Remorseless (Fractured Farrells: A Damaged Billionaire Series Book 3)

by Mallory Crowe

  Now it was more important than ever to set boundaries.

  And that was what she was going to do. From now on, she would be perfectly respectable. She just had no idea what Logan was going to expect the next morning...

  Julie woke up all at once. Her eyes snapped open and she sat up in bed, looking around the room. Sure enough, Logan was in his bed. He was on his side, back facing her. But he was there. She’d tried to stay awake long enough so she’d be awake when he got in, but after about two hours, exhaustion had taken over and she’d fallen into sleep.

  She glanced at the alarm clock. It was six in the morning. Still early, but considering how early she’d gone to bed, it was more than enough sleep for her body. It was then that Julie noticed the other new addition to the room. Three shopping bags sat at the foot of Logan’s bed. So that’s where he went last night. At least he probably wasn’t getting into trouble.

  The bags were from one of those big-box stores that was open twenty-four hours a day. Not her first choice for dressing a Farrell, but it had to be better than his current selection of two T-shirts and two pairs of sweatpants.

  Julie inched out of bed and crept over to the bags. The receipt poked out of one of the bags and she tugged it out. The faint light from the bathroom wasn’t bright enough for her to read the receipts, so she moved closer to the vanity area next to the bathroom to get a better view. A few shirts and pants. Underwear, socks, shoes, and a few other necessities. And he’d paid for it on her card. Great. Nothing like realizing how easy it was for Logan to use her credit card.

  She folded up the receipt and started to slip it back into the bag.

  “Find what you were looking for?” asked Logan.

  She jumped back and tried to keep herself from looking guilty. She hadn’t done anything wrong. “I was curious. How long have you been awake?”

  “Since you sat up. Believe it or not, I’m a light sleeper.”

  Oh yeah. The whole prison thing. “I’m sorry I woke you up. It’s early and you were out late. Go back to bed.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  She blinked at the question. It didn’t really matter what she was going to do. “I’m going to go back to bed too.” She probably wouldn’t get any sleep, but if it helped Logan get back to sleep, she would stare at the ceiling for a while. At least they had gone a whole minute without discussing the disaster of what happened last night.

  She climbed back into her bed and stared at the ceiling, studying the patterns made by the water damage. Once that became boring, she tried to close her eyes. Maybe she would be able to fall back asleep...

  Nope. That wasn’t working. She turned on her side, facing the closed curtains in front of the window, but the bright sunlight starting to stream through the seams was too distracting.

  She turned on her other side, this time facing Logan’s bed. It was darker on this side, but she kept opening her eyes to see what Logan was doing. He was still facing away from her and not moving. Was he sleeping again already? Was he one of the types who could fall asleep and wake up just like that?

  She adjusted the covers, which were now tangled after all her tossing and turning, and she got her answer.

  Logan groaned and turned over to face her. “Everything okay over there?”

  “I’m just trying to get comfortable.”

  “You were fine all night.”

  “Well, unconscious me is easier to please than conscious me.”

  “You don’t have to go back to sleep. I’m awake now.”

  She groaned. “You’re not awake. I woke you up. Go back to sleep. I’ll be quiet. Promise.”

  “No. I’m awake now. Come on. Let’s get up.” He pushed the covers off him and headed to the bathroom.

  Even though she wanted to clarify boundaries after what happened last night, they got ready in silence. She put on a quick covering of makeup. Not as much as she’d like, but enough to make her look like a normal person, and some of her extra expensive foundation did a good job of covering the even darker bruising on her neck.

  By the time she was done, Logan already had most of the luggage in the car and he was ready to go. He made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t in a talking mood. While getting ready, she tried to look at him in the mirror, but he appeared utterly uninterested in her. Even though she was getting what she wanted, a part of her still got fired up. What, he was just going to kiss her like that and pretend like it didn’t happen?

  She was supposed to tell him how it was and declare that under no circumstance would they ever be doing that again. And they sure as hell wouldn’t go further. Yet when he walked back into the room and asked whether she was ready to check out, all she could manage was a quick “yep.”

  After they checked out, Logan took the car on the freeway and they were on their way again. “So are you going to tell me what we’re doing?” she finally asked. Not exactly the stern warning she’d wanted to give, but it was better than her previous inability to speak at all.

  “I don’t think—”

  “I don’t care what you think at this point. I almost died yesterday and I’m ready for answers.”

  Logan looked over at her and then back at the road. “I’m trying to find someone who lives in the suburbs of Denver. Her name is Alecia Willis.”

  Julie sat up straighter. A girl? He was coming all this way for a girl? She felt the blood rush into her cheeks and she looked intently out the window. “Alecia Willis? That’s cool. Is she an old friend of yours or something?”

  “I was locked up with her brother awhile back. I have a few things I wanted to talk to her about.”

  So...not a girlfriend? “What things?”

  “It’s kind of a long story.”

  Not talking again. Great. “Do you have an address for where we’re going? I can at least put it in my phone now.”

  “I don’t know her current address.”

  Julie nodded and continued to look out the window. This was going to be an interesting day. “So how do you expect to find her?”

