slid it back on the rack. ‘I vote we tell your mother’s friends that we’re celebrating the success of our business partnership and hopefully the beginning of bigger and better things for MEP. We smile and shake our heads and say we’re sorry people got the wrong idea but we’re not engaged and not about to be. We keep it simple. Deny everything.’
‘You really think that’s going to fly?’
‘Put it this way,’ she said. ‘You got a better idea?’
The cocktail party was every bit as awkward as Evie thought it would be. Elegant, wealthy people, all set to welcome Evie into their lives at Caroline’s behest, and politely puzzled when it became clear that they didn’t have to.
Civilised. It was all so very civilised, but no midnight-blue cocktail gown in the world could shield her from Logan’s powerful presence as she stood by Max’s side and talked business goals and achievements with strangers.
Logan didn’t approach her. He stuck to his side of the room and Evie stuck to hers. She didn’t watch him out of the corner of her eye. Instead she stuck to finding him in reflections in mirrors, of which there were plenty. In the shine of tall silver vases. How could one man assault her senses the way he did, just by being in a room? One man, dressed in black tie, just like every other man in the room.
‘Evie, stop fidgeting,’ said Max.
‘I’m not fidgeting.’
She was fidgeting, so with a smothered curse she stopped.
‘And swearing,’ murmured Max, highly amused. ‘You could stop that too.’
‘I’m not—damn!’ Evie swore rather than add chronic lying to her list of sins too. ‘How much longer do we have to stay here?’
‘Until the bitter end,’ said Max cheerfully. ‘I’m guessing around midnight.’
She’d been sticking to mineral water until now. Maybe it was time she swapped over to something with a little more kick. Then again, the argument against alcohol was a strong one. She’d already been quite uninhibited enough today.
‘You could marry someone else,’ she told Max during a moment they had to themselves—just business partners sharing a quiet moment out on the patio, drinks in hand and smiles at the ready. ‘A childhood friend. Someone who knows this life and how to live it. Someone who’d be happy to accommodate you for two years and then move on.’
‘Absolutely not,’ said Max with a shudder. ‘I’m over marriage for the time being. I might try being in love with the person next time. Just a thought.’
‘How are we going to get the money for the civic centre bid?’
‘Overdraft for some of it,’ said Max. ‘I’ll put my place on the market.’
‘I’ll put mine on,’ Evie said with a sigh. ‘We’re still going to come up short.’
‘Business loan,’ said Max bleakly. ‘Here, before I forget.’ He fished in his pocket and pulled out something small and round and silver-coloured, those bits of it that weren’t a dazzling, glittering blue. It was a sapphire ring the size of Texas. Evie didn’t understand. ‘My mother wants you to have this as a memento of our engagement. Something about payment for your trouble.’ He held it out towards her.
‘No.’ Evie took a hasty step back. ‘Whatever your mother’s opinions are, just … no. I’m all for forgetting we were ever engaged.’
‘I told her you’d say that.’ Max reached for her right hand and slipped it swiftly on her middle finger. Not her ring finger, not even the proper hand. ‘She seems to think I owe you a ring. That we were engaged, however briefly, and that you deserve some kind of compensation. Wear it. Flog it. I don’t care. Just take it. I’m a man in search of family harmony and my mother wants you to have it.’
‘I don’t want it,’ muttered Evie, tugging the ring off just as swiftly as it had gone on. It was too bulky anyway. Too much the reminder of bad decisions too hastily made. ‘Please, Max. Just give it back to her. Tell her I don’t want it.’
But Max’s attention had drifted to a point just over her shoulder, his eyes narrowing fast, and Evie knew, even before she looked over her shoulder, that Logan was heading their way. ‘Take it,’ she said, trying to push the ring into Max’s hand, only he wasn’t having it, and then Logan was upon them and Max automatically moved to make room for him.
‘Change of heart?’ murmured Logan, looking at the ring, and shock flared deep in his eyes; right before those same eyes turned bitter and then carefully blank.
‘This isn’t what it looks like.’ Max’s words came low and fast. ‘It’s not an engagement ring. We’re not engaged. The wedding’s off and it’s staying off. You know that.’
‘Where’d you get the ring?’ asked Logan, and didn’t wait for Max’s answer. ‘She give it to you? Our mother? She tell you to give it to Evangeline?’
‘Yes.’ Max looked uneasy. Evie was uneasy.
‘Take it,’ said Evie urgently. ‘I don’t want it. Would someone please just take it back?’
But Logan wanted no part of it. He knew that stone, the ocean-reef-blue of it. He’d seen it before. He looked towards the small crowd of people in the adjoining room. Those who hadn’t drifted out onto the patio or into the gardens and his mother was one of them. What was she doing? What the hell was she thinking giving Evie this particular ring? She had that look about her; the one that said I’m worried about you and I’m scared of what you’ll do and he wished to hell she’d just stop looking at him like that! Look to her own flaws, for once, and not only to his.
‘Logan?’ said Evie, and put her hand to his forearm to draw his attention, and something twisted deep in his gut. ‘Logan, what’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Bull,’ she snapped, calling his bluff. ‘You’re hurt.’
‘No. It’s her ring. What do I care what she does with it?’
‘Logan, who gave your mother this ring?’ Evie asked tightly.
But Logan refused to answer her.
‘It’s the one your father gave her, isn’t it?’ said Evie.
‘No,’ said Max.
‘Doesn’t matter.’ He wouldn’t let it matter.
‘Logan, this can’t be that ring,’ continued Max doggedly. ‘She wouldn’t do that.’
But she had.
Max wouldn’t recognise it; she’d never worn it in front of him. Different lifetime. Different family. Caroline Carmichael had got it right the second time round. A gentle, supportive husband and a loving, well-balanced child.
Max thought their mother was wonderful.
And then the bitter blackness spewed forth, and, for the second time that day, Logan let it engulf him.
‘She
