The Heartbroker (14 page)

As I turn to leave, he grabs my hand. “Hey, I hadn’t mentioned it, but I love that you didn’t hesitate to get on a plane and come back to see your family on Sunday. Even if it did mean leaving me there.”

“Well, they’re important to me. You’d do the same, I bet.”

“I would.” He grins at me. “They would love you, by the way. Especially Mom.”

“Really?” I ask, flattered. Wow, he’s already thought about me meeting his family?

“Oh, yeah.”

“I’ll see you tonight, then.” I grin from ear to ear like some crazed idiot.

I wander towards the lift, floating in my love bubble, feeling like the luckiest woman alive.

TWO DAYS LATER I’M brought down to Earth with a sickening thud.

“I’m scheduled for surgery next week,” Jennifer says down the phone.

“Oh.” I sit down in my office chair. “When? Where?”

“At Wellington hospital on Tuesday morning. I’m having a partial mastectomy and removal of the lymph nodes the cancer has spread to.”

My practical side kicks in. “Right. I see. What do you need? Is Dad taking time off to look after you? I will if he can’t.”

She laughs lightly, and I’m struck afresh at how relaxed she seems to be about this whole thing. “No, thanks, Brooke. You’re a sweetie. Your dad will be there for me. But a visit afterwards would be more than welcome.”

“Of course. I’ll be there. Shall I come with you to the hospital, before the surgery?”

“Oh, no. You have to work. It’s in the morning.”

“Jennifer, you forget: I’m the boss. I can do what I like.”

She laughs again. “Really, there’s no need. I’ll see you once I’m in the ward, after the surgery.”

“All right then,” I reply, resigned.

She’s so chilled out about this you’d think she was going for a pedicure, not surgery to remove a cancerous tumour. She’s either in total denial or the most level headed, unflappable person on the planet.

My phone beeps. It’s the lawyers on the other line. “I have to go. I’ll come and see you at the weekend.”

“All right, darling. Take care of yourself. Oh, and I want to know all about this man you’re seeing, too.”

I instantly blush, caught off-guard. “Man?”

“Oh, don’t play coy with me, Brooke Mortimer. Grace told me.”

How did Grace know about Logan? But then I put two and two together and realise Alexis must have told her sister, Sammy Jo, who would have told Grace, who then told Jennifer.

People may talk about the ‘six degrees of separation’, but here in New Zealand it’s more like half a degree. It’s practically a village where everyone knows your every move.

“Okay. I will.” I accept defeat, as I surge with pride that I have a special someone Jennifer wants to know about. It makes a nice change for me.

I’ve missed the call from my lawyers, so call them back as soon as I’ve said farewell to Jennifer. They’ve given the okay to the contract and have included the break clause I wanted. I instruct them to courier me a copy to sign before I pass it on to Logan.

I feel a cocktail of emotions once I’ve hung up.

This is it: do or die.

* * *

That evening Logan and I are in the kitchen at my townhouse in Thorndon. I sign the partnership agreement and hand it over to him with trembling hands. It’s hard to relinquish full control of my company—my baby -—even if doing so means we can pursue new markets
and
I get a much-needed cash injection.

He pulls a bottle of champagne out of a cooler bag he’d secretly stashed under my kitchen table when he arrived.

“But your company hasn’t signed the contract yet.” I look dubiously at the bottle of chilled Bollinger in his hand.

He takes a pen out of his laptop bag and signs the contract, too, instantly sealing the deal. “I’d say we just have.”

I stare at his signature on the page, almost as though I can’t believe what he’s done. Clearly as a company vice president he has signing authority, but it didn’t occur to me he would sign it here and now.

“Even with the addition of the break clause?” I question, my brow creasing.

I had shown Logan the clause before we sent our version to his legal department, and he’d been confident they would accept it. In fact, he was all for it.

“It’s all good, Brooke. Relax. We want to partner with you, remember? Now, where are your champagne glasses? Let’s crack this baby open.”

