Intimate Surrender
Page 13
He told her stories about growing up with the Logans—about family vacations and campouts in the backyard and playing basketball in the driveway.
Even more seductive, he listened to her. Genuinely listened.
As if a cork had been yanked from her mouth, she found herself telling him far more than she intended.
She told him about how shy and awkward she'd been as a girl, how Trent had basically raised her because Sheila had been too busy with her social life and Jack had been too busy with his business. She told him about her fascination with computers and how she had turned to books out of her loneliness at boarding school.
She even found herself telling him about Steve. Not the whole ugly story, but enough that he knew she had been bitterly hurt and betrayed and had broken off her engagement.
He was the perfect listener, he didn't comment in all the wrong places or try to give unwanted advice. He simply made her feel as if nothing else mattered to him at that moment in time except the words spilling out of her mouth.
The right-brain, intellectual side recognized his attention as a carefully calculated, even cynical, attempt to sway her to his way of thinking. For some ridiculous reason, he seemed to think they needed to get married for their baby's sake and he was doing everything he could to convince her they could make it work.
The left-brain, emotional side had to confess it was working.
Three days after she fell off her horse, nearly a week after both he and the storm blew into Sweetwater, Katie sat curled up on the couch in the great room with a book on her lap while Peter worked on a report on his laptop computer.
As she listened to the click of keys under his strong, elegant hands and watched the fire flicker over those masculine features, she wondered how she could ever return to life without him.
She loved him.
Because he had come to her rescue so many years ago, she had always considered him a kind man. But during these last few days of nearly constant togetherness, she had come to see him as a decent and honorable one, a man who tried fiercely to please his family and who treated his responsibilities with solemn care.
How pathetic was that? Chubby, shy Katie Crosby, in love with the gorgeous and dynamic Peter Logan. Wouldn't her mother just about screech the house down if she ever found out? And not just because he was a Logan, either, although Sheila would certainly have a fit about that.
How could you ever think you had a chance with a man like him? She could almost hear her mother's derision echoing in her head. You would have to be out of your mind to think Peter Logan would even look twice at you.
And yet he seemed serious about them marrying. He hadn't let a day go by without renewing his proposal. She hated herself but she could feel her resolve weaken, despite her best efforts to shore it up.
The idea of sharing a future with him was just so tantalizing. These three days alone with him here had been wonderful, the best of her life. She caught herself a dozen times trying to store a memory in her mind. The smell of him just after a shower: soap and aftershave and sexy maleness. The feel of his strong fingers tucking a fleece blanket over her knees. The sight of him through the window as he threw a stick into the snow for Luke and Millie to chase.
She couldn't bear knowing she would have very few more of those memories. But this wasn't real life. They were suspended in a cheerful little bubble here, away from her family and his, away from the pressures of life in Portland. She couldn't pretend that just because they'd been able to live together well here at Sweetwater they could enjoy a happy marriage.
How could they, when he would be marrying her only out of that damn sense of responsibility he took so seriously? He didn't love her. A marriage in which only one person loved the other would be a nightmare of unimaginable pain.
No, she had to be strong and withstand his insidious assault on her willpower. The happily-ever-after she might secretly long for would never happen. She needed to accept that and prepare her heart for its inevitable fracture.
"What put that grim look on your face all of a sudden?" he asked. "Are you having a pain?"
She blinked away her depressing thoughts to find him watching her with concern in his dark eyes. "No. The baby is fine. I haven't had any pains since the day I fell."
"The ankle bugging you?"
"No. It's almost back to normal. I barely even notice when I put weight on it now."
"Then what is it?"
For a moment she debated how to answer him. When she couldn't come up with a plausible lie, she plunged ahead with the truth. "I've enjoyed these few days. I'm going to be sorry to see them end."
Oh, she shouldn't have admitted that, she thought when Peter raised an eyebrow, as if her confession surprised him as much as it did her.
"It doesn't have to end," he said. "Not if you marry me."
She shook her head in exasperation, though she could feel her heart splinter a little more around the edges. "I can't figure out if you're relentless or simply ruthless."
He grinned. "I'm both. You've played poker with me. Haven't you figured that out? You owe me something like eight hundred matchsticks by now, don't you?"
"Only because you cheat!"
"I prefer to think I'm innovative and think outside the box."
She laughed and tossed a pillow at him, grateful for the diversion from her melancholy. "I prefer to think you're a dirty rotten cheat who makes up his own rules."
"You're just sore because you never knew a pair of sixes automatically trumps every other possible hand. I'm telling you, it's the Holy Grail of five-card stud. Ask anyone."
"I can't believe you tried to pull that one. Or that you thought I was stupid enough to fall for it."
"Hey, a guy's got to try."
When he looked at her with that smile in his eyes, she almost thought maybe they could make a marriage work.
"How's the work going?" she asked.
"Surprisingly well. I'd forgotten what a little change in scenery can do for the creative juices. I've been able to accomplish more in just a couple hours a day here than I do putting in eighty-hour work weeks."
