‘It’s never been like this for you, has it?’ he’d whispered roughly.
How could it have been? she’d thought, looking at him. She had never been in love before; she’d never dreamed that being in a man’s arms could be like this.
But she’d known that that wasn’t what Logan had wanted to hear, and finally she’d managed a tremulous smile. ‘No,’ she’d whispered, ‘never.’
Their lovemaking was a miracle, one Talia knew better than to question. But it broke her heart to know that this was all she would ever have of Logan, when she wanted so much more.
Talia sighed wearily. It was late. She could see the headlights of the cars beyond on Avenida Paulista as people hurried home from their jobs. What would they all talk about when they got home? she wondered. Mundane things, probably. They’d share bits and pieces of the day; they’d laugh over little jokes; they’d talk about where to take their next holiday and what to do with the dog when they went away.
The thought of discussing such nonsense with Logan would have been laughable if it wasn’t so sad. His wife had undoubtedly tried that and look where it had got her, poor soul. Talia could still envisage the sad-eyed woman in the magazine photo, imagine her distress at the failure of her pathetic attempts to domesticate a man who wanted no domestication.
A small chill moved across her flesh and she shuddered. That wasn’t so very different from what her mother had tried to do with her father. Well, the circumstances differed—her mother had been seventeen, a child, really, not a sophisticated woman. And her father had been barely older than that, a boy who was eager to taste life.
‘I told her he was no good, but she wouldn’t listen. She never did—she never looked beyond tomorrow,’ Grams had said whenever she’d retold the familiar story. ‘All that mattered was that she wanted to be with him.’
Her mother’s pregnancy had resulted in marriage. But, months after Talia’s birth, her father had walked out on his bride and his baby daughter and had never looked back. His leaving had freed her mother of any pretence of domesticity and she’d died only a couple of years later, the victim of a drunken, high-speed car crash, leaving Talia to be raised in poverty by an embittered woman grown old before her time.
Talia’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. You never knew what cards fate might deal. Here she was, someone who’d carefully constructed a life that was the exact opposite of her mother’s, only to be brutally reminded that they shared the same blood, no matter what she might do. But that was where the resemblance to the past ended. Her mother had been a fool, first letting herself get trapped by an unwanted pregnancy and then attempting a marriage with no future.
‘Talia?’
She spun towards the door. Logan was standing just inside it, watching her.
‘Logan.’ Her voice was thick; she cleared her throat. ‘I—I didn’t hear you.’
He came into the office slowly, his eyes riveted to her face. ‘I knocked, but there was no answer. I thought…’ He hesitated. ‘Are you all right? You look as if you’ve been crying.’
‘Me?’ She laughed as she rummaged in her desk for a tissue. She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and smiled brightly at him. ‘Of course not. I—I think I have some kind of allergy. I couldn’t stop sneezing all day.’
‘And you look tired,’ he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Are you sure—’
‘I’m fine. I told you, I’ve been sneezing like mad. And I had a lot of work to get out. John called, and he asked me to…’ She fell silent. Why was he watching her that way? ‘Did you—did you want something, Logan?’
He shook his head. ‘Not really. I just came to tell you the power’s gone off upstairs. The janitor says he doesn’t know how long it will take to fix. There’s some kind of problem with the line.’ He paused. ‘Anyway, the fridge is out, of course, and the stove. So I thought I’d go out for dinner.’
‘I see.’ Talia forced a smile to her lips. ‘Well, don’t worry about me. I’ll finish here and then make myself a sandwich or something. There are candles upstairs, aren’t there? I can—’
His eyebrows rose. ‘I meant the both of us, naturally. I thought we’d try that new club that opened last week. How does that sound?’
A new club. That meant hordes of people, bright conversation, loud music and louder laughter. Suddenly, the thought of another artificially cheerful evening out was too much. ‘You go on without me. I’ll finish this report, and then—’
The office lights blinked, then went out, plunging them into darkness. Logan cursed softly.
‘Well, that does it.’ His voice roughened with impatience. ‘Lord knows when the power will come back on now.’
