Modern Romance January 2020 Books 5-8. Heidi Rice

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      Logan suspected there was a lot more to Layla’s background than she had let on. Her guardedness around the subject of her childhood was testament to that. He knew she had been in a car accident that had claimed her parents’ lives and caused her to be severely injured but he had a sense she hadn’t had an easy life even before that terrible tragedy. ‘Do you feel comfortable telling me what happened?’

      Layla took a sip of wine and then placed her glass back on the table. Her features were a battleground of conflicting emotions as if she was deciding whether to reveal or conceal. But after a long moment, she started speaking in a voice that throbbed with conviction.

      ‘My mother made a series of choices she might not have made if she’d been better supported. She came from a difficult background herself and then got caught up in a downward spiral of petty crime to lift herself out of poverty. One job would have broken the cycle, I’m sure of it. It would have given her independence and a sense of worth.’

      ‘Is that why you’re so keen to employ people from disadvantaged backgrounds?’ Logan asked.

      ‘Absolutely. They sometimes just need someone to believe in them.’ She tapped her hand on the table for emphasis. ‘To give them a fighting chance. My mother didn’t have anyone in her life who believed in her potential.’

      ‘What was your father like?’

      A flash of anger lit her grey-green gaze and her mouth tightened. ‘He was a brute and a bully but my mother got completely taken in by him because he promised to give her a better life. He said all the charming things she wanted to hear but they were empty promises. She thought because he called her “babe” that he actually loved her. But when he started to show his true colours, she didn’t have the strength or self-esteem to stand up to him. The worst part was she drank and used drugs to escape his behaviour but in doing so became more like him.’

      She released a ragged sigh and looked back at the candle flickering on the table, a hot flare of anger still smouldering in her gaze. ‘If I can save one woman from what happened to my mother, then all the hard work and sacrifice will be worth it.’

      Logan reached for her hand across the table and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘I think it’s amazing what you’re doing with your business. It’s an honourable and compassionate approach that is innovative and enterprising. If you’d like me to help you with a business expansion plan, I can do that.’

      She pulled her hand away and placed it on her lap, her expression defensive. Wary. ‘I’m not completely incompetent. I’ve run my business for the last couple of years without going bankrupt.’

      ‘I meant no offence, Layla. Good structure is vital in business expansion. A lot of small businesses fold when they try to expand too quickly. I have some skills in that area so the offer is on the table. Take it or leave it.’

      Something softened in her tight expression. ‘I’ll think about it.’

      A small silence passed.

      ‘What was your mother like?’ Layla asked.

      The question blindsided Logan. He was so used to not thinking about his mother that it took him a moment to even bring her features to mind. Thinking about his mother made him think about himself and his brother as distraught children who didn’t understand why Mummy wasn’t coming back home. Why she never came back or never wanted to see them or even talk to them on the phone. It had been a brutal abandonment that had all but destroyed his father and changed Logan’s and Robbie’s lives for ever.

      ‘She was beautiful and charming,’ Logan said, stripping his voice of emotion. ‘If my father hadn’t destroyed all the photos of her, I could’ve shown you how beautiful she was.’

      ‘Aunt Elsie told me how gorgeous she was,’ Layla said. ‘And that your father fell madly in love with her the moment he met her.’

      ‘My father was completely captivated by her. They had a whirlwind courtship and I was born a few months after their wedding. I don’t think it was ever a happy marriage but when Robbie came four years after me, things really started to come unstuck.’ He picked up his wineglass. ‘One day, I came home from school to find she had left.’ He drank from his glass and put it back down on the table with an audible thud. ‘That morning we’d had a mother. That afternoon we didn’t. No goodbye. No note. Not even a phone call. She’d gone to live with her lover in America. I haven’t seen her or heard from her since.’

      Layla frowned in concern. ‘It must have been devastating for you both. You were so terribly young—what? Both under ten?’

      ‘Seven and four.’ Logan’s tone was flat. ‘We didn’t understand why she left. We both thought we must have done something to make her leave us.’

      ‘I guess a lot of kids would think like that but surely you realise it wasn’t anything to do with you or Robbie?’

      He shifted the base of his wineglass a quarter-turn. ‘It took me years to realise it wasn’t us. It was her. She didn’t have the capacity to bond. I heard she’s been married three or four times since then.’ He paused for a moment before adding, ‘It was harder on Robbie. He was only four and missed her badly. He cried for weeks, months really. I did what I could to compensate but it wasn’t enough—nowhere near enough. He needed his mother and no one else was going to fill the hole she left behind. Not even our father, who was struggling himself to cope.’

      A frown pulled at her brow. ‘You can’t possibly blame yourself for Robbie’s problems. You were left by your mother too and you didn’t go off the rails.’

      Logan gave her a grim look. ‘I do blame myself. I was too lenient with him then and after our father died. Robbie was only fourteen and full of raging hormones and risk-taking behaviour, which was part puberty and part acting out his grief. My grandfather was too controlling with him and I tried to make up for it in other ways. It was a mistake to swing back too far the other way. I should’ve tried a more balanced approach.’ He made a self-deprecating sound and added, ‘I’m definitely not cut out for parenthood. Not with all the mistakes I’ve made with my brother.’

      Layla leaned forward in her chair, her expression etched with concern. ‘Logan, you’re not to blame. I think you’ve been an amazing older brother. And you would make an amazing father. Robbie hasn’t made great choices along the way but you’ve done nothing but support him and encourage him to make better ones. Even the way you’ve put your own life on hold to save Bellbrae is proof of that. It’s not just your heritage that would’ve been lost but his as well. I know how your mind works—by marrying me you’re ultimately protecting him from the shame of losing his family’s ancestral home in a poker game.’ She picked up her wineglass and sat back in her chair. ‘And I admire you for it.’

      Logan gave a twisted smile. ‘Let’s hope you still admire me after you’ve lived with me for a year.’

      Something passed over her features—a shadow in her quickly averted gaze, the flicker of a tiny muscle near her cheek, a flattening of her mouth. ‘That works both ways.’ Her voice dropped half a semitone in pitch. ‘Let’s hope we remain friends.’

      Logan raised his glass in a toast. ‘To staying friends.’

       CHAPTER SIX

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