Star-Crossed Lovers Read online

  Star-Crossed Lovers is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  2016 Loveswept Ebook Edition

  Copyright © 1991 by Kay Hooper

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Originally published in paperback in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, in 1991.

  Ebook ISBN 9781101969274

  Cover design: Diane Luger

  Cover photograph: IVASHstudio/Shutterstock

  randomhousebooks.com

  v4.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Preface

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  By Kay Hooper

  About the Author

  I will not let thee go.

  The stars that crowd the summer skies

  Have watched us so below

  With all their million eyes,

  I dare not let thee go.

  I will not let thee go.

  I hold thee by too many bands:

  Thou sayest farewell, and lo!

  I have thee by the hands.

  And will not let thee go.

  —Robert Bridges

  Preface

  No one knew how it had all started, or even when. A fascinated historian approached each family just after the turn of this century with the idea of researching and writing the story; each family shot at him. Aggrieved, he talked to the press instead, and a publisher had become interested enough to offer an advance.

  With interest and support backing him up, the historian did a thorough job of research, and came up with a story colorful enough to satisfy all but himself. To the end of his days, he complained that he had never been able to find the source of the feud; he had traced a long and violent sequence of events all the way back to the fifteenth century, but even that didn’t answer the basic question of when and how things went wrong.

  Upon publication of his book, the historian was hardly surprised to learn that Cameron Stuart had promptly taken out an ad in a national newspaper proclaiming the feud had started, of course, with Tavis Logan throwing in with the house of York during the Wars of the Roses and then sealing his treachery with a marriage to a “weakly French slut.”

  Grady Logan, not to be outdone, had taken out a larger ad insisting it had been Wingate Stuart who had supported the York claim to the throne and then had stolen Tavis’s French wife—unpardonable villainy. Which meant, Grady pointed out triumphantly, that Cameron was descended from that French slut.

  And the feud went on.

  The historian shook his head and sighed while newspapers and magazines ran bits of his book to feed curious readers.

  It had been a Logan, said the Stuarts, who had whispered gently but forcefully into Henry VIII’s ear to rid himself of his Spanish queen, thus helping to oust Catherine of Aragon. A Stuart, cried the Logans, had rigged the evidence that had lost Anne Boleyn her head.

  Jane Seymour, having died in childbirth, apparently escaped the effects of the Stuart-Logan feud, but popular belief held that Anne of Cleves was accepted by Henry only because of the flattering portrait a Logan had put before him; a Stuart had gleefully helped Henry out of that marriage.

  Logan retaliated by subtly pointing out the prettiness of Catherine Howard at court, and Stuart caused her downfall—and the loss of her head—by guiding the king’s council to find strong evidence of her infidelity. Both sides claimed the happy marriage Henry enjoyed with Catherine Parr.

  It seemed there was much fodder for the feud during Henry’s reign, between the king’s marriages and his strong mistrust of the Plantagenets, to say nothing of his break with Rome. Since both Logan and Stuart were of the old nobility, it seemed to have been the height of insanity to cut at each other by using a suspicious king as a tool—but both, somehow, survived.

  They survived also the short reign of the last Tudor king, Edward VI, the nine-days’ “reign” of Lady Jane Grey, and the few years of “Bloody” Mary I. Both Logan and Stuart were somewhat foolhardy when it came to their feud, but neither was fool enough to use Elizabeth I as they had her father, Henry; nor were they reckless enough to encourage handsome sons to chase after the Virgin Queen.

  Both Stuart and Logan had eyed askance Elizabeth’s successor James I, winced when James’s son Charles I declared war on Spain, and shook their heads when he lost his. They had kept quiet and still while Cromwell “reigned” and were relieved when Charles II was crowned.

  By the time George III began having his troubles with madness, both Logan and Stuart, separately, of course, had decided to try their luck with America. And both were incredibly lucky in their adopted land; but the family feud went on.

  Too late to choose opposite sides in the Revolution, they lost no opportunity in later years and generations to keep feeding the fire. (They had a fine time during the Civil War, for example, though hampered a mite by the fact that both families lived in the Deep South.) What one supported, the other attempted to destroy; what one had, the other had to better.

  At times the feud was ridiculous, such as when Jeb Logan painted his privy red to match Cal Stuart’s house. Cal had retaliated by creeping over one night to move the privy behind its pit; when Jeb came out for his before-bed visit and walked into the pit, his enraged screams could be heard for miles.

  And, inevitably, the feud was sometimes tragic. Stuarts and Logans had been killing each other, for good and bad reasons—or no reason at all—for generations, and the move to America did not stop that. Theirs was a long list of duels, brawls, and deaths. They stole property from one another, destroyed property, sabotaged each other’s reputations and business dealings. They imbued their children with their hatred, encouraging more destruction and revenge for destruction.

