Borrowed Wife (9 page)

‘What?’
Abigail stood slowly, holding onto the of arm of the chair, and Logan looked up
at her, his dark brows raised in query, the light of real mischief now
sparkling in those astonishing eyes

‘You’re
not stupid, Abigail,’ he commented quietly. ‘You heard and you understood. I’m
making a trip. For a few weeks I need a wife, in name only. I already have one,
so what could be more simple?’

‘What are
you up to?’ she stormed, her breath back now and her temper rising. ‘Even
seeing you would probably finish my father off. Any suggestion like this would
do it for sure. If you need somebody with you, take Fenella Mitchell!’

‘She’s
not my wife,’ Logan pointed out smoothly, his amused eyes still on her furious
face. ‘I have a big business deal—a very big deal—and it’s with an American
company of considerable size. It’s still family owned and the man who owns it
has family values. He does not like the idea of divorce, mistresses or anything
leas wholesome than home-baked apple pie. My wife has been invited along. He
knows I’m married and he expects to meet you. I’m buying him out and then I’ll
have another foothold in the States.’

‘Then go
and buy him out!’ Abigail snapped. ‘Just leave the Madden Corporation to sink
without trace. We’ve been doing that very well for months.’

‘He does
not need the money and other people are interested,’ Logan said steadily. ‘I
want that firm. Given my offer, however large, and an offer from a solid family
man, he’ll take the latter. He’s funny that way.’

‘This is
not amusing!’ she spat out. ‘There’s no way I’ll allow you to see my father.
It’s very typical of you that while he’s hanging onto life by a thread you’re
thinking of your own schemes.’

‘You
imagine I owe him any favours?’ Logan grated, his amusement gone. ‘I made a
promise five years ago and so far I’ve kept it. I can take somebody else and
chance anyone finding out. I’m making the offer to you because I never promised
to see Kent Madden dead, in spite of what he did to my father and mother.’

‘He did
nothing!’ Abigail almost screamed. ‘Whatever it was, it was business.’

‘He’s a
liar and a cheat,’ Logan snapped. He stood and towered over her. ‘Go to the
hospital and try to take a look at him and then ring me with your decision. The
offer holds only until tonight. You can make this deal yourself without telling
him at all, if that’s what you want. If you don’t make the deal. I’ll let loose
the dogs again.’

‘Why did
you marry me?’ Abigail whispered, while to the lips after her burst of rage,
and he tilled her chin with one imperious finger.

‘For the
same reason that you married me, Abigail. I loved you, or, if you can’t swallow
that, I wanted you. I think I proved that at least.’

He walked
out of the flat and after a few seconds she heard the low purr of the Jaguar as
it pulled away. He was leaving her here, giving her time to think, and he knew
she had no sort of transport.

There was
no way that she would agree to this plan. She had a job lined up already with
Brian Wingate. The Madden Corporation could sink in deep, murky water.

She would never go back to Logan in any way at all. She was still hurting from the last time. In this flat, the image
of him here with her, her old longing to be closer to him could surface without
warning. Logan was what he had always been—danger.

She got
ready quickly and called a taxi. Maybe they would not let her see her father
but it was something she was going to find out for herself. She could not take Logan’s word for anything.

She couldn’t get past the
nurse on duty at the desk.

 ‘I’m sorry, Mrs. Steele.
No visitors allowed. Your father is holding his own at the moment. ‘The signs
are good, but he cannot have visitors. I told your husband that when he came
earlier. If he had passed that message on it would have saved you a journey.’

‘He did
pass it on,’ Abigail said frustratedly. Surely the restriction doesn’t apply to
me. though? I’m Kent Madden’s daughter—family. Even if my husband couldn’t see
him, I surely have the right?’

She was
still arguing when the ward sister appeared and the nurse on duty turned to
this more commanding figure for support.

‘Your
husband was told—’ the sister began, but Abigail interrupted her determinedly

‘I have
every right to see my father! You may be able to refuse to let his son-in-law
see him but you can’t refuse me. I’m the next of kin.’

It made
her cringe to say ‘son-in-law’ and she was just glad that her father could not
hear the words spoken. To Kent Madden, Logan was the son-in-law from hell. He
hadn’t even acknowledged that she was married when things had been normal, when
she had been happy with Logan.

The
sister was studying her face and what she saw there seemed to soften her rather
starchy resolution.

You can
look at him through the glass,’ she conceded reluctantly. ‘You can’t enter the
room and you must not try to speak to him even if he recognises you.’

‘Is he
still unconscious?’ Abigail whispered, and the sister turned stiffly to lead
her along the corridor.

‘Sometimes
he’s awake, even fairly lucid, although it’s difficult to hear the things he
says.’

They came
to the intensive-care unit and Abigail held herself tightly under control as
the sister motioned her to walk forward to the wide glass window that
restricted further passage. It was a small room with only three beds and at the
moment there was only one patient there. Abigail went close to the glass and
bit down on her lip in shock.

If there
had been others there she would not have known which one to look at because the
man in the high white bed was nothing like her father. He seemed to have grown
smaller overnight. His face was as white as his hair but even that was not the
cause of the unspeakable stock she felt.

He seemed
almost less than human because there were tubes running from the bed and he
seemed to be attached to so much machinery that to imagine him opening his eyes
and being at all normal was impossible. At that moment she felt all hope
disappear.

She dosed
her eyes, swaying dizzily, and the sister took her arm to steady her.

‘It’s not
some crud fancy of ours to restrict visitors, Mrs. Steele,’ she pointed out in
a suddenly kind voice. Sometimes visitors can’t cope with it. It’s frightening
for members of the family to see this sort of thing, and so unnecessary. By
tomorrow or the next day your father may very well be more normal and you could
have been spared the shock of this. Your husband should have prevented you from
coming.’

