evie,’ murmured Max, and Evie brought her teeth together with a snap.

And opened them again just as quickly. ‘You have a ten-million-dollar trust fund?’

‘Fifty.’

‘Fif—And you never thought to mention it?’

‘Yeah, well, it seemed a long way off.’

He didn’t look like a fifty-million-dollar man. Tall, rangy frame, brown eyes and hair, casual dresser, hard worker. Excellent architect. ‘Why do you even need to work?’

‘I like to work. I want this project, Evie,’ he said with understated intensity. ‘I don’t want to wait ten years for us to build the resources to take on a project this size. This is the one.’

‘Maybe,’ she said cautiously. ‘But we started this business as equal partners. What happens when you drop ten million dollars into kitty and I put in none?’

‘We treat it as a loan. The money goes in at the beginning of the job, buffers us against the unexpected and comes out again at the end. And we’d need a pre-nup.’

‘Oh, the romance of it all,’ she murmured dryly.

‘So you’ll think about it?’

‘The money or the marriage?’

‘I’ve found that it helps a great deal to think about them together,’ said Max. ‘What are you doing Friday?’

‘I am not marrying you on Friday,’ said Evie.

‘Of course not,’ said Max. ‘We have to wait for the paperwork. I was thinking I could take my fiancée home to Melbourne to meet my mother on Friday. We stay a couple of nights, put on a happy show, return Sunday and get married some time next week. It’s a good solution, Evie. I’ve thought about it a lot.’

‘Yeah, well, I haven’t thought about it at all.’

‘Take all day,’ said Max. ‘Take two.’

Evie just looked at him.

‘Okay, three.’

It took them a week to work through all the ramifications, but eventually Evie said yes. There were provisos, of course. They only went through with the wedding if MEP’s tender for the civic centre was looking good. The marriage would end when Max turned thirty. They’d have to share a house but there would be no sharing of beds. And no sex with anyone else either.

Max had balked at that last stipulation.

Discretion regarding others had been his counter offer. Two years was a long time, he’d argued. She didn’t want him all tense and surly for the next two years, did she?

Evie did not, but the role of betrayed wife held little appeal.

Eventually they had settled on extreme discretion regarding others, with a two-hundred-thousand-dollar penalty clause for the innocent party every time an extramarital affair became public.

‘If I were a cunning woman, I’d employ a handful of women to throw themselves at you to the point where you couldn’t resist,’ said Evie as they headed down to Circular Quay for lunch.

‘If you were that cunning I wouldn’t be marrying you,’ said Max as they stepped from the shadow of a Sydney skyscraper into a sunny summer’s day. ‘What do you want for lunch? Seafood?’

‘Yep. You don’t look like a man who’s about to inherit fifty million dollars, by the way.’

‘How about now?’ Max stopped, lifted his chin, narrowed his eyes and stared at the nearest skyscraper as if he were considering taking ownership of it.

‘It’d help if your work boots weren’t a hundred years old,’ she said gravely.

‘They’re comfortable.’

‘And your watch didn’t come from the two-dollar shop.’

‘It still tells the time. You know, you and my mother are going to get on just fine,’ said Max. ‘That’s a useful quality in a wife.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Dear,’ said Max. ‘If you say so, dear.’

‘Oh, you poor, deluded man.’

Max grinned and stopped mid pavement. He drew Evie to his side, held his phone out at arm’s length and took a picture.

‘Tell me about your family, again,’ she said.

‘Mother. Older brother. Assorted relatives. You’ll be meeting them soon enough.’

She’d be meeting his mother this weekend; it was all arranged. Max showed her the photo he’d just taken. ‘What do you reckon? Tell her now?’

‘Yes.’ They’d had this discussion before. ‘Now would be good.’

Max returned his attention to the phone, texting some kind of message to go with the photo. ‘Done,’ he muttered. ‘Now I feel woozy.’

‘Probably hunger,’ said Evie.

‘Don’t you feel woozy?’

‘Not yet. For that to happen there would need to be champagne.’

So when they got to the restaurant and ordered the seafood platter for lunch, Max also ordered champagne, and they toasted the business, the civic centre project and finally themselves.

‘How come it doesn’t bother you?’ asked Max, when the food was gone and the first bottle of champagne had been replaced by another. ‘Marrying for mercenary reasons?’

‘With my family history?’ she said. ‘It’s perfectly normal.’ Her father was on his fifth wife in as many decades; her mother was on her third husband. She could count the love matches on one finger.

‘Haven’t you ever been in love?’ he asked.

‘Have you?’ Evie countered.

‘Not yet,’ said Max as he signed for the meal, and his answer fitted him well enough. Max went through girlfriends aplenty. Most of them were lovely. None of them lasted longer than a couple of months.

‘I was in love once,’ said Evie as she stood and came to the rapid realisation that she wasn’t wholly sober any more. ‘Best week of my life.’

‘What was he like?’

‘Tall, dark and perfect. He ruined me for all other men.’

‘Bastard.’

‘That too,’ said Evie with a wistful sigh. ‘I was very young. He was very experienced. Worst week of my life.’

‘You said best.’

‘It was both,’ she said with solemn gravity, and then went and spoiled it with a sloppy sucker’s grin. ‘Let’s just call it memorable. Did I mention that he ruined me for all other men?’

‘Yes.’ Max put his hand to her elbow to steady her and steered her towards the stairs and guided her down them, one by one, until they stood on the pavement outside. ‘You’re tipsy.’

‘You’re right.’

‘How about we find a taxi and get you home? I promise to see you inside, pour you a glass of water, find your aspirin and then find my way home. Don’t say I’m not a good fiancé.’

‘Vitamin B,’ said Evie. ‘Find that too.’

Max’s phone beeped and he looked at it and grinned. ‘Logan wants to know if you’re pregnant.’

‘Who’s Logan?’ Even the name was enough to cut through her foggy senses and give her pause. The devil’s name had been Logan too. Logan Black.

