frowning again, Logan,’ his mother remarked at his side as he drove them both to the hotel where they were to meet Darcy for afternoon tea, Logan having picked her up from her apartment ten minutes earlier.
‘If I am it’s because I do not appreciate being dragged into the complexities of your personal life,’ he clipped. After years of avoiding his mother’s turbulent private life, he was not amused at being thrust into the centre of it in this way.
His mother shrugged. ‘You arranged this meeting, Logan, not I.’
‘Because Darcy asked me to, and for no other reason.’
‘Hmm,’ his mother murmured thoughtfully. ‘I may have asked you this before, but—just how well do you know Daniel’s daughter?’
He gave her a cold glance. ‘I don’t,’ he snapped—at once assaulted with the memory of Darcy in his arms, of the naked softness of her body.
His mother looked puzzled. ‘You told me the other day that the two of you are friends.’
‘Were,’ he corrected. ‘And even then that was probably too strong a description of our relationship. Since you came into the equation, an armed truce is probably a better way of describing how Darcy views things between us.’
‘Yet you were the one she asked to set up this meeting between the two of us,’ his mother said slowly.
‘Only because her father didn’t stay around long enough to do it himself!’ Logan pointed out.
His mother swallowed hard. ‘I hurt Daniel very badly when I broke our engagement.’
‘Then why did you do it?’ Logan exploded.
‘What choice did I have, when you refused to help me?’ his mother told him bluntly.
Logan’s hands tightly gripped the steering wheel. ‘Don’t turn this around on me—’
‘I’m not, Logan.’ She sighed, reaching out to lightly touch his arm. ‘I’m just pointing out that I did tell you what I intended doing if Darcy couldn’t be talked round. Daniel wasn’t willing for me to meet her. And you refused to help me…’ She paused. ‘There seemed no other way.’
‘You could have done what you usually do—blast away and not worry who gets mown down in the process,’ he said nastily.
His mother looked at him, with a sad expression. ‘One day, Logan, I hope that you and I might be able to sit down and talk over the past like the two adults we now are. I said “one day”, Logan,’ she inserted firmly as he would have made a deriding reply. ‘So,’ she asked briskly. ‘Daniel tells me that Darcy is a level-headed, kind-hearted young lady; what’s your opinion?’
Logan was so taken aback by the unexpectedness of the question that, for a few moments, he wasn’t able to formulate an answer. Even when he did, it wasn’t an answer he could give to his mother! Because he found Darcy tempestuous, not level-headed, and as for kind-hearted—! Anyway, the state of Darcy’s heart, kind or otherwise, was something he didn’t want to know about!
‘My opinion is that you wait until you meet her and judge for yourself,’ he replied noncommittally as he drove down to the basement car park of the hotel.
Maybe having his mother around for this meeting with Darcy wasn’t such a bad thing after all, he decided, after taking one look at Darcy as she sat in the hotel lounge waiting for them to arrive.
Why had he never thought her beautiful? Today, in a bright red trouser suit—that should have clashed with that vivid red hair, but somehow didn’t—teamed with a black blouse, both fitting the slenderness of her body perfectly, and her hair loose and gleaming down to her shoulders, her eyes huge, lashes thick and long, blusher colouring her cheeks, a bright red gloss on her lips, Darcy was absolutely gorgeous!
In comparison, his mother had played down the dark sensuality of her own beauty, wearing a demure grey skirt suit with a black blouse, even her make-up was less pronounced today; she wore only a light blusher on her cheeks, and a pale peach lip-gloss.
Logan had no doubts that both women had made these changes to their appearance in expectation of meeting the other. His mother he didn’t give a care about; she played a role so often it was difficult to know with her what was real and what wasn’t. But the effect on Logan of this totally different-looking Darcy was one of stunned silence.
Making him fully aware that it wasn’t only her smiles that could render him speechless!
Maybe he could just introduce the two women and make his excuses? Because he wasn’t sure he could actually sit here, with his mother on one side of him, and Darcy on the other, looking the way that she did, and behave normally!
But, the introductions over, instead of making his excuses and leaving, he found himself sitting down with the two women, even agreeing to take tea with them when the waiter came over to take their order!
Willpower, Logan, he told himself disgustedly. Quite—wherever was it?
But he very quickly realised as the two women looked warily at each other that it was going to be up to him to break this initial awkward silence.
‘Were you busy at lunch-time today?’ he asked Darcy conversationally.
She seemed relieved to speak to him, hardly seeming to be able to even look at Margaret. ‘Not too bad.’
Logan wasn’t altogether sure he believed her; she still looked very tired to him. ‘Have you heard from your father?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she answered flatly, shooting his mother a brief look beneath lowered lashes.
Obviously she was wondering if Margaret had heard from Daniel Simon, Logan realised disgustedly. Well, if Darcy wasn’t going to ask her, he was!
He looked at his mother with narrowed eyes. ‘What about you?’ he pressed.
Margaret Fraser took her time answering, crossing one slender leg over the other, before looking up at him with unemotional blue eyes. ‘Logan, I— Ah, tea.’ She smiled up at the waiter as he began to place tea things on the table in front of them.
The young waiter—predictably!—couldn’t take his eyes off Margaret as he went about his duties, obviously wondering if this really could be the beautiful actress Margaret Fraser, but he was too polite to actually ask.
Logan viewed the young man’s reaction with a totally jaundiced eye. He had been seeing this reaction to his mother’s looks all his life, had found it to be the height of embarrassment when introducing her to schoolfriends, followed by university friends—the fact that she was old enough to be their mother making no difference! Old or young, men were always bowled over by the way his mother looked.
Darcy, he could see, looked slightly green as she also noted the young man’s response to Margaret Fraser.
‘Shall I pour the tea?’ his mother offered lightly once they were alone again.
She could damn well answer his question, was what she could do!
‘Go ahead,’ he told his mother dryly. ‘And while you’re at it, tell
