The TROUBLE with BILLIONAIRES: Book 3

by Kristina Blake

  “Let’s try this again. I’m Logan.”

  I laughed. “Annie.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Annie. Would you like to share my sandwich with me?”

  “Yeah. I’d like that.”

  He took my hand and led me to the couch, tugging me down so that we were sitting very close together. Then, he handed me a wedge of his sandwich and started to talk about the merits of mustard. He had me laughing so hard I never managed to take more than one bite of the sandwich.

  ***

  Madison

  I stood by the bar in Rawn’s office, sipping a glass of water absently. I couldn’t stop running the conversation Logan and I had in the hospital through my mind, over and over again. I wasn’t good with secrets. I understood why he told me, but I didn’t like that he had asked that I not share it with anyone else, especially Annie.

  Poor Annie.

  I knew how much she liked Logan. She even told me once that she believed they were meant to be together—not necessarily forever, but for a while. I tried to discourage her then, but now? If she knew what I knew…

  “You okay?”

  Rawn slid up behind me and ran his hand over my hip. I leaned back into him, resting my head on his shoulder.

  “When is all this craziness going to stop?”

  “I don’t know, babe.” He kissed my neck lightly. “The CEO is not thrilled. She’s probably on the phone with Conrad right now, instructing him to squash the rumors spinning around town as quickly as possible.”

  “Do you think it was someone at the hospital who leaked it?”

  “Don’t know. Conrad said the reporters who have left messages for him seemed to know he was at a photoshoot for Cepheus. That can only mean one of two things: someone from Cepheus leaked the information, or Logan told someone what he was doing this morning and that person leaked the information.”

  “Maybe he told one of the nurses at the hospital.”

  “Maybe.” Rawn sighed, his breath washing over me like a troubled wind. “It always seems to come back to Cepheus. That can’t be a coincidence.”

  “But why would someone want to hurt Logan? He doesn’t work here; he was just doing me a favor.”

  “Because he’s a name.” Rawn squeezed my arms before stepping around me and pouring himself a drink. “News of this type could spread like wildfire because of his celebrity status. It has the potential to be national news, maybe even international. This could hurt Cepheus’ bottom line for a while to come.”

  “Why?”

  He took a healthy swig of his drink before turning to me. “Cepheus is a publicly owned company. Bad publicity like this could not only affect sales, it could cause the stocks to plummet. And Cepheus has been on a rocky foundation for more than a year, anyway, because of a frivolous lawsuit last year that accused us of stealing the blueprints for a product and passing them off as our own.”

  “Really?” I hadn’t heard about that, and I did a lot of research into Cepheus before I applied to work here. “Did it go to court?”

  “No. But we spent a lot of money fighting to keep it out of court. After we settled, someone released a copy of the settlement to a scientific journal who, in turn, contacted a bunch of our private clients, informing them of what had happened. Some of them dropped us as their suppliers of the product, cutting into our bottom line.”

  “I didn’t realize…”

  I thought about the tension in Rawn every time we talked about his work, but I had always assumed it was rooted in his distaste for the job in general. Now, I realized that it had just as much to do with the possibility that Cepheus might go under and he could find himself without a job.

  Rawn had never gone to college. He got this job because he impressed the engineers when he pointed out problems with the blueprints his father worked on in Cepheus’ labs. And he couldn’t take a comparable job with another company because he signed a non-compete clause when he joined the company. He had few options…

  There was a lot on the line for Rawn.

  I moved close to him, sliding my hand slowly up the front of his heavily starched shirt. “I’m sure Conrad will work his PR magic and sweep all this under the appropriate rug.”

  “If not?”

  I shrugged. “Then, we’ll survive. We’ll start our own company if we have to.”

  “I love your optimism,” he said, as he pressed his lips to my forehead. “Let’s just hope we don’t have to do that.”

  I smiled, but some of what he had just said made me wonder. Was it possible that what happened this morning was connected to my kidnapping last month? Could this mean that whoever had been behind that wasn’t just Peggy Duprey and Aurora, but someone totally different? And if that was the case, who?

  I still couldn’t shake the memory of that man…the man who came into the house where I was being held. His voice, when he spoke my name, was a purposeful whisper. But I recognized it. And the other man—I know there was someone else involved, not just the lackeys the police said they were searching for, but I suspected they had decided weren’t big enough fish to waste their time on. I just didn’t know why. I didn’t know what the end game was.

  But I knew we needed to stop it.

  It made me uncomfortable, almost as uncomfortable as Logan dropping his secrets on me. I didn’t like the thought of someone coming after the people I love…Mellissa, Annie, Rawn…and I really didn’t like not knowing what to do about it.

  Rawn ran his hand slowly over the side of my face. “You want me to take you home?”

  “No.”

  I suddenly didn’t want to be apart from him. What if something else happened? I ran my hand over the back of his and rose up onto my tiptoes to kiss him. He groaned silently against my lips, as he drew me into him. I slid my hand under his suit coat, annoyed by the necessity of all these pieces of clothing between us. I wanted to be close to him—as close as humanly possible—and stay there for as long as possible. I wanted to go back to the simplicity of our early relationship—when he whisked me away on his private jet just to see the stars over Hawaii, when we sat outside an Italian restaurant and he fed me strange foods while I sat with a blindfold over my eyes. I wanted to play those trust games, to spend hours getting to know him even better, to lie naked in his arms and do things I never imagined myself capable of months, even weeks ago.

