The Earl of London

by Louise Bay

  I nodded, but before I had the chance to answer, Aurora asked, “Where did he take you?”

  “We came into London—to the Hilton actually.” I nodded south, toward where the Hilton stood just a few meters away.

  “Nice. Did you have the best table?” Aurora asked.

  I sank my teeth into my bottom lip, trying to disguise my smile at the memory of realizing we were the only diners. “Every table actually. We were the only ones there.”

  “What, he hired the entire restaurant?” Violet asked.

  I shrugged, trying not to let my grin take over my face. I’d never had anyone do anything so romantic for me.

  “Wow. He meant business. He clearly was trying to impress.”

  I wasn’t sure he’d been trying to impress me exactly, but he’d thought about me. The views of the countryside. The way he said he wanted to encourage me to be a little self-indulgent. It was the way he seemed so acutely aware of small things that drew me to him but also made me a little wary of him.

  “He has a really nice side to him,” I replied, remembering the stop at the community center. I didn’t say anything about it because I wasn’t sure if Logan would want me to. He clearly didn’t publicize it and the woman I’d sat next to had mentioned he’d never brought anyone with him, not even his grandmother. It made me feel more special than it should. I shared something with him that others hadn’t. But it had been a diary clash that meant I was there. It wasn’t as if Logan was trying to open up and show me a deeper side to him.

  “And what about the sex? Was that a nice side?” Aurora asked.

  Violet sat forward in her chair, clearly wanting to catch my every word.

  “It was…” How could I describe it? It was easily the best sex I’d ever had—and I’d probably never have better. But something about the way that he had me submit to him so quickly had me questioning myself. He’d been right when he said that I’d enjoy it but what was it that he saw in me that had him so confident in my reaction? “He was…” Domineering and controlling and had fucked me like it was his job. “Clearly experienced.”

  “Well, duh. Did you see him? With a face and body like that, he has plenty of opportunity to perfect his skills.” Aurora said. “So how good was it?”

  “This is so great!” Violet raised her glass of champagne and took a sip. “I was beginning to think that maybe you were never going to have sex again, and—”

  “Good!” I blurted, trying to stop Violet from finishing her thought. “Very good.”

  “Define ‘very’—were you up all night swinging from the chandeliers?” Violet asked.

  I fixed her with a stare. “That’s all you’re getting from me.” I wanted to ask them whether it was normal for an independent woman to give that all up for a few hours. Why it felt so good to give up my control, my body to someone else. But it felt too private, too embarrassing to admit.

  As our tea and champagne arrived, we fell silent. While our waitress pointed out all the different types of sandwiches and cakes, I couldn’t help but wonder what Logan was doing right now. Was he at Badsley? Was he thinking about last night? About me?

  “How did you leave things?” Aurora asked.

  I tried not to let my shoulders slump in response to her question. I’d woken up late and sped into the shower with barely a good morning. When I’d emerged, he’d been dressed in his tuxedo, ready to leave. “I was running late and he left. This isn’t the beginning of some beautiful love story. Sorry to disappoint you, girls.”

  Part of me had been surprised that he’d stayed over, but given we’d been up most of the night, he hadn’t had much of a chance to leave. We could only have slept for a little over an hour. If I hadn’t had to rush to get ready to come here, would we have had a conversation about perhaps a follow-up? A second date? And was that something I wanted?

  “But you clearly like him. Enough to have slept with him,” Violet said.

  “You said yourself he’s handsome. And I needed to get back on the horse, so to speak. It’s no big deal.” I wasn’t about to confess that if he’d asked me I most likely would have said yes to a second date. Yes to more of his demanding and controlling. Yes to spending Sunday naked and in bed. I wouldn’t confess to it because it wasn’t going to happen. Men like Logan didn’t date. They fucked.

  “You said he was charming,” Aurora chipped in.

  “So?” I asked. “It was fun. No more, no less.” I was meant to be cool about it. Meant to think about it as just sex. I may have a desire for more, but if I kept telling myself it was a one-time thing, I might just believe it.

  My phone vibrated in my bag, and while I ignored it, Violet and Aurora stared at my Longchamp as if it were a monkey doing a striptease.

  “You have to see who it is,” Violet said.

  “I bet it’s him,” Aurora added.

  “It’s probably Lane with a question about the horses.” It would be nice if it were Logan, but he’d made no suggestion of calling me later or seeing me again and my pride wasn’t about to let me be a girl who chased after men like Logan Steele.

  “Well, there’s only one way to find out.” Violet nodded at my bag.

  They weren’t going to stop until I relented, and since I was confident it wouldn’t be Logan, I pulled out my phone.

  I keep seeing your face when you come. I make fantastic cheese on toast. And I have a bottle of pinot noir with your name on it. How about combining all three? Are you busy tonight?

  I sucked in a breath, shocked he’d sent a message, shocked he wanted to see me again and shocked at how his words had me squirming in my chair.

  “It’s him,” Aurora said. “I knew it.”

  I glanced up to find my two friends staring at me. “No big deal,” I said, tossing my phone in my bag.

