CHAPTER ONE
CRASH!
'Damn!'
Logan looked up from the letters he was signing, his expression one of
puzzlement as he heard first the crash of what sounded like glass, quickly
followed by the expletive.
What—?
Crash!
'Double damn!'
Logan's expression turned to one of bemusement as he put down his pen to
stand up, moving in the direction from which the sound of breaking glass
was coming: the boardroom that adjoined his vast office.
He and a couple of business associates had lunched in there earlier,
discussing contracts while they ate; Logan had found this to be a good way
of doing business. The table was still partially set for the meal, he now
discovered, but the room itself was empty.
'Damn and blast it,' a disembodied voice muttered impatiently. 'That's two
glasses I'll have to replace now. I— ouch!' The last was obviously a cry of
pain.
Logan was even more intrigued now, walking slowly around the long
mahogany table, to find himself peering down at the top of a head of bright
red hair. Ah, the puzzle was solved: this was the girl—woman?—who had
served their lunch to them, an employee of Chef Simon. Logan hadn't taken
too much notice of her during the meal, having been intent on his business
discussions, but he did remember the occasional glimpse of that gleaming
red hair as she'd moved quietly round the table.
The girl straightened, frowning down at her left hand, where a considerable
amount of blood had appeared at the end of one of her fingers.
'Did you cut yourself?'
Whatever reaction Logan had expected to his sympathetic query, it was not
to have the girl jump almost six inches in the air in her nervousness,
knocking over one of the water glasses as she did so!
Logan managed to reach out and catch the glass before it rolled off the
table—to join the two he could see now were already shattered on the shiny
wood-tiled floor.
'No point in your having to buy three replacements instead of two,' he
murmured dryly as he righted the glass on the table. 'Is it a bad cut?' He
reached out with the intention of looking at the girl's hand.
Only to have that hand snatched out of his grasp as it was hidden behind her
back. The girl looked up at him with stricken grey eyes. 'I'm so sorry if I've
disturbed you, Mr McKenzie,' she gasped. 'I was just clearing away,
and—and—I broke the glasses.' She looked down at the shattered pieces.
'And—and—' Whatever she had been about to say was lost as she suddenly
dissolved into floods of tears.
Logan recoiled from this display of emotion, frowning darkly. 'Hey, it's
only a couple of glasses. I'm sure Chef Simon isn't that much of an ogre that
you have to cry about it.'
The outside catering company of Chef Simon had been taking care of the
occasional business lunches Logan had in his boardroom for over a year
now, and Logan had always found the other man reasonable to deal with.
Although he hadn't seen this young girl before, so perhaps she was new, and
feared losing her job because of those breakages...?
'You could always tell Chef Simon that I broke them,' he attempted to
cajole; weeping women were not his forte!
Well... not when they were weeping because they were worried or upset, he
acknowledged ruefully as he remembered that last meeting with Gloria a
couple of weeks ago. The frown deepened on his brow as he recalled the
tears she had cried, tears of anger and frustration because he had told her
their year-long relationship was over. She had even thrown a vase of
flowers at him when he'd refused to change his mind, Logan remembered
with distaste.
'Oh, I couldn't do that,' the girl instantly refused. 'Then he would put it on
your bill, and that wouldn't be fair at all.' She shook her head.
Fair... It wasn't a word Logan heard too often, either in business or his
personal life. Besides, the cost of a couple of glasses would hardly bankrupt
his multimillion- pound, multifaceted company...
The girl reached up to wipe away the tears staining her face, inadvertently
smearing blood over her cheeks instead. 'Oh, damn,' she muttered
frustratedly as she realised what she had done, searching unsuccessfully in