The One That Got Away (6 page)

‘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?’

‘Yes.’ Max looked uneasy. Evie
was
uneasy.

‘Take it,’ said Evie urgently. ‘I don’t want it. Would someone
please just take it back?’

But Logan wanted no part of it. He knew that stone, the
ocean-reef-blue of it. He’d seen it before. He looked towards the small crowd of
people in the adjoining room. Those who hadn’t drifted out onto the patio or
into the gardens and his mother was one of them. What was she doing? What the
hell was she thinking giving Evie this particular ring? She had that look about
her; the one that said I’m worried about you and I’m scared of what you’ll do
and he wished to hell she’d just
stop looking at him like
that!
Look to her own flaws, for once, and not only to his.

‘Logan?’ said Evie, and put her hand to his forearm to draw his
attention, and something twisted deep in his gut. ‘Logan, what’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Bull,’ she snapped, calling his bluff. ‘You’re hurt.’

‘No. It’s her ring. What do I care what she does with it?’

‘Logan,
who
gave your mother this
ring?’ Evie asked tightly.

But Logan refused to answer her.

‘It’s the one your father gave her, isn’t it?’ said Evie.

‘No,’ said Max.

‘Doesn’t matter.’ He wouldn’t let it matter.

‘Logan, this
can’t
be that ring,’
continued Max doggedly. ‘She wouldn’t do that.’

But she had.

Max wouldn’t recognise it; she’d never worn it in front of him.
Different lifetime. Different family. Caroline Carmichael had got it right the
second time round. A gentle, supportive husband and a loving, well-balanced
child.

Max thought their mother was wonderful.

And then the bitter blackness spewed forth, and, for the second
time that day, Logan let it engulf him.

‘She likes to remind me of him whenever she thinks I’ve gone
too far.’ He sought Evangeline’s gaze. Evangeline in the midnight-blue gown that
accentuated her flawless skin and slender curves. The same skin he’d put mouth
to not so long ago. The same curves he wanted to caress again with an intensity
that bordered on obsession. ‘Have I gone too far, Evangeline?’

‘No,’ she said slowly as her fist clenched around the ring.
‘It’s not you who’s gone too far.’

And before Logan had any notion of what she was about to do,
Evie twirled and flung his mother’s ring into the shadowy garden, into the
shrubbery far, far away.

The pregnant silence that followed threatened to engulf them
all.

‘Good arm,’ said Max finally.

‘It was given to me,’ she said raggedly. ‘And I’ve done what I
wanted with it. No one needs that kind of reminder in their life.
No one
.’

He couldn’t cope. Logan stared at her, his every defence
shattered, and something passed between them, something dark and sticky and
breathtakingly savage. He didn’t cope well with emotion; his mother was right.
Sometimes his feelings just got too big for him to hold.

‘Excuse me,’ he muttered, before he did something unforgivable
like drag her from the room, lock her in his arms and never let her go. ‘Excuse
me, I have to go.’

* * *

Evie
watched him leave, her heart so full of
lead she was surprised she was still standing up. ‘I did the wrong thing,’ she
whispered to Max. ‘Said the wrong thing.’

‘No,’ said Max and his arms came around her comfortingly,
urging her to turn and focus her stricken gaze on something other than the door
Logan had just exited through. ‘You did exactly the right thing. He’s feeling
too vulnerable, that’s all. He never stays when he gets that way.’

Evie didn’t want to stay either. Not that she wanted to run
after Logan, because she didn’t. Assuming she even caught up with him, what
would she say? How was she supposed to heal hurts inflicted so long ago? If they
hadn’t healed by now, chances were they never would.

‘Max, may we leave early too?’ she asked shakily. ‘I’ve had
enough. I really have.’ Of the assault on her senses and on her mind. Of the
impossible situations that just kept coming, and of the helplessness she felt in
the face of this family’s hidden pain. ‘I want to go upstairs and pack, then
call a taxi.’

‘Where do you want to go?’ Max’s usually laughing brown eyes
were dark with concern.

‘Back to Sydney,’ she said. ‘Away from here. I want to go
home.’

