Page 55 of Undoing His Innocent Enemy (Hot Winter Escapes)

The only problem was, returning here hadn’t made the misery stop. Hadn’t filled the huge hole she’d left in his life. If anything, it had made it worse.

He still wanted her. Too much. But it wasn’t just a physical yearning. It was far worse than that. She had somehow hijacked his mind, and his soul too.

He thought about her constantly. So much so that he’d had ten million euros deposited in her account in Ireland... And he wasn’t even entirely sure why. Was it supposed to be a pay-off—because he’d had some vague notion of forcing her to sign an NDA, even though she hadn’t spoken a word to the press about their time together?

Or was it even more pathetic than that. An attempt to force her hand, to get her to contact him, because he wanted her back, so much, but he had no idea how to reach out and ask her...beg her, even, to come back to him.

How could he have become so dependent on one person, in such a short space of time, after being alone—and happy—for so long?

Because you were never happy...you were hiding.

The damning truth whispered through his brain, making him tense as he followed Andrews back into the study and closed the terrace door. The study where he was supposed to be pretending to take an interest in a seminar on ColtonCorp’s investment strategy for the next fiscal year—but which had begun to bore him in seconds.

The Colton Corporation had been managed well for twenty years by a board of trustees, and, whatever the press said, he had no intention of taking the helm. But, unfortunately, his work as a sculptor held no pleasure for him any more either.

His life was in flux. He had no purpose, and no interest in finding one any more.

All of which was Cara’s fault too.

‘I’m glad you’re adapting,’ Andrews said, although Logan could see wary concern in the man’s eyes.

Grant Andrews had clearly been chosen by the board several years ago to oversee ColtonCorp’s vast investment portfolio because he was not an imbecile, and he knew how much Logan hated the press intrusion now he was back in the US...

What the man didn’t know was that everything Logan had once feared so much—the loss of freedom, the press attention, the constraints on his movements, the constant social interactions that would push all the memories from the night his parents had died back to the forefront of his consciousness again—didn’t scare him nearly as much now as the thought of spending the rest of his life alone. Without her.

‘I left a couple of messages on your cell this morning,’ Andrews said. ‘But you didn’t respond to them.’

‘What messages?’ Logan growled. ‘I do not use the phone.’

Being constantly available and connected to other people by that thing was something he doubted he would ever get used to.

‘Messages about Miss Doyle,’ the man said.

The mention of Cara’s name detonated in his chest like a nuclear bomb.

‘Cara has contacted you?’

His MD nodded. ‘Her bank returned the funds we transferred two days ago apparently. Although no one bothered to inform me until this morning. And I’ve just had an email from her, personally, demanding to see you.’

‘What?’ he said, his voice cracking on the painful burst of hope.

But the shock of hearing her name—and discovering she had not accepted his money—was nothing compared to the thought she might be nearby, close enough to touch.

‘Cara is in the US?’ he asked.

Grant nodded again but looked supremely uncomfortable. ‘Actually, she’s at the gatehouse. I spotted her as I drove up here. According to the guard, she’s threatening to sue ColtonCorp if we don’t let her in to see you. You need to make a decision, because if the press get wind of it, we’ll be besieged again and we’ve only just got them off our back.’

Logan barely registered the last of the man’s words though, because he was already charging towards the door of the study. His heart hammered his throat as adrenaline surged through his body, for the first time in over three weeks, ever since he had left her, lying in his bed. And he’d made the decision not to wake her. Not to try and persuade her to stay with him, one last time.

The wrong decision, he realised with a stunning burst of clarity.

He raced down the stairs, the sound of his footsteps echoing around the empty house, and threw instructions over his shoulder. ‘Tell them to drive her to the house, then you must leave,’ he managed as the combination of anger and hurt, guilt and desperation, threatened to strangle him.

She had come to him. And he would not give her a choice to leave him a second time.

He could not. He needed her. Now more than ever.

Because he couldn’t function alone. Not any more.

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