The One That Got Away (12 page)

‘Who is this Kit?’ he wanted to know. ‘What does he do?’

‘Protective,’ murmured Evie and wove her fingers through his.
‘I like that. Kit’s an electrician. Runs his own company. Subcontracts on big
commercial jobs, mainly. Shopping centres. Stadiums. High rises. Jobs that are
worth his while. Subcontracts for us every so often on jobs that aren’t always
worth his while.’

‘Fancy that.’

‘Yes, he does.’

Logan looked from his brother to the tanned, blue-eyed blond
called Kit, who’d abandoned his pursuit of Max in favour of watching football on
the big screen. Was Max
really
falling for this man?
Did that mean he was reassessing his sexual preferences? Or had he always been
looking in that direction and Logan had just never noticed? God! Logan was going
to have to rethink every last memory of his brother that he had. ‘How did I
miss
this? I need to get home more.’

‘Your brother thinks the world of you, Logan,’ said Evie, and
there was something approaching seriousness in her voice. ‘Wouldn’t hurt.’

Logan watched the game on the big screen for a moment or two
before turning his attention back to the man who apparently had a puppy and
wasn’t afraid to use it. ‘Hey, Kit. What’s the score?’

‘Nil all.’ Kit shot them a darkly amused glance. ‘I’ll let you
know if anyone scores.’

Evie grinned.

‘Next time,
warn
me,’ muttered
Logan.

‘Next time,
call
me when you’re
coming to visit,’ countered Evie. ‘And I will. They’ve been circling one another
all week. Best show in town. Mind you, that’s what Max says about us.’

‘Evangeline, do you and Max have
any
distance between you whatsoever when it comes to your personal
lives?’

‘Some.’ Evie held up her forefinger and thumb an inch or so
apart and turned her head so that she could see his eyes. ‘We’re friends who
work together. We’re in each other’s face all day and we know what’s going on in
each other’s lives. There’s no lust. It shouldn’t bother you.’ Apparently she
could see that it did. ‘You shouldn’t let it bother you,’ she said firmly, and
brought his hand up to her lips and pressed a quick kiss to the knuckle of his
thumb.

Eventually, the MEP crowd thinned. Max kept smiling but seemed
somewhat preoccupied. The swaggering Kit had ambled over to the snooker tables
in the far corner of the room and started playing. Money was changing hands. Kit
looked as if he was working towards finding trouble. Logan eyed the rest of the
sharks over by the pool tables. He wouldn’t have to wait long.

‘Ready to go find something to eat?’ Max asked them, with a
swift glance in Kit’s direction.

‘Your call,’ said Logan, for it was Max’s party. ‘He coming
too?’

Max shot him a sharp glance.

Logan shrugged and raised an eyebrow. Acknowledgement, if that
was what his brother wanted. An innocent question if not.

‘I—ah.’ Max glanced Kit’s way again and this time the other man
turned around and caught his eye. Long glances were exchanged before Max turned
away. ‘No. I don’t know what I’m doing there. Probably not a good idea to do it
in front of you two.’

‘Stay here, then,’ offered Logan. ‘See if your pool-hustling
friend wants to grab a bite to eat with just you and then stumble around all you
want. Who’s going to see?’

Max laughed tightly. ‘
He’ll
see.
Lord, I’ve got no experience with this.
None
.’

‘Chances are Kit knows that,’ offered Evie.

‘You don’t mind?’ asked Max gruffly, and his question wasn’t
just for Evie. Max was looking at Logan with something that looked a lot like
pleading.

‘It’s your call,’ he said again, not knowing what other
assurances to give his brother, and hell would freeze over before he started
dishing out advice. ‘I’ll run with whatever you want.’

Max glanced back towards Kit again, and that was enough for
Logan. ‘We’re going. You’re staying. Not sure I ever want details.’

‘Amen to that,’ said Max and with a wry nod he headed towards
Kit.

