by Lily Everett
“Well?” Her voice was firm, even bored, but the tickle of her pulse against his fingers told another story.
“So eager,” Logan murmured, low and heated, just to see if her heart rate would jump. But instead it seemed to smooth out into a steady, slow rhythm. He frowned, and a smile curved Jessica’s perfect lips.
“Yes, sir.” She was the picture of demure professionalism, blinking wide green eyes up at him.
Dropping his hand with a muttered curse, Logan stepped back. “Balls. I can’t do the seduction thing when you remind me that you’re technically my subordinate.”
Her smile faded. “I know.”
Logan jammed his hands into the pockets of the track pants. “The way you boss me around, I forget sometimes.”
“You sometimes forget to pay attention to anything that isn’t related to the company or your gadgets.” Jessica shrugged, wandering over to perch on a fallen tree trunk by the side of the path. “Someone needs to look out for you.”
“It took me a while to realize that’s why you’re so damn bossy.” Logan ran his fingers through his hair. “How many times did I fire you that first week? And since? But you never go.”
He didn’t mention the glow of warmth it gave him now, every time he pushed her away and Jessica pushed right back. In Logan’s experience, people left. They couldn’t freaking wait to leave, which was why he preferred to spend his time with the fascinating puzzles in his lab rather than socializing.
Jessica was different. She never courted his interest, never tried to intrigue—and yet, effortlessly and inevitably, the enigma of Jessica Bell had captured Logan’s attention.
“I don’t go because you have no power to fire me,” she reminded him with relish. Man, she loved to hold that over his head.
“And apparently, even at my most deliberately obnoxious, I don’t have the power to make your life miserable enough to quit.” Once it had sunk in that he couldn’t fire Jessica and make it stick, he’d pranked her mercilessly for a week.
He’d rigged her desk drawers to stick, then pop open at irregular intervals. He’d fiddled with her ergonomic office chair so that whenever she sat down, the seat sank to the lowest position. He’d reprogrammed the calendar application on her tablet to randomize the date and time of every event she entered. And when none of that fazed her, Logan got really creative.
“Remember when you convinced the entire security staff that I was a stalker and should be barred from Harrington Tower?” Jessica sighed reminiscently. “Good times.”
“That was one of my favorites. I spent hours doctoring the security feed to show you sneaking into my private lab after hours. First time I ever missed a deadline for Miles.”
Miles Harrington, in his capacity as CEO and president of Harrington International, had not been pleased when Logan failed to appear at the quarterly meeting of the shareholders. In his capacity as the eldest Harrington brother, Miles seemed to enjoy pointing out how much Logan’s pranks looked like the pigtail pulling of grade school romance, to the untrained eye.
“That was the last of the pranks, come to think of it,” Jessica realized.
“And it was the start of your campaign to transform me into a healthy, well-adjusted human being.”
“Not that you make it easy.”
With an evil grin, Logan flopped down in the grass, careless of staining the new workout gear. “Why would I make it easy for you to turn me into Miles when it’s so much more fun to be me?”
He tilted his head back to catch the unfamiliar warmth of the sun on his face, and caught Jessica’s troubled gaze.
“You know I don’t actually want to change who you are, right? I want you to take better care of yourself. There’s a big difference.”
Equal parts uncomfortable with and delighted by her show of concern, Logan stretched his long legs out in the grass until his sneakered foot nudged hers. “And you’re so dedicated to my health that you’ve agreed to answer whatever question I pose, no holds barred. So here it is.”
She crossed her legs as elegantly as if she were wearing a couture gown instead of spandex pants and a sweatshirt. Without his human lie detector trick, there was not a single crack in her poised, professional façade. “Hit me.”
Suddenly, all Logan wanted in the world was to shatter that mask of calm indifference. To make Jessica Bell react with passion. So he ditched the softball question he’d planned to ask about her parents, and went straight for the throat.
“Why are you so determined to keep me at arm’s length?”
She froze for an instant, only a heartbeat, before opening her mouth. Too quickly.