FIVE

Walking away from Logan that Saturday night at the
cocktail party wasn’t the hardest thing Evie had ever done. Staying sane the
following week was the hardest thing she’d ever done. Sane when Max looked at
her sideways and kept his mouth firmly shut. Sane as she worked on project
proposals and tried not to wonder what Logan was doing and what he was thinking,
and whether she’d ever see him again.

How she could have handled things better.

What she might have done to make Logan stay.

‘What?’
she demanded in
exasperation as Max walked into her office unannounced for about the tenth time
that morning.

‘Touchy,’ he said.

‘Bite me.’

‘Not my buzz,’ said Max, and placed a sheet of paper on top of
the drawings in front of her. ‘You’d be wanting my brother for that.’

He wasn’t wrong. ‘I’m working,’ she said and picked up the
sheet and held it out for Max to take back. ‘Whatever it is, you deal with
it.’

‘Read it,’ he insisted, so Evie turned it back around with a
sigh.

A bank deposit notice, but not a bank she regularly dealt with.
Max’s personal account, by the looks of it. With deposit into it yesterday of
ten million dollars.

‘Trust fund?’ she asked.

‘Logan.’

Evie’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Terms?’

‘Three per cent below market interest rate.’

‘Handy.’

‘You don’t mind?’ asked Max.

‘Do you?’

‘He stole my fake fiancée and messed with my business plan,’
said Max dryly. ‘I’ll take his money.’

‘Yay for brotherly love,’ said Evie. ‘As long as the loan is
between you and Logan and the money comes into the business through you alone, I
have no objections.’

‘That’s how it’ll work.’

‘Lucky MEP.’

‘Any other questions?’ asked Max.

Evie shook her head.

‘You don’t want to know where Logan is? What he’s been doing
lately?’

She
did
want to know where Logan
was and what he’d been doing lately. But she sure as hell wasn’t going to
ask.

‘PNG,’ said Max, as if reading her mind. ‘Sorting out the mess
some mining company has made of their operation there. Sometimes Logan
troubleshoots for others. For a hefty fee.’

‘The devil will have his due.’

‘He’s a good man, Evie.’

‘I know that, Max.’

‘You should call him. Might improve your mood.’

‘There is
nothing
wrong with my
mood.’

‘Carlo would beg to disagree.’

‘Carlo ordered twenty-eight thousand dollars’ worth of reo we
don’t need,’ she said curtly. ‘He’s lucky I let him keep his
job
.’

‘And Logan thinks you meek,’ muttered Max beneath his breath.
‘God knows why.’

Evie knew exactly why. ‘Was there anything else?’

‘Could be Logan will need a place to stay for a few days when
he returns at the end of the week and before he heads back to London. Could be
I’m thinking of offering up my apartment for him to use while he’s here.’

‘Why? You think he’s short of cash?’ asked Evie dryly.

‘What I
think
,’ said Max with
admirable restraint, ‘is that if you want to see him again, you shouldn’t wait
for him to call you. Call him. Arrange something. Don’t assume that he knows
what he’s doing when it comes to relationships, especially important ones,
because he doesn’t.’ Max plucked the bank note from her fingers and waved it in
front of her face. ‘This, for example, might as well have “
Evie, I want to see you again
” written all over it.’

‘But it doesn’t,’ she countered sweetly, and Max sighed and dug
his mobile out of his pocket and started in on the touch screen before handing
it to her with a flourish.

‘Tell him you’ve been mooning over him all week and want to see
him again.’

‘I will
not
.’

‘All right. Then tell him I want my chief engineer’s head back
in the game and that I’m blaming
him
for the fact
that it’s not.’

Evie glared at Max’s hastily retreating back, silently
wondering just how many problems she’d solve if she brained Max with his phone.
Probably not that many.

‘Tell him I said thank you,’ added Max.

‘Tell him yourself,’ she yelled after him, and then put the
phone to her ear just in time to hear the man who currently inhabited most of
her dreams—sleeping and waking—say his brother’s name.

Which necessitated some sort of reply.

‘Um...hi. It’s not Max,’ she said awkwardly. ‘It’s Evie. Evie
on Max’s phone. How much did you hear?’

‘Everything from “thank you” onwards.’

