Authors: Patricia Wilson
He stood
and walked out and Abigail stared after him anxiously. Coming here had been a
mistake. She knew instinctively that she had made a false move in this deadly
game. She had reminded Logan of her existence and if he could make further use
of her possibilities he would do so without hesitation. That was why he was
making her stay.
She
turned her attention to the soup. Now that he was not sitting there looking at
her she felt the pangs of hunger. It was delicious soup anyway and she buttered
the hot rolls and ate—it was the first time she had eaten in ages. She had not
been lying when she had told Logan that she could not remember when she had
last eaten. The days seemed to have rolled into one and all she could remember
was hot coffee, morning, noon and night.
With the
usual immaculate timing he came back in as she finished and Abigail stood and
faced him defiantly.
‘I’ve eaten as ordered and
now I’ll leave,’ she said tightly.
‘And why not?’ Logan drawled sardonically. ‘After all, you’ve accomplished what you set out to do.’
‘What do
you mean?’ She stared at him angrily. Was he suggesting that she had come here
to faint and get his sympathy? She knew him belter than that. He had no
sympathy at all, especially not with her.
‘You came
to announce your surrender.’ He gave her an ironical look as her face flushed
slightly. ‘I’ll rephrase that. You came to announce your father’s surrender.
‘My
father and I are in this together,’ Abigail reminded him sharply, and his eyes
narrowed dangerously, the cold grey glittering like ice.
‘Oh, no, you’re not,’ he
rasped. ‘You were never in it. You may have become a trainee high-flyer over
the past four years but, believe me, you don’t even know the first thing about
being ‘in this’. You’ve never had your beautiful toes in the mud.’
‘Not even when I was
married to you?’ Abigail asked him tightly, and he looked at her for a second
with devastating hostility before his lips twisted in cold amusement.
‘Your feet hardly touched
the floor. You were in my arms for most of the time. Memory is such an elusive
thing,’ he opened the door as she was struggling to regain her anger and
composure. ‘Time to go, Abigail. This way.’
It became apparent that he
was taking her outside that would give him time for more comments. Abigail set
her lips firmly and walked stiffly beside him. Neither of them spoke in the
lift and it was only as he was actually opening the door to the street that she
thought about a taxi.
‘I didn’t
bring my car. I’ll phone for a taxi.’
You don’t
need one,’ Logan informed her implacably. ‘I intended to take you back in any
case. This saves me the trouble of having to send your car round later.’
A dark
Jaguar slid to a hale in front of them and a smiling youth stepped out and
opened the passenger door for Abigail as Logan took the wheel. It was done so
smoothly that she barely had time to think.
‘This is
not necessary.’
‘I
decided that it is,’ Logan murmured, not even glancing at her as the long car
slipped smoothly into the traffic. ‘It’s a long time since I drove past the
Madden’s offices. Five years almost. It will be—interesting.’
‘The
place will be yours soon,’ Abigail reminded him
in a choked voice.
Suddenly she couldn’t speak. It was too overwhelming. Sitting in this car with
Logan brought back so many memories that she wanted to shut her eyes and not
remember where she was or who was with her, it was impossible to ignore him
though. It was the make of car, the same sensually masculine being besides her.
It was even the same aftershave. It invaded her senses, bringing back feelings
as if it were the well-loved perfume of a rose pressed in an album.
‘I don’t
want the place,’ Logan rasped. ‘I want the man and I’ve almost got him.’
‘You’ve
got him already.’ Abigail whispered. ‘If you could see him...’
‘I have
no desire to see him!’ Logan ground out. She saw his hands tighten on the wheel
and cast a furtive, frightened look at the hard, handsome face. He slanted, it
shook her like icy lightning and she looked away rapidly, staring down at her
tightly clenched fingers. Logan didn’t speak again and Abigail was too shaken
and lost even to contemplate conversation. What was ‘there to say to him? His
hatred encompassed everything to do with the name Madden. It always had done
but she had been too young, too bewitched to know. Here we are.’ Logan spoke again as the car was gliding to a halt in front of her own offices. This place
did not bare the splendour of the Steele building and Logan’s eyes moved over
it with stony indifference as the car stopped.
‘Thank
you,’ Abigail said in little more than a whisper, sighing when his hand came to
her arm, his fingers biting into her through the wool of her jacket.
‘You’d
better harden up. Abigail.’ he warned harshly. Any other female would have
slapped my face and stormed off at this point. But you—you whisper, ‘Thank
you’re your
s
weetness doesn’t get
to me anymore.’
‘It never
did,’ she said more calmly than she had thought possible. ‘You just pretended.’
Her wide green eyes looked at him steadily. ‘You can take everything from us,
but you’ll not take my character or my belief in people. It was just my
misfortune to have met you when I was too young to know better. I’ll not judge
everyone else by you, though. Somehow, somewhere, I’ll start again.’
His hands
tightened on her arm but she pulled away and got out of the car slamming the
door and walking towards the building that very soon would be part of Logan’s empire. She didn’t look round, and long before she got to the steps she heard the
Jaguar purr away and moved back into the traffic. If she had annoyed him at the
end, his driving gave no sign of it. He was, as usual, untouchable, imperious
and cold.
‘Did you see him?’ Martha
was waiting as Abigail] reached her own floor and went towards her office.
‘Yes. I
told you not to hope. There was nothing to hope for.’
‘I just
thought that as you were there for so long—’
‘I
fainted,’ Abigail muttered. ‘He brought me back.’
‘And?
’
Martha’s face had shown signs of anxiety at the mention of her fainting and
Abigail just wanted to get out of here fast.