Logan shook his head. “And don’t give me that canned stuff about professionalism. I want the real answer. Because we’d be explosive together, Tink, and you know it.”
The hot red flush that bloomed along her cheekbones set off a battery of triumphant fireworks in Logan’s chest. Passion!
Of course, when she spoke, her voice was precise and calm, edged with enough acid to sting. “What I know is that you’re spoiled. You’re a wealthy, uncommonly intelligent man entirely too used to getting what you want. Maybe I turn you down just to help you get accustomed to hearing the word no.”
Logan blinked, genuinely taken aback. “What makes you think I get everything I want? And I noticed your little evasion there, by the way. Don’t expect me to let that slide. I want a real answer.”
“To which question?” Jessica asked tightly.
“Both! All!” Logan clenched his hands into fists to stop himself from reaching for her. “I don’t see how you can consider me spoiled when I’ve lost everyone that ever mattered to me. Just because I have the sense to read the pattern and limit my desires to those that are attainable—like casual sex, alcohol and my work—that doesn’t make me spoiled. That makes me a realist.”
Jessica fell out of her prim pose on the log, her lithe limbs going loose and appealingly awkward as her laser focus zoomed in on his face. “Logan.”
It was all she said, his name, but it felt brand new, as if she’d never said it before. Or never so intimately. Heat constricted Logan’s chest, threatening to spread downward to his groin.
Hastily drawing his legs up to rest his arms on his knees, he said, “But this isn’t about me. I’m pretty sure deflecting the question onto me and my inner workings violates the spirit of our agreement. So unless you want to call for a helicopter to come pick me up from this godforsaken rock…”
Jessica narrowed a glare at him, her breath coming sharp and fast. Tension strung out between them, taut as a wire. Greedy for more of the real Jessica Bell, the passionate woman instead of the perfect assistant, Logan did what he’d do with any experiment that began to show signs of success. He pushed it further.
“I know you have the company’s chopper pilot on speed dial,” Logan taunted, standing up and dusting himself off as if he were on the point of heading back to the cottage to pack. “We could be landing at the Wall Street heliport before nightfall.”
Jessica sprang to her feet, going toe to toe with him. “We’re not leaving Sanctuary!”
“Then answer the question!”
Something flickered in her gaze, a lightning flash that ratcheted the tension even higher. Logan wanted to taste the sneer that twisted her gorgeous lips. “It’s a ridiculous question. Have you honestly never considered that I turn you down because I’m not sexually attracted to you?”
The challenge snapped between them like a rubber band drawn tight. Everything in Logan’s blood leapt, speeding through his body and propelling him forward a step until they were close enough to share breath.
If she retreated or faltered, Logan told himself, he’d leave it alone. But Jessica never backed down for an instant. She tilted her head up a centimeter, heated defiance vibrating through her taut form, and Logan lost his always-tenuous grip on healthy, well-adjusted behavior.
“Let’s test that hypothesis,” he rasped. He wrapped his arms around her slim, arched
back and seized her mouth in a deep, hungry kiss.
Chapter Four
The imprint of Logan’s strong fingers branded Jessica’s back with heat, his arms like ropes of fire binding her to him. She gasped, but not in surprise.
She should be surprised, she understood dimly through the maelstrom of desire his lips and tongue stoked in her body, but she wasn’t. They’d been heading toward this kiss ever since they first met. The only surprise was how long they’d held out.
Logan kissed the way he did everything else: with an intensity of focus and dedication to skill that made Jessica feel like the only woman in existence who’d ever gone weak in the knees at the taste of his mouth.
Of course, that wasn’t anything like the truth. The memory of exactly how diligently Logan had practiced his kissing technique was enough to stiffen her melting spine. She pushed out of his arms, shuddering at the brush of her clothes against overheated, sensitized skin. “That’s enough.”
Logan’s eyes darkened to cobalt blue, his blown pupils tracking her every move like a hawk hunting a field mouse. “No. One kiss is nowhere close to enough.”
