‘But—’
‘Yes or no?’
Yes, she wanted to marry him, but no, she didn’t want to be just another pawn in his game. But how could she be now, she no longer had the shares!
‘I saw James Seymour this morning—’
‘I know,’ Logan nodded impatiently.
‘He told you…?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you still want to marry me?’
‘Oh yes,’ he said with certainty. ‘Why else do you think I had the problem of those shares removed? I knew you would never marry me while they stood between us.’ His hand tightened. ‘Now answer me, Callie.’
‘But—’
‘Yes or no?’ he repeated hardly.
‘Yes. But—’
‘No buts, Callie,’ he groaned, his arms tightly about her as he pulled her fully into his arms. ‘No ifs or maybes either. I love you, I want to marry you—I’m going to marry you.’
‘But it was all a trick on your part—’
‘On the part of fate,’ he corrected. ‘I can see that now. I mocked my uncle with a remark that was never meant to be taken seriously, a remark I’d forgotten two minutes after saying it, and on Christmas Day it backfired on me. I taunted Charles with the idea that Donald should marry the woman Jeffrey had lived with if he wanted to keep the shares in the family. I’ve never had time for Spencer Plastics, only took control of my mother’s shares to prevent Charles hounding her. As you may have gathered, Jeffrey kept pretty well out of any decisions concerning the business too.’
‘Except when it came to expansion,’ she reminded him.
‘Yes,’ he smiled. ‘Charles will be able to go ahead with that now. And knowing his damned luck he’ll make a success of it too! God, how he panicked at the thought of what he thought would be a money-grasping older woman coming into the business. He must have thanked his guardian angel when you turned up. Hell, I didn’t even know the name of the woman he was so up in arms about, I simply wasn’t interested enough to find out. I was shocked out of my mind on Christmas Day when I found you were that woman.’
‘But I wasn’t, my mother was married to Jeff.’ Callie was snuggled in his arms, loving each wonderful word of his explanation.
‘How could we know that, Jeffrey certainly never told anyone. If James Seymour could make that mistake, how could us lesser mortals know any better?’ he taunted.
She giggled. ‘Mr Seymour doesn’t like you either.’
‘I know,’ he chuckled. ‘We were meant to meet,’ he said earnestly. ‘Can’t you see that, Callie? We were meant to meet and fall in love.’
‘Oh yes!’ She could only believe him now, knew that she had nothing but herself that he might want. His love hadn’t been a deception at all, but a wonderful reality, a rea
lity that had almost been destroyed because of their distrust of each other.
‘I have another piece of news that might interest you,’ he murmured after kissing her thoroughly.
‘Yes?’ she said dreamily.
‘Donald has eloped, with Lena McDonnell!’
‘Donald…? My goodness,’ she couldn’t help laughing. ‘Lena…?’ she said slowly. ‘Don’t I know that name?’
‘Let’s go through to the drawing-room and make ourselves comfortable, then I’ll tell you everything.’ He settled her into the curve of his arm as they sat side by side on the sofa. ‘Lena is—was, Charles’s secretary.’
A memory of the busty blonde with hard blue eyes came to mind. ‘Oh dear! Poor Donald!’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Logan lightly kissed her temple.