Evie tucked in beside Logan as they left the pub. She put her
hand in the crook of his arm and every time her shoulder brushed his Logan felt
tension leave his body. It was the most relaxed Logan had felt in over a week.
‘What do you want to eat?’ she asked him.

‘Thai?’

‘Perfect.’

Even the way she said
perfect
was
perfect. Evie embraced the
now
better than anyone
else he knew.

‘Damn, I’m glad you’re here,’ she said, bumping his arm this
time and making Logan grin. ‘What brings you here? Apart from me.’

Cocky. Entitled. And damned if he didn’t love that about her
too.

‘I came because of Max too. I just wanted to be here when the
civic centre decision came through.’

‘Good for you,’ she said. ‘Good for me. How long can you
stay?’

‘I have a morning flight to Perth. I need to be back in London
in three days’ time.’

Evie stopped abruptly. ‘
One
day?
Not even that?’

‘Work’s a little crazy right now. I’m sorting it.’

‘Why didn’t you say so earlier?’ Evie’s hands were on her hips,
her eyes telegraphing irritation. ‘We could have left that pub an hour ago. You
could have been in my bed by now. Where’s your brain?’

Nowhere close by.

There was a shadowy shopfront doorway just a few steps away and
Logan took full advantage of it, pulling Evie into the darkness along with him
and backing her up against the wall. He’d been holding back all evening, knowing
that the eyes of people she worked with were on them. Never undermine the boss’s
authority. Golden rule of business, so he’d packed his need to stake his claim
on her away and kept his hands and his mouth to himself for the most part.

But there were no work colleagues watching them now.

Threading his fingers through hers, Logan brought Evie’s hands
above her head and leaned in to capture her lips in a kiss so deeply consuming
that he feared he might forget his own name.

Though there’d be no forgetting hers.

Evie moaned, deep down in her chest, and her fingers closed
tightly over his.

A gasp from Evie as he moved on from her mouth and set tongue
to that little V between shoulder and neck. A whimper from him as her body
arched in search of his. Hands at her waist now, gathering her close.

‘Logan, please. Let me take you home,’ she whispered, with her
hands in his hair and her mouth to his temple. ‘Please, before I come apart.
There’s food in the fridge, I can feed you if you’re hungry, just—the things I
want to do to you—I don’t want an audience. Just you.’

Logan groaned and loosened his hold. ‘Hire-car keys are in my
front pocket,’ he told her and groaned anew when she found them. ‘I swear the
car’s around here somewhere. Back the other way.’

So they went back the other way and found the car and Evie
drove them home. He didn’t touch her until the door of her apartment shut behind
her. He didn’t dare. And then he dropped his overnight case by the door and
looked at her and then she was in his arms and sanctuary was his along with
salvation.

He didn’t want to have to take control tonight; he’d never be
able to maintain it. But she didn’t ask it of him, just got busy with the
removal of his clothes until it was skin on skin and hunger driving them, no
room for any other edges between them this time.

Too many stairs to make it to the bedroom and the sofa was
right there, soft and wide and the cushions could go and he could be on his back
with Evie sliding over him, right there, for ever there.

Owning him heart and soul.

NINE

Logan left before dawn. ‘Got to be in Perth this
morning,’ he whispered against her lips and Evie opened sleep-heavy eyes and
smiled, because although he was dressed in a business suit and tie, the
conventional clothes, he still had sex god stamped all over him as far as she
was concerned.

‘Do come again,’ she murmured and fell back asleep in the time
it took him to cross the floor and reach the stairs.

When she woke again, she woke alone, but the memory of last
night stayed with her. Of Logan’s acute pleasure and her own, and the memory
made her stretch lazily and smile and roll over into his side of the bed just so
that she could close her eyes and breathe in the scent of him on her sheets. She
scrubbed her face against the pillow, ran her hand over the
not-so-smooth-any-more sheets.

