Blind Date with the Boss (Heads or Hearts #6)

CHAPTER EIGHT

IT HAD BEEN the weirdest day.

Logan drove rather recklessly to his meeting, jumping lanes and taking corners too fast as his head reeled from the conversation he’d just had with his newest employee. Teambuilding was all very well – he had to admit he’d gained a new respect for many employees today – but he couldn’t believe he’d revealed so much of his inner self to Sally Finch.

Allowing a glimpse beneath his careful fa?ade was completely out of character. And to the front desk girl of all people!

And then, what cheek on Sally’s part, to suggest he was not as tough as he made out. It was utter rubbish!

At the age of fifteen, when his father had gone bankrupt, he’d developed a super-tough outer shell. Since then, he’d hardened even more, had done everything in his power to make sure he never repeated his father’s mistakes.

The traffic lights changed to red just in front of Logan, forcing him to brake sharply. Fingers tapping impatiently on the steering wheel, he watched pedestrians swarm across the crossing – men in business suits, schoolgirls in straw hats and navy blue uniforms, and a family of tourists in blue jeans and T shirts.

Through narrowed eyes, Logan watched the tourists – parents with two kids, a boy and a girl. The father’s arm was draped loosely around his son’s shoulders and as they reached the safety of the opposite footpath, they seemed to share a joke.

Logan and his dad had been close like that.

The traffic lights changed again and Logan accelerated. He drove to the meeting on auto pilot, his mind lodged in the past, on the lessons he’d learned from his father.

Dan Black had been loved by everyone for his hail-well-met bonhomie and it went without saying that Logan had also adored him and looked up to him as his hero.

During the football season, they’d gone to every home game, the two of them dressed in the red and green colours of their adored team, the South Sydney Rabbitohs.

Back then, Logan had been blissfully unaware of the dangers of his father’s impulsive, happy-go-lucky nature. It was only later that he understood the perils that came when a man’s heart ruled his head.

Dan Black used to joke that he was the most successful businessman he knew who didn’t work to a business plan.

Who needs strategies, son? Follow your heart and you’ll always be right .

Sure, Dad.

For a while Dan Black had done well in real estate. Until there was a downturn. He’d come up with a grand scheme for aquaculture and set up a fish farm on the north coast. Six months later it had been wiped out by disease. Another dream, growing hydrangeas for the cut flower market, had been shattered by a hail storm. Dan hadn’t been insured.

The problem was clear to Logan now. His father had never focused on the main game. He’d never been prepared for potential problems, hadn’t researched projects carefully, and his cash reserves had always been too low, so he couldn’t afford insurance, or to hedge against downturns.

After the final disaster, when Dan had been declared bankrupt, he’d collapsed in a complete nervous breakdown. He’d let his family and his investors down. Friendships had collapsed because Dan had eloquently persuaded pals to invest. Some had actually borrowed money to help him with his disastrous projects.

Logan and his sister had been forced to leave their private schools in the middle of term. Their teachers had been terribly upset, which only added to their mortification.

Only their mother had adapted quickly to the changes the family faced. Happily giving up her social life of tennis and bridge parties, she had taken lowly office jobs, intensifying Dan’s humiliation by working for their friends.

The lesson for Logan had been crystal clear and painfully personal. Men who led with their hearts rather than their heads brought humiliation and hardship on the people they loved. It was absolutely vital to be disciplined, to put one hundred and ten percent into studies and planning and business.

To make this happen, Logan had devised his five year plan. Only when his finances were secure and he’d reached the very top of his game, would he relax and allow himself to think about starting a family of his own.

He wondered now, as he drove into an underground car park, if he should have told Sally Finch about his plan. She’d given him the perfect opening when she suggested he was goal oriented. Perhaps he should have told her then exactly what his goals were and what he was prepared to give up while achieving them.

That would have stilled her tongue. He doubted she would have continued then on about his hidden softness.

In retrospect he wished he’d been honest, was surprised that he hadn’t been.

Then again, he thought with a wry smile, revealing exactly how tough he was might have snuffed out the dancing lights in Sally’s eyes.

A man would have to be criminally insane to do that.

That evening, for the first time since she’d come to Sydney, Sally felt strangely unhappy and restless. Lonely too and just a little homesick.

How annoying.

She had been dead set on proving to herself and to her family that she was “cured”. And today she’d taken an important step – she hadn’t shied away from the conversation about dancing. She should be celebrating. She’d won a major battle with that particular demon.

Actually, she’d achieved many of her goals already. She had an interesting job, money coming in, new friends. Everything would be perfect if her boss was old and grey and happily married with a family.

Okay… face the truth, Sally. Logan Black is your problem.

How silly. It was bad enough that she’d been smitten by the boss’s good looks ever since that first sight of him on the day she’d applied for the job. But now, after their long and intimate conversations, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Not for a second. He was a man of such intriguing contradictions.

Today she’d caught glimpses into all sorts of interesting facets of his personality.

Stop it, Sally. Stop it now! He’s out of bounds.

Promising herself for the hundred and fiftieth time that she would put the boss right out of her mind, she cooked up a big bowl of comforting pasta and poured a glass of white wine. Rather than eating alone at the kitchen table, she took her meal through to the lounge room where she drew the pretty floral curtains and turned on the pink lampshades.

Usually, this room with its thick cream carpet, its lovely paintings and welcoming, cushiony sofas lifted her spirits as soon as she entered it, but tonight the lovely house wouldn’t or couldn’t work its magic.

Sally knew it would be foolish to listen to the Brahms concerto tonight, when she was trying, desperately, to forget about Logan Black, but in the end, she was too weak to resist the temptation.

Curled in one of Chloe’s squishy armchairs, she ate the pasta and drank her wine while the lush sounds of the gorgeous music swelled to fill the room.

I’m an idiot.

She longed for Chloe to be alive and here with her. She could picture her godmother sitting on the sofa in one of her bright kaftans with her silver hair piled gloriously on top of her head, a warm smile at the ready, as she offered sage advice.

But Chloe was gone and Sally was alone and she didn’t want to ring her mother. Her mother was too attune to her every mood and she would know immediately that something was wrong, and Sally was supposed to be proving that she was fine on her own.

With a heavy sigh, she turned her thoughts to Maeve, who was out tonight on a date with her young geologist.

How sensible of Maeve to be going out with one of the many friendly and unattached young fellows at Blackcorp. Sally knew that was exactly what she should be doing. Already, several friendly young men had stopped by her desk.

Why couldn’t she have been smitten by one of them instead of dreaming about their aloof and unattainable boss, who hurried past her desk with more important things on his mind and bought white roses for another woman?

To make Sally’s downbeat mood worse, the music reached the especially beautiful passage she’d tried, so inadequately, to describe to Logan today. She remembered the tender expression in his eyes and tears rolled helplessly down her cheeks.

When her phone rang, she almost left it, believing herself too maudlin for any kind of conversation. But at the last gasp, she dived out of her chair, swiped at her damp cheeks and pressed to connect.

‘Oh, Sally,’ cried Anna’s voice. ‘I’m so glad you’re home. You see, Steve got back today and we were hoping to have a night out while he’s on leave. Is there any chance you could mind Oliver and Rose on Friday evening?’

Sally assured her sister-in-law that she’d love to mind the children. And then, wanting to throw off any Cinderella-like sensibilities, she climbed the stairs and filled the bath with hot water and a quarter of a bottle of Chloe’s expensive and utterly self-indulgent bath oils.

It was a night for pampering.