by Jackie Braun
“Did my mom tell you that the one time I excused myself to go to the men’s room?”
Mallory’s expression turned sheepish. “No. I did some digging on my own. It was just after you’d invited me onboard your sailboat the first time.”
Mere weeks ago and yet it seemed an eternity.
“I see,” he said evenly, though his blood pressure began to rise and his heart to sink.
“No, I don’t think you do.”
“You wanted a story.” This time his tone wasn’t even. It was crisp with anger—directed at her, but mostly at himself. How many times had his agent warned him that’s what Mallory was after? Yet he’d trod boldly ahead. At first he’d claimed he knew what he was doing: keeping enemies closer than friends and all that baloney. Then, as things between Mallory and him had shifted, deepened, he’d insisted to himself that she wouldn’t use him, she wouldn’t betray him.
Well, he was paying for his hubris now. He sighed inwardly, felt the knife of disappointment pierce him. Had he really thought he could separate the woman from her profession? Especially knowing how important her job was to her.
He didn’t really care that his broken engagement could become public knowledge. Let all of Chicago read about it and snicker over how he’d been played for a fool. What bothered him now was the fact that Mallory had dated him, slept with him, claimed the things he told her were off the record when apparently she’d considered him a story all along.
“Logan—”
He swore richly, cutting off her words. “Is that the best you could do?” he demanded. “You mentioned tonight that you’re trying to get out of the doghouse at the newspaper. I doubt this is the type of story that is going to help you much. My ex-fiancée tossed me over for another guy.” He shrugged, even though at one point that fact had all but lanced his soul. “I’m hardly the first man to suffer a broken heart.”
“I’m sorry.”
Logan finished off his wine and set the glass aside before rising to his feet. “What did you do to find that out? Run my name through a data base or something?”
“Nothing that high-tech. I just had to weed through some old newspaper clippings.”
He stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets, concealing clenched fists. His tone was mild when he said, “That sounds time consuming.”
“It took a few days.”
“What made you look in the first place?”
Mallory shrugged. “I don’t know. You just seemed, well, too perfect to be single.”
“That’s an interesting comment.”
“Interesting or not, it’s true.”
“So you couldn’t resist,” he replied.
“I—”
“Don’t get me wrong. What man doesn’t want to be irresistible? It’s just I’d prefer to be considered such for different reasons. But then you are a reporter.” He spat out the word. “So…what? You put two and two together when you didn’t find a wedding announcement?”
“Yes.” Mallory cleared her throat and clarified, “Well, not for you.”
“Ah.” Turning away, he pulled his hands from his pockets and shoved the hair back from his forehead. He’d never felt this angry or this exposed. His voice was deceptively calm when he said, “You found the announcement for Felicia and what’s his name?”
“I’m sorry,” she murmured again.
Logan wasn’t sure if Mallory was apologizing for snooping into his past or for the heartache he’d experienced at the hands of his ex—a heartache that felt minor in comparison to what he was feeling right now. He couldn’t believe that once again he’d fallen for a beautiful woman’s lies.
He was older now, wiser. Or so he’d thought. In addition to feeling betrayed, he felt like an absolute idiot. Usually he was insightful, astute. He was a trained professional with a degree that had taken him years to earn. It didn’t sit well to learn that he had a blind spot a mile wide where Mallory was concerned.
When she’d told him they needed to talk, Logan hadn’t seen this particular revelation coming. He’d worried over endings or possible new beginnings when apparently all she’d wanted was a damned interview.
Well, he’d give her one.
“So, what now?” It took an effort to keep all of the bitterness from leaching into his tone. “What else do you need to know to turn this rather mundane piece you’re working on into something juicy?”
“It’s not a story.”
“Not yet it isn’t,” he agreed calmly. “You’ve got to throw in the stuff about me questioning my current career path, and the information about my television show contract will spice things up, too.”
“Both of those things were said off the record,” she replied, looking bewildered.
“We didn’t agree to that till the revelations had been made. I’m sure that’s some sort of loophole in your favor.”
“Logan—”
He glanced away, determined not to be swayed. “Do you need a quote from me?”
“No. No!” she shouted and rose to her feet. He gave her points for looking both sincere and outraged. “I’m not asking for a damned quote, Logan.”
Far from feeling relieved when she shared this news, he braced for the worst. “Is that because you already have one? Have you been in touch with my agent?”
Nina was going to read him the riot act if Mallory had called her.
“No.”
“Felicia or her family then?” That possibility had his gut clenching.
“I haven’t spoken to Felicia.”
“Well, sorry, but I can’t help you there. She left town not long after she married and she never gave me a forwarding address. I have no idea where she lives these days, and I haven’t been in touch with her family to ask.” He raised his brows and waited a beat before adding, “For obvious reasons.”
“Actually, I know where Felicia is.”
Mallory’s bold pronouncement cut through his sarcasm with the force and effectiveness of a machete blade. Afterward, he felt laid bare.
