Tall, Dark & Gorgeous: To Marry McKenzie

Darcy smiled, a less tired smile this time, the respite from the pressures of cooking, and the warming coffee, obviously reviving her slightly. ‘Once,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think it counts.’

Logan didn’t agree. What sort of man had she once been in love with? Had he loved her in return? And if so, where was he now?

‘I was nine,’ Darcy told him with a mischievous smile. ‘And he was ten.’

She really was starting to feel better if she could tease him in this way, Logan accepted wryly.

But he wasn’t; why had it bothered him so much when he’d thought Darcy had been in love with someone else…?

‘An older man,’ he returned dryly to cover his own confusion.

‘Hmm.’ She smiled, sipping her coffee. ‘But I don’t think it’s a legitimate basis from which to judge how my father must be feeling at the moment,’ she added with a pained grimace.

She might be right; as Logan had never been in love—even at the age of nine or ten!—he really couldn’t say. Although he was still of the opinion that his mother was no great loss to Daniel Simon’s life!

He had listened to what his mother had had to say two days ago, and perhaps he even understood her a little better now, but too much had happened, too much time had passed, for him to be able to trust completely the things she had said to him.

Logan shrugged. ‘I’m sure he’ll get over it,’ he said.

Darcy gave him a troubled look. ‘I wish I had your confidence. Perhaps if I spoke to your mother—’

‘Whatever for?’ he burst in incredulously, putting down his coffee-cup. ‘The other evening you couldn’t even bear to be in the same restaurant as her!’

Darcy pulled a face. ‘But maybe I was wrong about her. I’ve been giving all of this a lot of thought—with my father the way that he is, I thought I had better! And if he loves her—’

‘You said yourself that he didn’t, that he couldn’t know how he felt about her after only three weeks of knowing her,’ Logan reminded her. He had known his mother for thirty-five years—and even he wasn’t sure that he loved her!

Margaret was his mother, yes, and as such he knew he should respect and protect her, but love…? He wasn’t sure.

Darcy gave a heavy sigh. ‘I thought this broken engagement was what I wanted, but now that it’s happened—I just can’t bear to see my father so unhappy!’

‘Better a brief unhappiness now than a lifetime of it,’ Logan assured her.

Darcy tilted her head to one side as she gave him another of those considering looks. ‘You really never have been in love, have you?’ she stated evenly.

‘I simply doubt that it’s a basis from which to build a lifetime relationship,’ he dismissed hardly.

Darcy gave a start of incredulity. ‘What other basis is there?’ she gasped.

‘I have no idea—I’ve yet to see a successful relationship!’ Logan claimed scornfully.

His mother said her marriage to his father had been happy, but Logan had been too young himself when his father had died to be able to judge the truth of that statement. And Margaret’s second marriage had been like a battlefield.

No, he had decided long ago, if he ever took the drastic step himself of getting married—and he couldn’t conceive of a situation where he ever might!—then it most certainly wouldn’t be because he believed himself in love with a woman. Love made you vulnerable, left you completely exposed to the whims and fancies of the other person. It was not a feeling Logan ever wanted to experience for himself!

A cloud marred Darcy’s creamy brow. ‘I find that very sad.’

And she did look sad. So much so that Logan found he didn’t like being the cause of that sadness. ‘Hey,’ he chided teasingly. ‘We aren’t here to discuss how I see love and marriage. It’s your father you’re concerned about, remember?’

Not the right thing to say, Logan decided as he saw her sadness deepen. But she had been getting too close, asking him questions he would rather not answer.

‘I really would like to talk to your mother,’ she decided firmly. ‘Do you think it could be arranged?’ She looked at him with clear grey eyes.

Not by him it couldn’t! His mother was definitely not someone he would like Darcy to meet.

‘For what purpose?’ he probed guardedly.

Darcy looked perplexed. ‘To be honest, I have no idea. It’s strange, but somehow I feel the fact that we both love my father gives us a bond of some kind…Can you understand that?’ She looked at him questioningly.

Maybe. But—‘Have you forgotten that my mother has broken her engagement to your father?’ he reminded her. ‘Hardly the act of a woman in love!’