  I wanted the danger that began with my kidnapping to be over.

  ***

  Mellissa

  “Hey, love,” Conrad whispered, a little amusement in his voice. “Wake up.”

  I reached up and pushed the hair out of my face, focusing on him in the confusion of the first seconds of consciousness. People were moving around the room behind him, trying not to notice the two of us, someone on the phone and someone else delivering a stack of papers tucked into manila file folders. It took a moment, but it finally sank in that I was in Conrad’s office and I’d fallen asleep on his couch.

  “Oh, sorry,” I mumbled, as I quickly sat up and wiped the drool from my chin, wondering if I had snored, too.

  “No worries,” Conrad said. “We’re finishing up. Why don’t you let me take you home?”

  I got the annoyed glance of his personal assistant, just that look telling me that it was going to be a very long night for Conrad and I was just interrupting it.

  “I can get a cab.”

  “No, you won’t. Do you really think I’m going to send you out by yourself after everything that’s been going on?”

  “Peggy’s in jail.”

  “Yeah, well, Madison doesn’t seem to think Peggy was working on her own. And I’m beginning to wonder if she’s right.”

  “Why?”

  Conrad shook his head, glancing over his shoulder at the others in the room. “Let’s go home.”

  I let him take my hand and pull me off the couch. Sally, one of his brilliant employees, waved politely as Conrad explained that he’d be back in an hour or so. I liked Sally, and she seemed to like me. She was the
only one in the office who spoke to me more than to say hello or goodbye at the end of my frequent visits. Aurora’s resignation at Cepheus left me and Russell, her assistant, in limbo for a while…more me than Russell. Russell had the good luck of being the CEO’s nephew, so they’d stuck him in another department for the time being. But, apparently, they didn’t need another receptionist anywhere. Human resources assured me that my position would be available once they hired a new vice-president of development, but that could take upwards of five to six months. In the meantime, I had a lot of time on my hands, and that had led to Conrad dragging me into the office several times a week. Not that I didn’t enjoy it—I actually found it pretty fascinating. I loved listening to Conrad use his charm to convince some reporter or an editor to write what he wanted about the companies he represented instead of the naked truth. He was so good at it that sometimes I couldn’t tell what the truth was and what was a spin he’d put on it even when he had just told me the honest truth.

  PR was just glass and mirrors, he told me once. But it seemed like it was a heck of a lot of charm, too.

  I closed my eyes once I was settled in the front seat of his car. I couldn’t shake this sudden exhaustion that seemed to descend over me the moment the sun went down most days. Stress...maybe. I must have dozed off again because when I next opened my eyes, we were parked in front of Conrad’s house.

  “You could have just taken me home.”

  “I thought you might sleep a little better here. You’ve been so restless at your house.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek lightly. “You have to stop feeling so guilty about deciding to leave your grandmother in Summer Oaks.”

  “It’s a good place for her. I just…it seems so odd being in that house without her.”

  “She was never here, so maybe you won’t feel so odd about it.”

  I couldn’t really argue with his logic. But I also suspected he had another reason for wanting me to stay here tonight.

  He had a state of the art security system in his house.

  He led the way upstairs, pushing open the door to his impressive master bedroom with that huge, custom-made bed dominating the center. Was it awful that my first thought when I saw it was how good it would feel to climb between the sheets and go back to sleep?

  Conrad moved up behind me and lifted the hair from my neck. He kissed me gently, his breath awakening nerve endings just as quickly as his touch. I moved back into him, my body instantly coming alive, as he slid his arms around me and his hands began to explore my curves.

  “I could use a hot shower,” he whispered against my ear. “What about you?”

  I turned in his arms, sliding my hand over his jaw and into his hair. I kissed him, a lingering touch that made him moan.

  “Tell me what’s going on, Conrad. No more secrets, remember?”

  He groaned. “I’d rather take a shower.”

  “Me, too. But I want to know what’s going on.”

  With a heavy sigh, he reluctantly drew me to the loveseat situated on the far side of the room in front of his flat screen television. He sat back and ran his hand over his face, suddenly looking more exhausted than I felt.

  “I’ve been talking to these reporters all day, and they know more than they should. It’s like...” He shook his head. “Whoever leaked this information was not just a nurse or doctor at the hospital. It was someone who knew exactly what Logan Mitchell was supposed to be doing this morning, who he was doing it for, and what happened. Some of them even seemed to think they knew what drug brought on the seizure. As far as I know, Logan doesn’t even know that.”

  “How could they know all that?”

  “That’s the question.”

  I rested my head on his shoulder. “Have you talked to Rawn about it?”

  “Not yet. I’m going to call him in the morning.”

  “Do you think it’s someone from Cepheus?”

  “The only people from Cepheus at that photoshoot were Rawn and Madison. I’m sure someone else at Cepheus knew about it, but I can’t imagine many people knew. Aurora, before she left this last week, and Russell. Maybe someone in financials. But all the details were handled at my firm.”