  “I know where she worked.”

  “Do you know if she still works there?”

  “I’m hoping she does.”

  “Hope doesn’t seem like a solid foundation to build this on.”

  “What do you suggest, Julie?” His tone told her just how little he wanted her advice.

  “Well, I have friends I can call. I can get a private detective to run us a list of all the Alecia Willises in the area and let us know the addresses.”

  “That sounds like it might be breaking a few privacy laws.”

  “Fine. Do it your way.” If he wanted to run off on some half-assed chase, who was she to say no? She looked in the mirror to look at the cars behind them. She didn’t see any that looked familiar, but she wasn’t taking chances this time. Logan could run around on whatever mission he was apparently on, and she was going to focus on not getting strangled again. Well, not getting strangled and not kissing Logan.

  Priority number one and priority number two.

  Logan walked around the cell phone store and tried to pretend that he wasn’t completely out of place. Each different sign listed out all the things that the phones could do, and barely any of them talked about their ability to make phone calls.

  He wasn’t a complete caveman. He’d worked in the corporate offices with Walter, so he’d had the highest tech equipment available. But things changed fast and there was going to be a learning curve to catch up on. Luckily, Julie was there to take the reins. She sounded so confident about which model and plan he needed that there was never any indication to the young sales guy that he had no idea what every other word out of their mouths meant.

  Soon enough, Julie handed over her credit card and the sales guy ran off to process it. Logan leaned over and softly said, “Shouldn’t I be the one paying for this?”

  “You are. This is the credit card to your accounts set up by your family.”

  “Why don’t I have one with my name
on it then?”

  “The bank gave Robert a hard time about issuing you a card when you weren’t there in person.”

  Logan smiled knowingly. “You mean he wanted me to have to hang out with you for a while?”

  Julie shifted in her seat. “All he told me was that the bank gave him trouble.”

  He nodded but didn’t say anything. She knew just as well as he did that Robert, Nathan, or Alex could’ve gotten him a credit card. But he couldn’t fault them too much, especially when their plan was working so well.

  As much as he wanted to give his old family a hard time, he hadn’t been able to ditch the woman they’d sent to keep an eye on him. For the most part, he believed her when she said she was on his side. She was the Switzerland thrown in his face. Maybe if he’d been more jaded, he would’ve been able to send her back empty-handed to his family, but the small part of him that wasn’t completely broken remembered that this was her job. That she was depending on him playing by the rules.

  “I need to get a refill on my water. I’ll be right back.” Julie stood and his eyes followed her as she left, especially appreciating how the yoga pants hugged her ass as she left. Nope. He was all broken and keeping Julie around for purely selfish reasons.

  The sales guy came back and went through the rest of the contract quickly, probably before Logan could have a chance to change his mind, and handed the phone and a stack of paperwork over to Logan.

  “These are all for you. Now I’m going to activate the service and you two can be on your way.”

  Logan just nodded and didn’t say anything. The more he said, the more likely he was to give away how little he knew about what they were doing.

  But then Julie was back to answer all the questions for him, and he didn’t need to say anything. The new clothes went a long way to making him feel as if he wasn’t drawing attention wherever he went. The dark wash jeans were tight and uncomfortable as hell compared to the loose pants he’d worn for the past decade, but the fact that they had a button and zipper was still strangely comforting. He might not want to be wearing them, but he had the option to wear them, and that was pretty awesome.

  After another ten minutes, he was back in the car with Julie and trying to figure out how the damn phone worked.

  “Make sure you set a password on there,” said Julie.

  “What am I trying to hide?”

  “Well, I had the sales guy set up your Farrell Enterprises email on there. If you’re getting company emails from your brothers, that’s all confidential. Not to mention you’ll want to keep your pictures private. Especially the bad ones.”

  He frowned. “Bad pictures?”

  Julie’s brows drew together and she shifted in her seat. “Never mind that. But you’re going to want to keep the emails private.”

  “You’re assuming I’m going to be part of the company.”

  “Whatever. Don’t put a password on then. It was just a suggestion.”

  Logan winced. He didn’t want to sound defensive or like a dick. “No. You’re right. I’ll put a password.” He tried to remember where to go. He was familiar enough with the settings button and then went through a few screens until he found the security function. “I think I’m getting the hang of this.”

  “In a week, it will be like you never missed anything. Except for...”

  She trailed off and Logan looked up. “Except for what?”

  “Well. The house thing. As much fun as this road trip has been, I still have no idea where you’re going to stay. Part of my job is to get you settled.”

  “What does it matter if I’m settled? I thought you were supposed to keep me from embarrassing the family.”

  “Yes. And homeless relatives can be embarrassing. Homes give people stability and that stability keeps rich, responsibility-free playboys from drinking, getting high, and accidentally screwing hookers.”

  “I’m not a playboy,” he reminded her.

  “Former playboy. Don’t think I don’t know what you were like before all this happened.”

  “Before prison happened.”

  She chose to ignore him and continued. “You were the Nathan before Nathan was Nathan.”

