Borrowed Wife (15 page)

‘No, I
did,’ Logan said shortly.

He was still stiffly angry
after their encounter with Grant’s son and as they followed the porter to the
stairs in silence Abigail didn’t venture into conversation again. She was too
busy worrying about the sleeping arrangements. Now they were here on the home
territory of the man who expected marital bliss. Would they have to have a
double room in case Grant found out? The thought made her nervous and Logan glanced at her in irritation when she looked at him warily.

‘These
are your rooms,’ the porter said, opening two doors. ‘There’s a connecting
balcony.’

‘Splendid,’
Logan growled irascibly. ‘I trust it does not connect with anyone else.’

‘You’re completely private
here, sir.’

Abigail
thought the porter gave them an odd look but Logan ignored such things. He
ordered tea and they were left alone, their luggage placed neatly by the bed,
while Abigail stood beside it as if she were also labeled with their air-flight
number.

‘Whichever
room you want,’ Logan said in a detached voice after one more disparaging
glance at her, and Abigail shrugged.

‘They both seem to be the
same. It doesn’t matter.’

Logan
nodded and picked up his own luggage, going
through the connecting door and leaving her to it, and she gave a resigned sigh
as she opened her cases. If this was how he was going to behave, then Grant
Cassidy might well change his mind about marriage. She wondered what Mrs.
Cassidy was like and once again shuddered as she thought of their son.

The waiter came and served
tea on the balcony and Abigail abandoned her task to go outside and sit in the
last of the sunshine. This was a small hotel. It didn’t even have a lift
because it was spread in all directions across truly beautiful gardens. The
rooftops were of different heights, red-tiled against the white of the walls,
and many of the rooms seemed to be at ground level, their rooms, though, were
obviously special. They were at the very centre of the hotel, in a sort of
tower that gave balance to the whole place. There was a lovely view of the
gardens and the curved balcony looked out to sea.

It was
rather like a hacienda and Abigail stood waiting for Logan to join her, her
eyes feasting on the Spanish flavour of the place and the wide expanse of sandy
beach that led down to a tranquil blue-green sea.  

 ‘It’s wonderful!’ She
turned with shining eyes as Logan came through to the balcony and his gaze
flashed over her face, his mouth twisting wryly.

‘It was
recommended by someone who travels here often,’ he murmured. He sat at the
white wrought-iron table and began to pour the tea before she could even offer,
and Abigail’s enjoyment was somewhat curbed. She recognised the look he had
given her. She was being enthusiastic again, with no sophistication, just as
she had been when he had taken her on a boat on the Thames five years ago.

She sat
down silently, nodding her thanks when Logan passed her tea across. So many
things he did threw her head long into the past and now she felt subdued and it
showed on her face.

‘Tonight
Grant Cassidy and his wife are dining here with us,’ Logan announced, and
Abigail looked up quickly.

‘Pete
Cassidy?’ she asked sharply, and Logan’s lips tightened.

‘I didn’t
enquire. I simply looked exclusively at Grant. The hope that the younger
Cassidy would be more interested in a nightclub was uppermost in my mind.’

Distaste
showed on Abigail’s face.

‘He’s got
eyes like a snake—a cobra.’

‘I’ve
heard that cobras have beautiful eyes,’ Logan muttered as he drank his tea, and
she looked disgusted.

‘Not when
the eyes belong to a person. He makes me shudder.’

‘I can’t
say he fills me with delight and admiration,’ Logan agreed. He moved his chair
back and sat with one leg resting on his knee. ‘He looks like trouble.’

‘If we
ignore him, he may go away,’ Abigail pointed out hopefully, and Logan raised one black brow.  

‘I find
it difficult to ignore a pest. Steer clear of him.’ It was a stern order and
Abigail looked at him with annoyance.

‘It would
be nice to know I could slap his face and tell him to go away,’ she retorted.
‘Unfortunately that would not endear you to his father and the deal would fall
through.’

‘You put
up with nothing!’ Logan pinned her with crystal eyes, temper edging his lips.
‘Not one thing. He acts and you react! Do you hear me, Abigail?’

‘I’m not
deaf,’ she said quickly, looking round anxiously. Logan had raised his voice
and she was glad to find that there was not a soul in sight.

‘Anyway,’
Logan continued in a more reasonable tone, ‘you’ll be with me. I told Grant
that this was a second honeymoon and he’s hugging himself with glee. That being
the case, he’ll expect to see us in intimate conversation and not more than one
inch apart. I can look after you with no worries about the younger Cassidy.’

Abigail
managed to look at him coolly, quelling the sudden leaping of her pulse.

‘What a
good job Grant Cassidy doesn’t know about the two adjoining rooms,’ she said
tartly and without much thought, her main idea being to stifle her instant
flustered reaction with instant speech. ‘When you send my supper up with your
compliments he’ll be quite taken aback!’

Logan
grinned widely, his grey eyes dancing over her
flushed face.

‘It
amused me,’ he confessed. ‘It startled the man at the reception desk. I was
laughing all evening.’

Abigail
frowned at him. Not much chance of that. In New York he had been wheeling and
dealing. When Logan went into action there wasn’t a smile in sight. He was like
a tiger, hunting.

‘If you
get lonely,’ he continued in a low murmur, ‘you can always drift along the
balcony to me.’

‘I’d
rather drift over the balcony rail,’ Abigail snapped, getting to her feet to
glare down at him before walking to her own French window.

‘You’re
telling lies again,’ Logan taunted softly, his eyes following her graceful
figure. ‘Try to resist it. It’s a hard habit to break when it runs in the
family.’