‘I have matches some place. Give me a minute to… Here they are. Let me just…’
The match flared in the darkness, burning like a tiny beacon. Logan had already paced to the window. He swore again, then turned towards her. ‘The whole damned area’s gone out. Who the hell knows how long—?’ Their eyes met. In the glow of the flame, his turned from green to burnished gold, like the eyes of a cat.
Talia’s heart turned over. ‘I—I’ll have to find a way to get my work done,’ she said. ‘Candles, or a torch, or…’
The match fizzled and burned out. Logan shifted his weight; in the darkness, she thought she could hear the sound of his breathing.
‘I’ve nothing but tapers in the apartment.’ His voice was low. For some reason, the sound of it sent a tremor through her. ‘And there’s no way to rig a torch for a reading lamp.’ He moved closer to her. In the shadowy darkness, she could just make out his features.
She swallowed drily. ‘Then what—?’
‘We’ll have dinner and wait it out.’ Logan’s teeth glinted in a quick smile. ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to try the new club another time, though. It seems as though the street-lamps and traffic lights are out, too. But there must be some place nearby.’
* * *
They found a little caf;aae two blocks away. Hastily lit candles stood on the tables and threw wavering shadows on the walls. They slipped into a booth and sat facing each other. Usually, Logan began talking about his day or asking about hers as soon as Talia stepped out of the lift at night. Now, silence stretched between them.
After a few moments, a waiter appeared. There was a rapid exchange of Portuguese, punctuated by Logan’s laughter, and then they were alone again.
Talia cleared her throat. ‘What was that all about?’
Logan smiled. ‘He said we could have a menu, if we insisted, but since we wouldn’t be able to read it and the cook wouldn’t be able to cook, it didn’t make much sense to bother. So I told him that was reasonable, and he could bring us whatever he thought we’d like.’ His smile broadened. ‘He said that was what he’d planned on doing in the first place, and he was pleased to see we agreed.’
Talia laughed. ‘Well, it should be an interesting meal, anyway.’
‘Yes.’ Logan looked around him. ‘I’ve never been in here before.’ He smiled at her. ‘We’ll have to come back when the lights are on and see what it looks like.’
‘Probably not half as nice as it does now,’ she said, smiling in return. ‘I remember once, when I was little…’ Her voice faded.
‘Go on. What were you going to say?’
Talia shrugged her shoulders. ‘It’s nothing. I was just remembering one evening when a big storm hit town. Grams had insisted on giving me a birthday party, even though—’
‘Grams? Your grandmother?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. She raised me. She—’ She stopped and looked at him. ‘Look, you don’t want to…’
Logan reached across the table and put his hand lightly on hers. His touch seemed to sing through her skin. ‘What happened to your parents?’
Talia ran her tongue lightly over her lips. ‘My father… My father left us when I was a baby. My mother and he… They married too young. She was only in high school…’ Her eyes met his. ‘She got pregnant,’ she said flatly. ‘They had t
o get married.’
‘For the sake of the child.’ Logan’s voice was as flat as hers. ‘But it didn’t work out.’
‘No. They—they weren’t happy. Not with each other, not with me.’
She fell silent and his hand tightened on hers. ‘You were going to tell me about your birthday party,’ he said gently.
She smiled gratefully. ‘Right.’ She drew a breath, then expelled it. ‘I didn’t want Grams to arrange one for me. I was ten years old and shy, and…’
His fingers laced through hers. ‘I thought you’d have been. Shy, I mean.’
‘But there was no talking her out of it. I’d never had a party, you see, because she was always working, and—’
‘Never?’
Talia sighed. ‘If you want to hear this story, you’re going to have to stop interrupting.’
He grinned. ‘My lips are sealed.’
‘Well, Grams went ahead with her plans. She invited some kids I went to school with, and there we were, gathered around the table and she brought out the cake.’ Talia began to smile. ‘I was worried about blowing out the candles. Too much breath, and I was sure I’d spit on the frosting. Too little, and the candles wouldn’t go out. Either way, I was sure Grams would say something or the kids would laugh—it was bound to be a disaster.’
