by Shirley Wine
How could she return his kisses with such wanton abandon when he was committed to another woman?
What does that say about me?
"Get out of my room, Seth." Her voice trembled, but she refused to look at him, afraid of what she may reveal.
"It’s Keir, sweetheart. And I'm going."
He crossed to the door and paused, hand on the knob. Their gazes met and held as he watched her in the mirror.
Then he was gone.
Slowly, she lifted her gaze to meet her reflection.
Damn him!
Alone, with that closet door yanked wide open, filled with an aching need, she could do nothing except pray that all the messy emotions spilling around her feet didn’t trip her up.
A soft, tormented sigh escaped.
Victoria was forced to face the bleak self-knowledge of just why she had so steadfastly refused Logan’s proposals.
Chapter Three
A knock on the door wrenched her from a frozen trance.
"Victoria?"
Logan.
One glance in the mirror at her hectic color and kiss stung lips, and a despairing sigh escaped.
"One moment." Good grief, is that my sultry rasp?
With a shaking hand, she reapplied lip gloss. Several deep breaths did little to steady her galloping pulse but, knowing she could delay no further, she opened the door.
Logan stared at her in silence for several moments. "You are so beautiful."
One swift glance and she understood Keir's disquiet. Logan's in love with you.
Any serious involvement with his step brother was out of the question. She needed to distance herself from Logan. Fast. With an effort she dredged up a smile. "You don't often see me dressed up, is all."
"Something I intend to change."
"Logan." She stayed him and lifted a hand to his face. "Please don't. I appreciate the honor, but won't change my mind."
And if it was ever an option before I knew my Seth was your stepbrother, it's even less of an option now.
Logan covered her hand with his and for a moment closed his eyes.
"Okay, I've got it. Let's brave the hordes," he quipped and, with a proprietary hand beneath her elbow, escorted her downstairs.
The murmur of voices grew louder as they walked down the corridor and entered a high ceilinged room.
Women in rich colors mingled with more soberly, but no less expensively, dressed men in dark suits.
Apart from Logan, Victoria knew no one.
He steered her toward an elderly couple. The man was dressed in a tweed suit that had seen better days, and he certainly stood out in the midst of this glittering crowd.
"My uncle and aunt, Dan and Gloria Sinclair." Logan gripped the old man’s gnarled hand and kissed his aunt’s cheek. "Dan is my Dad’s brother."
"I can see the family resemblance." Victoria was pulled into a hug and kissed on the cheek.
The scent of peppermint mingled with mothballs clung to the old man, his smile warm and genuine.
And this is Logan forty years from now.
"My, my, aren’t you a pretty filly," Dan boomed as he held her at arm's length. "Where did Logan find you?"
"Would you believe in a hospital?" Heat rose in her cheeks but she couldn't help laughing at his audacity.
"How is it that I can never meet a pretty filly like you when I go to hospital?"
"Perhaps you don't look in the right place." Logan chuckled.
"Dan, Logan, both of you behave," Gloria chided. "You know Muriel doesn’t like stable talk."
The old man snorted derisively.
"Muriel’s too uppity by half. Forgotten her roots, she has." He winked at Victoria. "Don’t let her scare you off, girl."
"I don’t scare easily." Charmed, Victoria was still chuckling as Logan turned to greet another couple, his hand on her arm.
"Tori, Keir you’ve met," he said quietly, his hand firm on her arm. "And this is his fiancée, Davina Strathmore."
Her laughter died as she saw the woman at Keir’s side but she was determined to be polite if it killed her.
Davina had no such qualms.
Dressed in a gown of glacial blue, she looked Victoria up and down with a leisurely insolence that set her teeth on edge.
"Muriel said Logan was caught up in the toils of gold digger." She touched the tips of her fingers to Victoria's outstretched hand.
The barbed comment had Victoria sucking in an angry breath at the other woman's effrontery.
She risked a glance at Keir and found him watching her from beneath eyelids at half mast, his smile cynically amused.