Despite his protestations that the company could run fine in his absence, she had to wonder what the other top brass at Logan thought about their CEO taking off to the wilds of Wyoming for a week.
She hadn't dared to ask him—or to ask if his family knew what he was doing here.
He hadn't been exactly inaccessible. Since the phones had been restored, she knew he e-mailed his staff regularly and had at least one lengthy phone conversation with his assistant each day. That interaction was minimal compared to what she knew her father would have been doing in the same situation.
Jack would have been a basket case. She remembered once he and Sheila had come to Switzerland for a parents' weekend at her boarding school—the only such event she could ever remember them attending—and her father had barely taken the phone away from his ear long enough to eat.
Peter was not her father. If she had learned anything these last few days it was that clear fact. She knew his work was important to him but it didn't seem to consume him.
He didn't seem to mind the interruption. After closing his laptop, he joined her on the couch and reached for her hand. That was another thing she had learned about Peter Logan during this time alone with him. He was more physically affectionate than she ever would have expected. He seemed to enjoy touching her, caressing her fingers, rubbing her shoulders, even kissing her casually on the cheek.
She wasn't used to it and didn't know quite how to respond but she had to admit she found it both sweet and disarming.
"Speaking of innovation and outside-the-box ideas," he said, holding firm to her fingers, "I've been thinking about something."
She eyed him warily. "What?"
"Our families have wasted years and untold resources competing with each other. How much more successful would we both be if we could channel some of that negative energy into cooperating on certain projects?"
"What kind of projects?" she asked.
"This super-router, for example. With your NPIC software system and the NPIR hardware we're developing, between Crosby and Logan we could create the fastest networking system the world has ever known. Both those components could of course be purchased separately but how much more effective would they be if we packaged them together? Made them one-hundred-percent compatible?"
"The industry wouldn't know what hit it." Her mind raced, imagining the possibilities. Trent had long talked about coming up with their own super-router hardware to complement the software they had put much of their design efforts into, but any project they started would be years behind Logan in development.
"You're not talking about a merger, right?"
"No. Just a cooperative agreement on this project. And maybe if it was successful, we could look into working together on other projects down the line."
"It has potential," she admitted.
"I think it's brilliant."
She smiled at his arrogance, then sobered when she thought of all the ramifications to be considered, especially the single overriding concern. "Our families would never agree to work together. Not with all that's gone on between us."
"They might be more willing if we can find a way to bridge the gap between the Logans and the Crosbys. What better way to do that than if we married and gave them all a shared grandchild?" His thumb caressed her knuckle. "Marry me, Katie."
She stared at him, tempted beyond words. Oh, how she wanted to say yes. She closed her eyes, trying to draw courage from somewhere deep inside her to turn him down, even though she desperately wanted to agree.
"Peter, I—"
She didn't know exactly how she would have answered him. Whatever words hovered on her tongue were interrupted by the phone ringing.
They stared at each other for a moment, then with a sigh Peter reached for it, as nearly all the calls in the last three days had been for him.
"Hello?"
After a moment his features froze into an expression of acute dislike. "Yes. She's here. One moment, please."
He handed the cordless phone to Katie. She frowned, not sure what had put that icy look on his face, that chill in his voice.
With some degree of trepidation, she took it from him. The moment she said hello, she understood. Her stomach dropped to her toes as her mother's smoky voice filled her ear.
"You have a man there? Why, Katie, you sly thing. Who is it? One of those boring computer nerds from work?"
With Sheila's animosity toward all things Logan, she certainly couldn't tell her mother Peter Logan was sitting on the couch with her. "No one," she murmured. "Um, just a friend."
"What friend? Anyone I know?"
"No, I don't believe so."
She had enough experience dealing with her mother to know she had to quickly deflect Sheila's attention to something else.
"Where are you? I thought you were staying in Tuscany until the end of the month."
To her relief, Sheila allowed herself to be sidetracked. "That was the plan but I was bored out of my mind after two days. The place was horrible! Absolutely ghastly. All anyone wanted to talk about was their food and their wine and how beautiful the countryside was."
Which meant that no one wanted to focus on Sheila's favorite topic—herself.
"If you ask me, one vineyard looks the same as the next. I mean, what's the big deal? It's a pile of dirt and straggly twigs. Clue in!"
Though she wanted to hang up, she knew the part she was expected to play to appease Sheila's narcissism.
"Did your friend return early with you?" Katie asked.
"Who? Gianni? He was as disappointing as Tuscany. I must tell you, he sadly misrepresented himself as some kind of rich Italian stallion. I guess one out of three wasn't bad; at least he was Italian. He just wanted to sponge off my money. I couldn't wait to get out of there. I left him in Milan and caught the first flight back."
Sheila paused only long enough to take a breath. "Speaking of hellholes, I don't know what you're doing in that primitive armpit but I need you to get back to Portland right now. You'll laugh about this, I'm sure, but there's the most ludicrous rumor going around that you were seen kissing Peter Logan at some event or other around Christmas."
