Logan was furious, and Callie knew she was supposed to be upset, and yet somehow she wasn’t. Her feelings were ones of sympathy, for Danielle, that she still cared enough for Logan to hit out in that bitchy way, a way guaranteed to alienate him even though it must have given her tremendous satisfaction at the time.
Logan was still standing, had stood all during the conversation with Danielle, his eyes glittering dangerously now, his mouth a grim line. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he rasped, taking Callie’s hand in his and pulling her to her feet.
She frowned her consternation. ‘We haven’t even eaten yet!’
He sighed his impatience. ‘You’re hungry?’
‘Well, I— Yes.’ It might be mundane, but it was the truth. She had been too busy at work today to bother about lunch, and her stomach was now protesting loudly at the omission.
‘We’ll eat at my apartment,’ he told her derisively. ‘I’m sure my housekeeper can provide us with something.’
‘But, Logan—’
‘I know I said we should stay away from potentially dangerous situations,’ he ran an agitated hand through the thickness of his hair, ‘but I want to talk to you, and I certainly can’t do it here. Will you come with me?’
She offered no more resistance, welcoming the chance to go to Logan’s home. The restraint he had put on their relationship had meant they had shared no more than a brief if passionate goodnight kiss at the end of the evening, and the strain of it all was beginning to tell on her. They had been seeing each other for weeks now, and Logan controlled their meetings with the experience he had no trouble exerting. She welcomed this chance to be alone with him.
He had a beautiful home, with an elegance and style that Logan himself possessed. The lounge he took her into was on two levels, the sitting area almost seemed to be sunk into the floor, in several shades of brown and gold—like autumn, Callie thought wonderingly, the dining area being up three steps on the higher level.
Logan had just invited her to sit down when a middle-aged woman came into the room. Logan-ordered her out again after asking her to prepare dinner for two. All the time he was talking to the housekeeper his gaze never left Callie.
To the other woman’s credit she didn’t even blink at suddenly being asked to produce a meal for two people, and Logan didn’t seem to feel any awkwardness in asking her. Callie wondered what he would have made of the scratch meal she would have provided at such short notice—packet chips and eggs any style! The capable Mrs Brown looked as if she would provide something much more appetising than that.
Logan paced the room once they were alone, the anger that had possessed him all the way here now turning to charged tension. ‘God, I could strangle her!’ he muttered.
‘Logan, please—’
‘Danielle behaved disgracefully!’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she told him gently. ‘Really it doesn’t. You and she were close—’
‘Too damned close!’
‘The sort of closeness I would like,’ she insisted softly, meeting his narrow-eyed gaze unflinchingly. ‘The sort of closeness I want, Logan?’
‘No!’
She paled. ‘You don’t want to make love to me?’
He came to sit down beside her. ‘Not make love to you?’ he groaned. ‘I think I’ll die if I can’t soon see your face beside me when I wake up in the morning, carry the memory of your warm loving with me all day until I can get home and we make love all over again.’
Her pulse raced, warmth entering her cheeks. ‘That’s what I want too,’ she told him huskily.
‘Not quite,’ he derided.
‘But I do!’
‘I haven’t finished saying all that needs to be said.’ He grimaced. ‘What I’m trying to say, and not making a very good job of it, is that I don’t just want an affair with you. I want more, much more. I want you beside me for the rest of my life, Callie.’
‘Logan…?’
He drew in a deep breath. ‘I want marriage, Callie.’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘DARLING?’ he prompted anxiously at her numbed silence, her wide-eyed disbelief.
Callie swallowed hard. ‘But you don’t get married! You never—’