‘And
nothing. It was merely a courtesy.’
She
walked past and Martha stated after her. She knew all about Logan Steele. She
had been at the wedding. Even now, after all that had happened, she couldn’t
believe that it had all been a sham. They had seemed to be alone even in a
crowded church, Abigail so young and beautiful and Logan so powerful and
protective! Love had seemed to glow around them like an incredible light. But
she had seen Abigail’s dreams shattered and now she clenched her hands in rage
and went back to her work. What was there to believe in? How did Abigail cope
each day?
CHAPTER TWO
With her appointments
cancelled for the rest of the day, Abigail now had nothing to do. It was
useless to work at anything because soon there would be no future at all. Even
if she went out of her office and into another part of the building, there
would be worried eyes on her, people wondering if she knew anything that they
did not. Some of the staff had already taken up other offers and she knew that
those who stayed were here through loyalty to her.
The
responsibility was like a weight on her heart and yet there was nothing she
could do to shield either the staff or her own father. She couldn’t even go
home yet. If she arrived early he would be in a state of anxiety the moment he
saw her car.
She paced
about and then went along to make herself a coffee. The long, thickly carpeted
corridor was deserted. This was the executive part of the building Just through
the door at the end was the open-plan office–where Martha had her desk. At one
time this place had almost matched the opulence of the Steele building. It was
not as big but it had been a busy, functioning place, the smell of wealth an
almost tangible thing in the air.
Now it
seemed to be deserted. The office of the vice-chairman was empty He had left at
the first opportunity, left before he could be declared redundant. One day that
office was to have been Abigail’s but she had kept temporarily to the office of
chairman long before her time, long before her father’s retirement and years
before she had been ready to make the step.
The
boardroom was facing her as she came back and, she burned into her own office
after one glance at the name on the door, That room, this corridor was where
she had first Keen Logan and she didn’t want to be reminded. In the quiet she
still seemed to hear his voice as she had first heard it. It had been harsh
enough, violent enough to stop her in her tracks but she hadn’t had time to
retreat to the safety of Martha and the busy offices beyond. If she had, he
would never have seen her and now she would not be feeling the guilt that refused
to go.
Abigail
had been nineteen, slender, willowy, with eyes like emeralds and long black
hair that curled round her shoulders. She had been working in her father’s firm
since she had left school the year before—He had always made, it plain to her
that she would work for him, with him and finally take the firm into her own
hands when he retired and Abigail had never thought to defy him. She was
sweet-natured, gentle and always willing.
Not that
it would have been any easy option in defy Kent Madden He had fought his way
upwards in the business world, a property developer with a keen eye for a good
site and a drive to succeed that had brought the Madden Corporation to the top
and held it there. Abigail had been supposed to learn everything. Her father
had had visions of her bang a powerful businesswoman one day with a grasp on
the firm and the knowledge that came from starting at the bottom and working
up.
That was
where she had been at nineteen, at the bottom and she’d loved the bustle and
gossip of the offices, the motherly severity of her father’s secretary. Martha
Bates Doing the donkey work had been fun to Abigail and she’d tried not to
think of her rather grand and frightening future. It had been many years away.
She had been content to type out invoices, make the coffee and cart around
heavy business files on demand.
She had
been doing that when she had encountered Logan for the first time. He had been
thirty-one and alarming, handsome, hard and furious, with more anger in him
than she had ever encountered in her life before, it had been in many ways a
dramatic meeting, and sheer chance. Minutes later and she would never have seen
him; her life would have been completely different. More than that, though, Logan would never have seen her. He would never have known who she was. She would have
been safe.
It had
been Monday morning, the start of a busy week. The board meeting in the
afternoon had been all set up and Abigail had been pushed for time. She had
prepares the room under Martha’s supervision and now she was taking in the
files they would need. There were too many to carry at one go, but she was in a
hurry. There was still a day’s typing on her own desk and she struggled through
the heavy swing-door at the end of the corridor with her arms full, the files
piled so high that she could barely see over the top of them.
She heard
the voice as soon as she opened the door but it was too late to back out: the
door had closed behind her and the files were in danger of dropping to the
floor.
‘Keep
looking over your shoulder,’ the dark and furious voice threatened, ‘because
I’ll always be there! And I’ll get you. Five years! That’s how long it will
take. Start counting now, and remember they’re inevitable, your fate and my
promise!’
The door
of her father’s office slammed shut, the sound reverberating along the
corridor, and Abigail moved instinctively to the wall, well aware that a blind,
raging force was bearing down on her. He didn’t even see her, he was so
inflamed with fury that he simply bumped into her, knocking her shoulder and
almost making her lose her balance. There was no chance at all for the files;
they cascaded to the floor, scattered like a pack of cards and he didn’t even
stop.
It was
only as he reached the heavy door at the end that it seemed to sink in that he
had created a certain amount of chaos. By that time Abigail was on her knees,
trying to gather the files into some sort of order and he stopped, looking back
and seeing her frantic actions, her slender arms reaching out to set things
right. She didn’t look round and a curious expression crossed his face for a
second. She didn’t even look annoyed—no sharp words, not even an irritated
glance. She was just picking things up as if he had every right to knock them
down.
He walked
back and stood looking at her and she looked up then with the most enormous
green eyes that he had ever seen.
‘I’m
sorry,’ he offered ruefully. ‘I was too damned annoyed to see you.’ He crouched
down beside her and began to help but she smiled a little warily and shook her
head.
‘It’s all
right and you can’t help really. They’ve got to be in order.’