‘But that’s the whole point. I need to know why she broke their engagement,’ Darcy persisted. ‘If it had anything to do with me—’

‘Even if it did, what can you do about it?’ Logan insisted, still not sure himself that he believed his mother when she said she wouldn’t marry Daniel Simon, the man she professed to love, if it meant damaging his relationship with his daughter. Because if he believed that, he had to believe her regret concerning their own relationship too. And he wasn’t sure he could do that…‘My mother is a woman not easily swayed by the needs and wants of others.’ He replied.

Logan didn’t like the way Darcy was looking at him now, knowing he must have given away too much of his own resentment and bitterness towards his mother.

But after Margaret Fraser had rung him this morning to inform him she had ended her relationship with Daniel Simon, Logan’s one thought had been to let Darcy know it was over, too. Darcy had responded predictably by going straight to her father. Daniel Simon was the one who had altered the scenario by going away in the manner that he had. Now Darcy, after expressing deep loathing for his mother, was asking to meet her. Logan wasn’t sure he would ever understand women…Correction—most women, he had found, were all too easy to understand; it was his mother and Darcy who were enigmas!

Darcy continued to look at him determinedly. ‘Will you introduce me to your mother, or do I have to find some other way of meeting her?’

‘Why can’t you just accept that it’s over?’ Logan demanded. ‘And be grateful that it is!’

‘Will you?’ she persisted stubbornly, totally ignoring his words.

He stood up abruptly. ‘No, I will not!’ he roared. ‘Why can’t you just leave the situation alone? My mother will carry on acting, your father will get over his disappointment, and you—’

‘I won’t rest until I’ve talked to your mother!’ Her eyes flashed up at him.

Logan stared down at her frustratedly for several long seconds. She really was the most stubborn—

As stubborn as he was himself…?

Probably, he acknowledged ruefully, his anger starting to fade. If Darcy really was serious about meeting his mother—and it appeared she definitely was!—then wouldn’t it be better if he were present when the two met?

Most definitely!

‘Okay,’ he conceded frustratedly. ‘I’ll speak to my mother some time tomorrow and see if she’s willing to meet you. Will that satisfy you?’ It was as far as he was willing to go, so it had better suit her!

Darcy’s answer to that was to smile.

At which point Logan felt that sledgehammer hitting his chest, again totally taking his breath away!

‘Thank you, Logan,’ Darcy said with warm gratitude before standing up. ‘Can I get you some more coffee?’ she offered politely.

‘Coffee…?’ he echoed in what sounded like a strangulated voice.

She turned from filling the kettle, brows arched. ‘Unless you have to leave now?’

Normally she was very tired when she returned from working in the restaurant, but tonight she was too hyped after the evening’s activities to be able to go straight to bed, and would need a couple of cups of coffee and a short read before feeling she would be able to sleep. But obviously Logan hadn’t had the same stimulus.

He did look rather grim, however. No doubt because of her determination to meet his mother. But she couldn’t help that, felt it was something she needed to do.

Although, in the last few minutes, she had had to do some revising of her earlier opinions concerning Logan’s relationship with his mother. She had assumed Logan didn’t want her father to marry his mother because he wasn’t good enough for her. Logan’s comments since arriving back here implied something else completely; he didn’t like his mother. Which to Darcy was awful. How could he not like his own mother? And if Logan didn’t like her, what chance did she have of doing so…?

‘Logan?’ she prompted worriedly as he still made no effort to answer her. Just stared at her with those dark blue eyes…

He stepped forward, standing only inches away from her now. ‘What the hell is it about you?’ he muttered angrily.

Darcy gave him a startled look. ‘What?’

Logan shook his head self-disgustedly. ‘Every time you smile I want to kiss you.’

Her eyes widened even more, and she was too stunned by the admission to step back as he pulled her effortlessly into his arms, anything she might have wanted to say dying in her throat as Logan’s mouth claimed hers.

He might feel an urge to kiss her every time she smiled, but every time he did she melted! Her legs became like jelly, the soft contours of her body melded into his much harder ones, her lips parting invitingly as the kiss deepened.

Her hands moved up to grasp the width of his shoulders. Not that she was in danger of falling; Logan was holding her much too tightly against him for that to happen. She just liked the feel of Logan, the hard strength of his body, the caress of his hands against her.

