A/n: Thanks for your reviews, everyone. At last, you get to find out what was in Logan's letter…
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Chapter 25: Bedtime Reading
Logan Cale Senior was a very successful and monumentally wealthy businessman. Therefore, by the age of thirty four he was the most eligible bachelor in the North West. Various associates had been practically throwing their daughters at him for years, when one day he fell shatteringly in love.
The object of his affections was twenty one year old Linda Jane Eastman, only child of one of Logan's sub contractors. Her parents practically shoved her into the marriage; they were a lot further down the social scale than the Cales. Linda liked her husband well enough, but she never loved him as he did her.
For the next three years, everything was fine. The couple were happy; or the husband was, at least. His wife just pretended to be, doing everything that was expected of her.
Then, Linda performed her dynastic duty and became pregnant with their first child. Logan was ecstatic; he wanted children to leave his business empire to when he died. The baby was a boy, named Logan Junior. The day he was born, his father made a rare romantic gesture and gave his wife a gold locket as a symbol of his love for her and their child.
The birth of their son was the start of the problems for Linda and Logan. The doting father spent more and more time at the office; and he'd been a workaholic before. He barely even saw his baby boy. Whenever Linda complained and said he should spend more time with Logan Junior, he put her off, saying he was working for the child's benefit and they'd spend time together when he was older.
Five years later, the argument had intensified somewhat. Logan rarely saw his wife and son because of his obsession with building up Cale Industries. It's hardly surprising that there was a five year gap between Linda's two pregnancies.
The idea of a second child only exacerbated the problem. Linda was furious that her husband wasn't prepared to make time for his son, let alone the new baby she carried. Perhaps it was the hormones, perhaps just maternal instinct that made her go to his office. They had a huge screaming match and when she came home Linda simply wrapped her arms around her son and cried herself to sleep.
When she woke, it was to excruciating pain in her abdomen. She was rushed to hospital, but it was too late to save her baby. She'd suffered a miscarriage at twenty six weeks.
Logan Senior blamed Linda for it; he thought if she'd just submitted to him instead of arguing the baby would have lived. She blamed his stubborn nature; if he hadn't made her fight him and caused all that stress she might have kept it to full term.
When Linda came home from hospital, grief stricken, her husband told her he'd forgive her for killing their daughter, like she should be grateful.
The resulting fight was the worst they'd ever had. It was the one and only time Logan hit his wife; she almost wound up going straight back to the emergency room. They never spoke to one another again.
Logan Senior, ashamed of his actions, vanished to the New York office. Linda stayed home and recovered, to give the bruises time to heal. And she planned.
Two weeks later, she packed some bags and ran in the middle of the night, taking her son with her.
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Sorry, guys, I needed my cliff fix.