Fury swelled in her breast. This was the man who not half an hour ago was kissing her senseless.
With studied deliberation, Victoria swept her gaze around the opulently furnished room and then back to Davina. "And, oh my, isn’t there such a lot of gold to dig."
Her voice was low and sweet as, with an effort, she kept her temper severely in check. She longed to slap the supercilious smile clean off Davina's face.
And then do the same to Keir.
"You'll find no easy pickings here, Victoria." It was Keir who responded to her jab.
"You think?" She touched a suggestive finger to her lips, gratified when a dark flush ran up under his tan. With slow deliberation she gave him a studied, insolent once over. "I've never encountered any resistance from you, have I, Keir?"
His breath escaped in a hiss from between clenched teeth.
"You wanton little slut," Davina hissed, coins of color staining her cheeks.
Keir gripped Davina's arm and steered her away.
As she watched them move away, apprehension skittered across Victoria’s skin like some nasty eight-legged creature.
Logan's grip on her arm tightened as he sucked in an audible breath. A waiter came up to them and he snagged two glasses of champagne, giving one to her.
"Take care, Tori," he murmured in her ear.
"She’s so rude," she muttered still simmering. "Who does she think she is?"
"Davina has a huge sense of self-entitlement and thinks she can say anything she likes when it suits her purpose."
Victoria sipped her champagne. Its tart sweetness exploded on her tongue as she watched him across the rim of the glass. "You don’t like her?"
"She’s a black widow, beautiful to look at but full of venom." He shook his head, watching the engaged pair with a troubled frown. "Yet my mother likes her."
Victoria, unsure how to respond to that comment, stayed silent.
She looked past Logan, watching Keir and Davina talking to an elderly couple unable to see any signs of intimacy. No secret touches. No lingering looks.
There was not one solitary sign of the passion she knew Keir possessed. The distance disturbed her.
She stared down at the wine in her glass as the memories she'd locked away, resurfaced.
The man she'd known was always touching, the brush of his fingers on her hair, a touch to the face, a gentle hand on her shoulder.
Hell! Half an hour ago his hands were all over me.
What had happened to him in the intervening years to turn him into this cold, hard man? A man prepared to tie himself to a woman cold enough to freeze the blood in his veins.
Not your business, Victoria.
Then, she remembered Connor and knew it could very well become her business. Thinking about her son hurt her heart.
Would Keir protect their child from Davina?
A chill goose-stepped across her soul. She never even paused to question her surety that Connor would need protection if Davina married his father.
She glanced up, discomforted to find Logan watching her with disconcerting shrewdness.
"What is it?"
"You look like you've lost your last friend."
She shrugged shaking her head.
Logan had no idea just how big was the can of worms he'd opened.
"Cheer up,"' he said softly. "There's some-one here I'd like you to
meet."
He guided her through the chattering throng toward a vivacious redhead. "Piper, this is my friend, Victoria Scanlan."
"Logan’s told me so much about you." Piper gripped her hands, greeting her with a warm, sunny smile.
"Back at you." Victoria found the bubbly redhead's frankly curious smile contagious.
So this was Piper Daintry, the pastoral heiress Logan's family was so eager for him to marry? She wasn't at all what Victoria had expected.
She struggled to hold back a laugh at Logan's suddenly wary expression. She poked a playful elbow in his ribs as she winked at Piper. "Now who's looking apprehensive?"
Piper's musical laugh sounded above the chatter and the clink of wine glasses. "So what's he been telling you about me? Shall we compare notes?"
"Let's."
Logan ran a finger around his shirt collar as if it were suddenly too tight. "Knock it off you two."
Victoria looked at Piper and they both laughed.
"Poor man," Piper crooned laying a hand on his arm. She glanced up at Victoria. "Do you mind if I steal him for a few moments?"
"No, go ahead." As they walked across the room to talk to an elderly woman, Victoria watched them.
