Borrowed Wife (22 page)

‘Never mind,’ Abigail
soothed ironically. ‘You’ll be able to make two astonishing reports together.
One, I played truant yesterday, and two, I walked out today.’

‘Do you have to?’ he asked,
and she nodded, collecting her things from the desk, methodically putting them
into the box she had brought.

‘I do if I want to survive,
Mr. Saville,’ she said quietly.

CHAPTER TEN

Abigail
said goodbye to everyone, trying to reassure than
as best she could. She held a small meeting in the staff dining room, trying
her best to make it a very official parting and telling them that Logan was now guiding the firm to recovery. They already knew who Joe Saville was but as
Abigail explained to them that Logan Steele was about to set the Madden
Corporation back on its feet there seemed to be a collective sigh of relief.

There was
not one person there who did not know Logan’s brilliant reputation and there
were quite a few who also knew why the Madden Corporation had plunged so steeply
downhill. Several people were looking at her with pitying eyes but the heat was
off and that was all they could see for the present.

Martha
saw a little further, however.

‘Has he
stopped, Abigail?’ she asked quietly when Abigail went to say goodbye privately.

‘With the
firm, yes. He gave me his word and that’s good enough for me.’

‘So why
are you running for cover?’ Martha asked. And don’t bother to tell me that
you’re not. I’ve seen
you
fight
for this firm, seen you nearly kill yourself in the attempt. You didn’t run
then but you’re running now.’

‘I fought
hard because I was angry and because I had loyalty to my father,’ Abigail said
slowly. ‘I have no anger left and no loyalty. I found out things I can’t
ignore. It’s best that I simply go.’  

‘Where?’
Martha asked. ‘Will you work for Wingate’s?’

‘No.’
Abigail shook her head, her eyes thankful ‘That’s what I intended to do but now
I can’t. To be strictly truthful, Martha, I don’t exactly know what I’m going
to do. I have to think it all out. I’m just going away. I need time.’

She
almost said that she needed space but she had said that to Logan. Now she would
have all the space in the world because Logan would not be in her life. It
would all be over. The final act. What he would do she didn’t know. She didn’t
want to know. When some devastating blow fell she would no longer be connected
to the Madden Corporation and she would not feel sorry for her father. Some
people had bad luck for no reason at all. By inexcusable actions, her father
had brought on himself any fate that Logan decided to deal out.

It was
late by the time she had her things packed. Today was Rose’s day off so she had
no tiresome explaining to do. She hadn’t given a thought to where she was
going. All she wanted to do was run—away from the truth, run away from the
unhappiness. Where she went didn’t seem to be very important.

On her
drive back into London it gradually dawned on her that in spite of her despair
she had to find somewhere to stay and she turned the car towards a row of
quite respectable hotels she knew—small places where there was no glamour, no
glitter, places that Logan’s friends would never even know existed. Abigail
knew, though. She had often pondered when she had first left Logan about how it
would be simply to disappear, get away from her father, take on another
character entirely. The hotels had looked secretive, inviting and cheap. She
could call herself anything and nobody would know.  

She
pulled up outside one of them—the middle one- and went inside to see if there
were any vacancies. Later she would get her things from her car. Then she would
lock her door and sleep. Tomorrow she would think. Not now, not tonight. It was
all so easy, so welcoming, .and without any thought at all she signed the
resignation card in her own name, only realising too late that she had not
meant to do that. Abigail Steele. It shouted out at her, made her nervous and
she cast a quick glance at the man at the desk. He was not impressed by the
name and she breathed a sigh of relief. She thought that Logan was omnipotent.
Apparently, outside the business world, Steele was just another name.

Abigail
went out to get her things, a very old porter accompanying her.

‘It’s no
parking here,’ he pointed out when he saw her car. ‘It’s OK across the road,
after sue and before eight in the morning. Later than that you’ll have to find
somewhere else. We don’t have parking at the hotel. I should leave it across
the road for tonight, though. It’s late.’