  Did I want cheese on toast, wine and orgasms? I was pretty sure that sounded like a perfect Saturday night, but there was something about Logan Steele and the way I couldn’t quite figure him out that had me holding back. Something about how badly I wanted to see him tonight that had me nervous.

  “What did the message say?” Violet asked.

  “Just to say hi. Like I said, no big deal.” I took a bite out of the smoked salmon sandwich, hoping the girls would focus on their food rather than me.

  “Are you going to see him again?”

  “We’re neighbors—no doubt I’ll run into him. Now, can we drop this and focus on something more interesting?”

  “I can’t think of anything more interesting,” Aurora said.

  My phone buzzed again, and this time it was a call coming through. Was he so impatient for an answer? My heart began to thump against my chest and my fingers twitched with the desire to reach into my bag.

  “Answer it,” Violet said.

  Without looking at the screen, I pulled my phone out of my bag and stood up, wanting to avoid the avid curiosity of my friends. I couldn’t remember a time when a man had me so ruffled. It was as if he’d burned down my defenses last night. Nothing about it had been slow and steady, it had been quick and immediate and inevitable. And despite trying to convince myself otherwise, I wanted more.

  I got to the end of the promenade and flipped my phone over, disappointed to see that it wasn’t Logan at all, it was Lane.

  “Is everything all right?” I asked.

  “I thought you’d want to know sooner rather than later that Logan Steele has lodged an appeal against the planning decision taken by the Parish Council.”

  I had to steady myself against one of the marble pillars. “What? When?”

  “Looks like it was lodged on Friday. I’ve got hold of a copy of the appeal. They’re not going to give up, Miss Darcy.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breathing. I shouldn’t be surprised. A move like this was Logan Steele to a tee. Every time I thought he was one man, he showed me another side to him. I wanted him to be the man that took me to dinner last night, had spoken at the community center, had fucked me all night. Ins
tead he was the man who was still trying to devastate the village and memories that I so wanted to protect.

  I was angry at him. Angry at myself for letting myself be seduced by him. Furious at the fact I’d been so delighted he’d just messaged me just a few minutes before. Fight drained from my body, chased off by the disappointment churning through my veins.

  I’d only agreed to go to dinner with Logan because he’d lost, but he’d planned to appeal and had never said a word.

  “Can you email it to me? I’ll have my lawyers look over it and we’ll see what they can do.”

  So much for Violet and Aurora’s enthusiasm. So much for cheese on toast, wine and orgasms. So much for me enjoying myself last night. It had all turned to ash in a fraction of a second. Everything good about last night had been reversed and rewound. For a moment, I’d let myself relax, let my guard down, allowed someone else to take the reins.

  And look where it had gotten me.

  Twenty-One

  Logan

  Darcy Westbury was irritating the shit out of me—even her absence got under my skin. In fact, it was exactly her absence that had me short-tempered and foul-mouthed. I slammed down the phone, cutting off one of my IT guys who was trying to explain why I hadn’t had access to the internet for the last hour. I was pretty sure that if I hadn’t been his top priority before, I certainly was now.

  But the internet wasn’t the problem, or at least not the only problem. Darcy had been ignoring my messages, avoiding my calls and generally pissing me off since I’d last seen her five bloody days ago.

  Our evening had been incredible, the sex better than I could have imagined. And I thought she’d felt the same. Everything had worked between us. I’d confessed things I’d never told anyone and she’d been open and sweet. The next day I’d left her, knowing I should walk away—but in just a few hours, my resolve had disappeared, and I knew I had to have her again. Despite myself, I’d suggested another date, but had no response. For the first time in my life, I wanted more from a woman than she wanted from me.

  That was bad enough.

  But the fact that she didn’t even have the decency to respond to say no was frustrating the hell out of me.

  “What?” I snapped in response to a knock at my office door.

  “I can come back later if it’s a bad time,” my head of development said as he poked his head around my door.

  “Come in, Malcolm.” I should have caught up with him days ago—I needed a way forward after the planning setback for Manor House Club. “I hope you’ve come armed with solutions.”

  He took a seat on the other side of my desk. “I need to know if you want to pursue a plan B while we wait for the planning appeal.”

  I glanced up. “What plan B and what planning appeal?”

  “We lodged an appeal as soon as the decision came in from the Parish Council.”

  “Why didn’t I know about this?”

  “I spoke to the lawyers—it was their recommended course of action. We appealed the Friday after the decision.”

  I sighed. No wonder Darcy hadn’t returned my calls. “You should have spoken to me about that.”

  “You’re never interested in this kind of detail.”

  “Yeah, well, this is different. For one thing, it’s the first business I’m building from scratch, but more importantly, these people are my neighbors. My grandmother’s friends. I need a heads-up before you start making decisions like that.” At least now I understood why Darcy had been such a pain in my arse since our date. I just had to figure out how to fix it.

  What kind of hold did this woman have over me?

  “I’ll keep you better briefed in the future. Do you want me to go through possible plan B scenarios?”

  I checked my watch. “You have ten minutes.”