Something in the way Logan's head tilted toward the redhead screamed of attraction and intimacy.
With a brooding frown and jaundiced eye, she looked down at the decaying bubbles in her glass of wine.
Suddenly uneasy, Victoria questioned why Logan had badgered her into this visit? Even going so far as to dangle the carrot of a huge commission in front of her?
"They're made for each other."
The deep voice so close to her ear startled Victoria. Lips parted in surprise, she glanced up into Caine Donovan’s shrewd eyes. "Keir intimated as much."
"You don't like my son?" The blunt question made her heart buck in her chest. How was she meant to answer?
Caine signaled a waiter and relieved her of her empty glass. "Another wine?"
"Juice this time, thank you." Victoria knew she needed to keep a clear head. One wine was more than enough.
"So what's Keir done to earn your dislike?"
Dislike? Startled, she replied without thinking. "I don't dislike him? What gave you that idea?"
Five years spent bearing and nurturing Keir's son had cemented very different emotions, emotions as hopeless now as they ever were.
Caine just shook his head, dark eyes twinkling with amusement. "Could be that watching you meet him gave off more negative vibes than a buyer duped after parting with megabucks for a stud stallion that fails to perform."
The shrewd observation increased her discomfort. "I don't know him. He's your only child?"
A flash of emotion crossed Caine's face. His brows drew together in a heavy frown. "Mine, yes. My ex-wife has three daughters, Keir's half-sisters."
Bad feelings there, she thought uneasily.
"When will Keir marry his iceberg?" As soon as the caustic comment left her lips she regretted it.
Caine gripped her arm, forcing her to meet his eyes. "Keir told me Logan had imported a keg of dynamite. Are you set to blow my family apart, Victoria Scanlan?"
Knowing Keir had discussed her with his father unsettled her further. She shook her head. "I’m sorry. Who Keir marries is not my concern."
"And Logan?" he asked harshly.
"Logan’s my friend. If he's implied otherwise he's deceiving himself. I've told him so many times I won't marry him." She met his gaze steadily, refusing to squirm under his unforgiving look.
"Well, that's honest enough."
"Thank you." Victoria sipped her orange juice.
How would this man react if he knew she was the mother of his grandson? Caine didn’t know it, but they shared an irrevocable bond.
And she was caught in the middle of a very messy situation, and none of it her making. Now, because of Keir’s lies, she was trapped, her hands firmly tied.
As Keir kept court with his ice queen, a slow burning anger grew.
Connor needed his father and his grandfather and she could never deny her son these ties of blood.
Keir was more correct than he knew.
Only the dynamite was an endearing little boy with his father’s sable hair and his grandfather’s chocolate brown eyes.
"You've known Logan long?"
Caine’s question brought her attention back to him.
"It’s been a while now." Logan’s friendship had enriched her life. After Connor’s birth, her circle of friends had seriously diminished. "We met in A&E when he broke his leg. And my—," with a swiftly indrawn breath, she corrected herself, "—a…a friend broke his arm."
And that quickly, Victoria knew she couldn't afford to relax her guard. Every word, every move was fraught with risk.
Caine chuckled, the sound drawing curious eyes. "That the time young Logan came a cropper off his water skis? Dented his pride, big time."
"It did." She smiled at the memory.
"He was out of action for the rest of the summer."
And that was when Logan had begun ringing her. Tied to the house with Connor, she'd spent a lot of time on the phone with him. And during those conversations, they'd become close friends.
It was Logan she'd turned to when Connor had become irritable as only a toddler can when they're recovering from injury.
At her wit's end, she'd rung Logan in the middle of the night. With no close female relations, and after the showdown with her father over her baby, Victoria had no one else to turn to.
Inexperienced with children, Logan had kept her company, listened to her guilt-ridden angst at not preventing Connor's injury in the first place, made her coffee and kept her from succumbing to panic.
"Where did you go?" Caine's humorous question had her jerking her gaze upwards.
