Crowning His Unlikely Princess (Mills & Boon Modern)

by Michelle Conder

So turned on it was shocking, Cassidy slid his long length between her lips, completely lost to everything but pleasuring him.

  What felt like seconds later, Logan released her hair and shuffled her back. About to complain, Cassidy fell silent at the feral glitter she saw in his eyes.

  He reached down and nearly tore her jeans in half as he yanked them from her body. Then he was on her, his fingers sliding between their bodies, parting her swollen folds before he drove them deep inside her body.

  Cassidy nearly blacked out at the pleasure, only dimly aware that he had sheathed himself before he’d moved between her thighs and opened her to the hot, hard plunge of his body. Each powerful thrust moved her closer and closer to the peak of pleasure until the only thing she could say was his name over and over as her body splintered into a thousand pieces.

  Minutes felt like they turned into days as she lay there, gasping for breath. Logan reached around her back and gathered her up against him. Cassidy looped her arms around his neck, her limbs the consistency of overcooked spaghetti.

  ‘Damn.’ He pressed his forehead to hers. ‘I didn’t mean that to happen.’

  Cassidy blinked up at him. ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘No.’ His brow puckered. ‘I meant to at least make it to the bedroom.’ He feathered light kisses across her eyelids. ‘But you affect me so badly I have no control where you’re concerned. How hungry are you?’

  ‘You mean for food?’ She was so full after the enormous lunch they had not long eaten that she didn’t care if she didn’t eat for a week.

  A slow grin crossed Logan’s face. He stood up and reached for her hand, pulling her to her feet and giving her a quick, blistering kiss. ‘Neither am I.’

  ‘Tell me about growing up in Ohio.’

  Logan pushed the midnight feast of olives and cheese, which they had assembled after raiding his cousin’s larder, onto the floor and stretched out on the bed beside her.

  She rolled her eyes at his unabashed nudity and fixed the sheet tighter beneath her arms. He hid a grin, knowing that all he would have to do to make her soft and begging was to drag that sheet down and take one of her lovely breasts into his mouth.

  Deciding that he could forgo the pleasure of her body for at least another ten minutes, he played with a strand of her hair instead.

  She glanced up at him, her long lashes causing soft shadows to fall over her cheekbones. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Anything—’ and everything ‘—you want to tell me.’

  She started talking about the weatherboard house she had grown up in on the outskirts of a small town called Sherwent Creek, her mother walking out on them when she was fifteen and what that had meant to them all. ‘My sister and my father really suffered after she left. It wasn’t long after that my sister fell pregnant, then my father, who had already been struggling, completely fell apart...’ Her voice grew quiet. ‘Being the oldest, I did my best to cook and clean and make sure Peta was okay, but she wasn’t interested in me being a replacement parent and for a while we fell out. Then she had the twins and that was when things really got tough.’ She winced and peered at him sheepishly. ‘Sorry, you were probably wanted to hear about the tourist attractions rather than my life story.’

  Logan brushed her lips with his. ‘If I want to know about the tourist attractions I’ll visit there myself. It’s you who interests me. What happened next?’

  ‘Well... Peta is quite shy and the gossip and derogatory comments she received, having the twins so young, made all of our lives miserable. Peta drifted for a while, barely making ends meet. I got a job to help out with the bills but...’ She hesitated and Logan sensed she was holding something back but didn’t want to push her. She blinked as if to clear her memory.

  ‘It got so bad that our father eventually relocated us to another town. We packed up the station wagon one night and drove all through the night. Amber and April were only young at the time.’ She gave a soft laugh at the memory. ‘Anyway, it was a little better after that but not great. Eventually Peta moved out and I stayed to take care of our dad.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He died in a car accident.’

  ‘I’m sorry, mi amor. And your mother? Did she ever return?’

  ‘No. Having kids didn’t suit her. I have no idea where she is now.’