I open a cupboard above the bench and pull out two crystal flutes Dad and Jennifer gave me for my twenty-first. Logan’s calm, happy mood is infectious, and I find my tension about the contract slip away, replaced instead by a rush of excitement.

“To the beginning of what I know will be a successful partnership,” he toasts, raising his filled glass.

I raise mine and we clink. “Yes, to new adventures and successes.”

I grin broader than a Cheshire cat. Logan’s company is about to help us take on the world.

“I’m really happy for you, Brooke. You deserve this.”

“Thanks,” I reply, still beaming. “It’s going to be a lot of work.”

“It is. But you’re not a woman to shy away from hard work. Are you?” He puts his glass on the bench and taking me in his arms. “You’re confident, strong, and driven. As well as unbelievably sexy.”

He kisses me and I melt like an ice cream on a hot day.

“Tell me, what do you think you’d do if you didn’t run your company here in New Zealand?”

What?
Where’s this coming from?

I stiffen in his arms. “Umm, I don’t know. Why?”

He shrugs. “No reason. I just wondered if you have any other passions, anything else you might want to pursue.”

“I guess there are lots of things I’d like to do with my life, but not right now.”

I shift my weight, uncomfortable. This is a very weird line of questioning, especially straight after I’ve signed a contract with his company.

“Yeah, me too. I love what I do for
You: Now
, but I’d like to do other things some day. I think you and I are quite alike in that way: we’re adaptable and could do any number of different things.”

“Hmmm.” I’m still trying to work him out. I shouldn’t read too much into it; it’s probably nothing.

My phone buzzes on the kitchen bench next to me, interrupting our conversation. I get a short, sharp shock when Scott Wright’s name flashes up on my screen with a photo of him and I together, happy and smiling, on a beach in Rarotonga.

Why on this sweet Earth would my ex be calling me? And, more to the point, why didn’t I delete that photo—hell, his entire contact details—when I kicked him out?

I flip my phone over so our smiling faces are no longer staring up at me, turning my attention back to Logan: a far more enjoyable prospect.

“Anyone important?” Logan asks as I take a sip from my glass.

The champagne, combined with the excitement of agreeing the partnership contract, has begun to make me a little giddy.

“No,” I reply with a light chortle. “No one important.”

And I know I mean it, one hundred per cent.

Later, I snuggle up to him in bed. “I can’t believe you’re leaving tomorrow.”

“I know. It’s come around so fast, right?” he replies, stroking my head.

We’re lying naked in bed together, my head resting on his chest. I can hear each breath he takes, his heart beating strong and steady. He smells and feels amazing, and I’m not in the least bit ready for this to end. Not yet.

Perhaps never.

“Yes, it has. Too fast.”  Sadness stings,

We’ve had the most wonderful, intense week together. Since our time in Queenstown we’ve eaten out at some of Wellington’s best restaurants, run around the city’s sparkling bays together, wandered through the Botanic Gardens, picnicked in The Dell. And, of course, we visited The Weta Cave together: my first and Logan’s
third
, time.

We’ve spent every night together, never getting quite as much sleep as a doctor might recommend as optimal for one’s health, but waking up each morning satisfied and thoroughly contented nonetheless. It’s been utter bliss.

A knot forms at the pit of my stomach as my thoughts turn to the coming week. I don’t want this to end. Not only will Logan be gone, I’ll have to face Jennifer’s surgery and everything that goes with it. It’s undeniably grim.

“I’ve been thinking, honey. Why don’t you come visit me? It’s just a twelve hour direct flight, and you’d love San Francisco.”

I raise my head, anticipation rising in my belly as an instant smile spreads across my face.

“That would be so great. Are you sure? I mean long distance relationships don’t have the best track record, you know.”

Did I just label what we have as a ‘
relationship’
?

I backtrack. “Not that this is a relationship, per se, or anything. You know, we’re just two people hanging out. Right? We don’t
owe
anything to one another or anything like that.”

