The One That Got Away Read Free Page A

made her memory kick. Same
movement. Another time and place.
    ‘Pretty name,’ he rumbled as Evie let her arm fall to her
side.
    He’d known her as Angie—a name she’d once gone by. A name she’d
worked hard to forget, because Angie had been needy and greedy and far too
malleable beneath Logan Black’s all-consuming touch.
    ‘It’s short for Evangeline,’ she murmured, and met his gaze and
wished she hadn’t, for a fine fury had set up shop beneath his barely pleasant
façade. So he’d been duped by a name. Well, so had she. She’d been expecting
Logan Carmichael, brother to Max Carmichael.
    Not Logan Black.
    Logan’s gaze flicked down over her pretty little designer
dress, all the way to her pink-painted toenails peeking out from strappy summer
sandals. ‘Welcome to the family, Evangeline .’
    Max wasn’t stupid. He could sense the discord and he slid his
arm around Evie’s waist and encouraged her to tuck into his side, which she did,
every bit the small, sinking ship, finding harbour.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, restricting her gaze to the
buttons of Logan’s casual white shirt. It wasn’t the first time she’d taken
shelter in Max’s arms and it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was just...wrong.
    ‘How long are you staying?’ Max asked his brother.
    ‘Not long.’
    Logan ran a hand through his short cropped hair and the seams
of his shirt-sleeve strained over bulging triceps. Evie shifted restlessly
within Max’s embrace, every nerve sensitised and for all the wrong reasons.
    ‘Did you have to travel far to get here?’ she asked Logan. Not
a throwaway question. She needed him to be based far, far away.
    ‘Perth. I have a company office there. Head office is based in
London. Have you ever been to London, Evangeline?’
    ‘Yes.’ She’d met him in London. Lost herself in him in London.
‘A long time ago.’
    ‘And did it meet expectations?’ he asked silkily.
    ‘Yes and no. Some of the people I met there left me cold.’
    Logan’s eyes narrowed warningly.
    ‘So what is it that you do, Logan? What’s your history?’ Rude
now, and she knew it, but curiosity would have her know what he did for a
living. She’d never asked. It hadn’t been that kind of relationship.
    ‘I buy things, break them down, and repackage them for
profit.’
    ‘How gratifying,’ said Evie. ‘I build things.’
    No mistaking the silent challenge that passed between them, or
Max’s silent bafflement as he stared from one to the other.
    ‘Max, do you think your mother would mind if I took my bag up
to the room?’ she asked. ‘I wouldn’t mind freshening up.’
    ‘Your luggage is already in your suite,’ said Caroline from the
doorway. ‘And of course you’d like to freshen up. Come, I’ll show you the
way.’
    Five minutes ago, Evie wouldn’t have wanted to be alone with
Caroline Carmichael.
    Right now, it seemed like the perfect escape.
    * * *
    Logan watched her go, he couldn’t stop himself. He
remembered that walk, those legs, remembered her broken entreaties as she lay on
his bed, naked and waiting. He remembered how he was with her; his breathing
harsh and his brain burning. No matter how many times he’d taken her it had
never been enough. Whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it, and he hadn’t
recognised the danger in giving her whatever she asked for until the table had
given way beneath them and Angie had cut her head on the broken table leg on the
way down. ‘I’m okay,’ she’d said, over and over again. ‘Logan, it’s okay.’
    Eleven years later and he could still remember the warm, sticky
blood running down Angie’s face, running over his hands and hers as he’d tried
to determine the damage done. That particular memory was engraved on his
soul.
    ‘An accident,’ she’d told the doctor at the hospital as he’d
stitched her up and handed her over to the nurses to clean up her face. ‘I
fell.’
    And then one of the nurses had eased Angie’s shirt collar to
one side