  Logan felt the pain of every word she spoke like a lash abrading his skin. He wanted to grab every one of those people who had made Cassidy’s life a misery around the neck and squeeze. Hard.

  Unable to do that, he pulled her unyielding body against his and looped his arm around her waist. ‘Then what?’

  She laughed softly. ‘You really want to know everything, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m greedy like that.’

  Loving the way he was able to make her smile after such a gruelling story, he encouraged her to go on. ‘So what’s next? Was that when you moved to New York? Came to work for me?’

  ‘Yes.’ A fleeting smile crossed her face. ‘Once my father passed away I moved to New York to finish my online course and Peta moved in with me. After that I needed a well-paid job and walking into your building was definitely a case of being in the right place at the right time. I never expected to get the job but just as I handed my résumé to your receptionist she became violently ill. You had a Chinese delegation waiting to receive their building passes, as well as a persistent paparazzi guy lurking around, asking questions about you. It was Todd Greene, I think.’

  Logan’s lips twisted into a grim line. ‘Don’t talk to me about him. The guy has a vendetta. He tried to get a press pass to the coronation yesterday too but I had him removed. Anyway, go on.’

  Cassidy shrugged. ‘There’s not much else to tell. I happened to know how to use the computer system you used so I printed the passes for the Chinese delegates and phoned your HR department. Your HR manager was in a flap because you’d just fired your last assistant and demanded a replacement asap. She interviewed me on the day, did a security check, and I was hired two days later.’

  ‘Much to everyone’s relief. You know you’re amazing, right?’ He kissed her shoulder. ‘And utterly beautiful.’

  ‘Don’t say that. I don’t need those kinds of compliments to feel secure.’

  At her nonchalant comment Logan’s eyebrow went skyward.

  ‘I don’t,’ she persisted.

  ‘That’s because you don’t believe it,’ he said shrewdly. ‘But you are beautiful, Cassidy.’

  ‘I’m not.’ Her eyes wouldn’t quite meet his. ‘My sister is the beautiful one. You haven’t met her but—’

  ‘I’m sure your sister is quite lovely, but we’re not talking about her. We’re talking about you.’ He tilted her chin up so that she was forced to look into his eyes. ‘And you are gorgeous. Gorgeous eyes. Gorgeous nose.’ He kissed each attribute he labelled. ‘Gorgeous chin. Gorgeous neck.’ His voice became a sexy murmur. ‘Gorgeous collarbone. Gorgeous—’

  Cassidy squealed as he slid lower down her body. ‘I get the picture!’

  Rising up to loom over her, his biceps braced to take his weight, he locked his gaze with hers. She touched his face, her fingers stroking over his stubble, her eyes soft. For a moment he heard nothing but the sound of his own heart beating and the echoes of forever in his head.

  ‘When you look at me like that,’ she whispered breathlessly, ‘I feel like anything is possible.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THIS TIME WHEN Logan woke up, Cassidy was beside him, her arm flung across his abdomen, her leg draped over his thigh, and for someone who was always eager to move on from a woman he’d slept with he was hard pressed to explain this sense of belonging he felt at having her nestled beside him.

  He knew it was very early because no light appeared around the blinds on his windows, or it was very late. He couldn’t tell. He’d lost all sense of time
after he’d made love to her again, more slowly this time, wanting to eradicate all the hurts she’d experienced as a child.

  He moved a strand of her hair away from her face and thought about all the reasons why it was a bad idea to continue seeing her and couldn’t come up with any, not now that she no longer worked for him. Since they were both single, there was no reason they couldn’t continue an affair for as long as it lasted.

  Other than the fact that Cassidy seemed more determined to get away from him than to stay with him but maybe that was only because she didn’t know how he felt about her.

  Which raised the question—how did he feel?

  He liked her. He was insanely attracted to her. But it felt like more than that. She was the smartest, sweetest, most caring woman he’d ever met. He loved it that she matched him in so many ways. In the boardroom, the bedroom and even on the gym mat. If he ever lost his fitness edge, he knew she’d cut him off at the knees, and the knowledge that he could bend her but not break her was extremely appealing.