‘Logan’s my brother. He’s got a very weird sense of humour.’

‘I hate him already.’

‘I’ll tell him no,’ said Max cheerfully.

Minutes later, Max’s phone beeped again. ‘He says congratulations.’

It couldn’t be her. Logan looked at the image on his phone again, at the photo Max had just sent through. Max looked happy, his wide grin and the smile in his eyes telegraphing a pleasurable moment in time. But it was the face of the bride-to-be that held and kept Logan’s attention. The glossy fall of raven-black hair and the almond-shaped eyes—the tilt of them and the burnt-butter colour. She reminded him of another woman … a woman he’d worked hellishly hard to forget.

It wasn’t the same woman, of course. Max’s fiancée was far more angular of face and her eyes weren’t quite the right shade of brown. Her mouth was more sculpted, less vulnerable … but they were of a type. A little bit fey. A whole lot of beautiful.

Entirely capable of stealing a man’s mind.

Logan hadn’t even known that Max was in a serious relationship, though, with the way Max’s trust was set up and Max’s recent desire to get his hands on it, he should have suspected that matrimony would be his younger half-brother’s next move.

Evie, Max had called her. Pretty name.

The woman he’d known had been called Angie.

Evie. Angie. Evangeline? What were the odds?

Logan studied the photo again, wishing the background weren’t so bright and their faces weren’t quite so shadowed. The woman he’d known as Angie had spent the best part of a week with him. In bed, on their way to bed, in the shower after getting out of bed … She’d been young. Curious. Frighteningly uninhibited. There’d been role play. Bondage play. Too much play, and he’d instigated most of it. Crazy days and sweat-slicked nights and the stripping back of his self-control until there’d been barely enough left to walk away.

At a dead run.

He’d been twenty-five at the time, he was thirty-six now and he doubted he’d fare any better with Angie now than he had all those years ago.

He squinted. Looked at the photo again. Could it be Angie? They were very long odds. He’d never kept in contact with her; had no idea where she was in the world or what she was doing now.

No, he decided for the second time in as many minutes. It wasn’t her. It couldn’t be her.

‘She pregnant?’ he texted his brother.

‘Hell, no,’ came Max’s all-caps reply, and Logan grinned and sent through his all-caps congratulations. And then deleted the picture so that he wouldn’t keep staring at it and wondering what Angie—his Angie—would look like now.

Evangeline Jones felt decidedly nervous as Max helped her out of the taxi and followed her up the garden path to his mother’s front door. It was one thing to agree to a marriage of convenience. It was another thing altogether to play the love-smitten fiancée in front of Max’s family.

‘Whose idea was this?’ she muttered to Max as she stared at the elegant two-storey Victorian in front of them. ‘And why did I ever imagine it was a good one?’

‘Relax,’ said Max. ‘Even if my mother doesn’t believe we’re marrying for love, she won’t mention it.’

‘Maybe not to you,’ said Evie, and then the door opened, and an elegantly dressed woman opened her arms and Max stepped into them.

Max’s mother was everything a wealthy Toorak widow should be. Coiffed to perfection, her grey-blonde hair was swept up in an elegant roll and her make-up made her look ten years younger than she was. Her perfume was subtle, her jewellery exquisite. Her hands were warm and dry and her kisses were airy as she greeted Evie and then retreated a step to study her like a specimen under glass.

‘Welcome to the family, Evangeline,’ said Caroline, and there was no censure in that controlled and cultured voice. ‘Max has spoken of you often over the years, though I don’t believe we’ve ever met.’

‘Different cities,’ said Evie awkwardly. ‘Please, call me Evie. Max has mentioned you too.’

‘All good, I hope.’

‘Always,’ said Evie and Max together.

Points for harmony.

In truth, in the six years she’d known him, Max had barely mentioned his mother other than to say she’d never been the maternal type and that she set exceptionally high standards for everything; be it a manicure or the behaviour of her husbands or her sons.

‘No engagement ring?’ queried Caroline with the lift of an elegant eyebrow.

‘Ah, no,’ said Evie. ‘Not yet. There was so much choice I, ah … couldn’t decide.’

‘Indeed,’ said Caroline, before turning to Max. ‘I can, of course, make an appointment for you with my jeweller this afternoon. I’m sure he’ll have something more than suitable. That way Evie will have a ring on her finger when she attends the cocktail party I’m hosting for the pair of you tonight.’

‘You didn’t have to fuss,’ said Max as he set their overnight cases just inside the door beside a wide staircase.

‘Introducing my soon-to-be daughter-in-law to family and friends is not fuss,’ said Max’s mother reprovingly. ‘It’s expected, and so is a ring. Your brother’s here, by the way.’

‘You summoned him home as well?’

‘He came of his own accord,’ she said dryly. ‘No one makes your brother do anything.’

‘He’s my role model,’ whispered Max as they followed the doyenne of the house down the hall.

‘I need a cocktail dress,’ Evie whispered back.

‘Get it when I go ring hunting. What kind of stone do you want?’

‘Diamond.’

‘Colour?’

‘White.’

‘An excellent choice,’ said Caroline from up ahead and Max grinned ruefully.

‘Ears like a bat,’ he said in his normal deep baritone.

‘Whisper like a foghorn,’ his mother cut back, and surprised Evie by following up with a deliciously warm chuckle.

The house was a beauty. Twenty-foot ceilings and a modern renovation that complemented the building’s Victorian bones. The wood glowed with beeswax shine and the air carried the scent of old-English roses. ‘Did you do the renovation?’ asked Evie and her dutiful fiancé nodded.

‘My first project after graduating.’

‘Nice work,’ she said as Caroline ushered them into a large sitting room that fed seamlessly through to a wide, paved garden patio. The table there was set for four. Perfumed roses filled several large vases, their colours haphazard enough to make Evie smile.

‘I had a very demanding client who knew exactly what she wanted,’ said Max. ‘My ego took such a beating. These days I only wish all our clients could be that specific.’

