an intensity that bordered on obsession. ‘Have I gone too far, Evangeline?’
‘No,’ she said slowly as her fist clenched around the ring. ‘It’s not you who’s gone too far.’
And before Logan had any notion of what she was about to do, Evie twirled and flung his mother’s ring into the shadowy garden, into the shrubbery far, far away.
The pregnant silence that followed threatened to engulf them all.
‘Good arm,’ said Max finally.
‘It was given to me,’ she said raggedly. ‘And I’ve done what I wanted with it. No one needs that kind of reminder in their life. No one.’
He couldn’t cope. Logan stared at her, his every defence shattered, and something passed between them, something dark and sticky and breathtakingly savage. He didn’t cope well with emotion; his mother was right. Sometimes his feelings just got too big for him to hold.
‘Excuse me,’ he muttered, before he did something unforgivable like drag her from the room, lock her in his arms and never let her go. ‘Excuse me, I have to go.’
Evie watched him leave, her heart so full of lead she was surprised she was still standing up. ‘I did the wrong thing,’ she whispered to Max. ‘Said the wrong thing.’
‘No,’ said Max and his arms came around her comfortingly, urging her to turn and focus her stricken gaze on something other than the door Logan had just exited through. ‘You did exactly the right thing. He’s feeling too vulnerable, that’s all. He never stays when he gets that way.’
Evie didn’t want to stay either. Not that she wanted to run after Logan, because she didn’t. Assuming she even caught up with him, what would she say? How was she supposed to heal hurts inflicted so long ago? If they hadn’t healed by now, chances were they never would.
‘Max, may we leave early too?’ she asked shakily. ‘I’ve had enough. I really have.’ Of the assault on her senses and on her mind. Of the impossible situations that just kept coming, and of the helplessness she felt in the face of this family’s hidden pain. ‘I want to go upstairs and pack, then call a taxi.’
‘Where do you want to go?’ Max’s usually laughing brown eyes were dark with concern.
‘Back to Sydney,’ she said. ‘Away from here. I want to go home.’
WALKING away from Logan that Saturday night at the cocktail party wasn’t the hardest thing Evie had ever done. Staying sane the following week was the hardest thing she’d ever done. Sane when Max looked at her sideways and kept his mouth firmly shut. Sane as she worked on project proposals and tried not to wonder what Logan was doing and what he was thinking, and whether she’d ever see him again.
How she could have handled things better.
What she might have done to make Logan stay.
‘What?’ she demanded in exasperation as Max walked into her office unannounced for about the tenth time that morning.
‘Touchy,’ he said.
‘Bite me.’
‘Not my buzz,’ said Max, and placed a sheet of paper on top of the drawings in front of her. ‘You’d be wanting my brother for that.’
He wasn’t wrong. ‘I’m working,’ she said and picked up the sheet and held it out for Max to take back. ‘Whatever it is, you deal with it.’
‘Read it,’ he insisted, so Evie turned it back around with a sigh.
A bank deposit notice, but not a bank she regularly dealt with. Max’s personal account, by the looks of it. With deposit into it yesterday of ten million dollars.
‘Trust fund?’ she asked.
‘Logan.’
Evie’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Terms?’
‘Three per cent below market interest rate.’
‘Handy.’
‘You don’t mind?’ asked Max.
‘Do you?’
‘He stole my fake fiancée and messed with my business plan,’ said Max dryly. ‘I’ll take his money.’
‘Yay for brotherly love,’ said Evie. ‘As long as the loan is between you and Logan and the money comes into the business through you alone, I have no objections.’
‘That’s how it’ll work.’
‘Lucky MEP.’
‘Any other questions?’ asked Max.
Evie shook her head.
‘You don’t want to know where Logan is? What he’s been doing lately?’
She did want to know where Logan was and what he’d been doing lately. But she sure as hell wasn’t going to ask.
‘PNG,’ said Max, as if reading her mind. ‘Sorting out the mess some mining company has made of their operation there. Sometimes Logan troubleshoots for others. For a hefty fee.’
‘The devil will have his due.’
‘He’s a good man, Evie.’
‘I know that, Max.’
‘You should call him. Might improve your mood.’
‘There is nothing wrong with my mood.’
‘Carlo would beg to disagree.’
‘Carlo ordered twenty-eight thousand dollars’ worth of reo we don’t need,’ she said curtly. ‘He’s lucky I let him keep his job.’
‘And Logan thinks you meek,’ muttered Max beneath his breath. ‘God knows why.’
Evie knew exactly why. ‘Was there anything else?’
‘Could be Logan will need a place to stay for a few days when he returns at the end of the week and before he heads back to London. Could be I’m thinking of offering up my apartment for him to use while he’s here.’
‘Why? You think he’s short of cash?’ asked Evie dryly.
‘What I think, said Max with admirable restraint, ‘is that if you want to see him again, you shouldn’t wait for him to call you. Call him. Arrange something. Don’t assume that he knows what he’s doing when it comes to relationships, especially important ones, because he doesn’t.’ Max plucked the bank note from her fingers and waved it in front of her face. ‘This, for example, might as well have “Evie, I want to see you again” written all over it.’
‘But it doesn’t,’