‘Oh,’ she said, more than a little relieved. ‘Good. Because
that about covers it. Your bank transfer came in and Max’s just showed it to me
and we wanted to say thank you. Which I’m sure Max will do in person when he
sees you next. Thank you, that is.’ And if Max said anything else to his brother
about Evie’s recently distracted state she’d strangle him. ‘And I’d like to
thank you too. The money’s going to help the civic centre bid’s chances a lot,
and Max’s set on winning it and can take it from here, and I can get on with the
rest of the work and let the prima donna do his thing...so thank you.’

‘You often make business phone calls like this?’ asked
Logan.

‘Never.’

‘Good to know,’ he murmured.

‘Bite me.’

Silence after that, heavy and waiting. Evie took a deep breath.
‘Max tells me you’re flying into Sydney later this week, and I was
thinking...’

Evie had no idea what she was thinking.

‘...I was thinking that Max probably wants to invite you into
the workplace so you can look around. Which would be fine by me. If you wanted
to, that is.’ Evie closed her eyes, leaned back in her chair and thumped her
head repeatedly against the headrest, scrabbling for confidence in the face of
Logan’s silence and coming up empty. ‘I was thinking you might need to be picked
up from the airport. I could do that. Take you wherever you wanted to go.’
Excellent. Now she was officially babbling. ‘How’s PNG?’

‘Hot, sticky and politically messy,’ he said. ‘Largely bereft
of plain speaking.’

Evie was largely bereft of plain speaking too.

‘Would you like to have dinner with me while you’re here?’ she
asked with her eyes closed tightly shut, and figured it for as plain spoken as
she was going to get. ‘I know some good casual eating places. Nothing fancy. But
the food’s good.’

Asking a man out on a date was hard. Harder still, when the man
in question said a whole lot of nothing in reply.

‘This is the part where you say yes or no,’ she prompted
quietly.

‘I don’t get into Sydney until late Friday night,’ he said
finally. ‘There’ll be a hire car waiting for me.’

Of course there would.

‘And I don’t need the workplace tour.’

Of course he didn’t. ‘Let me just find Max for you, shall
I?’

‘Dinner on Saturday evening I could do.’

‘Pardon?’ Evie was halfway to the door. She probably hadn’t
heard him correctly.

‘Dinner,’ he said. ‘Saturday night. Something low-fuss and
easy. That I could do.’

‘There’s a place called Brennan’s in Darlinghurst. It’s a bar
and grill. Very casual.’

‘I’ll meet you there at 6:00 p.m.,’ he said. ‘Evie, I’ve got to
go. I’m meant to be in a meeting.’

Interrupting his work. Not exactly a high priority in his life.
He couldn’t have made it any clearer if he’d tried. But he’d said yes to seeing
her again, although God knew why.

‘Bye, then,’ she said. And hung up before he could, and went to
tell her meddling business partner that her head—far from being back in the
game—was now officially screwed.

Served Max right.

* * *

Saturday
came and Evie spent the bulk of it
trying to forget that she’d ever asked Logan out in the first place. She went to
Coogee Beach and swam in the surf and then in the rock pool with a uni friend
she often caught up with on weekends. They walked the cliff walk round to Bondi
and had an ice cream and then she caught the bus home. Which still gave her
three hours to fill in until six and her dinner with Logan. She put on a movie
and steamed through her ironing basket and did a fast tidy-up of her apartment.
And then she hit the shower and saw a slightly sunburned domestic goddess, which
wasn’t all bad because now she could turn up at the grill looking as if she’d
been enjoying her weekend, rather than just waiting for six o’ clock and Logan
to come around.

No woman in her right mind would pin too many hopes on
Logan.

So it was well-worn jeans and a white cotton top that gathered
at the hip with a multicoloured scarf that she wore to meet him. Add to that an
inexpensive blue-bead necklace, half a dozen thin silver bangles, sunglasses
perched on her head and Evie figured herself plenty casual as she walked into
Brennan’s at five to six. If Logan didn’t show...if he’d changed his mind about
seeing her again...well, there was food here aplenty and she wouldn’t go
thirsty.