  Malcolm produced a presentation with three worked-out alternative solutions to pursuing planning permission. The first was to abandon the project and invest in a similar business which was looking for funding. That wasn’t an option for me. The whole point of this project was that I wanted it to be mine from the ground up. The second involved first opening a location in London to prove my credentials, and the final option was to move the location to a brownfield site about fifteen miles away from Badsley, close to transport links.

  “I’ve not been on the ground, so I’m relying on desktop research,” Malcolm explained, “but it looks feasible. The surrounding area is five rural acres that have previously been used for industry but are now abandoned.” He produced aerial photos of the proposed site. “The plot has been available for three years, with no takers, and it’s already well-priced. I figure we can secure a decent reduction.”

  “Any issues from the previous industrial use?”

  “Nothing that would require anything more than demolition and landscaping.”

  “What was there before?”

  “It’s just some industrial retail units—a scheme that was only half finished, but it means roads and water are already in place.”

  “This is good work,” I said, impressed with the idea of the brownfield site. We were less likely to come up against planning restrictions, the site was close to the motorways and we would be enhancing something I imagined the locals viewed as an eyesore at the moment. “When do we hear about the appeal?”

  “It’s likely to be months—you know what these things are like.”

  “Arrange a site visit while we wait.” Darcy had been able to persuade the Parish Council that the development of Manor House Club would be a curse on all their houses, and I wouldn’t underestimate her ability to block our appeal.

  My mobile vibrated. “We’ll go and see the alternate location next week. Monday morning would work, then I can come into the office from there. Set it up.” I picked up the phone as Malcolm stood up and headed to the door.

  Darcy’s name flashed on the screen and I willed Malcolm to hurry—I didn’t want to take this call in front of anyone. Why was she calling now?

  He shut the door and I pressed accept. “We need to talk—I didn’t know anything about the appeal until a few moments ago.”

  “You need to get back here,” she said, her voice tight and filled with panic. “Get on that stupid helicopter. Your grandmother has fallen—they’re taking her to hospital.”

  It took a few seconds to process what she was saying. I’d expected a barrage of abuse. Or the silent treatment. I hadn’t expected her to be calling about my grandmother. “She’s fallen? Is she conscious, bleeding?” I asked, heading out of my office.

  “No blood and yes, she’s conscious. A bit drowsy—concussed, I think, but—”

  Jesus. How had this happened? It was why I paid for a nurse to be on site twenty-four hours a day. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Which hospital?”

  “Chiltern Central.”

  I didn’t even know where that was. “Stay with her, will you?” I asked. I hated the idea that my grandmother was alone and vulnerable. I was meant to protect her, keep her safe. “She likes you.”

  “I’ll be here. Just get here. Fast.”

  Twenty-Two

  Logan

  The worry was overwhelming. The muscles in my body were so tightly strung they felt as if they might snap and I had to remind myself to breathe. “How are you feeling?” I asked my grandmother for the ninetieth time.

  “Like I’m going to hit you over the head with a cricket bat if you ask me that again.” My grandmother shifted on the bed, trying to sit up. “It was no big deal. You heard the doctor—I didn’t break anything.”

  “Let’s wait for the results of the scans before you tell me it’s no big deal.” I wasn’t taking any chances. My grandmother was my only family. She was the driving force behind my success—hell, she was the reason for my survival. If she hadn’t rescued me from my father, God knows where I would have ended up. And I would protect her, just like she’d always protected me.

  She rolled her eyes at Darcy, who was sitting on a visitor chair by th
e door.

  “I should go.” Darcy dropped her mobile into her bag.

  The last thing I wanted was for her to leave. She had been so capable, calmly talking to the doctors while I paced and lost my temper every five seconds when no one would give me a straight answer. “Would you wait until we get the results? You speak medicine better than I do.”

  “You mean Darcy doesn’t treat people as if they’re conspiring to murder me?” my grandmother asked.

  “Maybe.” I smiled at her. At least she hadn’t lost any of her feistiness.

  “Darcy’s a very busy woman—she’s already spent most of the day here,” my grandmother said.

  Of course, I was being selfish. Darcy had been here hours, just sitting and waiting, fetching us coffee, encouraging us both. I just wanted her to stay a little longer. I’d missed her in the week since I’d seen her, which was ridiculous, given we didn’t know each other very well.

  We were interrupted by one of the doctors who looked younger than some of my favorite ties. Surely we should be talking to someone more senior?

  “We have the results of the MRI. There’s no sign of any bleeding, which is good news. We just want to keep you overnight for observation.”

  I exhaled. Thank God. It could have been so much worse.

  “I told you I was fine,” she said, admonishing me as I squeezed her hand.

  “I’ll be happier when you’re discharged,” I replied.

  “And I’ll be happier when you stop looking at me as if I’m about to curl up and die.”

  “Granny! I’m doing no such thing. I’m just concerned—anyone would be.” Maybe I’d overreacted. But she was the only person in the world I cared about. The only person who cared about me. Without my grandmother, I was nothing.

  “Visiting hours are over,” the doctor said. “And your grandmother is in the best place. There’s nothing you can do here, Mr. Steele.”

  “I don’t care if I have to buy this place. I’m not leaving until my grandmother can come with me.”

  The doctor raised his eyebrows. “I’ll let you speak to the nurse in charge.”