‘Max tells me you’re a civil engineer,’ said Caroline. ‘Do you enjoy your work?’

‘I love it,’ said Evie.

‘And this new project you’re quoting on? You’re as enthusiastic about it as Max?’

‘You mean the civic centre? Yes. It’s the perfect stepping stone for us.’ Us being the business. ‘The right opportunity at exactly the right time.’

‘So I hear,’ said Caroline, with an enigmatic glance for her son. ‘I hope it’s worth it. Let me just go and tell Amelia we’re ready for lunch,’ she said smoothly, and swanned out of the room before anyone could reply.

‘She’s not buying it,’ said Evie. ‘The whirlwind engagement.’

‘Not so,’ said Max. ‘She’s undecided. Different beast altogether.’

‘You don’t take after her in looks.’

‘No,’ said Max. ‘I take after my father.’

‘You mean tall, dark, handsome and rich?’ Evie teased.

‘He’s not rich,’ said a deep voice from behind them. ‘Yet.’

That voice. Such a deep, raspy baritone. Max had a deep voice too, but it wasn’t like this one.

‘Logan,’ said Max turning around, and Evie forced herself to relax. Max had a brother called Logan; Evie knew this already. It was just a name—nothing to worry about. Plenty of Logans in this world.

And then Evie turned towards the sound of that voice too and the world as she lived in it ceased to exist, because she knew this man, this Logan who was Max’s brother.

And he knew her.

‘Evie, this is my brother,’ said Max as he headed towards the older man. ‘Logan, meet Evie.’

Manners made Evie walk puppet-like to Max’s side and wait while the two men embraced. Masochism made her lift her chin and hold out her hand for Logan to shake once they were finished with the brotherly affection. He looked older. Harder. The lines on his face were more deeply etched and his bleak, black gaze was as hard as agate. But it was him.

Logan ignored her outstretched hand and shoved his hands deep into his trouser pockets instead. The movement made her memory kick. Same movement. Another time and place.

‘Pretty name,’ he rumbled as Evie let her arm fall to her side.

He’d known her as Angie—a name she’d once gone by. A name she’d worked hard to forget, because Angie had been needy and greedy and far too malleable beneath Logan Black’s all-consuming touch.

‘It’s short for Evangeline,’ she murmured, and met his gaze and wished she hadn’t, for a fine fury had set up shop beneath his barely pleasant façade. So he’d been duped by a name. Well, so had she. She’d been expecting Logan Carmichael, brother to Max Carmichael.

Not Logan Black.

Logan’s gaze flicked down over her pretty little designer dress, all the way to her pink-painted toenails peeking out from strappy summer sandals. ‘Welcome to the family, Evangeline.’

Max wasn’t stupid. He could sense the discord and he slid his arm around Evie’s waist and encouraged her to tuck into his side, which she did, every bit the small, sinking ship, finding harbour.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, restricting her gaze to the buttons of Logan’s casual white shirt. It wasn’t the first time she’d taken shelter in Max’s arms and it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was just … wrong.

‘How long are you staying?’ Max asked his brother.

‘Not long.’

Logan ran a hand through his short cropped hair and the seams of his shirt-sleeve strained over bulging triceps. Evie shifted restlessly within Max’s embrace, every nerve sensitised and for all the wrong reasons.

‘Did you have to travel far to get here?’ she asked Logan. Not a throwaway question. She needed him to be based far, far away.

‘Perth. I have a company office there. Head office is based in London. Have you ever been to London, Evangeline?’

‘Yes.’ She’d met him in London. Lost herself in him in London. ‘A long time ago.’

‘And did it meet expectations?’ he asked silkily.

‘Yes and no. Some of the people I met there left me cold.’

Logan’s eyes narrowed warningly.

‘So what is it that you do, Logan? What’s your history?’ Rude now, and she knew it, but curiosity would have her know what he did for a living. She’d never asked. It hadn’t been that kind of relationship.

‘I buy things, break them down, and repackage them for profit.’

‘How gratifying,’ said Evie. ‘I build things.’

No mistaking the silent challenge that passed between them, or Max’s silent bafflement as he stared from one to the other.

‘Max, do you think your mother would mind if I took my bag up to the room?’ she asked. ‘I wouldn’t mind freshening up.’

‘Your luggage is already in your suite,’ said Caroline from the doorway. ‘And of course you’d like to freshen up. Come, I’ll show you the way.’

Five minutes ago, Evie wouldn’t have wanted to be alone with Caroline Carmichael.

Right now, it seemed like the perfect escape.

Logan watched her go, he couldn’t stop himself. He remembered that walk, those legs, remembered her broken entreaties as she lay on his bed, naked and waiting. He remembered how he was with her; his breathing harsh and his brain burning. No matter how many times he’d taken her it had never been enough. Whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it, and he hadn’t recognised the danger in giving her whatever she asked for until the table had given way beneath them and Angie had cut her head on the broken table leg on the way down. ‘I’m okay,’ she’d said, over and over again. ‘Logan, it’s okay.’

Eleven years later and he could still remember the warm, sticky blood running down Angie’s face, running over his hands and hers as he’d tried to determine the damage done. That particular memory was engraved on his soul.

‘An accident,’ she’d told the doctor at the hospital as he’d stitched her up and handed her over to the nurses to clean up her face. ‘I fell.’

And then one of the nurses had eased Angie’s shirt collar to one side so that she could mop up more of the blood, and there’d been bruises on Angie’s skin, old ones and new, and the nurse’s compassionate eyes had turned icy as she’d turned to him and said, ‘I’m sorry. Could you please wait outside?’

He’d lost his lunch in the gutter on the way to get the car; still reeling from the blood on his hands and the sure knowledge that accident or not, this was his fault, all of it.

Like father, like son.

No goddamn control.

Angie hadn’t known he was Max’s brother, just now.

Logan didn’t think anyone could conjure up that level of horrified dismay on cue. Or the hostility that had followed.

