Roses For Sophie

by Alyssa J. Montgomery

  Time and again she’d told herself their relationship had nothing to do with her wealth or with the fact that she was Rigby Carlisle’s granddaughter because Logan was so wealthy in his own right. A brittle laugh made its way past the tight ball of emotion that had lodged itself in her throat. When was she ever going to learn?

  Logan had even managed somehow to convince her grandfather to give him control of the company. That must’ve been Rigby’s back-up plan. Logan must’ve told Rigby she was having second thoughts about taking control of the company and made her grandfather feel guilty. Logan must have taken advantage of a sick, old man and made him feel as if he was burdening Sophie with his life’s work. That was the only thing she could think of that would’ve made Rigby change his will.

  Loathing and sick disillusionment poured from her heart.

  As nasty as Felix was, he’d been right when he’d said that she’d let the stranger in. She, with her stupidity and her pathetic need to cling to the hope that she’d find a man who’d love her, had allowed a ruthless playboy billionaire to deceive her grandfather and swindle the entire Carlisle family.

  From outside the house, she heard the slam of a car door and then the revving of Felix’s Ferrari. He’d pulled the pin on an emotional grenade, thrown it into the fray and now he was driving away from the explosion and leaving her as collateral damage.

  Even when she’d walked in on Peter with his lover, she’d never felt so alone and so totally gutted.

  Was this finally the lesson she needed to learn to make her grow up and face the fact that she’d never been destined to be anything more to a man than a rich heiress? As much as she hated to admit it, Felix was right when he’d pointed out her inadequacies, because she couldn’t even offer a man children. Her dream of being loved had been a complete fantasy, but now it was as shattered as the pane of glass in her grandfather’s study.

  What made her feel even more stupid was that Logan had told her he’d never love her. Despite that, she’d been so sure that the respect and passion he claimed to feel for her would deepen, and that he’d recognise those feelings as love. Talk about self-delusional. She’d brought this down around her own ears.

  The handle of the locked door she was leaning against turned, and she jerked forward and spun around to face it.

  ‘Sophie!’ Logan knocked on the door. ‘Let me in. We need to talk.’

  Everything in her told her not to. She could go through to her bathroom, close that door as well and submerge herself in the shower to block out his voice, and to wash his touch from her skin. That would be the easy thing to do, but it would only delay the inevitable.

  Logan wouldn’t go away.

  The horrible truth that lay between them needed to be faced, and she needed to find out the exact terms of Rigby’s will.

  Grudgingly she moved to turn the key in the lock and grant entry to the enemy she’d unwittingly married. Just before she did, she stiffened her spine and summoned up every bit of anger she had, refusing to be a pathetic little victim.

  There was more to being a woman than being able to bear children. She was lovable.

  Logan was the callous bastard who’d taken advantage of her and used her vulnerability to his advantage. Sophie refused to be ashamed that she’d believed in his lie that he’d wanted to marry her because of Charlotte. He’d taken advantage of her. His behaviour was on his conscience, and could only hurt her if she let it.

  The second the key was turned, she pulled the door open aggressively.

  Damn! Damn! Dropping her hand away from the door, she clenched it into a fist at her side. She would not appreciate that broad expanse of naked male flesh. Her body would not react to him in a sexual way. That was all over between them. His powerful male physique would not be her Achilles’ heel.

  ‘Get your things and get out.’ Each of her words was clipped.

  ‘No.’ The word was strong and adamant, but his tension and uncertainty were palpable. ‘You need to give me a chance to put things into perspective.’

  ‘Whose perspective? Yours?’

  ‘Rigby did offer to recommend me for the role of Managing Director of the company, but only because he was worried that you were intent on assuming the role more out of duty than out of desire.’

  ‘When, Logan? When did he make this offer?’

  ‘Yesterday afternoon as we toured the winery.’ He tunnelled his fingers through his hair.