Hands that moved restlessly across her back, and lower spine, before searching out the soft pertness of her breasts, Darcy gasping low in her throat as he sought and found the hardened tips, the caress of his thumbs sending pleasure coursing through her whole body.

Logan broke the kiss, his lips against her throat now, tongue seeking the hollows at its base as he moved aside the material of her blouse, his breath warm against her breasts.

Darcy was burning, yearning, wanted—she wanted this never to stop!

Logan’s lips and tongue touched the creamy softness of her breasts, his hands trembling slightly as they moved to unbutton the front of her blouse, peeling the garment aside once he had done so, the clasp of her bra easily dispensed with too.

There was a slight flush in Logan’s cheeks as he looked down at her nakedness. ‘You are so beautiful!’ he groaned achingly, his hands cupping her breasts as his lips moved down to kiss each rosy tip, his tongue moving moistly against the aching hardness.

Darcy felt weak with desire, her body hot and feverish, trembling so badly now she could barely stand up. She wanted this man. Wanted him naked against her, wanted to feel the hard planes of his body, to caress him as he was her.

But the first feel of her fingers moving against his shirt buttons seemed to break the spell for Logan, one of his hands moving to clasp both of hers even as he moved slightly away from her.

Darcy looked up at him, her eyes dark with passion, questioning why he had stopped her.

‘This is not a good idea,’ he grated, moving sharply away from her, bending to pick up her blouse, not even looking at her as he held the garment out to her.

Darcy grabbed the blouse, consternation washing over her in embarrassed waves.

What was she doing?

With her acquiescence, it had taken Logan exactly—she glanced at the clock on the wall—ten minutes—to have half her clothes off.

What on earth must he think of her? A couple of hours ago she had been hurling verbal abuse at him, and yet just now—just now—Oh, dear!

‘I think I had better go.’ Logan spoke, his expression weary as he ran a hand through the thick darkness of his hair. ‘I—I’m sorry, Darcy,’ he added tersely.

He was sorry?

Darcy wasn’t sure she would ever be able to look him in the face again! Logan had kissed her as she had never been kissed before, caressed her as she had never been caressed before, touched her as she had never been touched before. He had seen her semi-naked, for goodness’ sake!

‘I really am sorry, Darcy,’ he repeated heavily.

Her blouse was back on, the buttons firmly fastened. After that first glance at the grimness of his expression, Darcy found she couldn’t look at him, found herself looking anywhere but at Logan.

‘Maybe you should just go,’ she suggested, staring unseeingly at the tiled floor.

‘Yes.’

But he didn’t move. Even though she wasn’t looking at him, Darcy could still feel his presence in the kitchen, knew that he hadn’t gone.

‘Please, Logan!’ she finally pleaded, not sure how much longer she could remain standing on her feet.

‘Yes,’ he repeated evenly. ‘I—I’ll call you tomorrow. Concerning the meeting with my mother,’ he explained as Darcy looked up at him in query.

‘Of course,’ she realised flatly, turning away again. For a moment she had thought he meant something else!

That he wanted to see her again. That the two of them might be able to—

Fool, she berated herself. She and Logan came from different backgrounds, lived in different worlds, had only been thrown together at all because of her father’s relationship with his mother; Logan would never have looked at her twice under normal circumstances.

Although, a little inner voice reminded her, neither of them had known of that connection that time in his office…!

She moistened dry lips. ‘It might be better if, in future, I didn’t smile at you,’ she teased huskily in an effort to lighten the tense atmosphere that now existed between them.

A pretty dismal effort it was too, Darcy acknowledged, but she had to make a start somewhere. After all, this man might—just might, if her father and his mother ever sorted out their differences—one day be her stepbrother. Now there was a sobering thought!

‘Yes,’ Logan agreed quietly. ‘I’ll call you as soon as I’ve spoken to my mother.’

She nodded. ‘I shall be at the restaurant from eleven o’clock in the morning, preparing for the lunch-time trade.’

Logan shook his head. ‘It really is a hell of a life. At this rate, I’ll have to make another booking with the Chef Simon outside catering company just so that I can have a private conversation with you!’