‘So what was that all about?’ asked Max, his easy-going nature taking a back seat to thinly veiled accusation. ‘You and Evie.’

‘Do you really intend to marry her?’

Do you love her, was what he meant.

Do you bed her? Does she scream for you the way she did for me?

‘Yes,’ said Max, and Logan headed for the sideboard and the decanter of Scotch that always stood ready there. He poured himself a glass and didn’t stint when it came to quantity. Didn’t hesitate to down the lot.

‘I’m guessing that wasn’t a toast,’ said Max, and his voice was dry but his eyes were sharply assessing. ‘What is wrong with you?’

‘Did you protect your money? Has she signed a pre-nup?’

‘Yes. And, yes. We also restructured our business partnership to reflect proportional investment. Evie’s no gold-digger, Logan, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘You’re in business with her too?’

‘For the past six years. She’s the other half of MEP. You know this already. At least, you would if you’d been paying attention.’

‘I did pay attention. I knew you had a business partner.’ He’d known it was a woman. ‘I just …’ Didn’t know it was Angie. ‘So this marriage … is it just a way to get your hands on your trust money?’

A simple no was all it would take. A simple no from Max, and Logan would dredge up congratulations from somewhere and be on his way. All Max had to do was say no.

But Max hesitated.

And Logan set up a litany of swear words in his brain and reached for the decanter again.

Leave it alone, an inner voice urged him. It’s past. It’s done. Plenty of other women in the world. Available women. Willing women.

Angie had been willing.

‘Does she know you’re marrying her to gain access to your trust money?’ he asked next.

‘She knows.’

‘She in love with you?’

‘No. I’d never have suggested it if she was. It’s only for two years. And we’ll be working flat out for most of it.’

‘Right. So it’s just a marriage of convenience. No broken hearts to worry about at all.’

‘Exactly,’ said Max.

Leave it alone, Logan. Keep your big mouth shut.

But he couldn’t.

No way he could have Evangeline Jones for a sister-in-law and stay sane. It was as simple as that.

‘And if I said I already know your soon-to-be wife? That I met her a long time ago, long before she ever knew you? That for a week or so we were lovers?’ Logan’s voice sounded rough; the firewater was not, so he drank some more of it before turning to face his brother. ‘What then?’

Max stared at him for what seemed like an eternity. And then turned and strode from the room without another word.

Caroline Carmichael lingered once they reached the suite; a glorious eastern-facing bedroom with en suite, bay windows overlooking the garden and a sweet little alcove stuffed with a day-bed, and alongside that a bookcase full of surprisingly well-worn books.

‘It’s very feminine, isn’t it?’ murmured Caroline. ‘I’ve never put Max in this room before. Then again, he’s never brought a fiancée home either.’

‘I’m sure we’ll be fine.’ One big bed, one day-bed. Evie couldn’t have asked for a more suitable room.

Logan Black was Max’s brother. Everything was just fine.

‘Because I can put you in the adjoining room if you’d rather not be together before the wedding.’

‘Whatever you’re comfortable with, Mrs Carmichael.’ Evie made no false claim to virginity. She doubted she could have pulled it off. Besides, she could only manage one lie at a time, maybe two.

‘Please, call me Caroline,’ said Max’s mother easily. ‘It’s just that it occurs to me—as Max must have known it would—that your upcoming union might be a marriage in name only. A way for Max to access the money his father left him.’

‘Yes, Max warned me you might think that.’

‘Oh, there’s affection between you, anyone can see that,’ continued Caroline as she tugged at the curtains to make them absolutely even. ‘But I’m not seeing love.’

Evie eyed the other woman steadily. ‘What does love look like?’

‘Depends on the type,’ said Caroline Carmichael. ‘My first great love was Logan’s father and by the time we’d left the battlefield, love looked like a wasteland. But there was passion between us, passion to burn by. My second husband knew how to coax forth a steady flame, one that warmed me through and I thanked him for it every day of his life. But you and Max … Forgive me for being so blunt, but do you really intend to share this bed?’

‘None of your business, Mother,’ said Max from the doorway, determination in his voice and something else. Tightness. Anger. Max so rarely got angry. ‘I need to speak to Evangeline alone.’

Caroline left with a concerned glance for her son and Max shut the door behind her. Evie stayed by the bookshelf, arms crossed in front of her and her chin held high.

Surely Logan would have kept his sinner’s mouth shut.

Wouldn’t he?

‘Logan tells me he’s met you before,’ said Max.

Guess not. ‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘Ten years ago, maybe more. I haven’t kept count. We met in passing. I was on a study exchange programme at the University of Greenwich. Your brother was doing something or other in London. I never did ask what.’

‘He’s the one, isn’t he?’ said Max. ‘The one who ruined you for all other men.’

‘I’m thinking ruined is too strong a word,’ said Evie. ‘I was definitely exaggerating and possibly maudlin when I mentioned that to you. I’m not ruined. I don’t feel ruined. Do I look ruined?’

Max took his time looking her over.

‘You look flustered,’ he said grimly. ‘You never get flustered.’

‘Not true. C’mon, Max. I had a fling with a man called Logan Black more than ten years ago. Five minutes ago you introduced him to me as your brother. I’m calling that one fluster-worthy.’ Heat flooded Evie’s cheeks and distress fuelled her temper. ‘I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry my past has come back into play. It was a pretty tepid past.’ With one notable exception. ‘It doesn’t have to impact the present.’

‘It just did.’

Hard to argue with that.

‘Do you still want him?’ asked Max.

‘No.’ And as if saying it louder would somehow make it true, ‘NO.’

‘Because he sure as hell still wants you.’

‘If your brother had wanted me, Max, he’d have found me. That much I do remember about him.’

But Max just shook his head and ran his hands through his hair. He didn’t look much like Logan except for his dark hair and olive skin. Their features were quite different. Their mannerisms not similar at all. No way she could have known.

