Borrowed Wife (4 page)

‘Alphabetical?’

‘No.
Priority. I’m afraid they’re private,’ she added, her face flushing softly, her
embarrassment at having to tell him to back off very obvious. He stood and
looked down at her, his mouth tilling in an amused way, ‘Sorry again in that
case.’ He nodded at her and began to waIk-off and Abigail quickly got on with
her task, making sure not to look up. He was the most handsome man she had ever
seen and she couldn’t work out how he could be so furious one minute and then
so nice to her. He had smiling grey eyes, like sparkling crystal, an
astonishing contrast to his dark hair and tanned face. He looked powerful, full
of easy authority and he hadn’t gone through the door yet.

She took
a stealthy little glance in that direction and he was standing at the door: his
hand was on it but he was still watching her.

‘What’s
your name?’ His voice had softened and she didn’t even consider telling him to
mind his own business.

‘Abigail.
Abigail Madden.’

For a
second the grey eyes narrowed, flaring over her from the shining fall of
jet-black hair to the slender shape of her beneath the red jumper, her skirt
was dark with in matching red flowers and it was spread around her as she
knelt. She felt a strange shock as her eyes met the intense gaze. It was a
mixture of alarm and an odd pleasure. She looked away hastily, getting back to
the files and he gave a low laugh that shivered its way down her spine

‘Goodbye,
Abigail Madden.’ She didn’t have time to answer because when she looked up he
had gone; the door was just swinging shut behind him, and it was a
disappointment big enough to bring out a great sigh as righted the files and
got to her feet.

She wondered who he was but
she knew that there was not much chance that she would find out. And, oddly
enough, she didn’t even think about his words as she had come through the door,
didn’t even wonder why he had been raging at her father. She was too dreamily
impressed by the man himself to think further.

It was two days later when
she saw him again. She always drove herself to work. Her father said it was the
best thing to do to show everyone that being his daughter brought no special
privileges- and in any case she enjoyed the drive and the small feeling of
power it gave her that she was working and driving to the office. She had
chided herself about her fantasy but it was still there as she left work on
Wednesday.

On
Wednesdays she stayed in town and went out for a meal with an old friend.
Sometimes they went to the cinema later. Her father never worried, however late
she was, even when it was winter and dark. He expected her to take care of
herself, to be responsible for her own actions.

As she
walked out of the building and went to her car her heart almost leapt into her
throat when a voice said quietly. ‘Hello. Abigail Madden.’ When she turned
round it was Logan. She couldn’t have mistaken that voice in any case but the
situation seemed uncanny, as if she was walking in a dream. She hadn’t
forgotten him for even one minute and he was right there, leaning against a
dark coloured Jaguar, those crystal-grey eyes on her face as she turned.

‘Going
home?’ he asked, his eyes lancing over her, and she was glad that this was the
day she went out, because she was dressed in a silky summer suit that was as
green as her eyes. She was wearing high heels too. It made her feel
sophisticated and he was very sophisticated. The suit he was wearing was
superbly tailored and he looked like a prince to Abigail’s dazzled eyes. He was
very tall, fit and strong-all lithe, muscular power that overwhelmed her.

Don’t you answer when a
stranger speaks lo you?’ he inquired softly. ‘If you’ve been told not to speak
to strange men, let me remind you that we’ve spoken before. I almost knocked
you down.’

I remember.’ Abigail’s
cheeks flushed softly. He had made her feel very young with his remarks about
strange men and now she didn’t know where to look.

‘Can I begin again?’ He
smiled at her warmly. ‘Are you going home?’

‘No, I’m going out.
This-this is my night when I stay in town.’

‘Ah! You’ve got a date.’
For a moment she had the strange feeling that he was disappointed and she
quickly corrected him.

