by Susan Craig
Where did that come from? “I did not!”
“You did. You don’t care about me, you don’t respect me, I’m just some bimbo with a body to you. Well, you can go to hell, Logan Carmichael. I actually thought you cared, but it was only sex.” Diana looked at him, her eyes fierce with anger and unshed tears. She shook her head, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “I was such a fool to trust you.”
Logan felt like the floor exploded out from under him, and there was a sharp pain in his chest. “Wait a minute, Diana. You’re wrong.”
“No.” She met his gaze with dead eyes. “I’m right. You’re just not honest enough to admit it.”
He pulled his head back. “Are you going to listen to me or not?”
“Not.”
“Fine. Great. Have it your own way. I’ll just get out of here, then.” Logan slammed out of the room, banging the door shut behind him. “Mildred, I’m taking an early lunch.”
Diana looked with loathing at the chair Logan had vacated. Rather than sit in it, she collapsed into one of the chairs at the conference table and took a shaky breath. If she had any sense she’d walk away and leave him to drown in his own stubborn incompetence.
But she knew she wouldn’t walk away. Brushing tears of hurt and frustration out of her eyes, she faced the truth. She would do her level best to repair the mess he’d made of things. Not for her daddy, and not for the company. For him.
I’m an idiot for falling in love with him. But it’s too late to worry about that now. She couldn’t watch him lose his dream when she knew full well she had the ability to save it. She blinked her eyes rapidly. This was no time for tears. Drawing a deep breath, she picked up the phone. “Mildred, get me another desk in here, right away.”
Logan stormed from the building, whipping his SUV out of the parking lot and away from town. He was too angry to trust himself in the same building with her. How could she say he didn’t respect her? How could she accuse him of using her? All right, he’d made a big mistake out of ignorance. He could see the truth of what she’d said about contracts and lawyers. It was his own fault—he should have been less pig-headed, more willing to seek her advice. But he respected her…
“I’ll have her out of my company and into my bed.” The promise he’d made to himself months before floated back into his head to haunt him like the Ghost of Christmas Past.
He pulled the Jeep off the road. Elbows on the steering wheel, he braced his forehead on his hands. Is that what I’ve done? Kept that promise? “Shit!” Logan’s fists bounced off the steering wheel. “I didn’t know her when I said that. That’s not how it is, damn it!” Only, was he telling himself the truth, or just reacting as he thought he should?
At some point, he’d realized she wasn’t the duplicitous career woman he’d tried to paint her as. He knew she’d been nothing but honest with him. Had he deceived her? Was getting her into his bed all he really cared about?
Logan tried to test his feelings, but how the hell could he be sure? Sex with Diana was earthshaking. Yes, he wanted her in his bed, and badly. Was that all it was? He didn’t think so, but had he been fooling himself as much as her?
He just didn’t know, but he’d figure it out. Because he was not going to hurt any woman the way he’d been hurt. Especially not Diana.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Logan’s voice had risen with his frustration level until he was shouting. “How many times do I have to apologize before you hear what I’m saying?” Diana had moved into his office four days ago, but his attempts to apologize still fell on deaf ears.
“There’s no need to shout.” Her voice was cold and controlled. “I’ve heard you. You said you’re sorry you didn’t talk with me sooner. You said you understand there’s more to running the company than you thought originally, and you respect my ability in business. Oh, and you thanked me for convincing Vincent Douglas to sign on as our supplier again. I’ve heard it all.”
“But you won’t believe me.” Logan wanted her to see that he’d thought the supplier switch was good business—that he hadn’t intentionally deceived her. It wasn’t working. He’d screwed up big time. Now she came in every day, sat in a desk across the room from his, and kept an eye on everything.
Hell, he didn’t mind that so much—he figured he’d earned it. But she was cold as stone, all day, every day. She’d built a wall around her heart and wouldn’t let anything he said or did get in to thaw the ice he’d created by betraying her trust. It was killing him.
Diana’s expression remained impassive as he stretched out his hands, then dropped them and shook his head in defeat.
“I was a fool to trust you, Logan. I won’t be a fool again.”
The flatness of her voice and the hopelessness in her eyes tore at his heart as much as the words she said. She had given him her trust once—and he’d blown it. He’d wanted her in his bed, but hadn’t truly valued the rest of her. His arrogance in not consulting her about the suppliers had made that immediately clear to her.
It had taken him several frustrating days of introspection before he admitted, even to himself, what he’d done. When he finally recognized his prejudice, he’d been appalled and ashamed. He’d gone to her with a sincere apology. She brushed him off. He tried again…and again. Today he’d wound up shouting at her—as if that would help.
He’d been a fool. There was nothing he could do to make things right. He’d finally opened his eyes to the whole incredible woman she was—too late. Bitterness rose in his throat. Defeated, he turned away from her desk and left the office.
So this was how it felt to know you’d ruined your life.
Ruined my life? Logan froze for a moment in the hallway, as the implications of his thought sank in.
Dear God, help me… I’m in love with her. He closed his eyes and rubbed a hand across his forehead. His shoulders sagged. What the hell was he going to do now?