  ‘You put that idea into his head.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ She crossed her arms across her chest. ‘I’d only just finished telling you about my own doubts. You took them and ran off to Rigby to suit your own purposes.’

  He grasped her shoulders. ‘I did nothing of the sort. It was your grandfather who had reservations about you in that role. It wasn’t that he didn’t think you were capable of it, it was just that he thought you should have more out of life than safeguarding the future of the company he’d built up.’

  ‘Enter Logan, knight-in-shining-armour, ready to charge in on his white steed and save the damsel in distress.’ She pulled away from his touch. ‘How noble of you to offer to step in and save the day.’

  Every line of his body was tense. ‘I told him I didn’t want the position. I told him to speak to you and find out what you wanted.’

  ‘But by then, you’d already convinced him you’d be the better person for the job, right?’ God, she’d been so stupid and left herself so vulnerable.

  ‘No.’ Logan looked like he wanted to smash the hell out of something or someone. ‘Please listen to me, Sophie.’

  She walked away from him, sat down on a chair and looked at her watch. ‘Five minutes, tops, then you’re out of here and there’ll be no coming back.’

  He didn’t waste a second. ‘He made the offer for me to become MD on Saturday afternoon. It was the first time he’d mentioned it and I refused.’

  Saturday? Logan must be lying. Felix said the will had been changed on Friday night.

  ‘I also turned down Rigby’s offer to allow me to buy his company shares once we were married.’

  ‘Why would you turn his offer down when you’d already started buying shares? Did Grandfather know about that?’

  Logan sat down on the chair adjacent to hers. A fleeting shadow appeared in his expression and she saw him swallow. Clinically detached, safe now in her block of ice, she noted his body’s guilty reaction.

  ‘He did.’ His shoulders rounded. ‘Buying those shares was a huge mistake. I admit that I couldn’t see beyond my need to marry you. My initial thought was to buy the shares up and if necessary to mount a take-over bid for Carlisle Mining so that I’d put you in a position where you’d agree to become my wife rather than losing your grandfather’s company.’

  Her eyes widened in horror. ‘You thought you’d blackmail me into marriage?’

  ‘It was a rash, stupid idea and I realised it almost as soon as I’d put the decision into motion.’ He raised both of his hands to cover his face momentarily. ‘I’m more sorry than I can express, Sophie. I was going to talk to you about all of this.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘This morning. I’d already decided to gift the shares I had bought to you as a wedding present. I was going to tell you about the offer Rigby had made, but then I got the phone call about Charlotte.’

  ‘How convenient. You married me first!’ The words tasted bitter on her tongue.

  ‘I had no idea he had our wedding ceremony planned, and I had no knowledge that he’d changed his will until Felix just announced that. In fact, we don’t even know yet whether what Felix has told us really is the truth.’

  Sophie looked at him and felt…nothing. Even anger had deserted her. Now she just felt hollow.

  ‘I’m telling you the truth.’ His tone implored her to believe him.

  She expelled a breath of disbelief. ‘I don’t believe you. You’re a successful businessman, Logan. You always know exactly what you’re doing.’
<
br />   ‘In business, maybe, but obviously not in my personal life.’

  ‘Huh!’ She gritted her teeth together so tight her jaw started to hurt.

  ‘I changed my mind about the take-over bid. I wanted you to marry me because you wanted to, not because you’d been forced into it.’

  ‘Of course you did. Was that part of your agreement with my grandfather as well?’ she asked in a venomous tone. ‘Was there a little clause written in to make sure there was no undue force applied, or was it a gentleman’s agreement over a glass of cognac and a cigar?’

  ‘Sophie. Please, I —’

  ‘Forget that idea. You’re really no gentleman are you?’

  ‘Damn it, Sophie! How many times do I need to tell you I’m sorry?’ He shook his head and frowned. ‘You were refusing to marry me. I not only needed to be married —’

  ‘That’s no excuse,’ she said bitterly. ‘I was equally as desperate to make my grandfather happy, but I would never have contemplated blackmail to get my way.’