‘And what happened?’
‘Nothing, at first. I mean, I barely started—and all the candles went out. Not just the candles. The lights, too. In the house and on the street. Everybody started to laugh. They said I’d blown out the whole town.’
Logan burst out laughing. ‘Don’t tell me. There was a power failure, and you got blamed for it.’
She chuckled softly and put her hand to her face. ‘Yes. Even months later, kids would point at me and say I didn’t know my own strength.’
Logan let go of her hand as the waiter put their dinner on the table. He looked down at his plate, then at Talia. ‘Any guesses?’ he asked.
She smiled. ‘Something with lots of spices, from the smell of it. I’ll bet it’s good.’
He picked up his fork. ‘Well, there’s only one way to find out. Go on,’ he ordered, ‘start eating. You not only look tired, you look as if you’ve lost weight.’ A smile spread over his mouth. ‘I wouldn’t want John Diamond to accuse me of working you too hard.’
Talia smiled in return and picked up her fork. The food was good; it tasted as spicy as it smelled. But she couldn’t eat—she was too excited. Carefully, trying not to let him see her do it, she looked at Logan from beneath her lashes. He was so different tonight. It was as if the blackout had plunged them not into darkness but into a different universe.
In all the weeks they’d been together, she had never told him as much about herself as she had in the past few minutes. It surprised her that she’d talked about her parents. She never did, not to anyone. There was no sense to it, it was all in the past and, anyway, it was too personal. As for the story about the candles—it was funny, yes, but it was also terribly revealing. Besides, it was a silly tale. Who’d want to hear it? But Logan had listened with quiet understanding, as if he was really interested. And, at the end, he’d laughed with her, not at her.
‘The only power failure I can remember,’ he said suddenly, ‘was when I was at university. I was in my senior year, and the lights failed the night before final exams.’
Talia looked at him and smiled. ‘And everybody sat around praying they wouldn’t come on again.’
He laughed. ‘Sure. They did, though—just in time for the first exam the next morning.’ He pushed aside his plate, put his elbows on the table, and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. ‘Were you a good student?’ He smiled. ‘That’s a foolish question, isn’t it? I’m sure you must have been.’
Talia moved her plate aside, too. ‘I had to be,’ she said, almost defensively. ‘I was on scholarship. If you didn’t do well, you were out.’
He gave her a teasing smile. ‘No time to slack off like the rest of us, hmm?’
Her smile matched his. ‘Is that your way of telling me you weren’t a good student?’
‘I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me.’
She grinned. ‘Not fair. You can’t quote the United States Constitution to protect your academic record.’
Logan gave her a disdainful look. ‘You can if you studied law. Then it’s known as utilising your area of discipline.’
‘Law? You mean you’re an attorney? But I thought—’
‘An almost attorney. I never took my bar exams.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I wasn’t serious about the law. I just drifted into it.’
‘No one “drifts” into law, Logan. It takes years of study and—’
‘Maybe that’s the wrong way to phrase it. I just wanted to be anything my father wasn’t. He was in business, so I was determined to be in something else.’ He smiled. ‘I had no talent for music or the arts, and medicine was out because I hated chemistry.’
Talia laughed. ‘All of which are excellent reasons for choosing law.’
He grinned. ‘They made sense at the time.’
‘And then you went to work for your father when you were twenty-two and changed your mind.’
‘In Buenos Aires. Yes, that’s right. I’m surprised you remembered.’
A light flush rose to her cheeks. ‘I have a good memory,’ she said lightly. ‘It comes of having had to memorise dozens of recipes in school.’
Logan leaned back and looked at her. ‘A scholarship student,’ he said, smiling. ‘I’m impressed.’
Talia gave a little shrug. ‘Don’t be. I had no choice. I’d always known I’d have to win a scholarship if I was going to go to school and make something of myself.’
‘And that was important to you, even then.’