In the circumstances, Darcy thought it was probably better if he didn’t; their private conversations had a way of turning into something else completely!

‘I’m sure my father won’t be away for very long,’ she told him noncommittally. ‘I’ll walk you to the door, shall I?’ she added pointedly. She really did need some time alone!

‘Let’s hope he isn’t,’ Logan answered her question as they walked out into the hallway. ‘You already look exhausted!’

Devastated was probably a more apt description, Darcy acknowledged with a sickening lurch in the pit of her stomach. She was having serious problems coming to terms with what had just happened between the two of them, couldn’t quite believe it had happened.

And Logan didn’t look much happier!

No doubt he was wondering what on earth had possessed him to kiss her at all, let alone make love to her in the way that he had. Despite what he had said during the heat of their lovemaking, she was not beautiful, and never had been. Although her figure wasn’t bad, warm and homely probably best described her looks.

It was her smile that had been his undoing, Logan had claimed in his defence. A claim she had joked about earlier. But in future, all teasing apart, she really would try not to smile at him. Unless she wanted to find herself being well and truly kissed by him!

Logan paused in the open doorway. ‘Lock the door behind me when I leave,’ he advised. ‘I can’t say I’m exactly happy at the thought of you alone in this big house all night.’

Well, the obvious alternative wasn’t acceptable, either!

‘Believe it or not, Logan, and despite what you may have thought to the contrary, because I happen to be staying here with my father at the moment—’ she resorted to sarcasm to dispel her feelings of awkwardness ‘—I’ve actually been taking care of myself for some time now!’

His gaze was scathing as it moved over her face. ‘Then, on the evidence I’ve seen so far, you aren’t doing a very good job at it!’ he rasped.

Darcy drew in a sharp breath. ‘I’m sure a lot of people are interested in your opinions, Logan—but I don’t happen to be one of them!’

‘Lock the door anyway, hmm?’ was his parting shot before he strode over to unlock his car.

Darcy didn’t wait long enough to see him open the car door, let alone start the engine and drive away, slamming the front door behind him, being deliberately noisy as she turned the key in the lock.

She leant weakly back against that closed door. How could she have let that happen? she berated herself with a self-disgusted groan. Not only had Logan kissed her—again!—but he had touched her more intimately than any other man ever had, too.

Every time she thought of those intimacies, Logan’s hands and lips on her body, she wanted to crawl into a corner and hide! And she didn’t even have the effect of his smile to claim in her own defence; Logan rarely smiled, and she didn’t think she had seen him laugh once.

Possibly because of that unhappiness she had sensed between him and his mother? She simply didn’t know.

Just as she didn’t know how on earth she was going to face him again tomorrow, this time possibly in the presence of his mother…!

CHAPTER EIGHT

LOGAN was not looking forward to this meeting. But it had nothing to do with his mother being there—and everything to do with Darcy’s presence!

Logan had done as she’d asked, and telephoned his mother this morning—at a time he knew she would be up. After years of working in the theatre, mornings were not Margaret’s best times. Except that he knew she was filming for a television series at the moment, so her hours were not quite so antisocial; in fact, she sounded quite cheerful when she took Logan’s call.

Logan wished he felt as cheerful. But, after a virtually sleepless night, he was feeling tired and bad-tempered. He had laid awake for hours thinking about Darcy Simon, trying to fathom out why it was she affected him in the way she did. It did not help to improve his temper this morning that he simply hadn’t been able to come up with an answer!

Blaming his reaction on a smile just wouldn’t do. For goodness’ sake, it was only a smile!

Darcy was nothing like the women he was usually attracted to: beautiful, self-confident, emotionally independent women. Darcy was only beautiful when she smiled—and that wasn’t too often when around him, thank goodness. Her self-confidence could do with a little working on too. As for her emotional independence—he had lost yet another handkerchief to her tears!

So why was it that he couldn’t get her out of his mind, that even last night, when he had gone to the restaurant, it had been in an effort to make sure everything was once again right with her world?

Then to cap it all, he had deliberately set himself up for yet another meeting this week with his mother—for Darcy’s sake!