I have to tell her… No! Bad idea. She’ll think it’s a new tactic to get her back in my bed. She’ll hate me even more than she already does. Damn, he wished they’d never made love. If they hadn’t, he’d have at least a slim chance of convincing her he spoke the truth. But as things stood, it was hopeless.
It had to be hard on her too—spending every day in the office with someone she believed had just used her. It was his fault she was in such an awkward, uncomfortable position, working to help someone she despised make a success of taking over her company. Damn it, he’d landed both of them in a hellish situation.
Well, maybe he could at least make it easier for her. He had to try—he owed her that. He could get the new process online just as quickly as possible, get the new rods on the market, pay off her investment and allow her to be free of him and this place for good.
The thought of seeing her go ripped at his heart, but that didn’t matter. If he loved her, he had to do his best to set her free. Maybe then she’d have a chance to find someone who deserved her. The thought was like a knife in his gut. Someone better than me.
“Diana, what’s wrong?” Sally came through the open door of the shelter’s back office, pushing up the sleeves of her bulky Fair Isle sweater. “I’ve been trying to give you space, but you haven’t been yourself for weeks.” She sat in one of the straight-backed wooden chairs and studied her friend.
Diana stifled a small sign. I don’t think I’m ready for this yet. She glanced up from the shelter’s account books. It was late Saturday afternoon, past closing time.
“You look exhausted. Won’t you talk to me? What can I do to help? ”
Diana shook her head. The makeup she had applied to hide the dark circles beneath her eyes must be long gone. She may as well come clean. “There’s nothing you can do, Sally.” She twisted her pencil with tense fingers, and stared, unseeing, at the account book. “There’s nothing anyone can do.”
“Diana, for Pete’s sake, what’s wrong?”
“It’s Logan. It’s all over between us. It’s been over for weeks, and I’m not doing a
very good job of dealing with it. I can’t sleep. I’ve got no appetite. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever be all right again.”
Sally leaned forward, reaching a hand toward Diana. “I figured it was his fault. What did he do, honey? Why did you keep it to yourself so long?”
Diana made a face. “It’s hard to admit what a fool I made of myself, even to you. I thought I’d wait until I was feeling less torn up about it. But that doesn’t seem to be working.”
“What happened?”
“Remember the day we went to the Celtic Classic?” Recalling the day herself, Diana shivered inside, feeling at once both cold and hot.
Sally nodded.
“Well, he took me home…” she hesitated fractionally “… and we made love. Things were wonderful.”
“You made love that day?”
“I trusted him,” Diana said simply. Fool that I was.
Sally drew back a bit. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m not sure. I think part of me must have known it was too good to be true—that I was fooling myself.”
“And?”
“Then two weeks ago I found out he’d changed suppliers for the company—and had run up against a serious problem because of it.” She shifted her gaze towards the small table next to Sally’s chair. “Sally, he didn’t tell me anything about it. Not that he’d changed suppliers, not that there was a problem—nothing. Mildred called and told me because he was talking about taking legal action.”
“What did you do?”
Diana shut the account book and leaned back with a sigh. “What could I do? I moved back into the office and straightened things out. I’ve been there five days a week ever since. The company’s still fifty-one percent mine and I won’t let him run it down the tubes.” She leaned urgently toward her friend. “Sal, I trusted him… but he didn’t trust me. And stupid fool that I was…” Diana’s voice trailed off. She looked away, closing her eyes tightly.
“Diana, what?”
“I thought he loved me,” she said softly, “but he didn’t love me at all.” The pain in her heart, made her throat swell. She swallowed hard.
There was silence for a long moment.
Diana opened her eyes; tears threatened to spill out. “The worst part is, I do love him—I still love him.” Her voice was suddenly angry. “And that is so pathetic, it makes me sick to my stomach!”
“Are you sick enough to your stomach to stop loving him?”
Diana snorted softly and almost smiled. “No. Even sick to my stomach and pathetic, I still love him.”
Sally reached across the desk and squeezed Diana’s cold hand. “Well, there you go. Love makes idiots of us all. You’ve been beating yourself up over this ever since, haven’t you?”
“Yes, pretty much.”
“Well, stop. Come to dinner and a movie with Tyler and me. It will do you good to get your mind off it for a while.”
Diana nodded. “OK, I will. And I promise not to mope.” Not until I get home, anyhow.
“Great. Let’s finish up here and get moving. I’ll go see what’s playing.”
Sally went to the outer office and sat down at the computer. She typed in her password fast and hard, then swatted the Enter key. Diana had waited so long to find someone, and then that jerk Logan had hurt her. She thought of the moves she learned in her kick-boxing class. Oh, to have five minutes to practice them on Logan Carmichael. The image of pummeling him into the ground gave her great satisfaction. Nobody hurt those she loved without earning her enmity.
She longed to find out exactly what she hated him for, but that would have to wait. Tonight, Diana needed to forget about it all for a while. Scrolling quickly through the possibilities—it would have to be something light and brainless—she chose a film she knew Tyler would love, an animated mystery with a bloodhound for the detective. “That looks pretty decent, actually.”