She looked up, caught by the sudden flatness in his voice. Was he becoming bored by all this inconsequential chatter? But Logan was watching her with an interested smile on his face. After a bit, she nodded. ‘Yes. No one in my family ever had. I told you about my mother…’ She fell silent, and then she cleared her throat. ‘Come on,’ she said quickly, ‘that’s enough about me. Tell me something about yourself.’
Logan smiled. ‘I have. I just told you all about the backwards way I almost chose a career. What more is there to know?’
Her eyes met his. Everything, she wanted to say, I want to know all there is to know about you, Logan, I want to hear all the details of your life… Instead, she gave him a quick smile. ‘Let’s see,’ she said, wrinkling her brow and pretending deep thought. ‘Well, for openers—why didn’t you like chemistry?’
‘Why didn’t I…?’ Logan grinned. ‘Who knows? Too much math, perhaps.’
Talia shook her head. ‘No good. I’ve seen you tally columns of numbers in a flash, remember? And I know you can figure ratios and percentages without even breathing hard.’ She leaned her elbows on the table and propped her chin on her hands. ‘Tell the truth, Logan. What’s the real reason?’
‘The real reason?’ His smile grew a little strained. ‘You’d laugh if I told you.’
Their eyes met. ‘Try me,’ she said softly.
Logan inhaled, then let out his breath. ‘It’s not really much of a story. I was, I don’t know, eight or nine, and I had a dog.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘He wasn’t actually mine, he just wandered into our lives one day when I was a toddler.’ He smiled. ‘God, I loved that dog! He was a big brute of a thing—a Newfoundland.’ He leaned across the table, his face alight. ‘Do you know the breed?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘He was huge—he looked like a bear. And he was as devoted as…’ He fell silent, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘Anyway, he grew old, got a bit smelly and raggedy-looking, but he wasn’t ill or anything. My mother had never liked him to start with; she always thought anything bigger than a toy poodle was an embarrassment. And my father was into horses by then; he’d joined a club and its members all fa
ncied themselves as got up in tweed and leather and… Anyway, one day, when I awoke, the dog was gone.’
‘Gone? You mean, he’d run off?’
Logan shook his head. ‘No.’ His voice flattened. ‘He was dead. My mother and father had had the chauffeur take him to the vet. He’d been put down.’ His eyes, cold as the sea, met hers. ‘It was the chauffeur who told me. My mother was too busy—she had a bridge group or the Ladies’ League coming to tea, something like that. My father had gone off to his office, so it fell to Charles to be the one to…’ He drew a breath. ‘I suppose I cried a lot. That night, my father came to my room. I remember my surprise—he never did that. He’d brought me a gift. A chemistry set, all shiny and new and, I’m sure, very, very expensive.’ His eyes met hers again, and the dark rage in them chilled her. ‘It was a trade-off, you see—the set for the dog, as if all those test-tubes and powders could ever replace…’
For the first time, it was Talia who reached out and put her hand on Logan’s. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said softly.
He sat silent for a moment, his eyes averted. She could feel the tension in him, the tightly strung nerves and muscles bunched beneath her fingers, and then he pulled his hand free of hers and looked at her. ‘Forgive me, Talia.’ His smile was as strained as his voice. ‘I don’t usually go in for self-pity.’
‘You have nothing to apologise for. That’s an awful story. How could your parents have been so thoughtless?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘They weren’t thoughtless, they were simply involved in their own lives. My mother had her friends and her clubs, my father had his business.’
‘And it was more important to him than anything else.’
Logan looked at her. ‘Yes. I didn’t understand it then.’ His mouth twisted. ‘But I was only a child.’
She hesitated. ‘Meaning you—you understand now.’
‘Of course,’ he said, as if anyone who didn’t was a fool.
Talia smiled sadly. Well, what had she expected? This night was different from any they’d shared yet, and Logan had told her a terrible story about a hurt little boy and a pair of coldly unfeeling adults, but when you came down to it, nothing had changed. He had left that little boy far behind; he’d grown into a man like his father, which wasn’t so surprising when she realised how neatly and easily she’d suddenly followed in her mother’s footsteps.
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