Burned

by Roberts, Emma

  “You should go.” Before I hoist you onto the table and fuck you silly.

  Mina seized her bag and slung it over her shoulder with a dismissive sniff. “What time is the flight?”

  “Midnight.”

  “See you then.”

  It wouldn’t be soon enough.

  Chapter Nine

  Mina

  I wished the signed NDA stuffed into my carry-on made me feel better.

  The lawyers I had on retainer could and had ripped clients new assholes when they’d gone back on their word. All of them had decided to settle quietly out of court and pay the damages requested.

  But Logan Farraday was a different animal entirely. He’d ruined my life already. One little piece of paper wasn’t going to stop him from doing it again, if he had the inclination.

  LAX was always a nightmare to navigate, so I’d arrived early, hoping to beat the worst of it.

  After wading through the crowds, I was a little less put together than I’d have liked. The blonde wig that Heather had outfitted me with was threatening to skew to the left, and a toddler had spilled his grape juice on the blue sarong dress I wore.

  It was not one of my better days.

  I relaxed a little when I saw the Boeing 737 BBJ being prepped for takeoff. My stepfather had owned a model similar, and I knew it was outfitted with a master suite and a bathroom. At least I’d have a place to retreat to if Logan became too insufferable.

  A strong, calloused hand slid into mine and I jerked it back in surprise. My hand instinctively went for the small can of pepper spray that was now not on my key ring. But it was Logan standing beside me, his gaze fixed on the plane.

  “Jesus, Logan,” I hissed. “Don’t scare me like that. I would have maced you, if I had my mace.”

  His mouth curled into a mocking smile, though he still didn’t glance down at me. “Like you could reach, shorty.”

  “I am five foot nine,” I huffed. “I’m hardly petite. And as I recall, I was tall enough to give you a fat lip in the eight-grade.”

  “Only because you were the world’s clumsiest ballerina. I don’t think it counts without intent behind it.”

  Despite the seriousness of our situation, I was overcome by a wave of warm nostalgia. I couldn’t believe he remembered my awful eighth-grade dance recital.

  He’d been the reason I’d fucked up so spectacularly. Fourteen and bursting with hormones, I’d been instantly and irrevocably attracted to my brother’s hot roommate. Gangly and awkward, I’d done my best to appear graceful and poised. I’d ended up sailing off the stage and hitting him in the face with a badly performed arabesque.

  Ten years my senior, I’d been pretty sure I’d never have a shot with him. Only four short years later, he’d become the love of my life. And then the bane of my existence, two years after that.

  Logan raised a hand, stroking a finger curiously down the blonde wig. “I’m not sure I like this,” he murmured. “Red suits you better.”

  “It also sticks out. Discretion is key here, don’t you agree?”

  Logan shrugged. “Like I said, no one is going to know. They’ve never met Phoebe.”

  Irrational jealousy prickled along my skin. He wasn’t mine and I had no claim on him. But hearing another woman’s name fall so easily from his lips made me all kinds of defensive.

  “This Phoebe, she’s a friend of yours?”

  Logan glanced down at me, one eyebrow quirked up. “A friend of Katherine’s actually, but she’s at the house more often than not. Does that bother you?”

  “No.” Yes. A million times yes. If she was Katherine’s friend, it meant she was probably at least two years older than me. A lot closer to Logan’s age. And probably pretty. The thought of Logan sharing a house with an attractive woman made my stomach launch into angry contortions.

  The crew finished prepping the plane and a minute later, Logan seized my bags and started toward the jet. I followed, tottering along in my ridiculously high heels.

  “What’s all this?” he asked, flicking the silver cross dangling from my neck. The bible case tucked under one arm was a foreign weight to me. I hadn’t been to church since the Senator had kicked me out of the house.

  “An addition to your character profile,” I said, stepping into the interior of the plane. I nearly sighed in relief. Between the grape juice and the summer heat, I was beginning to feel sticky. I was looking forward to a shower and a change of clothing.