From directly behind her came a deep voice. “I have it from reliable sources you’ve picked a new classic there.”
Sally jumped, and twisted around. “Jim. You startled me. What are you doing here so late?”
Jim Donovan smiled easily, showing the deep dimple at the corner of his mouth. “I wanted to drop this vaccine off. You’re running low.”
“Thanks.”
“Hi, Jim.” Diana came into the room, makeup repaired. “We’re going to the movies with Tyler.” She turned her head to the trailer playing on the computer screen. “Oh, that looks pretty good.”
Jim gave Sally a wink and looked at Diana. “I was telling Sally some of the Rangers told me it’s a new classic.”
“I’m impressed.” Diana smiled at the handsome vet. “Want to join us? You don’t want to miss a chance to see a new classic, do you?”
“I don’t have any plans for tonight. I’d like that, thanks. How about we stop for pizza first? I’ll spring for it.”
Sally shut down the computer and stood. “Sounds good. I’ll go get Tyler.”
“I’ll go with you.” Jim followed her toward the entryway.
Diana moved in the other direction. “I’ll drive. My coat’s in the back office. You two grab Tyler and I’ll bring the car around.”
Pizza, conversation, laughter—it had been good to get out with friends. Diana parked her Lexus in Sally’s driveway and they piled out. Jim retrieved his truck from the shelter parking lot, and drove off. She, Sally, and Tyler chatted on the steps for a few minutes more, then said goodnight.
Enjoying the solitude, Diana took a deep breath of the cold night air. Her head was clear and she felt less fragmented. A little time away from her troubles had given her some much-needed perspective. Instead of getting into the car, she leaned against the trunk and looked up at the stars in the clear night sky.
So she loved a man who didn’t love her back. She wasn’t the first woman in that situation. She wouldn’t be the last. How was she going to deal with it?
Diana kept her mind in the clear, calm space she had found, thinking about her situation. She was Diana Lennox. She was a skilled business woman. She was attractive. She had money, and talent, and brains. And she was in a tough, painful spot. But she was strong. So how to proceed?
First off, she decided, she wasn’t going to pretend she didn’t love him—not to herself at any rate. She could deal with the reality. She could live with loving him, and she would—unless and until her heart changed.
Second, because she loved him, she would keep coming in to the office every day and help to make his take-over of the company a success—for him and for her former employees. And she would try to establish a reasonable working relationship with him. It might be painful, but the cold chill she’d been maintaining wasn’t natural to her, and she was pretty certain it wasn’t doing anything to help her heart heal.
Third, and last, she would pick up the threads of the new life she’d been building. Her evenings would be dedicated to recruiting clients for her new consulting firm, Business Solutions, and that venture would be a success. No laying guilt trips on Logan by being broken-hearted and pathetic. She would move on, and she would survive. And thrive, her brain added. But her heart answered, One thing at a time.
Monday dawned, clear and cold. When Diana arrived at the office, Logan was already there. He frowned at the paperwork in front of him, looking up with a short nod to acknowledge her arrival.
She wondered how long he’d already been hard at work. This had become the norm. It seemed he worked from dawn till late into the night—and it was taking a toll. His caramel eyes were shadowed and dull. His body looked worn, the massive shoulders stooped, and though Diana still caught herself staring at him, her hands felt a need to massage and soothe rather than caress.
When Logan began this killer schedule, she’d thought he was trying to increase his time away from her scrutiny. But his attitude when they were together had eliminated that idea. In contrast to the way things had been at first, now he seemed bent on learning all he could from her. Now that he’s
realized I know what I’m doing, he’s in a big hurry to learn it all and be rid of me.
Still, she was forced to admire the determination he brought to the task. He was not a natural manager—more a do-it-all-myselfer. But he listened, and he put her advice into practice. He learned to consider the people he was dealing with, their temperaments and comfort levels, and though he was too much an engineer to ever be a real people-person, he had developed considerable finesse.
Her pride in his accomplishments was real, albeit bittersweet. They could make a good team. If only I could trust him… Like last time? No way. She shut the thought down and settled at her desk to begin work.
Logan looked up. Maybe today she would let him back into her heart. He felt like an idiot for coming in with the same hope every morning and getting shot down every day, but he just couldn’t let it go. “Diana, could I please have your opinion on something?”
“Of course. What?”
“I’m preparing a bid for a contract to supply carbon rods to Finley Fabrication. Their engineer has specified a one point five inch diameter. I think she’s making a mistake. They should go with a two inch diameter.”
“Why?”
“Look at what they’re trying to do here.” He walked over and shoved a schematic at her. “The thicker rods will give them much better compression strength.”
Diana studied the drawings for a moment and shook her head. “Just like a man, Carmichael, to think a bigger rod is better. It’s precision in the timing she wants here. I say give her what she asks for. She knows what she needs.” He heard the undercurrent of humor in her voice, and hope clutched at his heart. He knew she was laughing at him—it didn’t matter. Maybe the ice was beginning to thaw. Maybe there was a chance.
“I’m going to send in two bids. One for the one point five inch rods, and the other for the better two inch rods, with my reasoning attached.”