‘Morning,’ she murmured. Wherever he was.

And she wondered how long it would take him this time, before
he returned to her again.

Easy enough to give a man his freedom if Evie’s heart weren’t
truly in it and they were simply travelling the friends-with-benefits road, but
that wasn’t the road they were on, she and Logan.

And it was getting ever more difficult to let him go with a
smile and pretend that she wasn’t totally lost in him, more so now than she had
ever been.

New day. A working day—at least she still had that. Not to
mention a project that would keep her on her toes for the next eight months.
There were management tiers to put in place. Checks and double checks when it
came to the quality of the work. There were plenty of things to be going on
with.

Where did Logan say he was going to be today?

Running her hand up under Logan’s pillow, she felt the jab of
something pointed and hard. She pushed the pillow aside and curled her hand
around the brightly coloured paper thing and brought it in for closer
inspection. Her lips curved when she finally recognised what it was: a folded-up
paper parasol, the kind they put in cocktails. She’d asked for one once.

And Logan had remembered.

Evie rolled over on her back and popped the parasol and twirled
it between her fingers before tucking it behind her ear.

Time to be grateful for the richness of life and the moments of
sheer joy to be found in it. Like last night, when she’d first spotted Logan in
the pub. There could be no hellos like that without a goodbye. As of last night
she was very fond of Logan’s hellos.

‘Atta girl, Evie,’ she whispered by way of a pep talk.
‘Concentrate on those.’

* * *

There
were five more hellos over the next two
and a half months. Evie never got to go to Dubai or to London, for both she and
Max had underestimated the management required to take on a big job and expand
the business at the same time. Their bad; and the only way to fix it was to work
their butts off and pray that the people they currently had in place would hold.
Kit had been worth his weight in gold. If Max didn’t make Kit family soon, Evie
was tempted to do it for him.

Of those five hellos, four had been weekend stints where Logan
had come to visit her. Once, Evie had spent the weekend with him in Perth. He
owned an apartment there, and it was spacious and expensively furnished but it
wasn’t his home.

She hoped it wasn’t his home for there’d been nothing of Logan
in it. It had been a corporate executive’s landing pad—a serviced apartment, one
step up from a hotel suite. Logan had a real home tucked away somewhere. Some
place that allowed him to refresh and renew.

Didn’t he?

So there was sex, which ran the gamut from incandescently
reverent to edgy to needy and greedy.

And there was work, and Logan knew so much more about hers than
she did about his. Max had asked Logan’s advice when it came to company
expansion and Logan had given it, although not without fair warning that he was
more used to stripping a company than growing one. He’d helped them keep the
company structure lean, flexible, and Evie appreciated his input, she really
did.

But their love life and her working life were becoming so
entangled now. Logan being Max’s brother. Logan and Max growing closer and
closer and Evie loved watching that particular bond strengthen, she
did
.

So what if she woke up way too early some mornings thinking
that if she lost Logan she would somehow lose everything else as well?

Too entwined for comfort. No reassurances as to where they were
headed with this relationship and it made Evie jumpy and ultra-sensitive to
criticism and, dear heaven, did she mention moody?

When Logan was around life couldn’t be finer.

But when he left he did it with as little fanfare as possible
and he never,
ever
said when he’d return.

Evie knew the why of it. She’d
known
it would be like this.

But the uncertainty was soul-grinding and the road they were
travelling was a hard one and Evie was acutely aware that she’d promised Logan
that she’d known where they were going with this. That she would be able to show
him the way.

Fine words.

And not an ounce of common sense in sight.

* * *

‘Lover
boy still ignoring you?’ asked Kit as
he disassembled the last piece of scaffolding in Evie’s living room and set
about packing up his tools. He looked up at the blood-red ceiling and shook his
head.

‘Looks good, doesn’t it?’ said Evie.

‘Gonna have to call you Mistress Dread.’