‘I can’t believe he even told you,’ she muttered. ‘Why would he do that? What could he possibly hope to gain? Does he not like you? Is that it?’

‘We get on well enough,’ said Max.

‘Then why?’

‘Maybe he thought you were going to say something.’

‘Yeah, well, he got that wrong.’

Max cut her a level glance. ‘Honesty not really your strong suit these days, is it?’

‘Or yours,’ she snapped back. ‘You said you had a brother—I thought I’d be meeting Logan Carmichael. You never told me you had a half-brother named Logan Black,’ she said as her legs threatened to fold and she sat herself down on the day-bed. Think, Evie. Think. But her mind had left the building the moment she’d set eyes on Logan, and it hadn’t yet returned. ‘Your mother’s hosting a cocktail party in our honour in just over seven hours,’ she said, and put her head to her hands and the heels of her hands to her eyes and pressed down hard. ‘What’s the plan here? What do you want to do? Because I can go find her and apologise and tell her the engagement’s off, if that’s what you want.’

‘Evie—’

‘Or we could put in an order for a time machine. I could go back in time, find your half-brother and spurn his advances. Failing that, I could at least wring his neck afterwards. That’d work too.’

‘Evie—’

‘Because after that I’m fresh out of ideas, Max. I don’t know how to fix this without making even more of a mess.’ Evie’s throat felt tight, her eyes started stinging. ‘I didn’t know. I didn’t know he was your brother. I would never … If I’d known. The business…. God.’

The horror in Logan’s eyes that last time they’d been together when she’d cut her head on the too-sharp table leg. The trembling in his hands, the fear and self-loathing in his eyes. He’d taken her to the hospital and by the time they’d arrived Logan had pulled himself together, standing silent and sombre by her side until the nurses had asked him to wait outside.

‘There’s no problem here,’ she’d told concerned nurses firmly. ‘None.’

But they’d given her a business card and on it had been a number to call and she’d shoved it in her handbag rather than argue with them any more.

Logan had taken her home and she’d known something was wrong but she hadn’t been able to reach him. ‘Logan, it was an accident,’ she’d told him as he’d walked her to her door. ‘You know that, right?’ And she’d thought he was going to reach for her then and make everything all right, only he’d shoved his hands in his pockets instead and nodded and looked away.

Last words she’d ever said to him, because the following day Logan Black was gone from her life as if he’d never existed.

‘God,’ she whispered.

And then Max’s hands were circling her wrists and he was crouching before her and pulling her hands away from her face. ‘Hey,’ he said gently. ‘Drama queen. Don’t go to pieces on me now. We can fix this.’

‘How?’

‘We just have to know what everybody’s intentions are, that’s all. Yours. Mine. Logan’s. Because I’ll stand aside if I have to, Evie, but only if there’s a damn good reason for doing so.’

‘That I slept with your brother isn’t good enough?’

‘Well, it’s not ideal …’ Droll, this fake fiancé of hers, when he wanted to be. ‘But I’ve got fifty million good reasons to get over it. Question is, can you and Logan? You need to talk to him, Evie.’

‘We just did. You were there. It didn’t go well.’

‘You need to talk to him again. In private. Minus the element of surprise.’

‘I really don’t.’

‘How else are you going to know if you’re over him?’

‘I’m over him.’

‘Yeah. And he’s over you. That’s why he’s downstairs mainlining Scotch and you’re up here falling apart.’

‘He’s mainlining what?’

‘Says the voice of disinterest. Corner him after lunch. Let him corner you.’

‘He thinks we’re getting married, Max. He’s not going to come anywhere near me.’

‘I think you might be underestimating the effect you have on him, Evie. Besides, he knows this is a marriage of convenience.’

‘He what?’ Evie was having trouble keeping up with who knew what. ‘How?’

‘I may have mentioned it. Before he mentioned knowing you. He was concerned for me. Or possibly for you. Not sure which. He asked me straight whether our marriage was to be one of convenience.’

‘You told him? What happened to the game plan? The “I want to pretend it’s real in front of my family” plan?’

Max had the grace to look discomfited. ‘Couldn’t do it,’ he said finally.

‘You are the worst. Liar. Ever.’

‘Yes, well, now we know that.’ Max was getting surly, a sure sign that he’d been caught wrong-footed. ‘Look, I’ll go and beard my mother, tell her what’s going on. But you have to talk to Logan and find out what he wants. What you want. See if you can imagine him as your brother-in-law.’

She really couldn’t.

‘Just talk to the man, Evie.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Okay. But if I need saving, you’d better come save me.’

‘I will.’

‘And I’m still your business partner.’

‘I know.’ Max eyed her steadily. ‘That’s not up for renegotiation, regardless of what happens with the engagement.’

‘You hold that thought,’ Evie said doggedly. ‘No matter what Logan tells you, you hold that thought.’

CHAPTER TWO

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.

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.

Palms to his shoulders, with only the warm cotton of his shirt in the way and she wanted his clothes gone, and hers, but when she tried to undo his shirt buttons he wouldn’t let her, pushing her hands away with ruthless efficiency. ‘No,’ he muttered.

And then he slung his arms beneath her thighs and slid her up and over his chest and onto his mouth and licked his way past her panties and into her, and if she thought he’d been a skilled lover ten years ago it was nothing to the expertise he wielded now.

With tongue and with hands he opened her up and drew her out, until her gasps became pleas and her pleas turned into a breathless stream of nonsense as she rode him, no room for his pleasure now, it was all about Evie, and what this man had always been able to do to her in the bedroom, and that was make sensation the only thing that mattered and self-control nothing more than a wispy memory.

This wasn’t submission, she thought hazily, sliding her hands down to tangle in his hair, holding him exactly where she wanted him and it didn’t take long, not long at all, before Evie shot to orgasm, wave after wave of pleasure so fierce and fine that her body arched like a hunter’s bow.

