Kelly Hunter - The One That Got Away

‘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.

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.