Every sharp breath in was thick with the scent of him, male and aroused, and Jessica swallowed against the temptation to slip back into his arms and finish what he’d started.
Dismayed, she snapped herself upright. She was dangerously, terrifyingly close to breaking her cardinal rule of never mixing business and pleasure. She had to remember what was at stake if she succumbed to Logan’s seduction. And in case that wasn’t enough, maybe she could kill two birds with one stone.
If she answered his question as fully and honestly as he seemed to want, Logan would finally understand why she would never, could never allow any intimacy with him. He’d see how hopeless it was, and that he was better off sticking to his one-night stands back in the city.
The thought gave her an odd pang in the region of her heart, but she ignored it.
“One kiss is certainly enough to prove the hypothesis,” Jessica said, taking refuge in the dry, bland scientific language.
Logan arched a brow. “Or disprove it. You’re not going to argue that lack of sexual compatibility is your reason, after kissing me like that.”
You kissed me, she wanted to say, but the mischievous quirk at the corner of his mouth told her that was exactly what he wanted. Rather than argue about who kissed whom and how passionate it had been, Jessica forged ahead. “You’re right, it would be pointless to claim I’m not attracted to you.”
Desire flared sharply across his gorgeous face, his eyes never leaving hers.
Before he could take more than a step toward her, Jessica held up a hand. She needed to preserve her distance if she had any hope of getting through this awful, humiliating story. “The fact that my body reacts to yours does not obligate me to act on that attraction.”
Throwing himself down to sit on the log she’d vacated, Logan was the picture of irritated frustration. “You know it’ll be good between us. Why don’t you just give in? It’s what we both want.”
Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly. “Because what we want isn’t always good for us, Logan. For instance, office romance. I know—from bitter experience—exactly how badly an office romance can go.”
“That sounds like an interesting story.” His eyes sparkled with curiosity. “A story that just might answer my question and fulfill your requirement for yesterday.”
Jessica nodded, her mouth suddenly uncomfortably dry.
“Okay then. Story time with Tink.” Without further ado, Logan reclined on the log more fully, twisting his back like a bear scratching an itch as he found a comfortable position. “Lay it on me.”
He looked oddly like the stereotype of a patient in a therapist’s office, fingers laced together and resting on his chest. She watched them rise and fall with the steady cadence of his breath, the expansion of his rib cage drawing her eyes to the lean, mouthwatering V of his torso, and bit back a smile.
Nervous as she was at what she was about to reveal, she couldn’t help being amused at the typical Harrington male way Logan took up every available inch of space. Even in the great outdoors, with the vastness of the ocean rolling out into the distant horizon, Logan Harrington was larger than life.
But he wasn’t the only man she’d ever known who sucked all the oxygen out of a room, simply by entering it.
Any urge to smile faded, and Jessica was abruptly glad Logan had taken over the seat. She needed to move around while she told this story, rather than feel stuck in one place. Trapped.
“Once upon a time,” she began, pacing beside the length of the fallen tree, down to the torn-up roots and back again, “there was a very young, very naïve Midwestern girl whose first job out of college was personal assistant to the CEO of a hotel chain in New York City.”
Jessica sneaked a glance at Logan’s face as she passed where he’d propped his head on a knot in the tree bark, but his eyes were closed. The fact that he wasn’t looking at her made it easier for Jessica to go on. “When the young girl met her new boss, she knew she’d gotten lucky. He was kind, considerate and handsome. He spent time with her one-on-one, every day, mentoring her. At least, that’s what she thought at first.”
But she was getting ahead of herself. Forcing her breath to slow and her hands to stop twisting the fabric at the hem of her sweatshirt, Jessica hesitated.
Without opening his eyes, Logan murmured, “What was the boss’s name?”
Heart pounding, Jessica felt a sick wash of shame as she spoke the name she hadn’t uttered in five years. “Russ. Russell Owens.”
