Tall, Dark & Gorgeous: To Marry McKenzie

Was he being deliberately difficult? Didn’t he realise how much it hurt her to be at odds with her father like this?

Apart from picking up her things from the house, telling her father where she was staying for the moment, the two of them hadn’t spoken to each other for two days. And this man’s mother was responsible for the estrangement between the two of them.

‘I don’t see what your problem is, Darcy,’ Logan told her. ‘You’ve got what you wanted, by fair means or foul, so why—?’

‘What do you mean?’ she cut in.

‘My mother has broken off her engagement to your father,’ Logan revealed.

‘She’s done what?’ she gasped, suddenly feeling lightheaded, so much so that she sat down abruptly on the chair beside the telephone.

‘Yes, it’s all off,’ Logan told her happily. ‘My mother broke the engagement last night.’

‘Why?’ Darcy breathed dazedly.

‘Does it matter?’ Logan replied. ‘It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’

She hadn’t wanted her father to marry Margaret Fraser, no, but until she knew the reasons for the broken engagement she could feel no satisfaction in its ending. If the couple had simply decided they had made a mistake after all, that was okay, but if it were for any other reason—such as her own objections to it!—then it wasn’t okay at all. If Margaret Fraser had been the one to break the engagement, how must her father feel now?

‘I must say,’ Logan continued at her silence, ‘I expected you to be happier about it than this.’

But how could she be—when she knew her father must be totally miserable?

This was awful. A mess. It was a mess she had helped create…!

‘Then you thought wrong, Logan,’ she responded. ‘And if you think I’m going out with you this evening to celebrate—’

‘I think celebration is far too strong a description of my invitation,’ he returned mildly. ‘Admittedly, we can no longer drink a toast to the happy couple, but—’

‘How can you be so unfeeling?’ she interrupted accusingly. ‘I have no idea how your mother feels, but my father is probably devastated, and all you can do is—’

‘Now just a minute, Darcy,’ he put in impatiently. ‘You’re the one that wanted an end to this engagement, and now that you have it, you—’

‘You wanted it as much as I did,’ she defended heatedly. ‘You were the one who thought my father wasn’t good enough for your mother!’

‘I don’t think I ever said that—’

‘But you thought it!’ Darcy persisted. ‘And now it seems, no doubt with more than a little help from you, that your mother is of the same opinion. How dare you presume—?’

‘Stop right there, Darcy,’ Logan told her firmly.

‘I most certainly will not,’ she retorted angrily. ‘You made it perfectly obvious that you were not happy about my father marrying your mother—’

‘As obvious as you did that you weren’t happy about my mother marrying your father. Now we’ve both got our wish, so what are you complaining about? You’ve won, Darcy,’ he taunted. ‘Defeated the dragon. In fact, she’s turned tail and run!’

Except Darcy didn’t feel as if she had won anything—she felt terrible! Not that she had changed her opinion about the older woman’s unsuitability for her father, she had just realised—with blinding clarity!—that she didn’t have the right to decide those things for another person, least of all her father.

‘I think you’re an unfeeling brute,’ she told Logan indignantly.

‘Because I won’t pretend to be upset about all this?’ he scorned.

‘Because you’re a selfish swine!’ she returned forcefully.

‘Does that mean you won’t be having dinner with me this evening?’ he queried wryly.

‘Not this evening, or ever!’ she cried. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go out.’

‘To see your father?’

‘Mind your own damned business!’ she shouted, before slamming down the telephone receiver.

He was a brute. An unfeeling swine. Didn’t he care that his mother was probably as unhappy at the broken engagement as her father no doubt was? Obviously not. He was just glad his mother’s engagement to—in his eyes!—a totally unsuitable man was at an end.

Well, they would see about that!

CHAPTER SIX

LOGAN felt like a murderer returning to the scene of the crime!

Not that Chef Simon, with its warm decor, wonderful smells of cooking food, and efficiently friendly staff, was anything like a scene of carnage and destruction. Logan just felt, as he walked through the restaurant doorway, as if he were entering an arena!

Although, admittedly, it was an arena of his own making!

He had no doubt that Darcy really did hate his guts after their telephone conversation earlier. But he had been the way that he had for a reason.

Except he hadn’t been able to resist coming here this evening, if only to see if Darcy had been reunited with her father. Which had, after all—although she would never see it that way—been the purpose of his telephone call to her earlier…

‘Good evening, Mr McKenzie,’ the maître d’ greeted him warmly. ‘How nice to see you again.’

Coming here to eat twice in one week probably did seem a little excessive, Logan accepted, but his curiosity, he inwardly admitted, had got the better of him.

‘James,’ he said with a nod, after reading the name on the man’s lapel. ‘My secretary telephoned earlier and booked a table for me. For one,’ he added dryly; this eating alone was becoming a habit!

‘She certainly did,’ the maître d’ assured him. ‘The same table as before, if that’s okay with you?’

Why not? He was no more in the mood for company this evening than he had been three days ago!

‘Fine.’ He smiled. ‘And I’ll endeavour to get through the whole evening this time, too,’ he quipped.

The other man waved away his words of apology. ‘Your cousin explained that you had been called away unexpectedly.’

Thank you, Fergus, Logan thought to himself.

‘Is Darcy—Miss Simon in this evening?’ he casually asked the maître d’ once he was seated, a menu placed in front of him.

For a brief moment, the other man’s cheerful efficiency deserted him, but it was quickly brought under control, although his smile, when it came, still seemed to Logan to be slightly strained. ‘She certainly is, Mr McKenzie,’ he confirmed. ‘Would you like me to tell her—?’

‘No! Er—no,’ Logan repeated less harshly. ‘I merely wondered if she was here tonight, that’s all. Thank you,’ he added dismissively.