He regards me questioningly. “Is that what you want? For this to be a casual thing? ‘Because I didn’t get the impression you did.”

What I want? Is he
kidding
? He’s the most amazing man I’ve met in my entire life, and I’ve told him I want a fling. When in reality I want the works with him: marriage, kids, the whole shebang.

I swallow hard, wondering how best to answer. On the one hand I’m aching to tell him how much he means to me, how much I want to be with him. On the other, making myself vulnerable like that is the most frightening thing I could imagine. I’m just not sure I could take the rejection from him if he doesn’t feel the same way.

“I, err—” I stammer, biting my lip. “I don’t know.”

Thankfully, he saves me. He looks deep into my eyes. “Brooke, I’m falling in love with you.”

I swallow hard, my heart squeezing.
He loves me?

I reach up and grab him around his neck, planting a kiss on his lips. “Really?” I squeak, almost not trusting my ears.

“Yes,” he laughs. “The time I’ve spent with you has been the best time of my life. Brooke, you have to know how I feel about you. This isn’t just a fling for me. And I hope it isn’t for you, either.”

All week I’d been dreading what would happen once Logan left, denying how strong my feelings for him are. The cleanest and easiest thing to do would be to let him leave and just be done with it. Call this a fun fling and move on with our separate lives. That’s the sensible thing to do, the rational, level-headed thing.

But, as I said to Alexis, the heart wants what the heart wants. And my heart most certainly wants Logan McManus. With great big, shiny bells on.

A tear trickles down my cheek as relief floods through me. Since I broke up with Scott I’ve been denying myself even the possibility of a relationship with a man. And now I’ve let my barriers down, I’ve found someone twice the man Scott was.

And not only that, he loves me.

“I love you too, Logan,” I whisper.

“You’ll come and see me then?”

“Just try and stop me.”

“That’s what we’ll do,” he says eagerly, causing me to smile from ear to ear. “You can visit me then I can come back here to see you. That way we could see each other every month.”

My heartbeat quickens at the prospect of being with him again, of having an actual relationship with him. “That would be so wonderful.”

“I’m going to Eastern Europe at the end of the month, so come and see me afterwards. We won’t be together for a month, but it will be worth the wait.”

“Okay. I’ll book something.” I’m so happy I could pop. We’re in love!

“I don’t want this to end, Brooke.” He leans down to kiss me again, this time more intensity.

“Me neither,” I murmur, happily submitting myself to his kisses, my insatiable desire for him rushing through my body once more.

* * *

The following morning we reluctantly shower and dress and Logan packs his bag.

“Here.” He holds out a small package. “I got something for you. Call it a memento of our time together. And a sign of what’s yet to come.”

I take the package from his outstretched hand and unwrap it quickly, pulling out a solitaire diamond necklace I look at in disbelief.

“Allow me?” He takes the necklace from me as I sweep my hair to the side for him to do the clasp. “Beautiful.”

I turn to the mirror above my chest-of-drawers, regarding my reflection, my hand instantly reaching up to touch the sparkling diamond.

He wraps his arms around my waist from behind, regarding my reflection in the mirror. “I want you to know how much you mean to me. That I’m serious about us. This is a symbol of my love.”

I flush with delight. “Thank you, Logan. Thank you so much. It’s so beautiful.” I turn towards him and pull him in for a kiss.

He chuckles gently. “I’m glad you like it.”

“Wait right there.” I dart into my closet, pulling out the gift I’d bought him. I return a moment later holding it out to him. “It’s not in the diamond necklace league, but I hope you like it.”

He opens the gift, pulling out a framed shot the bungy jump photographer took of us mid-descent. We’re clasped together, screaming our heads off: Logan looking ecstatic, me looking exhilarated with perhaps a hint of panic in my eyes.

“Where it all began.” He holds the photo in his hands. “I didn’t think you wanted a copy of this. I mean we kinda left the bungy place pretty fast, didn’t we? How did you get it?”