He let her rest, momentarily. He let her catch one breath, maybe two, and then, just when recovery seemed possible, Logan clamped his mouth over her again and came at her sideways with his tongue and slung her skywards once more.

No control over her response whatsoever as she cried out her release and prayed she hadn’t been too loud, but it wasn’t submission. Evie clung to the faintest of hope that surrendering to pleasure wasn’t submission. It was just …

Sensitive now as she toppled forward, her forearms landing on the bed above him and her head resting on her arms. A tremor shook her, a juddering reminder of where she’d just been and what Logan had just done to get her there.

‘That wasn’t submission,’ she said breathlessly as she tried to think of a smooth move that would get her body back down level with his body.

There was none.

‘I was on top,’ she said as she crawled back down his body the clumsy way. ‘I am on top.’

Which sounded lame, even to her ears.

‘I could have done anything with you, Evie. Anything, and you’d have let me.’ He worked his mouth across her nipple again and had a little party there and all she could do was whimper and strain against him and hope to hell he got it into his head to party harder. ‘What is that if not submission?’ he muttered.

‘Participation,’ she said. ‘Participation resulting from stimulation. You need to work on your definitions.’

And she needed to work on him. Cautiously, Evie inched her way further down Logan’s big body until her face was level with his and her hair fell around their faces like a curtain.

He didn’t look rested or anywhere close to content. Evie closed her eyes and rested her forehead gently against his, breathing in the scent of him and the scent of her still on him. He tasted of her too, as she licked at his mouth, coaxing and cajoling until he did what she wanted, which was open for her with a groan, but when she went to undo his belt, he clamped her wrist and dragged her hand back up to his chest.

‘Don’t,’ he said against her lips and she pulled away, just a fraction.

‘Why not?’

‘No condoms.’

Which sounded a lot like an excuse. ‘Another way, then. Same way you did me.’

‘I want—’

Yes, he did want. She could feel him rigid beneath her, digging into her. ‘Hard,’ she murmured.

‘Yes. I want hard.’ As if the admission of specific needs and desires was something to be ashamed of. ‘And rough.’ He licked at her lips as if soothing away fresh wounds. ‘Too rough for your mouth. Don’t want to hurt you.’

‘Hands,’ she offered. ‘Yours and mine. Rough.’

He shuddered beneath her, but he still wouldn’t let her hand go any lower than his chest. ‘No.’ With their lips barely touching and a shield of black lashes concealing his eyes. ‘You need to leave, Angie. Now. I can’t do this.’

‘Why not?’ She could think of plenty of reasons. They were in his mother’s house. She was—supposedly—still engaged to his brother. Not that it had stopped him. And then there was this fear he had of dominating her, of hurting her, and that was the resistance he couldn’t get past. Same reason they’d parted all those years ago.

‘I don’t understand you.’ Evie backed off a little, pulled the straps of her dress back up her shoulders. ‘Condoms can be purchased. Needs can be satisfied without anyone getting hurt. And my doing as you ask and leaving your room is not submission. It’s listening and responding and it’s action born of concern. For you. For whatever’s going on in that hard head of yours.’ He wouldn’t meet her eyes, so she put a gentle forefinger to his chin, and leaned down and gently forced eye contact. Turmoil there, and plenty of it. Black eyes blown with darkness and desire. ‘You savour me with one breath and turn me away with the next. Want to tell me what that’s all about?’

‘I really don’t. Angie, please—’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Just go.’

Time to smooth down her dress with fumbling fingers and hope to hell no one saw her on the way to the guestroom. She didn’t understand this man who lay so unmoving on his bed, one arm behind his head, one hand hooked over his belt as he watched her through slitted eyes, his erection still straining against his trousers. Her gaze fastened on his lips next; he had such sexy, snarly lips.

‘Your mother said something about your father being a man of strong passions.’ Uncontrollable passions, maybe. Caroline had implied that Logan had similar issues. Mothers knew these things. ‘Are you close to him?’

‘My father’s dead,’ answered Logan flatly.

‘Oh,’ she said with a grimace. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’ So many things about this man that she didn’t know.

‘No great loss. He died when I was ten.’ Logan closed his eyes and shut her out, put his forearm over his eyes for good measure. ‘My father was an abusive, controlling bastard. When my mother finally worked up the guts to leave him—and me—he blew his brains out.’

Evie stared at him in horrified silence. What did a person say to that? Where did a person even start? ‘Logan—’

‘Go,’ he muttered gruffly. ‘Please, Evangeline, just go.’

And this time Evie complied.

CHAPTER FOUR

LOGAN remembered to breathe again once Angie had gone and the door snicked shut behind her. He shouldn’t have told her. It wasn’t something he talked about. Not with his mother, not with the psychologists his mother had taken him to once she’d had him back in her care.

It was okay to be angry, several of them had told him gently. Maybe he could examine his anger; start with the little things, they’d coaxed, while his ten-year-old self had sat there and studied his ragged, chewed-off fingernails and told them he wasn’t angry, not him. Not with his father for topping himself, not with his mother for leaving them. She’d come back, hadn’t she? Once the old man was gone? She’d come back for her son who was volatile, and controlling and needy, just like his father, and she’d never once called him those things, just started praising all the other traits he possessed and sent him to shrinks to keep the crazy in check.

Why had he told Angie that? Why couldn’t he have left it at his father was dead?

She’d run now, if she had any sense. Away from this family. Away from him.

Evangeline Jones didn’t understand the stakes in this game, but Logan did. He knew how it went; the breaking of a woman’s will. Drip by tiny drip until it was all gone and she jumped at the sound of a footfall and flinched whenever someone moved too fast. He knew those games, knew every move.

Second hand.

Time to take himself in hand, thought Logan grimly as he sat up and ran his palms over his face. Do something about the want first. Take the edge off; the needy, greedy edge. Stay focused on the end game, which was staying strong and staying sane.

Hurting no one.

Hurting everyone.