Saying it out loud broke the numbing, distancing magic of treating this story like a fairy tale. Not that it was headed for a fairy tale ending. Stop being a child about this, she lectured herself silently. Just get it over with.
“I worked for Russ for three years, but it only took him three months to talk me into bed. He was good at talking me into things. He hated my apartment—a tiny studio walk-up on the fifth floor of a building in Astoria that probably ought to have been condemned—and Russell refused to stay over there. So he found me an apartment on the Upper West Side, a nice one-bedroom I saw for the first time when he gave me the key and told me it was already furnished and the rent paid up for the entire year. He bought me clothes for work, and when I tried to refuse, he hinted gently that my professional wardrobe reflected on him and his office, so I didn’t really have a choice.”
She had to pause, to get control of the unacceptable shake in her voice. “I know what you’re thinking. He doesn’t sound like a monster, does he? In fact, I’m the one who doesn’t come off so great in this story, letting this man pay my bills and help me professionally in return for sex. I know exactly how that sounds.”
“I promise you,” Logan said, with his eyes still closed though his voice was taut with suppressed emotion. “You have no idea what I’m thinking.”
Jessica laughed to break the tension, but it came out a little choked and raw. “Right, of course. You’re a genius—how could I know what’s going on in that giant brain of yours?”
He sat up in a controlled rush, planting his feet widely on the ground and clenching his fingers on the rough wooden bark at his hips. “What I’m thinking is that Russell Owens is a dead man, if I ever meet him.”
Shock dried Jessica’s mouth. No one she’d ever told had reacted this way, including her own mother. “What?”
“He systematically took control of your entire life,” Logan snarled. “Let me guess at the next part of the story. He also monopolized your off-work hours so that you lost touch with your friends. Of course, you had to keep your relationship a secret at work, and I’d lay good money on him giving you some reason why you couldn’t discuss it with anyone else, either.”
Jessica swayed in the ocean breeze. A higher wind would have knocked her off her feet. “I didn’t have any friends in the city, actually. I moved there after college and got the job at Crown Hotels almost immediatel
y. And the reason he asked me not to talk about our relationship with my parents was…”
She nearly gagged on the shame of it, the unbearable sense of having been stupid and weak, led astray from what she knew to be right, but this was the worst of it. Once she got this out, it was nearly over, and Logan would know everything.
The fact that he seemed to know, or to have intuited most of it already didn’t make it easier to force the words out.
“When I met Russ, he wore a wedding band.” Jessica wrapped her arms around her rib cage and held on for dear life. “The minute he saw that I’d noticed it, he gave me this sad smile and told me all about his marriage and how he and his wife were separated, in the process of getting divorced.”
“And if you mentioned your affair to anyone, it might complicate and delay the proceedings,” Logan guessed.
Miserable, Jessica nodded as she averted her gaze to stare blindly out to the horizon. “I never questioned it. He spent every evening at my apartment! Well, the apartment he’d paid for. He didn’t sleep over, but that was because he had a longstanding arrangement with the company to send a car to pick him up from his house, and if he asked them to pick him up from my place instead—God. He had an answer for everything, so smooth and plausible and reasonable. Eventually I stopped asking questions.”
“And then,” Logan prompted gently when she broke off.
Wearily, she lanced the rest of the wound and drained the last drop of poison out onto the ground between them. “And then, after three years of buying me earrings and bracelets to distract me from the fact that it was never the engagement ring he kept promising, I found out that he was still married. Not separated, not nearing the end of a long, drawn-out divorce. It was all a lie—and a clichéd, predictable lie, at that.”
Logan made a rough noise behind her, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn and face the pity or condemnation on his handsome, familiar features.
“I should have known better,” she said painfully. “Deep down, I did know better. I think that’s what hurts most of all. I compromised myself and my ethics. I bought into an elaborate but ultimately formulaic and obvious fiction, because I wanted to believe. I wanted to believe that this smart, charismatic, wealthy man could fall in love with a nobody from Normal, Illinois. I thought I could have it all.”