She closed her eyes at the sheer loathing in her mother's voice when she said Peter's name. Here it comes, she thought. The confrontation she had been expecting. "Oh?"
"Yes! That brainless society reporter for the Weekly even ran a picture he claims is the two of you together in some steamy kiss. Can you believe that? I haven't seen the picture yet but Penelope Danner phoned me in Italy and told me all about it. You need to do damage control right away and have those idiots run a correction. As if you'd even be caught dead anywhere near that bastard!"
Katie's gaze fell on Peter, who had absently pulled her feet into his lap and was rubbing her toes through her thick socks. "Um, right."
"Besides, Peter Logan can have his pick of any woman in Portland. Why would he bother with you?"
Ah. She should have been expecting that one, too, but it still managed to slice at her self-confidence with brutal efficacy. "That's a very good question," she said quietly.
Sheila went on as if she hadn't heard her, which was probably true. "When will you be going back to Portland?"
"I'm not sure right now. Most likely by the end of the week." And then wouldn't the you-know-what hit the fan?
"Good. I need you to talk to your brother."
"Which one?"
"Who do you think? As if Danny has anything to do with anybody out in that isolation chamber of his. No, I'm talking about Trent, Mr. Holier-than-Thou, unnatural child. Ever since your father named him CEO, he thinks he can run the world. You're just about the only one he listens to. Maybe you can talk some sense into him. But you need to do it in person, not from that godforsaken ranch."
She sighed. "What did he do?"
"Nothing yet, but he'd like to. If Trent had his way, I'd be stuck in some retirement condo in Arizona wearing muumuus and watching game shows all day. He doesn't want me to have any fun. Now he's threatening to use his influence to have my country club membership yanked. Can you believe that?"
"What did you do to provoke him?"
"How do you know I did anything?" Sheila asked, affront in her voice.
Because I know you, she thought. Because I have spent twenty-eight years being one of the many victims of your lies and manipulations and petty jealousies.
She didn't say that, of course. "Trent rarely does anything without a good reason."
"I should have known you would take his side."
Of course, Katie wanted to say. Why wouldn't I, when Trent has been more of a parent to me than either you or Jack combined?
"I'm not taking any sides," she murmured. "I just wanted to know why Trent is angry with you."
"Because he's a tight-assed spoilsport, that's why. He's all bent out of shape because I found out some good dirt on the Logans' precious baby factory."
"Children's Connection?"
She regretted her instinctive question when Peter paused the foot rub, his interest sharpened. Oh, she was glad he couldn't hear Sheila's end of the conversation, especially with the venom in her mother's tone.
"It's pathetic the way the Logans throw money at that place, especially since it's nothing but a big joke. It's scandalous, that's what it is. A big fat scam. If Portland knew all the chaos surrounding that place, they would be outraged. First that Sanders baby was kidnapped and now there are rumors about a black-market baby ring operating out of the place. I even found out—I won't tell you how—that they can't even keep track of whose sperm they're giving whom."
A terrible sense of dread washed over her and she tried to avoid Peter's intere
sted gaze. "What did you do?"
"I didn't have a chance to do anything before your brother blackmailed me to keep my mouth shut."
"What would you have done?" she asked impatiently.
"Nothing much. Just make a few phone calls to some friends in the media. Not those idiots at the Weekly, of course, who can't even get a photo caption right, but some of my other contacts. I would have loved to see the egg on that bitch Leslie Logan's face once the scandal broke, sending her precious clinic headed for the toilet. Can't you just see it?"
Katie closed her eyes. Nothing Sheila did should surprise her but this was vindictive, even for her. "But you didn't say anything." She prayed that was the case.
"No. Trent told me if so much as a whiff of rumor surfaced about the stupid clinic, he would make sure I never was invited to another society event. How did I raise such an ungrateful son?"
Again, a sharp rejoinder swelled in her throat. She wished she had the courage to let it out. You didn't raise him, she wanted to snap. You made Trent raise himself and then he turned around and raised the rest of us while Jack was working and you were sleeping with half of Portland.
As usual, she bit her tongue and Sheila went on without noticing her silence. "So now you understand why you need to get back to Portland ASAP so you can handle Trent for me."
"This is between you and Trent. I'm staying out of it. And I'm not sure when I'll return to Portland. Maybe never."
The idea held enormous appeal, she had to admit. Maybe she could hide away here forever to avoid the impending storm when her mother found out about the baby.
"What's gotten into you, Katherine Celeste?" Sheila asked.
"Fresh air does wonders for a person's sanity. Maybe you ought to try it some time," she couldn't resist adding.
Peter, shamelessly eavesdropping at the end of the couch, made a strangled noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. It wasn't very loud but Sheila still heard it.
"Who's there with you? Is Jack there with that slut Toni Wells?"
Sheila despised her ex-husband's second wife, the trophy wife she had always dreaded would replace her.