It was.
It was almost eleven and Abigail helped him load her cases onto a trolley and
then left him to get them inside while she moved her car. The lateness of the
hour hadn’t really sunk in until he had told her but now she knew why she felt
so deadly tired. It had been a long day, a bad day and all she wanted to do was
sleep. She drove the car across to the other side of the road and reversed it
into place, just managing to get it between two other cars.

At least
it was legal until eight o’clock tomorrow. She looked up and looked across at
the hotel. Now it didn’t look quite so inviting. Nothing was inviting—nothing
but the flat and Logan, the hard warmth of his arms and the smiling grey of his
eyes. It was no use thinking about it, though. It was all gone forever. Her own
eyes clouded with tears and she stepped out across the road, only raising her
head when lights blinded her and a horn screamed at her with a warning of
terror.

The car
had come round the corner at speed and she hadn’t even looked. He was going too
fast to stop and Abigail was hit by the front wing, tossed like a leaf against
the parked cars, sliding to the wet, dark street to lie silent and lifeless.

She
didn’t know that the old porter had been watching her, worried about her safety
at this time of night in a dark street. She didn’t see the flurry of activity
as he called for help and hurried across to her. The car had stopped and a
white-faced young man was bending over her, frantically taking her pulse and
shaking like a leaf himself when he could find no pulse at all.

‘Leave
her!’ the old porter ordered fiercely, pushing him aside. ‘You’ve done your
worst.’ He took off his jacket and carefully covered her, his hand stroking
back the black hair from her face. ‘Beautiful little thing,’ he muttered. ‘All
by herself and so beautiful.’

Through the swirling mists
of pain there were voices and, more and more, one voice dominated. It was a
voice close to her, a voice she reached out for. It was huskily deep with a
quiet desperation behind the words.

‘Don’t
leave me, Abbie! Don’t let go. You promised forever. Don’t leave me, darling.’

Other
voices intruded; they were more controlled, not desperate. Cool hands touched
her—efficient hands that took away the pain. Blackness returned, and nothing.

When
Abigail opened her eyes finally, she saw Martha, the last touch of severity
gone from her face, and Abigail tried to speak, tried to lift her head.

‘No!
Don’t move. You’re all taped up, Abigail. Moving can only hurt you. I’ll come
where you can see me better.’

Martha
got up and came round the bed and even following the movements with her eyes
hurt. Abigail lifted her hand and touched her face. There were no bandages
although she could feel them round her head.

‘You’re
not scarred, thank God!’ Martha told her. She sat gingerly on the edge of the
bed, watching for any sign that this would bring on pain. ‘It was your head,
your shoulders and your back.’

‘How am
I?’ Abigail managed weakly, and Martha patted her hand.

‘Fair to
middling, love. Otherwise they wouldn’t have lot me creep in to see you. Until
today it was only relatives, and that meant Logan.’

‘Logan? He was here?’ The distant memory of his voice came back but she knew it had all
been a dream, the confusion of pain.

‘He’s
been here for two days. He never slept, never left this bedside,’ Martha told
her firmly. ‘They more or less threw him out this morning and he’s gone to get
a shower and a few hours’ sleep. He wouldn’t move until the doctor came and
told him personally that you would be fine. You know what he’s like. Even when
he was dropping, he was the boss.’

‘How did
he know that...?’

‘The
police found him. You signed your name at that place you ran off to and they
took one look at it and phoned him. He’s been here ever since. Do you remember
anything at all?’

‘The car.
I remember the car,’ Abigail said slowly. Her eyes were beginning to close and
she was too weak to fight the tremendous desire to sleep. Martha’s voice droned
on but Abigail didn’t hear. In her head she was searching for another voice,
for Logan’s voice, trying to remember the things he had said. It was all so
much a dream that she let it go and allowed herself to drift into a sleep that
painkillers thrust upon her.