“You…you know where…where Felicia…. Of course you do.” He laughed humorlessly as he collected himself and then shook a finger in her direction. “Pit bull. Right. How could I forget?”
Mallory winced. Once upon a time she had relished that description. Hell, she’d gone out of her way to foster it. But she was ashamed of it now. Just as she was haunted by the way Logan was looking at her, even though a hundred other people whom she’d interviewed for stories for the newspaper during her career had looked at her in the exact same way: with utter contempt.
In the past she hadn’t cared in the least. What did their opinions of her matter? Some of them—for that matter, most of them—were only getting exactly what they deserved. Their dirty little secrets deserved to be exposed and the public was better off for it. Right now, though, nothing—and certainly not a story—was as important as making Logan understand. He had to believe her. He had to trust her.
He had to forgive her. If he couldn’t or wouldn’t, how was she going to tell him about the baby?
“I know where Felicia is, but I haven’t contacted her.”
“Yet.”
“Don’t, Logan. I’ve finally decided to stop selling myself short. Don’t you start now.” When so much was at stake. “I have no intention of calling Felicia for a quote or anything else.”
He said nothing, but the rigid set of his shoulders told Mallory that he didn’t quite believe her. She reached out a hand to him, but he was too far away to touch…physically as well as emotionally. The heart she’d worked so hard to gird from breaking suffered its first fissures and began to ache.
She pressed ahead. “Weren’t you listening tonight at the restaurant when I told you that I wouldn’t be writing any stories where you’re concerned? I meant it.”
“Why?” he asked.
“I think you know.”
“Spell it out, Mallory.” His tone was barely above a whisper as he made the command. “Be clear.”
“Ther
e are a few reasons. One is that doing so would be a conflict of interest.”
His brow wrinkled as he studied her, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “A conflict of interest? How so?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“I said to be clear,” he reminded her, though neither his tone nor his stance was quite as rigid as it had been just a moment earlier.
“I…I…” It was a big word for an even bigger emotion. She took a tentative step in his direction, gathering her courage when he didn’t back away. “I love you, Logan.”
He didn’t say anything at first, but he blinked a couple of times and swallowed. She was pretty sure she’d thrown him with that revelation, and even though she wanted to hear him say it in return—God, how she wanted that—it wasn’t fair to put him on the spot.
“I’m not expecting you to say anything right now. I just…” She clasped and unclasped her hands. “I just wanted you to know.”
“Anything else you want me to know?”
I’m having your baby.
But she decided to keep that information confidential. Sharing it now, with this other big issue unresolved between them, would only complicate matters. Mallory shook her head.
“When I asked you to come with me tonight, I can honestly say I didn’t think the evening would end this way,” he said after a moment.
“No.” Was he saying goodbye? Neither his expression nor his body language gave his intent away.
“I’m sorry, Mallory.”
It wasn’t exactly what she’d hoped to hear. Arms crossed over her waist as if to protect the life growing inside her from rejection, she braced for his farewell.
“It’s all right.” The words cost her.
“No. It’s not.” He closed the distance between them, lifted her chin with his finger. “I’m sorry for doubting you, for jumping to conclusions. Forgive me?”
He was asking for contrition?
“I don’t understand. I thought…I thought you were going to say that things between us are over.”
“I may be a fool, but I’m not that big a fool.”
“I should have told you about the information I’d found. I didn’t mean for it to be a secret. It’s just that I gathered it before anything had really taken place between us and, well, afterward, when I decided you were more important to me than any story…”
“Because you love me.” He looked pleased now.
“Yes.”
“Well, I have a scoop for you, and I don’t care who knows it.” His hands found her hips and pulled her close. Just before he kissed her, he said, “I love you, too.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE next few weeks passed in a wondrous haze. Mallory couldn’t recall ever being so happy or feeling so complete, which was odd considering she was still writing intern-worthy fluff for the Herald’s Lifestyles section and having to put up with Sandra’s snide comments whenever their paths crossed at work. Lately Sandra wasn’t only snide, she seemed smug. Mallory dismissed it. Her colleague was the last person on her mind.
Indeed, work in general continued to take a back seat. She spent less time at the office, putting in the standard number of hours and no more, unless specifically asked by the features editor. Where a few months earlier she would have spent most of her waking hours breathing in newsprint and combing through wire service stories, she now spent her evenings with Logan at her home or on his sailboat or in his upscale condominium, where he was attempting to teach her the rudiments of cooking in his gorgeous gourmet kitchen. She was learning a great deal, not only about sautéing, basting and frying, but about herself. As she’d told him that night in her apartment, she’d stopped selling herself short.
Mallory liked who she was when she was with Logan. She felt no need to be perfect or to cloak herself in a mantle of toughness. As flawed as she was, he enjoyed spending time with her. He said he loved her. Even so, she still hadn’t told him about the baby, whose existence had now been confirmed by her doctor.