‘He—he
tried to.’ Abigail muttered. ‘He told me I wouldn’t be able to see my father.’

But she
had distrusted him as usual, she reminded herself, and Logan could not have
foreseen that her father would be in this slate. Would he have tried to stop
her coming if he had realised? It was something that was impossible to know.

‘Has—has
my father asked for me?’ she enquired shakily as the sister led her away

‘Not to
my knowledge. He’s come round on several occasions but it was difficult to know
how much he understood when he was awake. He was agitated each time. He talked
about ‘the company’ but it was so mixed up that I couldn’t actually tell you
what he said.’

‘I can
guess,’ Abigail assured her dully. It would be all about the Madden
Corporation, not about her. His life was the company and even when he hung
between life and death it was the Madden Corporation that filled his mind.

Things
had never been any different so why should she expect a change now? Even her
mother had taken second place to the Madden Corporation. Her own place was and
always had been very low on the list of priorities. If he fought to live it
would not be so that he could see her again. It would be to watch his company
sink into the dust.

Abigail
went back to the flat and it was not until she arrived that she realised she no
longer had keys to it. All those sorts of things she had thrown out when she
had left Logan four years earlier and for a second she stood on the step at the
front door, wondering almost in a daze what exactly she should do.

Logan
opened the door as she was turning away and
without a word she went in and walked past him.

I take it
that you’ve been to the hospital?’ He came into the sitting room and stood by
the door, a frown on his face as he saw her expression. ‘Yes. I saw him.
They—they wouldn’t let me at first but I insisted. They let me go to the window
and I could see ... I could see...’

‘You little fool!’ Logan strode forward and firmly put her into a chair. Before she knew it there was a glass
of brandy in her hand and Logan was standing over her as she sipped the drink.
It was very obvious that she was in no condition to argue with him and after a
second he went to stand by the window, staring out into the street.

‘What
have you gained by this visit, Abigail?’ he finally asked wearily.

‘I saw
him.’

At the
dull sound of her voice he spun round, his grey eyes blazing.

‘Damn it
all, Abigail!’ he rasped. ‘Why didn’t you listen to me? Why didn’t you let me
take care of you? You’re no more capable of stepping firmly on this earth than
you ever were. God knows how you get through a day at that office. I’m not even
sure how you manage to survive from minute to minute.’

‘I’m not
the incompetent fool you seem to imagine,’ Abigail retaliated. The brandy had
allowed some warmth to seep into her and she looked up at Logan with green-eyed
bitterness. ‘Thanks to you, I haven’t a lot of choice about going in to the
office. It’s managing without me at this moment but that state of affairs won’t
last long. There’s nobody there to take charge—to face things.’  

‘There’s
nothing to face right now.’ Logan reminded her angrily. ‘I told you I’d called
off the pack. Nothing will be happening.’

‘Precisely!’
Abigail snapped back. ‘There’s no business either. Nothing happening with the
bank because you stepped in. Nothing happening in the way of business because
you’ve undermined everything. Nothing and nothing make a big fat zero!’

‘Martha
Bates can supervise zero adequately,’ Logan growled sarcastically. ‘She’s not
in the building alone. The staff are still working.’

‘For the
time being! Before long they’ll all be sacked.’

 ‘Not if
I take the firm under my wing.’ Logan’s voice had gone quiet and Abigail
hastily looked away, scared about the decision she had been reaching ever since
she had bad her horrifying glimpse of her father. She had been turning things
over and over in her mind and she had come to the conclusion that she had no
choice at all.

Deep
inside, she knew that the only way to make her father fight his way back to
health was to give him something to fight for, and he would certainly not fight
for her, any more than he would have done for her mother’s sake. Only the firm
meant anything to him. There was the Madden Corporation or there was nothing.
Without Logan’s power there would be no Madden Corporation.   

Logan
came and threw himself into the chair opposite,
his startling grey eyes on her downcast face.

‘What are
his chances?’ be asked with that astonishing way he bad always had of collecting
her wandering thoughts.

‘Not good.’ She looked up
at him, her eyes almost glazed with unhappiness. ‘He came round earlier. The
sister told me. He—he never asked for me. He was talking about the firm.’

Logan
’s eyes narrowed, his glance racing across her
face. His lips tightened angrily at her tragic look but his voice was perfectly
even.

‘He would be only
semi-conscious. I imagine it’s a dream-like state. Don’t expect miracles,
Abigail.’

‘I don’t
think I’ve ever expected miracles,’ she said with quiet simplicity. ‘I’m too
ordinary for miracles. Things like that belong to you, Logan. You drive
miracles out into the open and pounce on them.’

Brief amusement flickered
in his eyes at her words but he didn’t smile.

‘He’s hanging on at any
rate,’ he reminded her. ‘At some point he’ll fight to survive. It’s part of his
nature.’

‘It
always has been,’ she agreed somberly. ‘He’s always had something to fight for.
Now he has nothing to fight for and he certainly won’t fight for me.’

Rage flared on Logan’s face, his eyes flashing icy sparks, and for a second her green gaze wandered over
him, searching his changing expressions. It was a question of courage after
all. Did she have the courage to step back into Logan’s world for a time?

For a
long and wonderful year he had been everything in her life and when it had
ended she had thought she would never be able to recover. In a way she never
had recovered because, as she looked at him now, memory came unbidden—secretive
and painful. He was still the most magnificent person she had ever seen, still
the most powerful. The dark voice was now often hidden in anger but always at
the back of her mind she could bear his laughter and his gentleness like some
ghost from the past.