  “Do you think Aurora…”

  I didn’t have to see Conrad’s face to know he didn’t like that question. I could feel it in the tension that filled his shoulders. But I also knew him well enough to know that he had likely already considered it. Aurora was, after all, his ex-wife. And her Alzheimer’s already led her to slip information to Peggy Duprey. Could she have slipped more information to someone else, someone else who still had a reason to hurt Cepheus and its employees?

  “I really don’t know. But I do know she couldn’t have been the one to slip the drug into Logan’s water bottle, if that’s what really happened. And it’s that fact that worries me the most.”

  “Maybe Rawn will have some ideas tomorrow.”

  “Maybe.” Conrad leaned into me and kissed the tip of my nose. “I’ve kept you up long enough. You should get some sleep.”

  “What about that shower?”

  A warm smile slipped across his lips before he stood and held his hand out to me. He was like a child with a new toy. But I wasn’t really complaining…

  Chapter 3

  Annie

  The door to the bedroom was still closed when I woke the next morning. Logan had insisted I take the bed, but I convinced him I would prefer the couch. I regretted it now, the crick in my neck promising to be stiff by the afternoon. But it didn’t seem right to make the guy who’d been in the hospital just that morning sleep on the rock hard couch.

  I sat up and drew my fingers through my hair, wishing the bathroom had a door from the hallway—instead of being accessible only from the bedroom. I used the sink in the kitchen to wash my face, pressing wetness into my hair to try to tame some of the tangles. I was thinking about putting on my shoes and going down to the convenience store on the corner when I heard someone turning a key in the front door.

  I grabbed a bat Logan had found in the back of the bedroom closet and raised it over my head, ready to clobber whoever happened to walk in.

  It was a good thing I recognized Madison before I swung.

  “What the hell!” I cried. “You could have texted or something.”

  “Sorry,” she said, kicking a heavy duffle across the floor in front of her, my overnight bag in her hands. “I thought I’d drop off some clothes for the two of you. Everyone kind of forgot about that last night.”

  “Thanks.”

  I took the overnight bag and opened it, digging through until I found my favorite gray sweater, a cardigan that I wore so often last winter Madison threatened to burn it.

  I sighed contentedly as I pulled it on.

  “I thought you’d appreciate that.”

  “You know me too well.”

  Madison shrugged nonchalantly, but there was nothing nonchalant about the way she was looking at me. “How did it go last night?”

  “We talked,” I said. “He’s really incredibly intelligent. Did you know he went to Princeton?”

  Madison shook her head, but the way she continued to look at me…

  “We just talked, Madison. For hours. It was nice.”

  I knew Madison well enough to know when something was bothering her. I wanted to ask what it was, but I was suddenly afraid I didn’t want to know the answer. Was she jealous? Was that it? Did she like Logan now?

  “Hey, ladies,” Logan said, as though my thoughts had brought him out of the bedroom. “How are you today?”

  “How are you?” Madison asked, concern etched in everything about her as she turned to him. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Very well.” He smiled, his eyes bouncing between the two of us. “Am I interrupting something?”

  “No.”

  I crossed the room and brushed past him to get into the bedroom, then the bathroom. It was a small apartment—with fairly thin walls. I could hear them talking and imagined it had some
thing to do with me. Or maybe that was just my paranoia. Maybe I was just jumping to conclusions because I so wanted things to work out between Logan and I. And we did have such a nice time last night…it was like a first date without all the awkwardness and the interrupting waiters.

  I washed my face again in the bathroom sink, searching the drawers and cupboard for a comb or a toothbrush. I found some mouthwash, which I used vigorously just in case Logan happened to get close enough to smell my rancid morning breath. Not that I thought he might. He’d had plenty of opportunities last night, but he never took a single one. He was a perfect gentleman.

  Damn it!

  I looked at myself in the mirror one more time, twisting the front sections of my hair and tucking them behind my ear so that they didn’t hang down in my face. I wasn’t bad looking, if I did say so myself. The deep red of my hair set off my pale skin perfectly, better than most redheads. I didn’t have the same multitude of freckles that a lot of redheads were cursed with, just a few across the bridge of my nose. And my lashes were thick and long, highlighting my hazel eyes better than the most expensive bottle of mascara could probably do. I was pretty, even, still young enough to have a tight stomach and perky breasts.

  So why was he so hands off, so gentlemanly? Any other guy would have taken advantage of a night alone with a pretty girl.

  Just my luck Logan Mitchell wasn’t like other guys.

  I shook my head, turning away from the mirror and my depressing self-assessment.

  Madison and Logan were standing face to face next to the kitchen when I came back into the room, too close for their conversation to be anything less than intimate. Madison looked up when I cleared my throat, guilt slipping over her pale features before she turned away to gather her keys from the countertop.

  “I should go. Rawn’s waiting for me at the office.”

  “It’s Saturday,” said Logan

  She shrugged. “That rarely makes a difference to him.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Don’t try to talk her out of it,” I said, moving up beside Logan. “She’d rather be at the office than anywhere else. Especially when it involves Rawn.”