“About the fact that I do indeed know how to enjoy myself,” he states pleasantly; then adds, “I just prefer a good game of rugby to getting drunk for enjoyment.”
“I…I…” She gives up. Catherine doesn’t have a clue what to say to that.
“Lost for words, hey – that must be a first.” He is chuckling again, but stops when he hears her low growl. “Well, I think as payment for seeing you safely home last night the least you can do is to come and support my team tomorrow.”
Catherine remains silent for half a minute and Logan finds himself nervously awaiting her answer.
“You want me to stand on some park sideline, no doubt freezing my arse off, while you run around with a bunch of other hunks cradling, throwing and generally trying to put a ball, which isn’t even a proper ball, over some bloody line?” she summarises with no little sarcasm.
As if!
“You’ve got it exactly,” he announces with another chuckle. “But, according to the weather men, you won’t be freezing your lovely arse off, it’s supposed to be sunny and warm all day.”
“Will you stop with the lovely arse comment!” she growls out quietly so that Ben won’t hear, “It’s not like I invited you in, and you know it.”
Laughing openly and loud, not quite sure why he is feeling so pleased with himself, he makes an effort to placate her. “You are absolutely right, and I promise to behave more like a gentleman if you promise to come to the game tomorrow. I’ll even pick you up,” he offers.
“You bet your arse you will,” she capitulates ungraciously.
“That’s a date then,” he confirms before Catherine has time to change her mind, “I’ll pick you up at nine-thirty.”
A date – who said anything about a bloody date!
Left holding the receiver with no one on the other end, Catherine gives it a good glare and slams it down, then grimaces as her head pounds painfully.
Logan leans back in his chair with a foolish grin on his face. She called him a hunk; he congratulates himself, conveniently ignoring the fact that she had lumped him in with the rest of the team. He stands, all six feet four of him, broad muscular shoulders rippling as he gives his impressive body a good stretch while walking over to look out of his office window. It’s raining and overcast; but to Logan it is a lovely sunny day.
As they pull into the club car park next morning, Logan explains the procedure. “I need to go to the changing room, which is strictly men only I’m afraid,” he teases, and actually receives a reluctant smile from Catherine, “but you can get a coffee in the club house while you’re waiting. I’ve already told Mary to expect you; the wives organise the food and drink on a rota basis they sort out between themselves.” He got out and rounded the car to open her door but Catherine has already climbed out by the time he reaches her.
She catches her breath at his sudden nearness and inhales him deeply. Damn, what a body. Managing to stop the sudden impulse to reach out and explore that lovely expanse of chest right in front of her, Catherine gulps audibly.
“Catherine…?” Logan asks when she doesn’t speak.
Thoroughly annoyed with herself she turns a flushed grimace up at him. “I wish you wouldn’t call me that…it’s a sissy name and I don’t like it. Everyone else just calls me Colson.”
But you are definitely not like everyone else…
“I refuse to call any lady by her surname, it’s rude,” he states in his best Etonian voice. “And I like Catherine, it’s a lovely English name that reminds me of tea roses and lilac, bluebells and snowdrops.” He reaches a large, very gentle hand up to run his fingers down her pale cheeks. “You have alabaster skin, so smooth and pale.” His touch makes her breath catch and her heart flutter wildly, and when his thumb brushes over her sensitive lips, she feels it right down where her panties are growing wet and groans audibly. “What a contradiction of images you present. So full of fire and steel one moment then so warm and sensual the next.” He doesn’t finish his thoughts as they have taken a very erotic turn. Instead, he drops his hand and moves to the boot of the car to get his kit bag.
No…come back…don’t leave me like this…
Catherine has not moved or spoken a word, just that one groan of pleasure that she hadn’t been able to stifle. Her heart is still fluttering then jumps wildly when he calls over, pulling her abruptly out of her stunned reverie.
“We’d better make a move.” He indicates the other cars parked nearby. “Looks like most of the team are already here and I need to get changed,” he smiles broadly.
The game is awesome. Considering the size of the players, they are fast on their feet and lithe of movement. Catherine finds herself cringing and worrying for Logan’s well-being during some of the fierce tackles and scrums that are played; but, she gives him his due, he’s giving as good as he gets and usually comes out on top. She even finds herself cheering him on; then giving a player on the opposing team a piece of her mind when she feels he’s made a dirty tackle on Logan who, minutes later, goes on to score the first try of the match.
In the clubhouse later, the rowdy teams are enjoying a pint and a good-natured dig at each other over various plays they had made or missed.
A young buck from the opposing team tries to impress Catherine, asking her why she is wasting her time with the old has-beens and invites her to join his group, who are standing behind him looking hopeful.
Catherine, however, is far from impressed. Talking loud enough for the ‘has-beens’ to hear, Catherine looks up at the twenty-something player and says, “One particular so called has-been ran rings around you to score the first try of the match.” To a cheer from the men at the bar, Catherine continues, “And the rest of them very nearly whipped your sorry arse. You won by a drop kick and a lucky breeze,” she smiles witheringly, “now go finish your beer like a good little boy.” Turning back to the bar, she raises a celebratory pint of shandy, as ordered by Logan, for an excellent match that was only lost by a last minute drop-kick that was on the dodgy side in her lowly opinion.
Logan is distracted and uncharacteristically snappy during the following week. He hasn’t found an excuse to contact Catherine, he refuses to think of her as Colson, and has been thinking about her entirely too much.
He knows she is tied up with the preparations for implementing the first phase of the Kingsley deal; knows, too, that she has been worried about her lack of input during the final stages of putting the software package together.
A wistful smile tips up his lips. He had invited Catherine home for Sunday lunch after the rugby match last week, and she had happily accepted. Mrs Baines was her usual adaptable self and had made Catherine feel at ease about the impromptu invitation. They’d had lunch in the conservatory with a bottle of white wine and the conversation between them had never stopped.