  “Dare I ask?”

  “I called ahead to ask for separate rooms. As a deeply religious person, I intend to wait until marriage to sleep with you.”

  Logan actually guffawed, collapsing into one of the chairs and shaking with the force of his laughter.

  “What the hell are you laughing at Farraday?” I snapped.

  The bastard laughed so hard he actually had to wipe tears from his eyes. “You. I know you can act, Blakely, but good God, I never thought I’d see you playing Miss True Love Waits. Where’d you stash the schoolgirl skirt? I can’t wait to see it.”

  If I’d had a drink to throw in his face, I would have. “Shut the hell up, Farraday.”

  Amusement played over his handsome features, but he choked back any further response.

  I was saved from further mockery by the arrival of the stewardess, a middle-aged woman with close-cropped brown hair and a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  The woman introduced herself as Joanne and offered us a tour of the plane. I didn’t think anything about the layout would surprise me but took her up on the offer anyway. One never knew when their ex would become too irritating to travel with. It would be handy to know where the parachutes were kept in the event I experienced catastrophic asshole levels and needed to evacuate.

  The pilot was a handsome man in his mid-thirties whom I wouldn’t have minded sharing coffee with. His light blonde hair, easy smile, and lilting Southern drawl made him the textbook definition of charming. Unfortunately for me, all the good ones appeared to have been taken, because he had a four-by-six photo of his wife and child propped up in the cockpit.

  Joanne escorted us to our seats and ran down a short list of safety instructions.

  We awaited takeoff in moody silence, with Logan glancing my way every so often.

  By the time we were in the air, his good humor had evaporated. He settled into the stern, forbidding man he’d been at the party. Not for the first time I wondered where the warm, good-natured man I’d fallen for had gone. Maybe he’d been this much of a prick the whole time and I’d been too enamored with him to see it.

  Either way, I didn’t have the patience to deal with his moods tonight. I kicked off the heels and stood, stretching to work the kinks out of my muscles.

  “I’m going to take a shower and go to bed,” I informed him.

  “They’ll be serving breakfast in about six hours,” he said. “Baked flounder and eggs. You won’t want to miss it.”

  “We’ll see.”

  All the five-star cuisine in the world wasn’t going to tempt me to cozy up to him at the breakfast table. This day felt like it had stretched on for an eternity. My mission didn’t technically begin until we touched down in Morocco. That gave me thirteen hours to steel myself for the coming con. Thirteen hours to sleep, bolster my resolve, and put on the best fucking performance of my life.

  I could only hope it would be enough.

  * * *

  Six hours of sleep and much primping later, I felt more confident about my role. Fatigue and irritation had given Logan’s mockery more weight than it should have held.

  I was unsurprised to find him in a sour mood at the breakfast table. He didn’t look up from his phone once after settling into a seat across from me.

  After a few long minutes of stony silence, I couldn’t take it anymore. I placed my hands flat on the table and stood so that he’d be forced to look up at me.

  “What is eating you?”

  “Pardon?”

  “You’ve been on edge sin
ce we took off. What’s crawled up your ass, Farraday? This was your idea, you know. If you’re too distracted to take this seriously, we can turn the jet around.”

  Logan’s eyes snapped up to meet mine and the chill coming off him was arctic. Jeez. What had I done to provoke this reaction? I’d stayed the hell out of his way all last night.

  “That’s none of your business, Blakely.”

  “I say it is. You insisted you could protect me. That’s why you brought me along, isn’t it? Other than filling in for the blonde Phoebe, I mean.”

  It rankled to realize that I’d been counting on him. His offer of protection had warmed a silly, stupid part of me that was still attached to him. Eighteen-year-old Mina Blakely wouldn’t have doubted the sincerity of that offer. That Mina had believed that First Sergeant Logan Farraday would have rather died than see her hurt.

