there is something of much more urgency for us to discuss.’
Logan raised dark brows. ‘Such as?’
‘Such as how you’re going to break it to Darcy that you’re Margaret Fraser’s son? Without her hating your guts when you’ve finished, I mean,’ Fergus added.
He had been wondering the same thing himself!
‘I am right in surmising Darcy doesn’t have a clue about that, aren’t I?’ Fergus mused.
‘Maybe if you hadn’t arrived here so precipitously—’
‘Don’t try and blame this situation on me.’ Fergus held up defensive hands.
Fergus was right; Logan knew that he was. He should have told Darcy the truth the moment she’d mentioned Margaret Fraser. But, if he had, he also knew that Darcy would have looked at him with the same dislike she had looked at his mother. And that wasn’t something he wanted from Darcy. He wasn’t sure what he wanted from her, but it certainly wasn’t for her to lump him in with the same antipathy she felt towards his mother.
He had less than twenty-four hours to think of a way of telling Darcy the truth—without the end result being, as Fergus had pointed out only too graphically, her hating his guts!
She was late.
She knew she was late. Almost fifteen minutes, to be exact. With any luck Logan would have tired of waiting for her to arrive and already have left! After the morning she had had, she didn’t feel up to this meeting, too!
She had taken Logan’s advice the evening before, going to bed shortly after getting in, amazingly falling asleep too, not even waking when her father had returned home at his usual one o’clock in the morning. She had been exhausted, of course, from all the emotional trauma of the last few days.
Not that she’d felt any better when she’d woken at nine o’clock this morning, knowing by the sound of the radio downstairs that her father had already been up. Margaret Fraser was sure to have told him of her own parting shot as she’d left the restaurant the evening before.
She had been right about that; her father was absolutely furious that Darcy had caused a scene in the restaurant of all places. Her reply, that scenes were what Margaret Fraser enjoyed the most, had not gone down too well, and the argument that had followed had been far from pretty. With the end result that Darcy had told her father exactly what he could do with his holiday job, and that she would be looking for a flat of her own later today.
Darcy still cringed when she thought of that argument; until the last couple of days she could never remember being at odds with her father about anything. As far as she was concerned, it was all Margaret Fraser’s fault!
But it was partly because of that argument with her father that she had been late changing into her figurefitting navy-blue dress in readiness for joining Logan for lunch. Partly…
Logan hadn’t left the restaurant!
She could easily see him as she entered the room, sitting at a window table. Very much as he had done last night. Except a lot had happened since she’d spoken to him at Chef Simon yesterday evening!
Logan was looking as arrogantly handsome as ever in a grey suit, and—unless she was mistaken—the white silk shirt she had sent to him yesterday…
He stood up as she was shown to the table, Darcy noting several female heads turning in their direction as he did so. No doubt those women had been wondering—as she had last night—who would be joining this attractive man for lunch; she doubted any of them had expected him to be interested in a mousy little thing like her!
Ordinarily they would be right…
‘Darcy!’ Logan greeted warmly now, indicating for the wine waiter to pour her some of the white wine he had obviously ordered while he’d waited for her to arrive. ‘Unless you have to work this afternoon?’ He quirked dark brows across the table at Darcy.
‘I am, at the moment, what I believe is known in acting circles as “resting”,’ Darcy answered brittlely.
Logan gave her a sharp look. ‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said dismissively.
‘Neither does my father,’ she scorned. ‘But I have a feeling, when he marries Margaret Fraser, that he will very quickly find out!’
‘Shouldn’t that be if he marries her?’ Logan replied hardly.
‘Not according to my father,’ Darcy muttered with remembered bitterness.
‘Presumably, by your earlier remark, you’re no longer working for him?’ Logan queried.
‘We’ve decided that a parting of the ways—in all areas of our lives—is probably for the best. Nice shirt,’ she added dryly, looking at the snowy white garment.
‘Damn the shirt,’ Logan came back. ‘No, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,’ he continued a little less fiercely. ‘It’s a beautiful shirt. And I don’t think I ever thanked you for it,’ he admitted awkwardly.
Perhaps he wasn’t a man who was used to accepting presents. Probably more used to giving them, Darcy decided.
‘You’re welcome.’ She nodded. ‘What made you change your mind about keeping it?’ she enquired as she picked up the menu and began looking down the food on offer.
‘The fact that you had obviously gone to a lot of trouble to get it for me,’ he said quietly.
‘I see.’
‘Darcy—’
‘Have you tried the lasagne here?’ She looked over the top of the menu at him. ‘I believe it’s supposed to be delicious.’
‘Darcy, I’m trying to talk to you,’ Logan said wearily.
She raised auburn brows. ‘I thought you invited me out to lunch?’
‘I did,’ he returned sharply. ‘Because we need to talk.’
‘And not eat,’ she replied understandingly, closing her menu and putting it down on the table-top. ‘Talk away,’ she invited.
Logan paused. ‘You seem different today somehow,’ he said eventually.
‘Do I?’ she returned in that same brittle voice. ‘Perhaps we should put that down to the fact that I’m a little—upset, that my father and I are no longer even speaking to each other because of his decision to marry a woman I can’t even begin to like!’
Her voice broke slightly over the last. To her inner annoyance. She was rather tired of appearing immature and emotional in front of this man. In fact, she was more than tired of it!
‘It will all sort itself out, Darcy,’ Logan told her gently, reaching out to put his hand over one of hers.
She looked across at him with cool grey eyes. ‘You seem very sure of that?’
‘I am.’
‘How can you be?’
His
