She had thought Donald was ‘the nephew’ James Seymour spoke about with such dislike; now she knew it to be Logan. She hadn’t thought it could be poor Donald, he was so innocuous no one could possibly take such a dislike to him!
‘I’m glad you can still find something to smile about,’ snapped a contemptuous voice.
Callie turned to face Logan, swallowing her nervousness, determined not to let him see how much he had hurt her. ‘What do you want?’ she asked rudely.
‘To talk.’ His mouth twisted. ‘What else?’ He came fully into the room and closed the door behind him, more threatening with every step he took towards her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
&n
bsp; CALLIE stood up, stiff with contempt. ‘I have nothing more to say to you,’ she told him haughtily.
‘Maybe not,’ he scorned. ‘But I have plenty to say to you.’ His icy gaze levelled on the file she still held in her hand. ‘And what would that be?’ he taunted.
She gave a startled look. ‘This? It— Why, it— Give it back to me!’ she cried as he snatched the file away from her. ‘How dare you!’ she blazed.
‘Didn’t you learn anything about me, Call—Caroline?’ His voice hardened over the latter. ‘You should have learnt, even in our brief acquaintance, that I don’t suffer fools gladly.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning you’re a fool.’ He flicked slowly through the handwritten sheets in the file. ‘You’ve done your homework thoroughly, I see.’ He closed the folder with a snap and threw it down on the bed, thrusting his hand savagely into his trousers pockets. ‘But not thoroughly enough,’ he added contemptuously. ‘You would have been better sticking with Donald,’ he scorned. ‘I know he doesn’t have control of his shares yet, but it’s only a matter of time, just until Charles dies or retires—although the latter isn’t very likely,’ he derided. ‘But he would still have been a safer bet than me.’
Callie was very pale, shaking with reaction. ‘I don’t understand what you mean.’
‘Like hell you don’t!’ Logan rasped. ‘But I’d never have let you take control of Spencer Plastics.’
‘Take control…?’
‘If you’d married me, I would have taken control, not the other way around!’
‘Oh, I know that,’ she scorned. ‘It was a very clever plan, carried out with so much more finesse—and experience—than Donald ever could.’
Logan’s mouth twisted. ‘Don’t try turning the tables on me, Caroline. I had no idea who you were until just now—’
‘Don’t lie to me!’
‘Whereas it’s obvious you knew all there was to know from the first.’ His glance flickered pointedly over the file.
‘No—’
‘The evidence damns you, Caroline,’ he scorned harshly. ‘Your acting is superb—that degree of shyness you occasionally display was just the added touch needed to gain a man’s interest. I fell for the whole thing, the whole damned act!’
‘If anyone was acting it was you!’
‘Give up, Caroline,’ he sneered. ‘The charade is over. I wouldn’t marry you now if you gave me half your shares to do it.’
‘And that I’ll never do!’ Her eyes blazed.
‘Then it will have to be Donald after all. Don’t worry,’ he mocked harshly, ‘he’ll still be willing—Mummy and Daddy will make sure of that. Of course it’s more long-term than marrying me would have been, but you would eventually have control. Donald certainly isn’t strong enough to stop you.’
Callie stood up, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. ‘Why are you twisting everything? Why try and make it look as if I’m the one who tried to trick you, when all the time you know you took over from Donald when you saw he wasn’t going to succeed?’
‘I didn’t take over anything from my simpering cousin—’
‘Of course you didn’t,’ she recalled bitterly. ‘It was your idea in the first place, wasn’t it?’
‘What was?’ Logan frowned.