Intimate Surrender

At the time. Logan pointedly refused to answer questions about the object of his affections, but after some digging, Portland Weekly has since learned his snuggle-honey was none other than Katherine Crosby. That’s right, of those Crosbys—Logan rivals on and off the corporate battlefield.

Does their embrace signal an end to the famous feud? Are Portland’s own versions of the Hatfield and McCoy clans really ready to kiss and make up?

Apparently at least two of them are.

Neither Logan nor Ms. Crosby were available for comment but we’ll bring you more about this exciting development as soon as we find out more.”

Her already queasy stomach dipped. Her mother was bound to hear about this; Katie had no doubt whatsoever about that. And when she did, Katie knew Sheila Crosby would rage and carry on for days, accusing her of everything from disloyalty to outright treason.

Just thinking about the inevitable scene made her shoulders sag with the exhaustion that never seemed far away these days.

“Nothing to say?” Peter finally asked when her silence dragged on.

“I’ve never been called a glamour-gal before. I don’t believe it’s as gratifying as I would have imagined.”

His sculpted features darkened. “I dislike being made a fool of, Katherine.”

“Kate,” she murmured, regretting the glibness she tended to turn to during times of high stress. “Nearly everyone calls me Katie or Kate.”

“Really, Celeste?” He asked in that same biting tone.

Oh, Katie. What a mess you’re in, she thought. Pregnant with this man’s baby, this overwhelming, powerful, gorgeous man who despised her and her family. If he hated her now, how would he react if he ever discovered the tiny secret she carried inside her?

The fragile threads of control seemed to slip a few more notches, but she flailed for them valiantly and faced him with what she hoped was cool aplomb.

Without waiting for the invitation she wasn’t sure she could issue, he yanked off his jacket and tossed it over the rack of entwined elk antlers in the hallway then claimed one of the plump armchairs near the fire. She really had no choice but to follow him and perched on the edge of the sofa, trying not to let him see her nervousness.

“Okay, let’s hear it. What’s your game?”

“Game?”

“What are you playing at? What were you trying to achieve by your little masquerade?”

Of course he would want explanations from her, some justification for her deception. How could she possibly find the words for something she didn’t even understand herself?

“Why didn’t you tell me who you were?”

“I don’t know that I have a good answer to that.”

“Try.” His voice was silk-sheathed steel.

She scrambled for some kind of explanation and finally came up with something she hoped sounded reasonable. It was part of the truth, just not all of it. “Katie Crosby is a fairly boring person,” she said after a long moment. “All she ever thinks about is work. I suppose it was exciting being someone else for a few hours. Someone glamorous and adventurous and…and desirable. I got carried away by the magic of the evening. Then, after we…kissed, I was afraid to tell you who I was. I knew you would be angry and it just seemed easier all around not to say anything.”

Peter studied her. She chewed her bottom lip after she finished speaking, waiting for him to respond. He wondered how in the hell a woman could appear so sweet and innocent on the outside while inside she was nothing but a deceptive little snake.

He had never been so furious. It was taking every ounce of willpower he possessed not to rage and yell and throw a table or two through that huge wall of windows.

His blood should have had time to cool in the twenty-four hours since his assistant had warily shown him that damn newspaper and he’d finally learned the identity of the mystery lover who had obsessed him for months. It had taken him most of that time to use all his connections and finally run her to ground here at this Wyoming ranch in the middle of nowhere, another hour to have his plane readied and two more in the air between here and Portland.

The whole time he’d been behind the controls of his Gulfstream III, he had waited for his anger to fade, for the familiar cool reserve the world expected of him to take over. But throughout the flight, as now, his skin had been hot and itchy as this fury seethed through him.

This woman—this slender, delicate-looking woman with her short hair and big eyes, who looked like a teenager in stocking feet and faded jeans—had made a complete fool out of him. Every word out of her lush little lips had been a lie.

When he thought about how he had obsessed over her in the three months since she blew through his life, the energy he had wasted looking for her, he could barely think past his rage and self-disgust.

A Crosby.

Just the name left a sour taste in his mouth. What an idiot he had been to throw away years of family loyalty, of complete dedication to the Logan name and everything it stood for, all for a pretty face.

All right, more than pretty, he admitted. Even now, when she wore no makeup to set off those sculpted cheekbones and full lips and when she had dark circles under her eyes and her features were pale, his body instinctively reacted to her.

He wanted her, even knowing who she was, and the discovery infuriated him even more.

“This is about the super router we’re developing, isn’t it?” he asked.

She was a hell of an actress, he’d give her that much. If he didn’t know better, he would almost believe that shock on her face was genuine. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“You went through my desk while I was asleep. Don’t try to deny it. Find out anything interesting about the project?”

Color flared high on those cheekbones. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Right. Now you’re going to tell me you don’t have any idea Logan is close to revolutionizing computer networking with our nano-peripheral-interface-router. And of course Crosby Systems, which coincidentally just released its own router-controller software, would have absolutely no interest in stealing the technology that would create the fastest networking system in the world. Come on, Crosby. You really think I’m dumb enough to fall for your lies twice?”

She gaped at him. “You think I was spying on you that night? That I was some kind of—of corporate Mata Hari, out for a little industrial espionage after I screw you into oblivion?”

“At this point, sweetheart, I wouldn’t put anything past you.”

“Because I’m a Crosby, right?”

That wounded belligerence in her voice grated down his spine like metal on metal. “Not only because you’re a Crosby. Because you’re also a lying, deceitful little—” He bit off the derogatory word just in time.

He was such an idiot. He hated to think about how his family would react to his abysmal lapse in judgment when they learned he’d been willing to risk the company’s entire future for a roll in the sack. He had a feeling he would be lucky if his name was still on the door of the CEO’s office at Logan. Hell, he’d be lucky if they even let him keep the name he’d been given as a six-year-old.

He never forgot how much he owed Terrence and Leslie Logan, how very blessed he had been to be adopted into their family two years after their own son had been kidnapped. If they hadn’t rescued him from the Children’s Connection orphanage, he hated thinking where he might have ended up. On the streets like his mother, probably, or in prison.

He owed them everything. His heart, his blood, his soul. When they read that damn tabloid article, he could just picture the disappointment in Terrence’s eyes, the hurt in Leslie’s. The knot in his stomach kinked a little tighter.

No. He had worked too hard for too long proving to his parents he was capable of running the Fortune 500 company they had built from the ground up. He refused to let a Crosby ruin everything, especially not this particular Crosby.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid, Peter?” she said now. “I never touched your desk.”

Against his will, he had a vivid memory of her naked and flushed the second or third time they made love, her luscious skin glowing with perspiration and the soft little noises of arousal she made as he took her against the nearest surface, which at the time just happened to be the top of his antique walnut desk.

Throughout that incredible night of passion, there had scarcely been a corner of his loft they’d missed in their hunger for each other.

He raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He knew the instant her own memory clicked in. A rosy blush spilled over her cheeks and she dropped her gaze.

“Well, besides that time,” she mumbled, looking so charmingly disconcerted he wondered how she could possibly be so deceitful.