Kit had been coming around to her place on and off for a couple
of weeks now—a result of Max still jerking him around and of Evie genuinely
liking the man. They’d had enough in common for friendship to fall easily into
place. Work ties. Mutual friends. Dysfunctional love lives...

‘How long has it been since he last remembered your existence?’
asked Kit again.

‘Three weeks.’ Three weeks since he’d last graced her with his
presence.

‘Train wreck.’ Kit dropped his carry case by the door and
followed her into the kitchen. ‘How long you going to keep indulging him?’

‘Says he whose boyfriend won’t even acknowledge him.’

‘That’s different,’ said Kit with impressive complacency.

‘Yeah, because Maxxie’s a
special
snowflake,’ muttered Evie as she headed for the fridge, pulled out a beer and
waved it at Kit, who nodded and took it from her before settling back against
the bench, relaxed and easy in her company and looking decidedly more angelic
than tragic. Sunlight streaming through the window and landing on blond hair,
broad shoulders and blue eyes did that.

‘Max has got a lot to come to grips with,’ offered Kit. ‘Social
issues. Personal expectations. What’s Logan’s excuse? He doesn’t even call
you.’

‘Logan’s a busy man.’

‘No one’s that busy, Evie. It’s a power play.’

‘No, it’s his safety check. It shows that he’s still in control
of his feelings for me. That he’s not obsessed or demanding or—’

‘In love,’ said Kit.

‘That too.’ Evie offered up a tired smile. ‘That’s the last
thing Logan wants to be.’

Kit said nothing.

‘You think I should cut him loose?’

‘It’s an option.’

‘Would you cut Max loose?’

‘Thinking about it,’ said Kit, and Evie choked on the water
she’d just put to her lips.

‘Seriously?’

Kit shrugged. ‘If Max can’t resolve his issues about being with
me, then, yeah. Why stick around?’

‘You don’t mean that.’

But Kit just shrugged and set the beer to his lips. Maybe he
did.

‘How much longer are you going to give him?’ she asked
cautiously.

‘That’s the million-dollar question.’

‘He relies on you,’ offered Evie. ‘He gets less stressed about
the work when he knows you’re coming in.’

Kit just looked at her.

‘Maybe you could take a fall from a roof one day, land in
hospital and see if Max comes running?’ she said. ‘That might work.’

‘Maybe you could get pregnant with Logan’s baby,’ said Kit by
way of reply. ‘I hear that one works too.’

Evie grimaced. ‘What else we got?’

‘How about making Logan jealous? Bring on the other man.’

‘For that Logan would have to actually be present,’ said Evie.
‘But I could definitely see the other man working for you. Maybe it’s time for
you to introduce Max to a former lover. One who relishes his extremely good life
and the part you once played in it. One who still values you. Got any of
those?’

‘One or two.’

‘I thought you might. That was a compliment, by the way. I can
see why people wouldn’t want to let you go completely. You’re handy.’ Evie
gestured towards the scaffolding. ‘Helpful. Pretty. And smart.’

‘Please, my ego, it swells.’

‘Nothing but the truth,’ said Evie. ‘Besides, ego is good for
you. It smacks of self-esteem. I had self-esteem too, once. I had a handle on my
world. Didn’t spend half my life staring at the phone that never rings.’ Evie
traced a water trail across the counter to the ring that showed where the jug of
water she’d taken from the fridge had once been.

‘Evie, if it’s that bad, let him go.’

‘I know,’ she said, but her voice lacked conviction. ‘Thing is,
parts of my relationship with Logan work just
fine
.’

‘You mean the sex is hotter than the sun.’

That was exactly what she meant. ‘I swear, all he has to do
is—’

‘Evie!’ Nothing like a little panic from a houseguest. ‘Too
much information.’

‘I was going to say “look at me and I’m his”,’ she finished
dryly.

‘Ah,’ said Kit. ‘Well, now I know that. Continue.’

