‘Why, to marry Caroline and keep the shares in the family.’
‘No…!’ Callie moaned, pain shooting through her body. ‘Oh no, not Logan!’
‘What the hell is going on?’ he rasped. ‘Callie—’
‘Caroline,’ she corrected shrilly. ‘My name is Caroline Day, as you’ve known all the time.’ She wrenched away from him.’ ‘How could you, Logan? How could you?’ she choked, her eyes huge in her pale face.
Logan was the person behind Donald’s desire to marry her for the shares in Spencer Plastics, just as Logan himself had set out to marry her for the same reason. She had thought a warped mind was behind the scheme, now she knew it had to be true. Everything Logan had ever said to her was a lie, every word of love had been a lie, their whole engagement was a
lie.
She drew off the engagement ring and held it out to him, surprised at her own control. ‘I won’t be needing this any more.’ Her voice was brittle.
Logan looked at her with dazed eyes. ‘You’re going to marry me. You said you were,’ he finished lamely.
‘And if your mother hadn’t invited your uncle and aunt I probably would have done,’ she said bitterly. ‘For that I thank you, Mrs Carrington,’ she looked at the elderly woman, her head held high. ‘You can have no idea what you’ve saved me from. I know you weren’t involved in this—this desception,’ her voice softened. ‘Jeff always spoke of you so lovingly.’ She now knew that Logan’s mother was the sister Jeff had admired so much, that Logan’s mother was ‘Cissy’.
‘Jeff?’ Logan echoed sharply. ‘You can’t mean this Jeff you’re always talking about was my Uncle Jeffrey?’
She gave him a scornful look, her heart breaking inside at the way he had deceived her, at how he was still trying to deceive her. ‘Stop pretending, Logan,’ she said hardly. ‘I know the truth now, so you can stop the act.’
‘The truth? But I— You’re the woman who lived with my uncle?’ His eyes had narrowed to icy grey slits.
‘You know I am!’
‘I think it’s too bad of you, Logan, to try and get control of Spencer Plastics in this way,’ Donald reproved.
‘Shut up, Donald!’ his cousin rasped, running a hand through his dark hair, for once not his immaculate self.
‘Donald’s right,’ his aunt put in waspishly. ‘I think the way you’ve gone about this is very underhand.’
‘Underhand!’ Logan repeated disgustedly. ‘As I understand it, my dear cousin would have been only too happy to have achieved the same result.’
‘Well—yes,’ Donald flushed. ‘But at least you knew about it. It was your idea, after all.’
‘Yes, it was my idea,’ Logan ground out, looking at Callie with bleak eyes. ‘But I had no idea how young and beautiful Miss Day was.’
‘And as soon as you did you decided to marry her yourself,’ his uncle concluded. ‘Really, Logan, you could have let us in on your plans.’
‘And have you ruin it all?’ he scorned.
‘As they have now,’ Callie said dully, each word Logan uttered cutting into her like a knife. He had seemed so genuine in his love, so much in love, and it had all been a sham. How he must have laughed at her easy capitulation, her girlish adoration of him. Well, she wasn’t a girl any more, she had suddenly grown up, and if she had been determined to fight the Spencers she was ten times more determined to fight Logan.
‘Yes,’ he bit out, his eyes a cool grey, his jaw rigid. ‘But for whom?’ he questioned bitterly.
Callie frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘What indeed?’ he drawled insultingly.
‘You won’t get away with this, Logan,’ his uncle snapped. ‘I have no intention of letting you gain control of Spencers.’
‘Neither do I!’ Callie told him vehemently.
Logan spoke to his uncle, but his gaze didn’t waver from Callie. ‘And why would I want Spencers? My own company is enough for me.’
‘Men like you never have enough!’ Callie said contemptuously.
‘Men like me?’ he repeated softly dangerously.