  He stood up and took a step toward her.

  ‘No.’ She jumped up from her chair as well and retreated a step, but wouldn’t give an inch on their verbal showdown. ‘You keep harking back to your desperation to marry because of Charlotte, but now I realise that was all a smokescreen. What you wanted all along was Carlisle Mining!’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Of course it is. If you just wanted a wife to win your court case, you could’ve paid anyone to play that role. It was so easy to con me with those lines about friendship, respect and passion.’

  The troubled light in his eyes deepened, as did the furrow between his eyebrows. ‘Sophie, I didn’t lie to you. I meant every word I said.’

  ‘Save it, Logan.’

  He moved toward her again, and this time he placed his hands over hers. She kept them still, willing herself to feel no spark of attraction, but she resisted when he urged her body closer.

  ‘The last twenty-four hours have been a rollercoaster ride, Sophie. I can understand it if you need time to get things sorted in your own mind, but don’t allow Felix to poison what we have.’

  ‘What we have?’ She wrenched away entirely from his touch. ‘We have a marriage based on the mutual need to deceive others, and on your thirst for acquisition of another company. Nothing more.’

  ‘That’s not all we have and you know it!’

  ‘What more did we have, Logan? Trust? Oh, well, that one’s been blown out of the water.’

  ‘Sophie —’

  ‘Respect? Gee, I guess not, because I certainly don’t respect someone who’d resort to blackmail to get his way.’ He opened his mouth again, but there was no way she was listening to anything he had to say. ‘Friendship? Hm. No. Friends can trust and respect each other. Ah…I guess that leaves passion, and I have that for you in spades. I’m passionate about you getting out and staying out of my life!’

  His lips thinned but he obviously realised it was futile to argue with her in the mood she was in. Good, because she had no intention of listening to any more of his lies.

  ‘We had a deal, Logan. You upheld your end to a point, and my grandfather died happy. I’m going to do the honourable thing for Charlotte’s sake and uphold my end.’ She moved so the chair was between them. ‘Provided we don’t have to be anywhere near each other, I’ll carry on the charade of being your wife. You can present your marriage certificate to the court as you apply for custody of Charlotte. The day after you get custody, I’m filing for a divorce and I’m going to make damn sure you don’t benefit from Grandfather’s will. God help you if you’ve conned me about your feelings for Charlotte. If I get any hint that you’re failing to provide for her in any of her needs, I’ll come for you and I’ll go for the jugular, because I genuinely care about her plight.’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘Now, get out!’

  The look he gave her was assessing. ‘I’ll get my things and give you space tonight. Get some sleep, Sophie. Things will be clearer in the morning.’

  ‘Don’t you dare patronise me, you arrogant son-of-a-bitch. Things are clear right now.’

  Without saying another word, he walked past her, grabbed the few items he’d unpacked and threw them into his overnight bag.

  ‘Think on this, Sophie, before you throw it all away. I never wanted Carlisle Mining. You said yourself that I could easily have bought a wife. The fact is, I started out needing but not wanting a wife, and I ended up both needing and wanting you. Only you.’

  It was only when he’d walked out the door that a tiny emotion flickered to life in the vacuum that used to contain her heart. Annoyed, she tried to put a name to it. Hopelessness? A sense of loss? No. Whatever it was, she wouldn’t give into it. She was Rigby Carlisle’s granddaughter, and he’d bred her tougher than that.

  Chapter 21

  Just over a week later, Sophie pushed her foot down on the accelerator of her red Jaguar convertible as she headed back to Sydney. In the space of a couple of weeks her life had been turned upside down.

  Gripping the steering wheel harder, she tried to push away the heaviness that threatened to push down so hard on her chest it would stop her breathing. Every morning, waking alone, she mourned the loss of Logan as her lover. Awakening in Logan’s arms, snuggling into him, and making love with him had been the perfect start to each day when she hadn’t known his true colours.