She
walked out of his sight, her soft lips drooping as soon as he couldn’t see. He
never forgot, never missed a trick, never missed a chance to drive home the
guilt, and now she was not so sure of her father’s innocence. She had seen for
herself how callous and devious he could be and she had never had any doubt
about Logan’s cruel truthfulness.                                              

Once
again her mind went over his reason for helping them. He had gone to a good
deal of trouble over several years to get them in his clutches. Now he had
simply opened his tightening grasp and steadied the sinking ship

And all
because of one business transaction in America? If she hadn’t been here with
him she would not have believed it; in fact, at the back of her mind she didn’t
really believe it now. Almost daily since he hail made his offer she had been
dreading finding out that it was one more ploy to overthrow her father and take
his revenge.

She had
no choice but to go along with it, whatever his final plans were, and being
with him brought its own problems because she still loved him and he only had
in lift a finger to call her to his side; whatever else happened, she must not
let him know that.

Dinner was pleasant because
Pete Cassidy did not come after all. Grant’s wife was a rather plain woman with
hair dyed an astonishingly dull black. It was so obviously dyed that it drew
Abigail’s eyes like a magnet and she had to be very stern with herself in order
to ignore it. Left to itself, it would probably have been grey,  and Mrs.
Cassidy would have looked much better like that.

‘Oh, honey, look!’ she
exclaimed to Grant as she met Abigail. ‘A real brunette. Look at the blue-black
shine. You just can’t get that colour.’

Grant grinned at Abigail
when she looked flustered and didn’t know what to say.

‘Ivy changes her hair
colour as often as she changes her mind,’ he chuckled. ‘This week she’s a
brunette. It was red the week before.’

‘Ash-blonde!’
Ivy Cassidy corrected him, giving him a sharp dig in the ribs. ‘Red was last
month.’

‘I lose
track,’ he laughed, and Abigail’s embarrassment faded at this open discussion.
She laughed too.

Logan
looked somewhat astounded but he covered his astonishment
by leading them in to dinner—a candlelit meal on a wide veranda overlooking the
sea.

 A round table had been set
for them, the crystal glittering in the light from the flickering candles.
There were white roses in the centre of the table and in the shelter of the
veranda, with its trailing greenery and brightly injured potted plants, it
looked beautiful.

This is really romantic,’
Ivy cooed, and Grant smiled I knowingly at her.

‘Second honeymoon,’ he
confided in a loud whisper. We have to remember to leave at a respectable
time.’

Abigail’s
face flushed like a wild rose and Logan, helping her to her chair, lingered
behind her, his hands coming to her shoulders seductively.

‘We’ve
got all the time in the world,’ he told them easily. ‘The second honeymoon
started before we even left England.’

It sent
Abigail’s mind spinning back to the flat, back to the lamp lit bedroom, and she
had to struggle hard not to flinch under his taunting hands. What was she
expected to do—look coy? Apparently her romantically flushed cheeks woe enough
to satisfy Logan because he sat opposite her with a very complacent look on
his] handsome face. Ivy and Grant Cassidy beamed at them both.

No
business was discussed. Grant seemed to want to talk about the old days—about Logan’s grandfather and his uncle. She learned a lot about Logan—things she had not known
before. He had come to America to go to Harvard and he’d simply stayed on,
working with his grandfather and uncle, learning in the fast, hard world of
American business.

‘They
were quick on their feet in those days,’ Grant reminisced. ‘Logan’s grandpa was
a whirlwind, right to the end. His uncle Greg was the same. There wasn’t much
that those two didn’t know between them. You had to be up real early in the
morning to even begin to compete‘

No wonder
Logan was in a towering league of his own, Abigail thought. Apparently he had
learned from two experts, lived with them and worked with them. It was not
surprising that the Madden Corporation had been slowly squeezed almost out of
existence.

‘I
couldn’t believe it when your uncle Greg was killed in that car crash soon
after your grandpa died. What a tragedy.’ He glanced at Logan speculatively. ‘Everybody
expected you to stay here and carry on, seeing that everything came to you. It
was a real shock when you went back to England and left things to managers.’

‘My roots
are there,’ Logan said briefly. ‘I never had any real intention of staying in
the States.’

‘Sure,’
Grant murmured. ‘Couldn’t be expected, I suppose, with your folks in England. Your dad married an English girl, after all. I lost track of him after that. How
is he?’

‘He
died.’

Logan
said nothing more and Grant looked shocked. He
murmured his regrets and Abigail felt the shock too, deep inside. It wasn’t
that she hadn’t known. When they’d been together, Logan had never once
mentioned parents, and the first she had known of them was what he’d told her
at the office on the day she had fainted. Martha had told her too, so the shock
was not that. The fact was not new to her. It was the cold, bitter way in which
Logan said it that brought shock.

The chill
came racing back round her heart. He had not forgiven, not forgotten and with Logan that meant only one thing—revenge.

Whoever calculating game he
was playing now, she knew without doubt that the helping hand he had held out
to the firm was of cold iron clothed in velvet. She was here, risking
everything for that helping hand, but the vendetta continued and it would
continue until her father was destroyed.

Logan
was playing some deep, unfathomable game with
them. Making love to her at the flat might or might not have been part of it.
Not that it mattered. He had her there too and she knew that there would be no
bright and hopeful future. Their escape did not figure in Logan’s plans and so
there would be no escape at all.  

Grant
didn’t ask about Logan’s mother but Abigail was on edge, waiting for the
question to come. Logan’s words were ringing in her head—the words he had used
when she had gone to his office to capitulate. ‘Remind him about John Steele
and his wife, Kathleen.’ Then she had been outraged, disbelieving, but now
there was a growing doubt, and the thought of her father being responsible for
two deaths horrified her.

Afterwards,
when Grant and Ivy left, Abigail went with Logan to see their guests off. It
was a beautiful night. There was a moon riding high in a dark blue sky, the
sound of the ocean and the frothy surf bubbling on the sand.