He closed his eyes momentarily. A pint-sized girl, with smoky grey eyes, and hair the colour of a fox’s fur in the rain filled his mind; a girl, moreover, who had kicked him in the shin, and threatened to throw a glass of wine over his head! Come to think about it, his personal life had been in an uproar from the moment he’d first met her!

No doubt his secretary, Karen, in light of her view that his life lacked surprise and spontaneity, would consider Darcy’s unpredictability to be good for him. She would be wrong! He wasn’t at all comfortable with the twists and turns things were taking at the moment.

‘You’re frowning again, Logan,’ his mother remarked at his side as he drove them both to the hotel where they were to meet Darcy for afternoon tea, Logan having picked her up from her apartment ten minutes earlier.

‘If I am it’s because I do not appreciate being dragged into the complexities of your personal life,’ he clipped. After years of avoiding his mother’s turbulent private life, he was not amused at being thrust into the centre of it in this way.

His mother shrugged. ‘You arranged this meeting, Logan, not I.’

‘Because Darcy asked me to, and for no other reason.’

‘Hmm,’ his mother murmured thoughtfully. ‘I may have asked you this before, but—just how well do you know Daniel’s daughter?’

He gave her a cold glance. ‘I don’t,’ he snapped—at once assaulted with the memory of Darcy in his arms, of the naked softness of her body.

His mother looked puzzled. ‘You told me the other day that the two of you are friends.’

‘Were,’ he corrected. ‘And even then that was probably too strong a description of our relationship. Since you came into the equation, an armed truce is probably a better way of describing how Darcy views things between us.’

‘Yet you were the one she asked to set up this meeting between the two of us,’ his mother said slowly.

‘Only because her father didn’t stay around long enough to do it himself!’ Logan pointed out.

His mother swallowed hard. ‘I hurt Daniel very badly when I broke our engagement.’

‘Then why did you do it?’ Logan exploded.

‘What choice did I have, when you refused to help me?’ his mother told him bluntly.

Logan’s hands tightly gripped the steering wheel. ‘Don’t turn this around on me—’

‘I’m not, Logan.’ She sighed, reaching out to lightly touch his arm. ‘I’m just pointing out that I did tell you what I intended doing if Darcy couldn’t be talked round. Daniel wasn’t willing for me to meet her. And you refused to help me…’ She paused. ‘There seemed no other way.’

‘You could have done what you usually do—blast away and not worry who gets mown down in the process,’ he said nastily.

His mother looked at him, with a sad expression. ‘One day, Logan, I hope that you and I might be able to sit down and talk over the past like the two adults we now are. I said “one day”, Logan,’ she inserted firmly as he would have made a deriding reply. ‘So,’ she asked briskly. ‘Daniel tells me that Darcy is a level-headed, kind-hearted young lady; what’s your opinion?’

Logan was so taken aback by the unexpectedness of the question that, for a few moments, he wasn’t able to formulate an answer. Even when he did, it wasn’t an answer he could give to his mother! Because he found Darcy tempestuous, not level-headed, and as for kind-hearted—! Anyway, the state of Darcy’s heart, kind or otherwise, was something he didn’t want to know about!

‘My opinion is that you wait until you meet her and judge for yourself,’ he replied noncommittally as he drove down to the basement car park of the hotel.

Maybe having his mother around for this meeting with Darcy wasn’t such a bad thing after all, he decided, after taking one look at Darcy as she sat in the hotel lounge waiting for them to arrive.

Why had he never thought her beautiful? Today, in a bright red trouser suit—that should have clashed with that vivid red hair, but somehow didn’t—teamed with a black blouse, both fitting the slenderness of her body perfectly, and her hair loose and gleaming down to her shoulders, her eyes huge, lashes thick and long, blusher colouring her cheeks, a bright red gloss on her lips, Darcy was absolutely gorgeous!

In comparison, his mother had played down the dark sensuality of her own beauty, wearing a demure grey skirt suit with a black blouse, even her make-up was less pronounced today; she wore only a light blusher on her cheeks, and a pale peach lip-gloss.

Logan had no doubts that both women had made these changes to their appearance in expectation of meeting the other. His mother he didn’t give a care about; she played a role so often it was difficult to know with her what was real and what wasn’t. But the effect on Logan of this totally different-looking Darcy was one of stunned silence.