  It was impossible to banish his face from her mind. His swarthy, piratical good looks still heated her blood even though she knew she’d been completely set up. The deep blue of his eyes had alternatively challenged her, flirted with her and mirrored his desire and admiration for her. How easily she’d been conned!

  ‘I can’t believe you broke up with him! What were you thinking?’ Sue’s words and horrified tone rang in Sophie’s ears. ‘God, Sophie. He was the best thing that ever happened to you. Look at how happy you’ve been!’

  Sue had heard the headline news of Rigby’s death and had phoned Sophie the morning after she’d sent Logan away. Upon hearing that her marriage to Logan had lasted less than twenty-four hours, and the reason for their breakup, Sue had called her all types of a fool. Her friend had urged her not to trust any of Felix’s allegations, yet Logan had been buying up shares in the company. Logan hadn’t denied that Grandfather had offered him the company on the proviso that he married Sophie. When the will had finally been read the day after Grandfather had died, all Felix’s accusations had proven correct.

  ‘Are you sure this is so cut and dried? ‘ Sue had asked. ‘Sounds to me like you didn’t give the guy a good chance to explain himself. Why not get together face to face with him, and hear him out?’

  Sounded reasonable, but Sophie wasn’t in any mood to be reasonable. She was still too wounded. ‘He skewers my heart with a bayonet and you want me to go back on the battlefield for a second stabbing? I don’t think so,’ she’d said. Having done the unthinkable and fallen in love with Logan, his had betrayal cut her up to the bone.

  Now Sophie came up on a slower vehicle, checked her mirrors and indicated to move into the right lane. There was another car coming up on her right, but she had plenty of room to overtake the car ahead. Depressing her foot on the accelerator, the car shot forward with a burst of speed and she passed the vehicle.

  That’s what she needed to do in life. Accelerate. Move forward. She shouldn’t be thinking about her friend’s reaction, and she certainly shouldn’t be dwelling on her split from Logan, but leaving behind her lover was proving more difficult than she would ever have imagined.

  Whoa. She had to stop this analysis and self-pity. Bring back the Ice Princess. The problem was that Logan had melted the Ice Princess away.

  Sophie would be Managing Director of Carlisle Mining, despite Rigby’s letter to each board member. She’d already approached most of the members and let them know that she would challenge Logan, should he still have the barefaced cheek to apply for the position. Their reactions had been wary, because Rigby’s wishes still
held a lot of sway with the old guard. She’d at least managed to delay the board from meeting for a fortnight out of respect for Rigby. By then, Charlotte’s custody case would be over, and she would’ve filed for divorce and could expose the duplicity Logan had practised. Hopefully the board would forgive her for her stupidity in her private life and be able to see that her business knowledge and practice was worthy of her becoming MD.

  She’d already met with lawyers last week to take steps against Rigby’s shares being sold to Logan. If Logan thought he’d ever had a fight on his hands before in business, he hadn’t seen anything. She’d fight with everything at her disposal to become MD and keep the company. It was what she’d told herself she wanted ever since she’d been a little girl. She would hold on to the conviction that it would be enough.

  Liar! You know damned well now that it will never be enough.

  It would have to be, as there was nothing else for her. A firm believer that life was what you made of it, she’d find happiness in knowing she was looking out for her employees and shareholders, and doing a good job. Logan was an opportunist and he wouldn’t get a chance to reap the benefits of his marriage to her.

  How he’d managed to con Rigby was still something she was trying to figure out, because her grandfather had always been so astute. Still, Logan had known he didn’t have long to live and had obviously managed to persuade him that Sophie didn’t truly want to be MD. When Daphne was more composed, Sophie would speak to her and try to fathom what had happened, but at the moment, Daphne was still too fragile to raise the subject with.

  Mostly through the daylight hours, Sophie had no time to dwell on the personal hell she felt from Logan’s betrayal. Getting through Rigby’s funeral, supporting Daphne, reporting Felix’s fraud to the authorities, and contacting lawyers and board members had occupied her time completely.