  But he wasn’t a First Sergeant anymore. And I was hardly that naive where he was concerned.

  “You’re here so I can keep you out of trouble. As I said before, I think the threat is the work of one of your clients. This is a diversion to keep you out of their sights for the time being. Once we’ve returned, I’ll have a good look at your...clientele and see which of them would want you and yours dead.”

  The way he paused over the word clientele sent my blood pressure into the red. My fingers curled around my fork and I jabbed it into a piece of egg rather than into the fleshy part of his thumb, as I was tempted to. I shoved the whole thing into my mouth, chewing furiously, the yellow stuff bland and dry.

  How did he always do this to me? I wasn’t generally a violent person. But for the two years I’d been with Logan, my passions had run roughshod over us both.

  I swallowed thickly and squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t fly off the handle again. There was more at stake here than my feelings.

  “That’s not fair, and you know it.”

  “You know what isn’t fair?” He snapped down on the table. “All this shit you keep throwing at me. You broke up with me, if you’ll remember?

  I did a passable impression of a fish, gaping at him before I could collect myself enough to speak. Fury locked every single one of my muscles in place. My hands formed rigid claws on the edge of the table.

  “I broke up with you after you ruined my life,” I seethed. “You convinced me to make that sex tape with you. At least I had the decency to wait until you were stateside, rather than send a Dear John letter. Did you plan to release it all along?”

  I scrutinized his expression, looking for any hint of remorse. He knew what the Senator had done to me after the scandal went public. He’d been overseas when it actually hit the fan but I hadn’t wanted to end things between us with a Dear John letter. I’d waited until he hit the States before putting an end to our relationship. He knew what that little misadventure had cost me. I’d waited and waited for some enterprising internet troll to uncover who the other party had been. I’d had no delusions it would affect him the same way. Society praised men for the very things it condemned women for. But having his name in the press right along with mine would have been something.

  But there’d been nothing. No one had ever discovered that Logan Farraday, billionaire heartthrob and media darling, had been the one fucking me senseless.

  Either I wasn’t as adept at reading him as I’d thought, or he’d developed one hell of a poker face in the intervening years, because I couldn’t glean a thing from him.

  “Is that what you think?” His voice was a low, ragged whisper. “You think I released it? That was for us, Mina. I never showed it to anyone else.”

  I needed to get out of there. Preferably off this plane, but that wasn’t an option—we still had about seven hours left to go on the flight. I was apoplectic and fully prepared to shove Logan Farraday out the nearest window. Furious tears filled my eyes. Rather than let them fall, I shoved away from the table. I was going to lock myself in the back of this plane and I wasn’t coming out until we landed in Morocco.

  “For you and me huh? What fucking bullshit.”

  I strode past him with purposeful strides, heading back the way I’d come. I was too angry to sleep. Maybe a long, hot shower would remind me of all the reasons tossing him out of the plane was a really bad idea.

  Logan’s hand shot out into the aisle, seizing me before I could get past him.

  “Mina—”

  Utilizing the standard self-defense training that my obnoxious stepbrother had taught me for occasions such as this, I twisted my wrist toward his thumb to loosen his grip and pulled my arm back. He could stop me if he tried—Logan was ex-army and if he wanted me immobilized, he’d manage it. Instead, he let his hand fall.

  Something like pain flashed across his face before he could conceal it.

  “Take your fake apology and shove it up your ass,” I snarled. “I don’t need it. I don’t need you. When this little farce is through, I never want to see your face again.”

  In the bedroom, I slammed the door and sunk to the floor. I drew my knees as close to my chest as I could possibly manage, wrapped my arms around them, and buried my face in my arms with a sob.

  This job was impossible. Whoever had set this challenge for me must have known that too. I couldn’t keep my temper in check around Logan Farraday for the duration of breakfast, let alone the course of a fake romantic interlude. I was never going to scrape the money together in time.

