Surely Logan would have kept his sinner’s mouth shut.
Wouldn’t he?
‘Logan tells me he’s met you before,’ said Max.
Guess not. ‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘Ten years ago, maybe more. I haven’t kept count. We met in passing. I was on a study exchange programme at the University of Greenwich. Your brother was doing something or other in London. I never did ask what.’
‘He’s the one, isn’t he?’ said Max. ‘The one who ruined you for all other men.’
‘I’m thinking ruined is too strong a word,’ said Evie. ‘I was definitely exaggerating and possibly maudlin when I mentioned that to you. I’m not ruined. I don’t feel ruined. Do I look ruined?’
Max took his time looking her over.
‘You look flustered,’ he said grimly. ‘You never get flustered.’
‘Not true. C’mon, Max. I had a fling with a man called Logan Black more than ten years ago. Five minutes ago you introduced him to me as your brother. I’m calling that one fluster-worthy.’ Heat flooded Evie’s cheeks and distress fuelled her temper. ‘I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry my past has come back into play. It was a pretty tepid past.’ With one notable exception. ‘It doesn’t have to impact the present.’
‘It just did.’
Hard to argue with that.
‘Do you still want him?’ asked Max.
‘No.’ And as if saying it louder would somehow make it true, ‘NO.’
‘Because he sure as hell still wants you.’
‘If your brother had wanted me, Max, he’d have found me. That much I do remember about him.’
But Max just shook his head and ran his hands through his hair. He didn’t look much like Logan except for his dark hair and olive skin. Their features were quite different. Their mannerisms not similar at all. No way she could have known.
‘I can’t believe he even told you,’ she muttered. ‘Why would he do that? What could he possibly hope to gain? Does he not like you? Is that it?’
‘We get on well enough,’ said Max.
‘Then why?’
‘Maybe he thought you were going to say something.’
‘Yeah, well, he got that wrong.’
Max cut her a level glance. ‘Honesty not really your strong suit these days, is it?’
‘Or yours,’ she snapped back. ‘You said you had a brother—I thought I’d be meeting Logan Carmichael. You never told me you had a half-brother named Logan Black,’ she said as her legs threatened to fold and she sat herself down on the day-bed. Think, Evie. Think. But her mind had left the building the moment she’d set eyes on Logan, and it hadn’t yet returned. ‘Your mother’s hosting a cocktail party in our honour in just over seven hours,’ she said, and put her head to her hands and the heels of her hands to her eyes and pressed down hard. ‘What’s the plan here? What do you want to do? Because I can go find her and apologise and tell her the engagement’s off, if that’s what you want.’
‘Evie—’
‘Or we could put in an order for a time machine. I could go back in time, find your half-brother and spurn his advances. Failing that, I could at least wring his neck afterwards. That’d work too.’
‘Evie—’
‘Because after that I’m fresh out of ideas, Max. I don’t know how to fix this without making even more of a mess.’ Evie’s throat felt tight, her eyes started stinging. ‘I didn’t know. I didn’t know he was your brother. I would never … If I’d known. The business…. God.’
The horror in Logan’s eyes that last time they’d been together when she’d cut her head on the too-sharp table leg. The trembling in his hands, the fear and self-loathing in his eyes. He’d taken her to the hospital and by the time they’d arrived Logan had pulled himself together, standing silent and sombre by her side until the nurses had asked him to wait outside.
‘There’s no problem here,’ she’d told concerned nurses firmly. ‘None.’
But they’d given her a business card and on it had been a number to call and she’d shoved it in her handbag rather than argue with them any more.
Logan had taken her home and she’d known something was wrong but she hadn’t been able to reach him. ‘Logan, it was an accident,’ she’d told him as he’d walked her to her door. ‘You know that, right?’ And she’d thought he was going to reach for her then and make everything all right, only he’d shoved his hands in his pockets instead and nodded and looked away.
Last words she’d ever said to him, because the following day Logan Black was gone from her life as if he’d never existed.
‘God,’ she whispered.
And then Max’s hands were circling her wrists and he was crouching before her and pulling her hands away from her face. ‘Hey,’ he said gently. ‘Drama queen. Don’t go to pieces on me now. We can fix this.’
‘How?’
‘We just have to know what everybody’s intentions are, that’s all. Yours. Mine. Logan’s. Because I’ll stand aside if I have to, Evie, but only if there’s a damn good reason for doing so.’
‘That I slept with your brother isn’t good enough?’
‘Well, it’s not ideal …’ Droll, this fake fiancé of hers, when he wanted to be. ‘But I’ve got fifty million good reasons to get over it. Question is, can you and Logan? You need to talk to him, Evie.’
‘We just did. You were there. It didn’t go well.’
‘You need to talk to him again. In private. Minus the element of surprise.’
‘I really don’t.’
‘How else are you going to know if you’re over him?’
‘I’m over him.’
‘Yeah. And he’s over you. That’s why he’s downstairs mainlining Scotch and you’re up here falling apart.’
‘He’s mainlining what?’
‘Says the voice of disinterest. Corner him after lunch. Let him corner you.’
‘He thinks we’re getting married, Max. He’s not going to come anywhere near me.’
‘I think you might be underestimating the effect you have on him, Evie. Besides, he knows this is a marriage of convenience.’
‘He what?’ Evie was having trouble keeping up with who knew what. ‘How?’
‘I may have mentioned it. Before he mentioned knowing you. He was concerned for me. Or possibly for you. Not sure which. He asked me straight whether our marriage was to be one of convenience.’
‘You told him? What happened to the game plan? The “I want to pretend it’s real in front of my family” plan?’
Max had the grace to look discomfited. ‘Couldn’t do it,’ he said finally.
‘You are the worst. Liar. Ever.’
‘Yes, well, now we know that.’ Max was getting surly, a sure sign that he’d been caught wrong-footed. ‘Look, I’ll go and beard my mother, tell her what’s going on. But you have to talk to Logan and find out what he wants. What you want.