Though she told herself not to be, she was a little scared. What would his reaction be? She had to believe he would be happy and supportive despite their circumstances. And surely he would be the polar opposite of her father in every way. A lifetime of hurt, however, was not easy to overcome. Besides, she had time. She was barely two months along. And everything between her and Logan was so new, so perfect. She wanted to give them both time to adjust to being a couple before introducing the fact that they were to become parents.
Mallory was bustling around her apartment rounding up a change of clothes and trying to remember what she’d done with the white chef’s apron she’d bought, when the telephone rang. She assumed it was Logan since they were eating in at his condo tonight. He was going to teach her how to make an authentic Chinese stir-fry.
She grinned as she picked up the receiver. “Be patient, lover,” she said on a laugh.
“Mallory? Is that you?” On top of the usual agitation in her mother’s voice, Maude sounded perplexed.
Mallory sorely regretted not consulting the Caller ID readout. Not only was this conversation bound to be a downer, it was guaranteed to be long.
“Yeah, Mom. Sorry about the greeting. I thought you were someone else.”
“That much I gathered,” Maude said dryly and with a touch of censure.
“I’m…I’m just on my way out the door, Mom. I have someplace I need to be and I’m already running a little behind. Can I call you back later?”
“By later I assume you mean tomorrow.” Not a touch of censure now, but a slap of it, and that was before Maude added, “I thought you’d sworn off men after the last one. What was his name?”
Mallory didn’t bother to supply it. The past was irrelevant. “I’ve met someone special, Mom.”
“Oh, no.” It wasn’t exactly what a woman wanted to hear from her mother in response to a statement like that. “You sound like you think you’re in love.”
“I don’t think it.” Mallory left it at that, already regretting mentioning her relationship with Logan. Thank God her mother was clueless about the baby.
“Don’t fall into the same trap I did,” Maude warned before launching into her old rant. “I wasted fourteen years of my life waiting on your father, making a home for him and putting his needs ahead of my own. You know what I had to show for it when he left me? Nothing.”
You had me, Mallory wanted to say. You had a daughter who felt deserted by not one but two parents. But she knew the futility of trying to rationalize or argue. Maude wanted sympathy and agreement. Mallory couldn’t bring herself to offer either, so she substituted them with silence.
Her mother seemed not to notice. “You make a good living at the newspaper,” she went on. “You have a career, money, a purpose, all of the things I should have had and would have had in my twenties if I hadn’t let your father talk me into marriage and letting him provide for me. I thought I was in love back then, too.”
Again Mallory had to bite her tongue, since if her parents had never met she wouldn’t have been born. Her mother’s bitterness had blinded her to how insulting and hurtful her comments could be.
“You have a good life, Mallory. I’ll be very disappointed in you if you let some man ruin it,” Maude finished.
This wasn’t a new tack her mother took. She’d been saying much the same thing since Mallory’s first date at age fifteen. For the first time, though, instead of rolling her eyes and letting it pass without remark, Mallory got angry. Angry enough to break her cardinal rule and argue.
“A good life, Mom? Is that what you think I have?” Until recently, it had been so pathetically empty, so work focused and one dimensional. Spending time with Logan, falling in love with him, made her see that clearly. “Just because I’m single doesn’t mean my life has been good.”
The rebuttal—the words as much as their crisp delivery—must have thrown Maude. Mallory pictured her mother’s mouth working soundlessly on the other end of the line. It was a wonderful moment,
an amazingly liberating one, especially since Mallory hadn’t even realized she’d been as tethered to the past as her mother.
But all good things must come to an end, and her mother’s silence was one of them.
“That’s the way you talk to me? After all of the sacrifices I’ve made through the years to see to it that you could have everything I didn’t and couldn’t?”
Mallory almost apologized, not because she felt contrite, but because she could wind up the conversation that much more quickly if she gave in, gave up. A glance at her watch showed that she was already going to be late arriving at Logan’s condo. Well, whether a little late or a lot, this couldn’t wait. For once, she was going to set the record straight.
“I appreciate your sacrifices, Mom. I always have. What I don’t appreciate is the way you’ve used them as a battering ram, trying to ensure I would always feel beholden to you. You did what a parent is expected to do and, okay, more since Dad skipped out on his obligations after he left.”
“After he left!” Maude spat the words. “He wasn’t much of a father while he was still in the home. You have no idea the sacrifices I made,” she said a second time.
Mallory decided to try a different approach. “You could have more now, Mom. You could go back to school, take some courses so you could get a job you actually liked.”
Maude snorted. “At my age?”
“You’re fifty-four. That’s hardly ancient.”
“He’s really turned your head, hasn’t he? This fellow you’re rushing off to see.” Her mother sounded disgusted.
“He’s a good man.” The very best. And he was going to be a good father. She would believe that. She wouldn’t let the past poison the future.
“They all start off that way.”
“No. They don’t.” The truth struck Mallory with enough force that she leaned against the kitchen wall for support. “None of the guys I dated in the past started off treating me very well. Maybe that’s what I wanted,” she murmured, half to herself. “Maybe, after what happened between you and Dad, I didn’t want to be tempted to have a serious relationship, one with long-term possibilities.”