and charity benefit for Children’s Connection, a Portland adoption agency and fertility clinic. The caption had said only something about Peter being photographed in a hot kiss with a mystery woman. When they ran it the first time, she had seen it and thanked her very lucky stars that she hadn’t been recognizable.
Apparently someone had figured it out. The headline above this photo read “Mystery Solved: Crosby, Logan scions put aside famous feud long enough for kiss.”
Oh, no. She drew in a shaky breath. This was bad. Seriously bad. She read on.
“We first brought you the juicy tidbit a few months ago that Logan Corporation CEO and oh-so-sexy bachelor Peter Logan was caught in a very heated embrace with a mysterious glamour-gal during a chi-chi gala for Children’s Connection, a cause the Logan family notably supports. The two of them disappeared together soon after.
At the time. Logan pointedly refused to answer questions about the object of his affections, but after some digging, Portland Weekly has since learned his snuggle-honey was none other than Katherine Crosby. That’s right, of those Crosbys—Logan rivals on and off the corporate battlefield.
Does their embrace signal an end to the famous feud? Are Portland’s own versions of the Hatfield and McCoy clans really ready to kiss and make up?
Apparently at least two of them are.
Neither Logan nor Ms. Crosby were available for comment but we’ll bring you more about this exciting development as soon as we find out more.”
Her already queasy stomach dipped. Her mother was bound to hear about this; Katie had no doubt whatsoever about that. And when she did, Katie knew Sheila Crosby would rage and carry on for days, accusing her of everything from disloyalty to outright treason.
Just thinking about the inevitable scene made her shoulders sag with the exhaustion that never seemed far away these days.
“Nothing to say?” Peter finally asked when her silence dragged on.
“I’ve never been called a glamour-gal before. I don’t believe it’s as gratifying as I would have imagined.”
His sculpted features darkened. “I dislike being made a fool of, Katherine.”
“Kate,” she murmured, regretting the glibness she tended to turn to during times of high stress. “Nearly everyone calls me Katie or Kate.”
“Really, Celeste?” He asked in that same biting tone.
Oh, Katie. What a mess you’re in, she thought. Pregnant with this man’s baby, this overwhelming, powerful, gorgeous man who despised her and her family. If he hated her now, how would he react if he ever discovered the tiny secret she carried inside her?
The fragile threads of control seemed to slip a few more notches, but she flailed for them valiantly and faced him with what she hoped was cool aplomb.
Without waiting for the invitation she wasn’t sure she could issue, he yanked off his jacket and tossed it over the rack of entwined elk antlers in the hallway then claimed one of the plump armchairs near the fire. She really had no choice but to follow him and perched on the edge of the sofa, trying not to let him see her nervousness.
“Okay, let’s hear it. What’s your game?”
“Game?”
“What are you playing at? What were you trying to achieve by your little masquerade?”
Of course he would want explanations from her, some justification for her deception. How could she possibly find the words for something she didn’t even understand herself?
“Why didn’t you tell me who you were?”
“I don’t know that I have a good answer to that.”
“Try.” His voice was silk-sheathed steel.
She scrambled for some kind of explanation and finally came up with something she hoped sounded reasonable. It was part of the truth, just not all of it. “Katie Crosby is a fairly boring person,” she said after a long moment. “All she ever thinks about is work. I suppose it was exciting being someone else for a few hours. Someone glamorous and adventurous and…and desirable. I got carried away by the magic of the evening. Then, after we…kissed, I was afraid to tell you who I was. I knew you would be angry and it just seemed easier all around not to say anything.”
Peter studied her. She chewed her bottom lip after she finished speaking, waiting for him to respond. He wondered how in the hell a woman could appear so sweet and innocent on the outside while inside she was nothing but a deceptive little snake.
He had never been so furious. It was taking every ounce of willpower he possessed not to rage and yell and throw a table or two through that huge wall of windows.
His blood should have had time to cool in the twenty-four hours since his assistant had warily shown him that damn newspaper and he’d finally learned the identity of the mystery lover who had obsessed him for months. It had taken him most of that time to use all his connections and finally run her to ground here at this Wyoming ranch in the middle of nowhere, another hour to have his plane readied and two more in the air between here and Portland.
The whole time he’d been behind the controls of his Gulfstream III, he had waited for his anger to fade, for the familiar cool reserve the world expected of him to take over. But throughout the flight, as now, his skin had been hot and itchy as this fury seethed through him.
This woman—this slender, delicate-looking woman with her short hair and big eyes, who looked like a teenager in stocking feet and faded jeans—had made a complete fool out of him. Every word out of her lush little lips had been a lie.
When he thought about how he had obsessed over her in the three months since she blew through his life, the energy he had wasted looking for her, he could barely think past his rage and self-disgust.
A Crosby.
Just the name left a sour taste in his mouth. What an idiot he had been to throw away years of family loyalty, of complete dedication to the Logan name and everything it stood for, all for a pretty face.
All right, more than pretty, he admitted. Even now, when she wore no makeup to set off those sculpted cheekbones and full lips and when she had dark circles under her eyes and her features were pale, his body instinctively reacted to her.
He wanted her, even knowing who she was, and the discovery infuriated him even more.
“This is about the super router we’re developing, isn’t it?” he asked.
She was a hell of an actress, he’d give her that much. If he didn’t know better, he would almost believe that shock on her face was genuine. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“You went through my desk while I was asleep. Don’t try to deny it. Find out anything interesting about the project?”
Color flared high on those cheekbones. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Right. Now you’re going to tell me you don’t have any idea Logan is close to revolutionizing computer networking with our nano-peripheral-interface-router. And of course Crosby Systems, which coincidentally just released its own router-controller software, would have absolutely no interest in stealing the technology that would create the fastest networking system in the world. Come on, Crosby. You really think I’m dumb enough to fall for your lies twice?”
She gaped at him. “You think I was spying on you that night? That I was some kind of—of corporate Mata Hari, out for a little industrial espionage after I screw you into oblivion?”
“At this point, sweetheart, I wouldn’t put anything past you.”
“Because I’m a Crosby, right?”
That wounded belligerence in her voice grated down his spine like metal on metal. “Not only because you’re a Crosby. Because you’re also a lying, deceitful little—” He bit off the derogatory word