The afternoon had turned to evening before either of them realised, they were talking and laughing like old friends. Catherine’s business with Arthur and Robert was apparently going well, though she had expressed some concerns about it, Catherine hadn’t gone into detail. Mostly they had discussed the rugby match and the cheeky youngster from the opposing team – he’d been particularly pleased when she’d dismissed him out of hand. Sure, Catherine had been shy at times, Logan remembers her pink cheeks and coy smile, but for the most part they had talked comfortably and enjoyably until midnight.
She needs a break, he decides, remembering the stress on Catherine’s face when she had talked about her workload and the expanding business. Then he thinks of Lakelands, a small estate where he grew up and where his father still lives.
Yes, he will convince her to go for a couple of days, he decides; then realises he is actually nervous at the thought. He laughs at himself, having never been nervous around women. Indeed, he finds them a source of great pleasure, both in and out of bed. He treats women with great respect, his own pleasure heightened by the simple act of tending to his companions needs first.
Catherine, he realises, is an entirely different prospect. She manages to throw him off balance. Seems to be a contradiction of personalities all tied up in that Colson persona that she clings to; but who is he attracted to, Catherine or Colson?
Catherine has also been distracted at work; only her reaction to the unwelcome intrusion of a personal life is an even more aggressive immersion in to her work.
Ben is ducking for cover. Catherine is stomping around like a bear with a sore head, and her language would redden even the most seasoned ears.
“The Bastard!” he hears Catherine shriek, just after hearing her telephone slam down in its cradle. Then Ben listens to the sound of her stomping the short distance to his office. “That bloody Bastard, Davis!” Catherine storms, shaking with temper as she stands in Ben’s doorway. “He’s just cancelled. The fucking jumped up, smarmy excuse for a human being just fucking cancelled!”
What a dick!
Chesney Davis is a stocky little man who stands about five feet six tall. Catherine knew from their first meeting that he didn’t like her one bit, any more than she liked him. He had looked her up and down while remaining seated at the head of a long table surrounded by empty chairs. The boardroom, she had guessed, also guessing that he was trying to impress upon her how important he is. They discussed the outline of a plan to overhaul the current computer system, its security, and the security of the entire company. Catherine had even paid a second visit, putting aside her own feelings, deciding to be professional and get the job done.
The plans she’d drawn up had taken a considerable amount of her valuable time – time she could have spent on the Kingsley account. Now the miserable little man has suddenly cancelled on her. Well, she would bill him for every second that she has wasted on the pillock.
Halfway through her tirade, Catherine hears her telephone ringing. “If that’s Davis ringing to change his fucking mind I’ll crawl down the line and cut his balls off,” she rages, making for her office. “That’s if the dickwad even has any!”
Slam. Door closed. The red haze of her anger still visible in his doorway – Ben lets out a relieved breath.
And squeezes his legs together as his balls shrivel up in fear.
Glaring at the phone, pacing in front of it, Catherine deliberately makes him wait; then snatches it up, hand gripping the receiver so tightly it should have crumpled to dust. “What!” she explodes without preamble. Then deflates like a burst balloon, crumpling into her seat as her misdirected anger gives way to reluctant joy.
“Well,” Logan’s low chuckle does nothing to improve her mood, “I seem to have caught you at a bad time. Would you like me to call back later?”
She can hear the smile in his voice and it irritates her. “Please yourself.”
“Fine, I will,” and Logan puts the phone down on her.
Now Catherine is stunned as well as angry. Why the bloody hell did he call in the first place? She had been hoping he would all week, hence her bad mood, but Catherine had given up as the days had passed with no word from Logan.
She spends the next few minutes pacing her office again then decides to call him back. Finding herself put straight through to him, Catherine realises he’s been expecting her call.
A bit bloody sure of yourself!
“Hello, Catherine, how nice to hear from you,” he greets her politely.
“Damn it,” she exclaims quietly. “Sorry. Ok, I said it, I’m sorry. Now, what did you want?”
He doesn’t reply for a minute then says, “How about coming over to my office for lunch?”
Surprising herself, and him, she accepts. Why the hell not. “I can be there in thirty, if that’s ok?”
“That’s fine…see you soon.”
When she arrives in his office, Catherine is still frowning. “What’s wrong, Catherine, you look troubled?”
She shrugs, “It’s just work, I guess.”
That and the time wasting bastard who made me feel like an ugly insect that he wanted to squash!
After ringing his PA to place the lunch order, Logan sits back in his chair to study Catherine. “It’s not the Kingsley deal surely; I thought that was running smoothly?” Logan moves around his desk to sit on the edge of it in front of her.
Holy heck!
“No, not really, Ben’s more than capable of wrapping it up from here.” He hasn’t heard her sound so dejected before.
“Then what…? You can talk to me about anything, Catherine, you know that, right?”
She jumps up then and stomps around his office, needing to burn off some of the rage that still flames hotly inside her. After telling him the background of the Chesney Davis fiasco, she turns hurt eyes directly on his. “What the fuck do people like Davis want?” She asks, throwing her hands up in the air. “I’m considered brilliant in my field,” she exclaims without a hint of arrogance, “so why isn’t that enough, damn it?” He can see the baffled hurt in her eyes as she flops back down in her seat. “Why isn’t that enough?” she repeats, her voice unexpectedly soft with utter confusion.
There is a war waging in her head and Logan can see it playing out on her lovely face. Yet he has the feeling that the ‘pillock’ Davis is not the real root of Catherine’s problems.
Logan talks about the conventions of business, the expectations that a prospective client might have. “Appearance can exude confidence which is a good portion of what the client is buying. After all they are putting their company into your very capable hands.”