But Logan was already there when Evie arrived, sitting by
himself in a corner booth with a half empty beer in front of him and lines
around his eyes that told of fatigue, but he smiled when he saw her and hell if
she didn’t melt at the sight of it. She’d never seen him in jeans and scuffed
work boots before and he wore them just as easily as he wore a custom-made suit.
His shirt was black, and seemed to suck in the light and women watched him from
the corner of their eyes. Watched him because he was black-eyed and beautiful
and sexuality clung to him like a second skin.

He stood as she approached. He took her hand and leaned closer
and kissed her cheek and then withdrew. ‘First date,’ he murmured. ‘Easy as.
That’s what I’m aiming for,’ he added and sat back down after she sat, and
placed an elegant square box, about the size of her hand, on the table between
them. ‘I couldn’t find any black-eyed daisies or paper parasols.’

The lid came off and the sides of the box folded down to reveal
a life-sized origami hummingbird sipping from a bell-shaped flower.

‘It’s beautiful.’ Evie leaned closer for a better look, not
game to touch it, so delicate was the detail. ‘Exquisite. But you didn’t get
this from Papua New Guinea.’ This was a museum-quality offering, not a
last-minute little something from a handy airport gift shop.

‘No.’ He gave a small shrug. ‘I got it today. I know I cut you
short on the phone the other day, Evangeline. It was unavoidable. I know I
should have called you back. I just didn’t know what to say.’

‘It’s okay, Logan. I don’t know what I want from you either.’
And it was far easier to say that in person than on the phone. Evie boxed the
gift back up with gentle fingers and set it on top of her handbag in the far
corner of the bench seat, far away from where the food would be placed. ‘Thank
you for your gorgeous gift.’

Logan shrugged, shrugging it off. Don’t make such a fuss over
it, he might as well have said. Doesn’t mean I
care
.

He’d seemed that way with his mother too, and Max to a lesser
extent. Desperately trying
not
to care about them
too much. If you didn’t care, they couldn’t hurt you. Oh, Evie knew that
defence. She knew it well.

‘How was business in PNG?’

‘Unpredictable,’ he murmured. ‘In need of a strong hand.’

‘So it suited you,’ she countered, and he smiled that lazy
wicked smile of his, the one that made her blood heat and her pulse quicken.

‘Yes.’

Hard not to admire a man who worked to his strengths. ‘Are you
rich?’ He had to be wealthy in order to slip Max ten million so quickly, but
exactly
how
wealthy was a question Evie hadn’t yet
asked and Logan hadn’t yet answered.

‘You want a monetary estimate?’ he asked, and she nodded, and
he named a figure that made her sit back and blink. ‘I inherited money early,’
he said. ‘My mother handed over every last cent of my father’s wealth the minute
I turned eighteen and I took it and put it to work. The money doubles on a
regular basis and that’s the way I like it.’

‘Because you never want to go hungry again?’ she asked.

‘Because I’m addicted to power and the wielding of it.’

‘Wow,’ she murmured. ‘A man who owns his flaws. That’s really
rare.’

‘I wouldn’t call them flaws,’ he murmured with a crooked smile.
‘Exactly. What about you, Evie? Are you rich?’

‘Not at all, compared to you. I own my own apartment. I can
sometimes afford an expensive treat but I don’t make a habit of it. As far as
family goes, my father’s respectably well-off but not effortlessly wealthy;
probably because he’s on his fifth wife. My mother was wife number three. I have
twelve half siblings, no full siblings, and my mother’s now on husband number
three. Max thinks I have no strong ties to family and no respect whatsoever for
the institution of marriage. He’s probably right.’

‘So if a man wanted to marry you...’

‘I’d take some convincing.’

‘How long did it take Max to convince you?’

‘Ah, but Max had good monetary
reason
for wanting to get married. And it benefited me too. And it
wouldn’t have been a proper marriage anyway. It was more of a business
transaction. With a two-hundred-thousand-dollar windfall clause for the injured
party every time one of us strayed.’

‘Honour system?’ asked Logan with a touch of incredulity about
him.

‘No. The clause only kicked in if the straying became public
knowledge.’

‘And Max
agreed
to this?’

‘I
know
,’ said Evie, making good
use of her eyelashes. ‘I figured Max would be up for at least a couple of
million before we were through, and that’s being conservative. Your brother’s
got a short attention span.’

‘And no contract sense whatsoever.’