To Marry Mckenzie. Carole Mortimer
informed her as she brought some dirty starter plates into the kitchen for washing.
Darcy looked up from what she was doing. ‘Me?’ She frowned. ‘Are you sure he meant me?’
‘Darcy. That’s what he said.’ Katy shrugged, picking up two plates of prawns nestling in an avocado nest before bustling back out into the main restaurant with them.
Darcy felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. A customer asking to speak to Darcy. She didn’t like the sound of that. Not one little bit!
‘Better go and see what he wants,’ Daniel Simon advised dryly, busy making a sauce for a steak he also had cooking.
Darcy gave him a scathing glance even as she took off her apron and smoothed the black skirt down over her hips, her cream blouse tucked in neatly at her slender waist. ‘Keep the customers happy at all costs, is that it?’ she returned with barely veiled sarcasm.
He shrugged. ‘Well… I draw the line at you selling your body for profit, but other than that…yes!’ he answered teasingly.
Darcy’s scowl deepened. ‘Very funny!’ she retorted. ‘Can you manage without me for a few minutes?’
He smiled across at her, blue eyes crinkling with humour. ‘I think I can cope,’ he drawled. ‘And, Darcy…’ he called softly as she turned abruptly on her heel and flounced over to the doors that led into the restaurant.
She turned at the door. ‘Yes?’ she replied tautly, chin raised defiantly.
Things had been very strained between them since his announcement yesterday morning, mainly on Darcy’s side, she had to admit. But she didn’t intend letting him off the hook with a few teasing remarks. Not this time.
‘Smile,’ Daniel Simon advised ruefully. ‘The customers prefer it!’
She only just managed to hold back her biting retort to that particular remark, instead shooting him another scathing glance before going out the swing doors that led directly into the restaurant.
Her footsteps became halting as she instantly recognised the man seated at table eleven. Logan McKenzie!
She had half guessed, because of the parcel she had sent him earlier today, and from the request to speak to ‘Darcy’, that it might be him—after all, he didn’t know her surname. But actually to see him sitting there, looking ruggedly attractive in his black dinner suit and snowy white evening shirt, briefly took her breath away.
Pull yourself together, Darcy, she instructed herself firmly. He might be one of the handsomest men she had ever set eyes on, but she probably wasn’t in the minority in that opinion. Besides, she doubted he had come here just to see her. In fact, as she saw the table he sat at was set for two, she was sure he hadn’t!
He was looking out the window as she approached, obviously waiting for his dinner guest to join him. Good; that meant their own conversation could be kept to a minimum.
‘Mr McKenzie,’ she greeted huskily as she stood beside his table.
He turned sharply at the sound of her voice, those blue eyes narrowed as he looked up at her. ‘Darcy,’ he greeted smoothly, standing up. ‘Join me for a few minutes.’ He indicated the chair opposite his at the table. ‘Unless you would prefer the embarrassment of my handing back your gift in full view of everyone?’ He looked pointedly around the already crowded restaurant, his brows raised mockingly as he glanced down at the box that rested out of general view against the leg of his chair.
Darcy sat. Abruptly. Inelegantly. Oh, not because of his threat to embarrass her. It was the latter part of his statement that stunned her. ‘Return it?’ she confirmed.
‘Return it,’ he repeated harshly. ‘Just what did you think—? I don’t like your hair pulled back like that.’ He broke off to frown across at her critically. ‘It dulls that bright copper colour to a muddy brown,’ he opined disapprovingly.
Darcy gave a ghost of a smile. ‘That bright copper colour was the bane of my life as I was growing up. I was called Carrots at school,’ she explained at his quizzical expression.
‘Kids can be the cruellest creatures in the world,’ he agreed. ‘I’m sure the male population, at least, has been more appreciative of the colour since you reached adulthood.’
Not that she had noticed!
‘Maybe,’ she conceded dully. ‘Mr McKenzie—’
‘Logan,’ he corrected sternly. ‘You can hardly be so formal with a man you’re on intimate enough terms with to present with an expensive silk shirt. In the right size, too,’ he observed harshly.
Darcy moistened dry lips. ‘I had a little help with that,’ she admitted huskily, having looked at her father and assessed that he and Logan were about the same physical build. The size of shirt had been easy after that. It had been finding the right shop to buy the shirt that had proved more difficult.
Logan’s gaze was cold. ‘I’m not going to ask from where. Or who!’ he rasped.
Darcy gave him an uncomprehending look. ‘If the shirt is the right size,’ she began slowly, ‘and it’s obviously the right colour, then I don’t understand why you want to return it…?’
‘You don’t understand!’ His expression became grimmer than ever. ‘Darcy, you cannot go around presenting perfect strangers with pure silk shirts,’ he ground out between clenched teeth.
She grinned at that, realising as she did so that it was the first time she had found anything to really smile about for some time.
Logan eyed her suspiciously. ‘And just what is so funny?’ he grated.
‘The fact that you have already informed me that you aren’t a perfect stranger!’ she reminded, her eyes glowing luminously grey.
‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ Logan exclaimed, shaking his head.
She raised puzzled brows. ‘Do what?’
‘Smile.’ He looked at her darkly.
It seemed she couldn’t win this evening; Daniel Simon told her to smile, because the customers preferred it. But this customer certainly didn’t!
Darcy had no idea why Logan should prefer her not to smile—and wasn’t sure she wanted to know, either! ‘Chef Simon likes us to be polite and friendly with the customers,’ she explained frigidly.
Logan studied her. ‘And do you always take into account what Chef Simon likes?’
In truth, she was so angry with him at the moment, she really didn’t care what he did or didn’t like!
But Logan McKenzie had been kind to her yesterday, more than kind, and she owed him a debt of gratitude for the way he had helped her—as well as a new white silk shirt!
‘For instance, do you think he would like the fact that you spent what must have amounted to a week’s wages on buying a shirt for a man you’ve only just met?’ Logan persisted, the softness of his voice doing nothing to hide his obvious anger.
She blinked. She hadn’t thought about the buying of the shirt in that context at all—and now that she did, it still made no difference to the fact that she had ruined this man’s shirt, and, as such, had to replace it. Even if it had cost what amounted to a waitress’s weekly wages!
Logan sighed heavily. ‘What I’m trying to say, and obviously failing to do so, is that I had no intention of telling Daniel Simon what happened between us yesterday—’
‘Nothing happened between the two of us yesterday!’ Darcy gasped incredulously, eyes wide. That cuddle had been purely platonic, and she dared him to claim otherwise.
‘I meant the fact that your behaviour was a little less than professional—’
‘It most certainly was not!’ she protested, sitting bolt upright in her chair