  “Nathan was sixteen when I went to prison. He wasn’t exactly able to cause trouble.”

  “My point is that you were on the covers of tabloids all the time.”

  Logan thought back to those days. “I wasn’t doing anything bad.”

  Julie raised a brow.

  “Illegal. I wasn’t doing anything illegal. Drinking, sure. But not a crazy amount. And, okay, I’ll admit I slept with my fair share of women back then. But I don’t think that’s reason enough for you to guard me like a hawk.”

  Julie was quiet for a moment. “So you’re back to trying to get rid of me?”

  “I’m not—” He broke off. He was trying to get rid of her, wasn’t he? Find a time that was right and go off on his own. She’d almost died once because of him. He would be a total dick if he wasn’t trying to get rid of her. Besides that, she was a distraction he didn’t need. A distraction he couldn’t afford. “Is there a bank we can go to around here?”

  Julie glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “Banks will be closing soon.”

  “We have time, though. Why don’t we go and try to get some cash?”

  “How much cash do you need?”

  “How much can I get? Since I don’t have my ID yet and need you to buy everything for me, why don’t I get enough cash to hold me over?”

  “To hold you over without me.”

  “Damn it, Julie. This isn’t about—”

  She waved a hand, dismissing him. “Hey, it’s your money. If you want it, you’ve got it.” She pulled out her own phone, and he leaned over, trying to see what she was doing to get to the GPS she always talked about.

  It was getting later and the bars would be open soon enough. Maybe after he talked to Alecia, he wouldn’t have to worry about ditching Julie. Maybe Alecia would clear everything up for him and he could go back to New York and try to be the brother his family had been trying to get back.

  But until then, he was going to have to do everything in his power to make sure he could get away from Julie. Because if he even suspected she was still in danger, he was going to be gone before she ever knew what happened.

  Julie looked at the bar and back to Logan. “Is this a joke?”

  “This is where Alecia works and she’s the one I’m trying to get a hold of.”

  “It’s seven at night. No one is going to be there yet.”

  “We’re not going to party. We’re going to talk to the bartender. Why don’t you go get a hotel room? I’ve got my phone now so you can text me the hotel and I’ll find my way there.”

  Julie stared at the building. They were in downtown Denver and the bar district was pretty nice. It was early evening on a weekday, so there were a lot of people in suits and business casual clothes getting dinner, but she was sure the younger crowd would come in later in the evening. She’d finally gotten Logan to give her a name of the bar, even though he hadn’t told her a thing about why he was tracking down the woman.

  Leaving Logan was the last thing she wanted to do right now. He had a phone and ten grand in cash. It wouldn’t last him long, but he could stretch it out a ways if he needed to. “Hey, if you want to go in, let’s go in.”

  “And with that overflowing enthusiasm...” Logan got out of the car and headed for the bar, leaving Julie to find the meter. Luckily it was one of the modern ones that took a credit card because Julie didn’t think she had any change. The only downside was that the maximum amount of time it allowed was two hours, so it looked as if she’d be on meter duty all night.

  By the time she made it into the building, Logan was gone. Julie tried to not freak out as she saw the sign next to the elevator. Apparently this building had a few bars and the one Logan told her they were going to was in the basement.

  She had the option of stairs or an elevator that had seen bett
er days, so she chose the stairs. The short staircase had black painted walls covered in stickers and scribbles highlighted by the bright fluorescent lighting. She pushed the door at the bottom of the stairs open with a foot and walked inside. Even though it was early, a few people were inside. A guy sat at the bar: nice pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, probably going straight from the office to the bottle.

  Then there were two guys setting up a pool game at the table in the corner and the bartender who Logan was talking to. Even though there was a chill in the room since it was in the basement, the bartender was in a strange, barely there outfit: silk shorts and a silk crop top and no bra. Julie liked to consider herself a proud supporter of women wearing whatever they wanted, but she couldn’t help the flash of jealousy when the bartender leaned over the bar, giving Logan a front seat view to the show.

  She slid onto the barstool next to Logan right as he said thanks to the bartender and she pulled him out a beer. “Did you want anything?” he asked her.

  “Water please.” Her mental state was already compromised if she was getting jealous of bartenders she knew nothing about, over a man she shouldn’t even want. It would be best to keep her wits about her.

  “No problem, hun.” The bartender quickly filled a plastic glass with tap water. No dirty glances in her direction or snide remarks. Yep. She’d judged too soon.

  “So what did you find out about your mystery woman?” asked Julie.

  “I found out her shift starts in two hours, but she might come in earlier.”

  “And are you going to tell me what you want to talk to her about? I haven’t had any contact with your family. I’ve given you everything you’ve asked for. Now what more do I need to do before you can let me in on this secret mission of yours?”

  Logan took a long drink of beer and closed his eyes. “Not as good as I remembered.”

  “Changing the subject. Interesting tactic.”

  “You’re grumpy.”

  “I’ve been stuck in a car for days with no idea about what was happening and my sore throat is only just starting to get better now. I’m sorry for being grumpy, but if you told me more information about what we’re doing here, I’m sure that my mood will improve.”