Evie made it back to her room without encountering anyone. She made it to the en suite and stood there staring at the carnage Logan had wrought. Lips swollen from kisses that had gone too deep, complexion still rosy from the afterglow of good sex and her eyes dark with a mixture of shock and desire.

If a man tries to warn you over and over again that he’s damaged goods he probably is.

If he tells you that he has his reasons for not wanting too hard then he probably does.

If he tells you outright that he doesn’t want to hurt you, it’s because he knows that some day he will. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but he will, and he’s given you fair warning.

Evie turned her back on the face in the mirror and closed her eyes and tried not to remember the crazy things Logan made her feel. Time to forget the feelings and listen to what the man had to say and get out of his life as best she could. Tell Max she’d see him at work on Monday, make her apologies to Caroline Carmichael and leave.

She stripped off her dress and her underwear and tossed them over the edge of the bath. She headed for the shower and turned it on hot and hard and stood and let the water wash away the stench of cowardice that clung to her skin.

‘Walk away, Evie,’ she whispered, and set her palms to the wall in front of her and her face to the spray to wash away the sting of tears. ‘Run.’

And then the shower door behind her opened and Logan stepped in, fully dressed, and reached for her and she went to him without hesitation, wanting to comfort and be comforted, wanting his touch more than she wanted anything in this world. Riding that slippery slope of obsession and longing as the water poured down on them both and he pressed a condom packet into her hands and pushed her back against the wall and started kissing her.

Rough was the wrong word for what he wanted. Intense was a better word. All-consuming, as she helped him shed his clothes and laid hands to him, learning him all over again. Condom on and then Evie on as she put shoulders to the tiles and locked her legs around Logan’s waist and he was slow and forceful as he entered her, and the skin on his jaw tasted salty and a little bit rough, but his movements weren’t rough, not rough at all. His movements spoke of worship and wonder and a slamming, heartbreaking need as he claimed her body and offered up his own for her pleasure.

His touch was deft and agonisingly sensual as he cupped her and tilted her just so against him. Such tenuous control once passion came to play, and Evie was no help whatsoever, because wherever Logan led she went willingly.

He wanted her mindless to everything but his touch; and he succeeded.

He wanted her convulsing against him, with her mouth on his shoulder her only tether to this earth; and he succeeded.

She wanted him with her and this time he came when she did, eyes blazing, and his body straining, matching her gasp for gasp, with his mouth on hers, but only just, and his hand on the back of her neck as if he would never let her go.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered when his breath had slowed enough for speech. ‘Angie, I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’

‘For the mess I made of my time with you. For the mess I’m still making.’

‘Don’t be.’

She unlocked her legs from around him and set toes to the floor and he held the condom on and slipped out of her and turned away. No words of affection for her, no smile of reassurance, just a need he couldn’t voice and old fears made new again.

She stepped on his clothes on her way out of the shower. Looked at them and looked back at him. ‘Impulsive,’ she said with the tiniest of smiles.

‘Always.’ As he cut the water and she handed him a towel. ‘Around you.’

‘I try to control it,’ he said gruffly, a moment later. ‘I need to control it.’

‘Yes, I guess you do.’ An indirect reference to his past. The history that had shaped him. This had been controlled for Logan. He could get way more lost in desire than that. ‘Lots of baggage, Logan.’

‘More than you can handle?’

‘Are you asking me to have a relationship with you?’ Evie wiped her face down with the towel and started in on her dripping hair.

Logan said nothing, just slung the towel around his hips and stepped from the shower, avoiding the question, avoiding her eyes so Evie figured that for a no, and wasn’t surprised. He’d retreat now, he always did, and she should have felt used and confused, but she didn’t. Instead she felt sad as she let her gaze wash over his naked form. Sad for him. Sad for herself. But not abused.

She didn’t even know how he came to have a body like that. What sports he played, what he did to blow off steam. The list of things she didn’t know about this man seemed endless. And the list of things she did know about him was short and anything but sweet.

‘Do you play sports?’ she asked, and when he lifted his eyebrow at the inanity of the question she shrugged and tried not to be too distracted by the thin line of hair that ran south from his belly-button and disappeared beneath that low-slung towel.

‘I climb,’ he said. ‘Snow and water ski whenever I get the chance. Sail catamarans competitively.’

That’d do it.

‘Does this have anything to do with the amount of baggage I can carry round?’ he asked with the ghost of a smile.

‘No,’ she replied with a rueful smile. ‘I just wanted to know a little more about you, that’s all. Something little. Something …’

‘Normal?’ he offered.

It was as good a word as any. ‘I don’t know what to do. From the moment I first saw you again, I haven’t known what to do.’ Truth, and if it signified weakness on her part then so be it.

‘You need to call off this wedding, Evangeline.’

‘I know that, Logan.’ Evie glanced towards the shower. ‘Is that what the sex was all about? A demonstration of my weakness when it comes to your touch? Because if it was, it wasn’t necessary. I already knew.’

‘It wasn’t that.’ Logan turned away to pick up his soggy clothes and wrung them out. ‘It was need.’

And there was the appeal of this man and the danger in him. That stinging, searing, all-consuming need—and his fear of it.

‘What if we start again?’ she offered quietly. ‘I call off this wedding, MEP finds some other way to finance the civic centre bid and you and I, we start again. Clean slate. You might, for example, come to Sydney one weekend and ask me out on a date. We might see a movie or go for coffee in the park. You could bring me a bunch of black-eyed daisies or a paper parasol. I might feed you chocolate-cherry mud-cake with my fingers by way of thank you.’

Logan’s eyes had darkened again.

‘Easy as,’ she said lightly. ‘And your call.’ She wasn’t the one carrying a dead father and a battered mother around. ‘What kind of cocktail party does your mother throw? Fairly formal?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you planning to attend?’ she asked next.

‘Are you?’

Evie nodded. ‘Got to try and explain my engagement to Max away somehow.’

‘Just tell them my mother made a mistake. Tell them you’re celebrating a business milestone rather than a personal one.’