  The historian had discovered a single pattern in the feud which he found fascinating, but no one else seemed to grasp its significance. As nearly as he could determine from the historical evidence, it appeared that in each generation events conspired to produce a critical moment during which the feud could have been stopped.

  It seemed to happen in the youth of each generation, when they themselves had no personal grievance against each other and might have risen above the hatred of their elders. But, inevitably, the critical moment was overlooked, or discounted, or those involved simply failed to pass the test. They were drawn into the feud and found their own reasons for continuing it. None had been able to find within themselves whatever was needed to stop the hate.

  On it went, a circle with no beginning and no foreseeable ending. In sheer pigheaded spite they chose similar homes, similar businesses, and similar lives. Flying in the face of all logic, they chose to live near one another, so that children brought up to hate were pointed at specific targets.

  Long after other well-known family feuds had ended, wounds healed and forgotten, the Stuarts and Logans continued to hate and plot, until the situation was ripe for a shocking conclusion.

  —

  It was a pity the his
torian couldn’t have lived to see the finale. He would have loved it.

  Prologue

  “Damn him!” Charles Logan looked at his son with bitter gray eyes. “I don’t suppose we can prove it?”

  Jonathan Logan shook his head, the same hard emotion reflected in his blue eyes. “Not a chance, Dad. The inspector was smart enough not to put the money in his own bank account, and my source at city hall won’t go on the record with what he knows.”

  “But he’s sure it was Stuart?”

  “Who else?” Jonathan laughed shortly. “The inspector was paid to keep us tied up for weeks while he looks at every piece of wire in the building; he’s not about to accept our word that the electrical work is up to code. And you can bet Stuart’s building has already been approved. Unless we do something to slow Stuart down, we don’t have a hope in hell.”

  The elder Logan turned to stare out the window of his tenth-floor office. In the distance, between two other buildings, he could see his own latest effort rearing skyward. From the outside it looked complete, but even now his crews were at work doing what they could inside it. Until the inspector passed all the wiring in the massive building, most of the work couldn’t be finished.

  Though always fiercely competitive with his nemesis, Charles Logan never permitted slipshod work due to haste. But on this job, he had pushed his crews to do it right and fast, because there was so much at stake.

  And now…

  “Dad? We aren’t going to take this lying down?” Jonathan’s voice was incredulous. “If Stuart finishes his building first, he’ll get the Techtron contract and it’s worth millions. He’ll crow all over Atlanta that he beat us—”

  “He’s not going to beat us.” Charles’s voice was deadly quiet. “No matter what we have to do, he’s not going to beat us.”

  —

  Frowning, Brandon Stuart gazed out his office window as he listened to one of his foremen. He said nothing until the man finished his report, then turned to stare at the man.

  “We’ve dealt with these suppliers for years, Carl. What the hell’s going on?”

  The foreman shrugged helplessly. “Beats me, boss. To hear them tell it, half the material we order is out of stock, and the other half turns out to be not what we ordered. I’ve had to send four trucks back just this morning. It feels to me like we’re being stonewalled.”

  “Logan,” Brandon Stuart said, making the name a curse.

  The foreman blinked. “I don’t see how, boss. Unless—well, I suppose they could be favoring his orders over ours. All the places we’re having trouble with supply him, too.”

  “I want it stopped,” Stuart said in a voice that grated. “I don’t care what it takes, or what it costs, I want it stopped. I won’t let that bastard beat me!”

  —

  “They don’t know about it?”

  “No, my love, they don’t. They don’t know how strongly the seeds of hate took root.”

  Troubled, she said, “Dangerous.”

  Cyrus Fortune smiled at his lady, but though the smile glowed with the love he always showed her, there was little reassurance in it. “The wild card, I’m afraid. I can’t be sure how the others will react to it. But a festering wound must be opened to let the poison out.”

  “She’ll be hurt.”

  Cyrus sighed heavily, his benign dark eyes fully expressing his sorrow. “I don’t see how it can be avoided. That wasn’t a part of my plan. But I should have anticipated what he would do.”

  “Nonsense.” Her tone was bracing, but she softened it with a smile. “At any rate, I feel sure you’ll do what you can to lessen any unanticipated blows.”

  “What I can.” Cyrus glanced out the small window at the thick white clouds beneath them and sighed again. “But where there is love—real or manufactured—there must be pain as well. Some blows can’t be softened.”

  There was nothing she could say to that, and she knew him too well to pretend answers she didn’t have. Instead, her small hand slipped into his, and she remained silent while the sleek jet cut downward through the clouds toward its landing on the island of Martinique.

  Chapter 1

  “You need help?”

  They faced each other, surprise in both their expressions instantly supplanted by mistrust and wariness. He stopped dead in his tracks as though he’d run into a wall, and she felt a sudden compulsion to pick up something heavy.