Not a date exactly. I go
out with an old school friend on Wednesdays. We go for a meal and then-then
sometimes we go to see a film. She’s a girl,’ Abigail finished in a rush, just
to make sure he understood. What would she do if you didn’t turn up?’ I always
do turn up.’ Her heart seemed to take off frighteningly fast and she looked
away, biting her lip. If for any reason I can’t go out then I ring her.’

‘Ring her,’ Logan ordered quietly.

‘But—’

You’re going out with me.’
He looked at her steadily and Abigail bit her trembling lips harder, unable to
really believe it. He walked closer and stood looking down at her and she
managed to find her voice.

‘I don’t know you,’ she
whispered, and he nodded in understanding.

‘That’s why you’re going
out with me—unless you don’t want to know me’

‘I do!’
She looked up anxiously, scared that he would change his mind, no thought of
danger in her head it all, and Logan smiled into her eyes, his grey eyes slowly
inspecting her face with a sort of gentle probing that made her feel weak and
strange.

‘Then why
don’t you leave your car here and come with me now? We’ll find a telephone and
you can ring your friend. Then we’ll have dinner. I’ll bring you back to your
car later.’

Abigail
looked up at him like someone in a trance and he touched her flushed cheek
lightly.

‘There’s
nothing to be afraid of. All right?’ He was so wonderfully reassuring and
Abigail nodded. There was something to be afraid of. She should have been very
much afraid of this man with the soft, dark voice and the startling grey eyes
but she was too bewitched to know it. He had soothed his way into her soul.

The phone rang and Abigail
came back to reality with a start.

‘Brian
Wingate on the line for you,’ Martha said and put her straight through before
she had time to come out of the world of dreams and back into the bleak and
frightening present.

‘How are
things?’ He sounded safe and comfortable and Abigail smiled as she answered.

‘Hanging
by a thread. I expect the thread to snap at any moment.’

‘Well,
there’s no new word about,’ he assured her steadily. ‘What do you do, Abigail?
Do you wait for the axe to fall or do you slide out from under now?’

‘I can’t
slide out from under. Brian,’ she pointed out wearily. ‘I’m the one they have
to throw the book at. I have to see this out-Madden’s last stand.’

‘You’re
not the one,’ he said forcefully. ‘The only reason you’re there in that
position is because your father is ill. Are you telling me that if Martha Bates
had been forced to hold the fort she would have had to make a last stand?’

‘Knowing
Martha,’ Abigail mused, ‘she probably would have done. In any case,’ she added
more firmly, ‘I have the name. I’m a Madden. I can’t just hide.’

‘You’re
merely a girl!’

‘I’m
twenty-four and I feel eighty. The girl disappeared—somewhere.’

He swore
under his breath and for a moment she thought that he had simply decided to say
nothing more; then he said, ‘Look, love, I’m flying to Germany in the morning. I may be a week or even longer. Let me fix you up with us before I
go.’

‘No,
thanks, Brian I have to stick this out to the end. I appreciate—’

‘You’re
not expected to appreciate anything. I can use you in the firm. You’re good.
The trouble with you, Abigail, is that you’re too good, too gentle.’ She bit
down on her lip. That’s more or less what Logan had said this morning but he
had said it much more coldly. ‘When I’m back,’ Brian went on, I’ll phone
immediately. In the meantime...’

‘I’ll
keep my back to the wall and my finger on the trigger,’ she assured him,
forcing a bright laugh.

‘Dear,
unworldly Abigail.
^’
he mourned quietly. ‘Nothing stops a wolf-not
this wolf. Logan Steele is power beyond imagining, you know that.’ He sighed
lightly. ‘I won’t even be here to offer a shoulder to cry on. Take care.’

I will.’
She put the phone down and smiled ruefully. She might need a shoulder to cry on
but it would not  be Brian’s. It would never be anyone’s. Since Logan she hadn’t wanted any man to care for her. It was too dangerous, too cruel and not
fair. She still dreamed of Logan and woke up bewildered. It had been too
wonderful to be true in the first place, too cruel to be real when it had
ended.