"Logan was a very good friend to me, when I desperately needed a friend."
Caine's expression softened. "He's always been a good lad and he's grown into a fine young man."
"You love him?"
Caine chuckled. "You do believe in going for the jugular, don't you, Victoria?"
Heat seeped up her neck and face but she held her companion's steady gaze.
"It grieves me to admit it, but I'm closer to Logan than I've ever been to my own son."
Whatever she'd expected, it wasn't this. "Why?"
The desperate need to understand the disturbing undercurrents in this family caught Victoria by surprise.
Before, she'd never been concerned about Logan's family.
But now she knew this same family was her Seth Donahue's family, her curiosity knew no bounds.
It was Caine's turn to look away in discomfort, but she waited him out.
He met her eyes, his expression very sober and intense. "Even as a small boy, Keir had an uncompromising honesty, a way of looking at you, judging you and most times finding you wanting. It's a trait that's intensified as he's matured."
The observation shook Victoria. It was the very last thing she'd expect any father to admit.
Caine thought his son honest?
That she was a single mother proved otherwise. Keir had deceived her. Big time.
Why had Keir found his father wanting? Was it about his mother? Or his stepmother?
Across the room she caught Keir’s gaze, and saw the speculative glint in his eyes.
Fire ignited in her belly and fizzed crazily along her veins, exhilarating and liberating. Caught in the moment, she was gripped by the sensation of finally stepping out of the shadows into the sunlight.
Alive in a way she hadn't been for years.
In that moment, she was fiercely glad Logan had brought her to Darkhaven.
"Take care, my dear," Caine warned softly. "Keir has many faults, but I’ve never known him to break a promise."
Heat crawled up her cheeks and despair tightened the knot in her belly. In her dreams Keir belonged to her, not Davina. Jealousy and desolation clawed her raw.
Wilkins announcin
g dinner was served saved Victoria having to answer.
At dinner Keir and Davina were seated directly opposite, Logan to her left, Uncle Dan on her right. During the first course, the convivial buzz of conversation was general.
Victoria’s attention strayed. Keir was so different from the man she remembered, yet disturbingly familiar, his mannerisms so like Connor’s as to be uncanny.
"My fiancé fascinates you, Ms. Scanlan."
Davina's perfectly modulated voice jerked Victoria to attention, and succeeded in capturing everyone's attention.
Betraying heat surged up her neck and cheeks. For one insane moment she considered telling the snooty woman how much her son resembled his father.
And wouldn’t this family relish that bombshell.
She curbed the impulse but wasn’t about to let Davina embarrass her further.
"He's quite amazing." She tilted her head on one side, conscious of titters of amusement.
"I'm still the same man, Victoria," Keir mocked in swift appreciation of her amusement. "I never wear jean shorts at my father's table."
"And never without the suntan, designer sunglasses, and—" she paused.
"And?"
"—a fawning blonde on your arm. I see you’re still enamored with the species, Keir."
Dark eyes narrowed.
Davina gasped, her startled gaze swinging from Keir to Victoria. "You two know each other?"
"We met years ago," Victoria said ever so sweetly. "When we shared a holiday in Thames."
Keir’s expression sent her heartbeat into overdrive. Tension vibrated in the air.
"We never shared a holiday did we, Tori?" He asked with a quiet restraint she had to admire. "I stayed with friends at her uncle’s motor camp."
The use of the pet diminutive wasn't lost on Davina. Her mouth pinched in an unattractive pout. "Let me guess, she was visiting her family and developed a juvenile crush on you."
Heat crawled up Victoria's face and neck, almost stunned by the other woman's audacity.
Hot impetuous words hovered on the tip of Victoria's tongue. She'd like nothing more than to fling the truth at this uppity woman, and watch her reaction.
Logan gripped her thigh under the table in silent warning.
"You have to be joking?" Victoria lifted her chin. "Why waste energy obsessing over a man with a simpering blonde on his arm?"