  Michele Logan recovered first, throwing off impulses that were ridiculous, she told herself. “Damn thing died on me,” she said, waving a hand at the rental compact parked off the side of the road. She looked at her would-be rescuer and swallowed a giggle—surprising herself at the burst of humor and wondering if chivalry was dead, choked to death long ago by the Logans and the Stuarts.

  “I’ll look at it,” he offered, proving that Stuarts could overcome destructive impulses just as well as Logans.

  At least when the familiar battleground was more than two thousand miles away.

  Michele stood back, still conscious of her own wary tension, and watched Ian Stuart bend down to peer beneath the car’s raised hood. She caught herself glancing up and down the deserted road, and felt like laughing aloud to discover she was fearful of even being seen with a Stuart.

  Her father, an otherwise reasonable man, would have been tempted to disinherit her after one glance at her companion…or thunder about doing so.

  But her father was back in Atlanta, not here on the island paradise of Martinique. In fact, there was no one here who could possibly know or care that representatives from both sides of a very old feud had unexpectedly encountered each other on the road to Fort-de-France.

  She studied the enemy, trying to be as objective as possible. He was a big man, with powerful shoulders setting off an obviously athletic body of unusual strength. He was the kind of man who looked sexy in jeans and formal clothing alike, drawing feminine stares wherever he went. At the present, he was wearing jeans and a pullover shirt. He had wheat-gold hair worn thick and just shaggy enough to make a woman want to run her fingers through the shining strands.

  Most women, Michele reminded herself, surprised that she had to. But not me.

  She also reminded herself that she had never been attracted to fair men, but then had to admit silently that blond hair went awfully well with a tanned, handsome face and ice-blue eyes. Still, Ian Stuart was the last man in the world she could ever be drawn to.

  In a peculiar way, they knew each other well. Ian Stuart and Michele’s brother, Jonathan, were the same age, and the families both owned houses and businesses in Atlanta, Georgia. As children, Michele and Jon had competed against Ian in horse shows and rodeos, and the boys had brawled on and off their different schools’ football fields.

  Michele knew for a fact that Jon had lost at least one high school girlfriend to Ian Stuart, and that Ian had lost two desired horses at auction to Jon’s determined bidding.

  Michele was twenty-six, Ian was thirty-one, and this was the first time in their adult lives that they had met face to face and alone.

  She didn’t know how to react to the unexpected situation. All her life she had listened to invectives directed at the Stuarts in general and their neighbors in particular; she’d even spat a few curses of her own. She could have listed their treacheries going all the way back to the fifteenth century. Instinct told her she should be raining invectives of her own now, but common sense questioned the need for it.

  Ian looked up and saw her watching him, his pale blue eyes as wary as her own probably were. He straightened slowly and looked at her for a moment in silence, then glanced at the compact. “This needs a mechanic, which I’m not,” he said in a neutral tone. “I’m going into Fort-de-France; I can send a tow truck back. Or,” he added after a moment, “I can give you a lift.”

  Michele found herself wondering if the earth would open up and swallow them both at this heresy, and laughed as she realized her muscles were braced for a thunderclap. It was ridiculous! “Thanks,
I’d appreciate a lift,” she said. “I can call the rental company from the hotel and have them deal with it.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “The Arcadia.”

  “So am I.”

  Moments later, sitting comfortably beside Ian in his own rental car, she dismissed the fleeting guilt at her traitorous behavior. Because it wasn’t traitorous, not really. She was a sensible woman and saw no reason why she should prefer to roast in the hot sun rather than accept a brief ride from a man who had never done her an injury.

  “Lucky you came along,” she ventured casually. “I might have been stuck out here all day.” There had been a few passing cars, but none had stopped.

  “I half expected you to throw the offer of a ride back in my face,” he murmured.

  “At home, I might have,” she admitted, turning her head to gaze at the colorful tropical landscape all around them. “But who can fight in paradise?”

  Ian sent her a glance, taking the opportunity of her distraction to study her unobtrusively. It had been years since he’d been this close to Michele Logan. On that last memorable occasion, she’d been thrown by her horse during warm-ups for a Grand Prix jumping event, and he had offered her a hand up. Sixteen-year-old Michele had rewarded him for his pains by roundly cursing him, and had regained her feet under her own power.

  She had also beaten him in the event.

  Ten years had changed her…a lot. Then she’d been thin as a rail and all legs; she was slender now, but no one would ever compare her to a rail. The faded jeans and pale blue T-shirt she wore clung to every curve, and those curves were voluptuous enough to inspire erotic fantasies. Her legs were still long, but they, too, were the stuff of men’s dreams. Her waist-length black hair, wild as a colt’s mane for most of her childhood, was confined neatly in a French braid now, and the severe style emphasized the delicate bone structure of her lovely face. Those bones had seemed awkwardly arranged during her childhood and adolescence, but maturity had smoothed sharp planes and angles into striking beauty.