When she finally got home,
the usual words were spoken, ‘Anything new?’

‘Nothing.’
She was not about to tell him about visit to Logan’s office. It would have
driven him over the edge. He had always hated Logan. As she had cancelled any
appointments, there was nothing at all discuss, and once again Abigail was
alone.

Kent
Madden was almost completely silent throughout dinner, merely grunting his
thanks when their long-time housekeeper, Rose, served the meal. She knew, of
course—everyone knew—and she cast a worried eye a Abigail’s pale face every
time she came into the Even Rose was relying on her, expecting miracles, and it
all weighed heavily on Abigail, even at home.

There was
nowhere to run, nowhere to go. It was utterly frustrating to be so vulnerable
and helpless.

‘Something
has got to be done!’ her father suddenly grated as they were having coffee.
‘There must be some—action we can take, something that I’m missing.’ He got up
and paced about, once again working himself up. ‘It’s never been a problem to
get hold of money.’

‘No
amount of money would match the Steele Group Abigail pointed out quietly. ‘Even
without the backing of two powerful banks Logan has millions of his own.’

And
you’re entitled to some of that!’ Kent Mad spun round and looked at her
fiercely. ‘You never divorce him.

‘If you had he would have
had to part with plenty’

‘I doubt
it. In any case. I want nothing from Logan. I wouldn’t accept a crust.’

‘You’re
too soft,’ he said scathingly. ‘One day, my girl you’ll learn that you have to
grab the things you want!’ You’ve let him off scot-free!’

‘I was
just glad to survive,’ Abigail murmured. They had been through this before and
the subject was painful and distasteful. When she had walked out on Logan she had left that life completely behind and she did not need to be reminded of it.

Her
father sank into his usual silence and she made her way to bed before he could
start up again. He always made her feel that somehow this was all her fault,
that It if she had never married Logan all this would never have happened.. It
would have, though. She was not nineteen now and the memory of Logan’s threat of that day five years ago was all too real. Even when he had been married
to her, even when she had been in his arms, he had been planning her father’s
destruction.

She lay
in bed, too bet up to sleep, and her mind went back to Logan. How cold and
heartless he had seemed today—just power with no drop of humanity in him. He
might continue to tear them apart until they were finish. He might feel that
the Madden Corporation was still viable but it was not viable for them. With Logan’s wealth and backing it was perhaps possible to save it. What did he intend to do?
Would he swoop down on them and take over or would he let them sink away into
oblivion?

His face
swam into her mind, first hard and cold and then warm and gentle as he had once
seemed to be. How could she have been so trusting, so naive? From the first she
had been under his spell and looking back, she could see that she had been
eager to believe anything, just be with him.

After
that first evening Logan had called her day, but never at home; in fact she’d
thought he had idea where she lived. He’d wanted her to go out with him
constantly and Abigail bad taken to staying in town in the evenings to be with
him. Her father had made comment. He hadn’t known about Logan and she hadn’t
told him. He had, as usual, been wrapped up in his own schemes, his own plans
and, provided that she was at work each day, he’d paid no attention to her at
all.

He had
always been like that. Without friends she would have been lonely. She had had
no mother by then and her father had discussed nothing but business. The fact
that more often than not she was late in at night had been no concern of his.
He’d simply assumed that she was with friends and Abigail had not enlightened
him because, deep down, she’d known that he would explode with rage.

She’d
never thought of the way she had first met Logan, of the dark certainly of the
threat, but there was enough memory of it at the back of her mind to make her
keep her own counsel. Meanwhile she was ensnared, drowning in the silver-grey
of Logan’s eyes, bewitched by his smile.

At the
weekends she was out all day with Logan, walking, driving, going to the theatre
and eating out. Sometimes they ate at little country places, sometimes in
rather exclusive restaurants where Abigail would have been intimidated had it
not been for the sight of him across the table from her, the way he took her
hand to lead her to her chair.