  The faces of each of my girls flashed before my eyes. I had thirteen Hustlers to protect and more staff that were on call. Which of them was my blackmailer going to target first? Whose blood would be on my hands by the middle of August?

  A very large part of me wanted to wave the white flag of surrender. Perhaps my utter humiliation would be enough for the blackmailer. I had enough in reserve to pay for half of the demand. If I offered them three million and my own life, would it be enough?

  Probably not. Which meant I had only one option.

  I had to successfully con Logan Farraday into giving me what I needed.

  Impossible. But I still had to try.

  Pulling in a shaking breath, I climbed to my feet and collapsed into bed. If I was going to pull this off, Mina Blakely had to disappear. Fortunately, I had been given the mask I needed to disappear completely.

  “What would Phoebe Mason do?” I wondered idly.

  I’d figure it out after a long nap.

  Chapter Ten

  Logan

  The contents of the table jumped by three inches when my fist impacted the smooth surface.

  A glass teetered dangerously at the edge, and I shoved it back to its original position before it could fall. Joanne would be furious with me if I started throwing glassware around the cabin. I was pretty sure that type of behavior was frowned upon, even if you were technically the owner of the plane.

  What had I been thinking, bringing Mina along? It didn’t matter that we still reacted to each other. Gasoline would always react to a spark. We could fuck all day long and that wouldn’t solve the underlying problem.

  Mina hated me. Her acidity hadn’t decreased one iota over the years. I could have lived with that, if I’d done something to deserve it.

  I hadn’t released that sex tape.

  I’d been overseas when the scandal broke and arrived home to find her already thrown out of her parents’ lives. It had been a confusing few weeks, trying to find her. Walter hadn’t known or cared where she’d gone. Annette wouldn’t have said anything if she had, too timid and dutiful a wife to betray her husband’s wishes. I’d been forced to call in every favor I had at the time in order to track her down.

  She’d been staying with friends in a small Bel-Air apartment when my private investigator found her. The confrontation when I knocked on the door had gone disastrously. It hadn’t been an argument so much as wordless shrieking and a call to the cops after she’d attempted to shove me down the stairs.

  Knowing the source of her antagonism didn’t lessen the brunt of it. Anger still lay th
ick and hot on my tongue, a good indicator that I needed to keep my mouth shut. Acting on impulse was only going to make the situation worse.

  That tape had never been meant for anyone’s eyes but mine. It had been an idea we’d toyed with for months. And that night, we’d had probably the hottest sex we’d ever had, which was something. Lack of enthusiasm had never been an issue between us when it came to sex and location was often a secondary concern. There was something about the voyeuristic nature of the setup that spurred us both on. I’d been looking forward to watching the tape again when I returned from my tour of duty.

  And then I’d returned to find that it was all over the goddamned internet.

  I’d been living with three roommates at the time because of the length of stretches I spent overseas. After returning from Iraq, and the fallout with Keenan, I booted the other two out, which gave me the three-story manor house and its accompanying land to myself. I’d needed that space in the months after my discharge. I was ashamed to admit it now, but what had happened overseas had sent me into a dark and rather dangerous place. I’d only been able to pull my head out once my father’s health condition became too serious to ignore.

  I’d have rather crushed my right nut than spread the tape to the public. I’d cared too much about Mina to shame her like that, no matter what our disagreement happened to be. Which left my roommates as the key suspects. Keenan Blakely, Brenton Harvey, and Scott Flemming all had their reasons to dislike Mina.

  For Keenan, it had been the sore lack of attention from his father. Walter Blakely and Alden Farraday might as well have been brothers. Aside from their politics they had almost everything in common. Shrewd business sense, an obsession with image, and too busy for their kids.

  He’d never said it out loud, but it had been clear as fucking day that Keenan resented Annette and Mina when his father remarried—Mina’s father had died of cancer when she was four. Mina was six when she gained a stepfather and probably didn’t remember a father figure before Walter. But Keenan remembered.