‘I was hoping for a little more control over my desire for
Logan by now, but it’s not happening.’

‘That’s because he keeps you hungry for him. Always leaves you
wanting just that little bit more. You need to gorge on him. Get him out of your
system.’

‘You really think that’ll fix it?’

‘No, but you’ll have fun.’

‘You are
not
helpful. I take it
back.’

‘Seriously, Evie. If you want my advice, it’s to stop letting
Logan pick you up and put you down as he pleases. If you want to call him, call
him. If you want to see him, tell him you’re on your way and expect him to
welcome you. Take a little more control over this relationship. Don’t keep
making excuses for him.’

‘You think I’ve lost control?’

Kit gave her the look he usually reserved for brain-dead sheep.
‘Evie, you only have to look at the man and you’re his. Your words, not mine.
Did you ever have it?’

* * *

Later
that evening—evening for her, Saturday
morning for Logan—Evie picked up the phone and dialled Logan’s London number. If
you want contact, make contact. Step one in Evie’s new and improved plan for
surviving a long-distance relationship with a busy, busy man.

‘I have a red ceiling,’ she said when he answered the phone,
his voice all gravelly and sleep heavy. ‘It’s kind of sexy.’

‘Fits,’ he mumbled.

‘Did I wake you?’

‘No.’

‘Liar.’

‘Maybe.’ She could hear the smile in his voice. ‘Late night
last night.’

‘Party?’

‘Work. Two buyers looking at mining rights I hold in NSW.’

‘You’re into mining?’

‘Sometimes I end up with mining assets as part of a broader
transaction. Occasionally I’ll keep them a while and bundle them before on
selling but usually I spin them off fast. Miners get to keep their jobs if I can
turn them over fast.’

‘You’re all heart.’

‘Tell me about it. Did you want something, Evie?’

‘Just to catch up.’ Evie really should have gone into this
conversation with a plan. He sounded marginally more awake. ‘See what you’ve
been doing. That sort of thing.’

‘Work,’ he said.

‘Dull boy.’

Logan grunted his agreement. Or maybe it was disagreement.

‘You haven’t called me in three weeks,’ she said. ‘Why is that?
And don’t say work.’

‘Getting pretty bossy there, Evie.’

‘I prefer to call it frustrated. Sexually. Emotionally.
Categorically. And that’s another thing. No more leaving here without waking me.
I hate it.’

‘I figured it for a courtesy,’ he offered warily.

‘It’s a cop-out. You lay me bare and yourself right along with
me and then you sneak away like a thief because you don’t want to deal with the
fallout.’

‘You really want to do this over the phone?’ No mistaking the
edge of ice in his voice.

‘No. I’d much rather fight with you when you’re here,’ she said
sweetly. ‘But you’re
not
.’

‘So...You want to see me?’

‘
Yes
, Logan. Yes.’

‘So you can fight with me.’

‘Yes.’

‘And then what?’

‘Wild make-up sex? Just a thought.’

‘God, Evie!’ Well, at least now he was fully awake. ‘You don’t
think the sex gets wild enough?’

‘I
do
think the sex gets wild
enough. The sex is out of this world. You
know
that,
Logan. I’d just happen to like more of it. More of everything.’

‘We live on different continents. It’s not an easy fix. I come
when I can and I distinctly remember inviting you here months ago. How many
times have you been?’

The answer to that being none.

The excuses for that being flimsy indeed.

‘I’m not the only one who gets caught up in their work,’ argued
Logan. ‘I’ve respected that. I haven’t badgered you to come and visit me. I
haven’t pushed plane tickets on you. I’ve backed away from doing anything that
could be construed as an affront to your independence. You live a full and
satisfying life and you make sure I know it. I’ve been waiting for you to step
into my life—take
one
step towards knowing more
about me—but you don’t. So don’t you beat on me for being the only one who keeps
their distance in this relationship, Evangeline. You do it too.’