  He also wanted to protect her and take care of her. And that was definitely new. He’d always avoided engaging his emotions with women in the past. Sex had always been just sex, but he was struggling to think of it that way with Cassidy.

  What would she say if he asked her to stay on in Arrantino? If he told her he wanted to continue seeing her? It wasn’t that much of a stretch. He could set her up in an apartment not unlike this one. He could get her a local job so that she was free to see him after work and on weekends.

  But would she go for that?

  And did he really want it? The fact that he was even considering doing all that to keep a woman in his life seemed crazy. But the alternative was that she fly back to New York, probably as early as tomorrow, and while he might not be one hundred percent sure about what he did want, he knew what he didn’t want and that was for her to leave.

  He liked waking up with her lying in bed beside him and he wasn’t ready to say goodbye to that. And he knew she liked being with him this way. It was in every soft smile that she gave him, every tender touch.

  He blew out a breath and contemplated the unpainted beams that crisscrossed the ceiling.

  Unused to wanting something more with a woman than a good time, he found himself once again in the unusual position of not knowing how to proceed.

  Cassidy stirred beside him, rubbing her calf along his leg, and he immediately thought about one way he could proceed—and a much less complicated one at that.

  Shelving his vacillating thoughts with a much more pleasurable objective, he was about to roll her onto her back and press her into the mattress when he heard the first thump on his cousin’s door.

  Frowning, he didn’t move just in case he’d been wrong when three extra-loud thumps followed.

  Gently untangling himself from Cassidy, he murmured for her to remain asleep and rolled to his feet.

  Given that he hadn’t received much sleep the night before, his body wasn’t impressed with being dragged out of bed as dawn touched the horizon and he padded grumpily downstairs to the front door.

  ‘Your Majesty. It’s Lukas.’

  His head of his security?

  Opening the door, Logan took in his grim demeanour. ‘Your mother sent me.’

  Instantly on high alert, Logan barely showed a flicker of emotion. ‘Is she okay?’

  ‘The Queen is fine, sir. But there’s been a stir. In the news.’

  A sense of dread even worse than when Leo had called washed over Logan. ‘What kind of a stir?’

  ‘The press have certain information.’ He could tell his head of security was trying to be diplomatic and Logan strode over to the kitchen and switched on his phone.

  A million messages pinged into the receiver, but he bypassed those and pulled up an international news site. A picture of Cassidy and himself at the lookout yesterday, his arms caging her in, her face turned sweetly up to his, was the first image that greeted him. The next ones were much more revealing.

  ‘Logan, what is it?’

  He heard Cassidy pad up behind him, leaning in to get a look over his shoulder before he could stop her. She gasped and he turned to find her fingers covering her mouth.

  He glanced over her head at Lukas. ‘How bad is it?’ He knew Lukas would have already fully apprised himself of what had happened. ‘And don’t pull any punches.’

  ‘A journalist, Todd Greene, has published an exposé on your relationship with Miss Ryan. He’s included information on her family and interviews from her home town.’

  Logan took one look at Cassidy’s stricken face and frowned. ‘This photo was taken yesterday. How can that be possible?’

  ‘From what our intelligence agency has been able to ascertain, Greene had a local source. Someone who worked at the museum and was at the opening you attended last week talked about seeing the two of you together. It seems that Greene sniffed out the story and has been lying in wait to get photographic confirmation ever since.’

  And Logan had given it to him.

  He felt the rise of bloodlust in his veins and wasn’t sure how he managed to not put his fist through a wall.

  He glanced over to find Cassidy on her phone, her face chalk white.

  Doing what he did best, Logan went into damage control. ‘Cassidy?’

  He had to say her name twice more before she registered that he was talking to her. He gripped her shoulders in his hands. ‘Don’t read any more. I’m going to fix this.’