‘Yes. Something like that.’ She eyed him steadily. ‘We could use your help to sell it. You could aim for civilised.’

‘Yes,’ he said with a smile she didn’t trust at all. ‘I could.’ And handed her back the towel and stalked from the bathroom and then from her room without another word.

‘So what happened between you and Logan?’ asked Max for the umpteenth time as Evie plucked a midnight-blue gown from a clothing rack and flattened it against her body.

‘We talked,’ she said calmly. ‘Too formal?’

‘No,’ said Max. ‘Does he still want you to go live in Antarctica?’

‘Probably,’ said Evie, and withdrew a sleek little black dress from the rack. ‘But he knows he can’t make me, so he’s just going to have to learn to live with disappointment. Too severe?’

‘Yes.’

Evie draped it across her arm of potential dresses anyway. Little black dresses could be deceptive. A deceptively demure black-and-caramel-coloured dress caught her eye next. Demure could be deceptive too. ‘What about this one?’

‘Evie, just pick one,’ said Max.

‘Or I could take an early flight home and forget about your mother’s cocktail party altogether,’ said Evie. ‘As long as we’re talking contingency plans, I’m liking that one a lot.’

‘No,’ said Max steadily. ‘We ride this one out together. Kill the speculation stone dead now.’

‘Maybe you can tell them I’m gay,’ murmured Evie.

‘They wouldn’t believe me. Not if Logan’s anywhere in the room.’

‘Okay, then. You can be gay.’ Evie eyed a plum-coloured gown with a plunging neckline and a thigh-high side split speculatively. ‘What about this one?’

‘Evie, just pick one.’ And then Max looked at the dress. ‘But not that one.’

Evie slid it back on the rack. ‘I vote we tell your mother’s friends that we’re celebrating the success of our business partnership and hopefully the beginning of bigger and better things for MEP. We smile and shake our heads and say we’re sorry people got the wrong idea but we’re not engaged and not about to be. We keep it simple. Deny everything.’

‘You really think that’s going to fly?’

‘Put it this way,’ she said. ‘You got a better idea?’

The cocktail party was every bit as awkward as Evie thought it would be. Elegant, wealthy people, all set to welcome Evie into their lives at Caroline’s behest, and politely puzzled when it became clear that they didn’t have to.

Civilised. It was all so very civilised, but no midnight-blue cocktail gown in the world could shield her from Logan’s powerful presence as she stood by Max’s side and talked business goals and achievements with strangers.

Logan didn’t approach her. He stuck to his side of the room and Evie stuck to hers. She didn’t watch him out of the corner of her eye. Instead she stuck to finding him in reflections in mirrors, of which there were plenty. In the shine of tall silver vases. How could one man assault her senses the way he did, just by being in a room? One man, dressed in black tie, just like every other man in the room.

‘Evie, stop fidgeting,’ said Max.

‘I’m not fidgeting.’

She was fidgeting, so with a smothered curse she stopped.

‘And swearing,’ murmured Max, highly amused. ‘You could stop that too.’

‘I’m not—damn!’ Evie swore rather than add chronic lying to her list of sins too. ‘How much longer do we have to stay here?’

‘Until the bitter end,’ said Max cheerfully. ‘I’m guessing around midnight.’

She’d been sticking to mineral water until now. Maybe it was time she swapped over to something with a little more kick. Then again, the argument against alcohol was a strong one. She’d already been quite uninhibited enough today.

‘You could marry someone else,’ she told Max during a moment they had to themselves—just business partners sharing a quiet moment out on the patio, drinks in hand and smiles at the ready. ‘A childhood friend. Someone who knows this life and how to live it. Someone who’d be happy to accommodate you for two years and then move on.’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Max with a shudder. ‘I’m over marriage for the time being. I might try being in love with the person next time. Just a thought.’

‘How are we going to get the money for the civic centre bid?’

‘Overdraft for some of it,’ said Max. ‘I’ll put my place on the market.’

‘I’ll put mine on,’ Evie said with a sigh. ‘We’re still going to come up short.’

‘Business loan,’ said Max bleakly. ‘Here, before I forget.’ He fished in his pocket and pulled out something small and round and silver-coloured, those bits of it that weren’t a dazzling, glittering blue. It was a sapphire ring the size of Texas. Evie didn’t understand. ‘My mother wants you to have this as a memento of our engagement. Something about payment for your trouble.’ He held it out towards her.

‘No.’ Evie took a hasty step back. ‘Whatever your mother’s opinions are, just … no. I’m all for forgetting we were ever engaged.’

‘I told her you’d say that.’ Max reached for her right hand and slipped it swiftly on her middle finger. Not her ring finger, not even the proper hand. ‘She seems to think I owe you a ring. That we were engaged, however briefly, and that you deserve some kind of compensation. Wear it. Flog it. I don’t care. Just take it. I’m a man in search of family harmony and my mother wants you to have it.’

‘I don’t want it,’ muttered Evie, tugging the ring off just as swiftly as it had gone on. It was too bulky anyway. Too much the reminder of bad decisions too hastily made. ‘Please, Max. Just give it back to her. Tell her I don’t want it.’

But Max’s attention had drifted to a point just over her shoulder, his eyes narrowing fast, and Evie knew, even before she looked over her shoulder, that Logan was heading their way. ‘Take it,’ she said, trying to push the ring into Max’s hand, only he wasn’t having it, and then Logan was upon them and Max automatically moved to make room for him.

‘Change of heart?’ murmured Logan, looking at the ring, and shock flared deep in his eyes; right before those same eyes turned bitter and then carefully blank.

‘This isn’t what it looks like.’ Max’s words came low and fast. ‘It’s not an engagement ring. We’re not engaged. The wedding’s off and it’s staying off. You know that.’

‘Where’d you get the ring?’ asked Logan, and didn’t wait for Max’s answer. ‘She give it to you? Our mother? She tell you to give it to Evangeline?’