When she
came round again it was night, dimmed lights allowing her eyes to open without
any pain. Warm, hard fingers held hers and she looked down wearily, her eyes
misting over when she saw the dark bead that rested against her band. Logan was sitting beside her, his hand still holding hers even though he had fallen
asleep.

She
slowly moved her fingers from his and her hand lifted to touch his hair. Brown
and gleaming, it fell over his forehead, softening the harshly carved lines of
his face. He looked so tired, the thick black lashes casting dark shadows
against his cheeks, and she saw more vulnerability than she had ever seen in Logan. She stroked his hair, wanting to soothe away the strain on his face. It was
terrible to love somebody so much and have no right to show it.

‘Logan.’ She whispered his name to herself, a world of longing in her voice, and he was
instantly awake, the grey eyes finding hers as she touched his face gently.

‘Abbie!’
He took her hand in his and cradled it to his cheek. ‘Abbie, my love. I’m
sorry, so sorry.’

‘I’m all
right, Logan,’ she whispered. ‘It was not your fault. Nothing was your fault.
You don’t have to pretend.
I know what happened. I know you couldn’t
either forget or forgive. Now I know why you could never love me, but it’s all
right, you don’t have to pretend. At least I had some time with you and I was
happy.’

Pain
crossed his face and the brilliantly grey eyes darkened, the heavy black lashes
blinking away the suspicion of tears.

‘I do
love you, Abbie,’ he said deeply. ‘I’ve always loved you. Every minute away
from you is a minute of my life wasted. I tried to separate my life into two compartments.
One was filled with your sweetness and the other filled with anger and
bitterness. I wanted everything. I wanted you and I wanted revenge. Living
like that could never have worked but I was too arrogant to realise it and I
lost you. Now I nearly lost you forever.’

Abigail managed a smile,
her fingers curling round his.

‘It was a stupid accident,’
she said quietly. ‘I was unhappy, not looking where I was going. I was running
away.’ She sighed shakily and closed her eyes. ‘Nobody can really run away.
It’s not possible, is it?’

Her voice was slurred and Logan tightened his hand on hers.

‘Don’t leave me, Abbie!’ be
begged urgently. ‘They said you were all right. You promised me a long time
ago. You said, ‘for ever’!’

A smile touched her lips
but her eyes didn’t open.

‘I’ll promise all over
again, Logan. Forever. I won’t leave you if you want me.’

‘I want you,’ he assured
her vibrantly. ‘I love you, Abigail. Whatever it takes, I’ll make things
right.’

She just smiled and he
raised her hand to his lips, entreaty still in his voice when he said, ‘Don’t
sleep yet, Abbie. Just tell me I’m not imagining it. Tell me you love me.’

‘I love you,’ she
whispered. ‘I never stopped. Can I go to sleep now, please?’

Logan
gave a brief, shaken laugh.

‘Such sweet manners,’ he
said softly. ‘You can sleep, my darling. I’ll be here. Nothing in this world is
going to hurt you.’

The next day Logan and Kent
Madden walked in together and Abigail’s stomach tightened with anxiety. They
hadn’t even seen each other since the day almost five years ago when she had
married Logan and the fact that they had come together, or at least, arrived
together, was either unbelievable or a very nasty coincidence that could only
spell trouble.

‘How are
you, Abigail?’ Her father came across to her and Logan let him come first.

‘I feel
much better today,’ she assured him, her glance taking in his more healthy
appearance. Her eyes slid apprehensively to Logan and he smiled reassuringly
as she tried to concentrate on her father.

‘You gave
us a fright, Abigail,’ her father said gruffly. ‘I had no idea about the
accident until—Logan let me know.’

The
slight hesitation in using Logan’s name showed how much of a strain this was
for her father and Abigail had no doubt that this meeting was not their first. Logan had stamped his authority on things and he was here to see that everything went
according to his plan.