  ‘How?’ her lower lip trembled and she staunchly bit down on it. ‘You can’t fix it. It’s all true. Oh, God, he has those photos of me.’ She hid her face in shame and Logan glanced at her screen to see an artless photo of a girl in cotton underwear that had clearly been taken years earlier.

  ‘I sent it to a boy in the hope that he would like me. I never thought you would find out. I never thought anyone would find out. He promised that he and his friends had deleted the images...’

  ‘God dammit,’ Logan swore fiercely in the face of her open vulnerability. It was his fault that everyone knew about her past because anyone who came into his life was put under the microscope. ‘You should have told me about this before now. I would have—’

  What? Wrung the guy’s neck along with that of every other person who had ever hurt his woman?

  He ground his teeth, furious that someone would invade her privacy. Only just coming to understand how much he thought of Cassidy as his. Unable to process that right now, he turned his attention to what he needed to do next. ‘Forget the photo. I’ll fix it.’

  She shook her head, barely listening to him. ‘I need to call Peta.’

  ‘It’s the middle of the night in New York. Don’t call yet.’

  ‘Oh, no, the twins...’ Her eyes scanned her phone. ‘That bastard even interviewed their lowlife father!’

  Wondering if she was about to be sick, Logan gave her a shake. ‘I’ll fix it.’

  ‘You can’t fix it.’

  ‘I can. And I will.’

  Oh, God, he was furious with her—and who could blame him after seeing that photo flashed all over the media with the caption The King’s New Sleaze?

  Bile rose in her throat. This was awful. Horrible. The worst possible thing that could have happened to either of them. And yet she couldn’t blame Logan for being angry because he had probably thought that her past was as pristine as the women on his mother’s marriage list. A list she knew she’d never make in a hundred years.

  ‘What are you going to say about the two of us?’ she asked hoarsely. ‘Because I don’t think no comment will cut it.’

  ‘I’m going to close it down before it grows any more legs. You need to stay put and not get involved.’

  Cassidy’s stomach dropped into her toes. She supposed closing down whatever this was between them was the most obvious solution, and why w
ouldn’t he take that route? She would have been leaving soon anyway. And probably the sooner the better because while she hadn’t meant this to happen, her tarnished history had put Logan’s kingship in jeopardy. And he was furious about it. Which she completely understood. He’d come to Arrantino on the back of one scandal—not to get involved in another.

  And while logically she knew that it wasn’t all her fault she couldn’t bear being the reason someone was publicly slated. Just as she had been.

  Dismayed, the threat of tears backed up in her throat, and she stared at the floor. ‘I need to get home. I need to be with my family.’

  ‘You need to stay here and trust me.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head, everything inside her going ice cold. The last thing she needed to do was stay here and make it worse. She’d acted rashly by sleeping with him and now she’d face the consequences.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. She’d indulged in a silly affair, ‘put herself out there’, and brought public shame on herself and her family again. And on Logan. ‘I’m not waiting around for you to do anything. I want to go home. Now.’

  ‘You’re overreacting.’

  ‘I’m overreacting?’ She stared at him. ‘My family name has been dragged through the mud for the world to see, you’re being compared to your father, Leo’s relationship is back in the news and you think I’m overreacting?’

  ‘I know how bad this is,’ he growled, dragging a hand through his hair. ‘That’s why I have to go. I have to fix it.’

  ‘I knew this was a bad idea.’ Her voice was a thread above a whisper, but he heard it.

  ‘What was a bad idea?’

  ‘Us.’ She glanced around his cousin’s apartment at the still full wine glasses on the bench, the uncorked bottle. She felt like soiled goods all over again. ‘This.’

  She had known it would be a mistake and she’d done it anyway so she had no one else to blame but herself.

  Cassidy shook her head. What they had was a first-class mess. ‘It doesn’t matter now. Go.’ She waved her hand in the air. ‘I know you’re desperate to get this under control.’