The TROUBLE with BILLIONAIRES: Book 3

by Kristina Blake

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Money was tight in my family. My father was disabled and we were barely getting by on what my mother made from her secretarial job.”

  That surprised me a little. I’d read about Logan’s past in the various celebrity gossip magazines, but few of them mentioned what his life was like before he arrived in Hollywood and quickly became one of the hottest actors in town.

  “What happened to change things?”

  “A scholarship. My mother had applied without telling me, and we were notified of my award just before the deadline to register.”

  “That’s pretty awesome.”

  “It was.”

  “Are you close to your mother?”

  Logan tilted his head slightly as though weighing his answer. “We were once. But there have been issues between us lately that make it difficult for us to be around each other.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “He died years ago.” Logan shoved a piece of hair out of his face. “He’d been sick for a long time.”

  I nodded, thinking about my own parents. My father was a driven corporate lawyer who rarely spent much time at home, and my mother was the charity chairperson queen. She spent so much time working with her charities when I was a kid that I spent most of my days alone with the housekeeper. Needless to say, we weren’t very close. That’s why it had been so easy for Madison’s family to sort of adopt me. Or for me to adopt them.

  “I guess we’re both sort of orphans.”

  Logan’s eyebrows rose impressively into his hairline. “Yeah?”

  “Neither of us have siblings, and we’re both estranged for one reason or another from our parents.”

  His eyes softened as he studied me. “Yeah, I guess we have more in common than I would have imagined.”

  I laughed. “Do I seem that different?”

  “No.” He shifted a little in his seat. “It’s just…people tend to assume things about me.”

  “You’re still human, right?” I reached over and poked his leg as if I was looking for a metallic shell or something. “You laugh and cry, sleep and eat, just like the rest of us.”

  “True.”

  He smiled again, and I began to think I could really get used to living under the umbrella of that. It was like stepping into a pocket of sunlight after spending too many days locked up in a library studying for final exams.

  “So tell me something else no one knows about you.”

  “Hmm,” he said, scratching his chin as he considered his answer. “I don’t know. I studied astronomy at Princeton. I thought it would be cool to study the stars for the rest of my life.”

  “Something you and Madison have in common.”

  “I suppose.”

  “I’m surprised the two of you haven’t discussed it.”

  He shifted in his chair, the casualness of the moment changing. He turned to the windows and stared out for a second. “I like to cook,” he said. “My mother taught me. She said she didn’t want me to starve to death if I married some girl who couldn’t cook like she does.”

  “Smart lady. I can teach you all about condensed matter, but I can’t seem to boil water without Madison there to save the pot from warping.”

  “Condensed matter, huh?”

  “Yeah. I should graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree in May. Then I’m probably going to pursue a Master of Science degree.”

  “Impressive.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve always been good at math and science. Physics just seemed to follow.”

  Logan’s eyes moved slowly over me, as though he was seeing me for the first time.

  I got that a lot when I first started college, back when I would tell casual dates what I was studying. It taught me to lie a lot. Guys tended to be intimidated by a smart woman. But there was something different about Logan’s look. Maybe it was just because I so desperately wanted him to like me, or because I was blinded by my lust for him. But he seemed impressed, not intimidated.

  “When do you go back to class?”

  “Not until after the new year.”

  “Good. There’s something I want to show you while we’re in LA, but my schedule is pretty much set, starting tomorrow morning. But if you’re there for a while…”

  “I’m all yours—for as long as you need me.”

  That smile came again, and I just basked under the brightness of it.

  ***

  Madison

  Conrad stepped back and gestured for us to come into his house. It was dark, like he had already been preparing for bed when Rawn called to let him know we were coming. He actually had to flip on a light to illuminate the spacious living room he led us into.

  “Where’s Mellissa?” I asked.

  “She wasn’t feeling well, so I took her home a while ago.”

  I nodded, studying his face for any sign that I should be more concerned than he seemed. But he was focused on Rawn, curiosity the ruling emotion in his green eyes at the moment.

  “What’s going on?”

  Rawn sat on the edge of a loveseat, leaning forward with his hands on his knees as though he needed all the support he could get. I felt useless as I watched, like there was nothing I could do to calm his anxiety. Just being near him seemed to irritate him. He practically pulled out of the driveway of his house before I had the door closed, as though he hadn’t realized I was in the car with him.

  “The thieves who hit my house; they knew exactly what they were after.”

  “It wasn’t just a random burglary?”

  Rawn looked up at him, the look on his face enough to tear my heart out of my chest. I crossed my arms over myself again, holding my shoulders so tight I could feel the bite of my own touch.

  “They took some blueprints out of my safe that could destroy Cepheus, my career, and my father’s reputation.”

  Conrad sat with a grunt on the coffee table in front of Rawn and adopted almost the same position. “Tell me everything.”

  Rawn sat back, his eyes jumping to my face for a moment, but then he looked away again, as though he couldn’t stand the sight of me.

  “When I was in high school, I would visit my father at the Cepheus labs. Sometimes it was the only way I would see him for weeks at a time. And while I was there, I would look at the blueprints of the things he was working on and imagine each step of the manufacturing process. While I did that, all these little, sometimes meaningless, mistakes would pop out at me. At first, it was nothing of consequence. But then there were bigger, dangerous mistakes that could have meant terrible things for the companies buying and using these things: lasers, robots, lab equipment.

  “After a while, my father set up a meeting between me and the engineers. They told the CEO about me and she wanted to meet me. I think it started out as an oh-what-a-cute-kid sort of thing, but it became bigger when I pointed out several flaws in a medical laser Cepheus had bought the rights to and was planning to sell to hospitals all over the world. They had only just begun manufacturing them and their use was restricted to small scale trials. She had spoken to the inventor herself, a retired doctor, and believed the blueprints to be flawless. But they weren’t.”

  Rawn pulled his fingers through his hair, as he paused to take a breath. “When I pointed out the flaws, she didn’t believe me. She couldn’t make herself believe that some kid could see something that she and her engineers hadn’t. Months later, when patients started to die, she thought twice.”

  “People died?” I asked.

  Rawn glanced at me, but his eyes were heavily hooded. He focused on Conrad then.

  “The patient deaths were called human error, the hospitals assuming that their doctors’ inexperience with the technology had caused them. But the CEO and I both knew that it wasn’t true. The laser was flawed.

  “She asked me to show her how to fix them in exchange for a position with the company. My father saw it as the perfect opportunity. He couldn’t afford to send me to college, not with my moth
er’s illness. My mother needed me. A job at Cepheus, especially an executive position with a six figure income, was the perfect solution to everyone’s problems. So, we quietly fixed the laser and no one knew any better.”

  “But you kept the proof.”

  Rawn laughed under his breath. “That’s how egotistical I am. I kept the blueprints, the memos about the patient deaths, everything. I liked to know they were there because it helped me remember that even my hero, my father, was human, and he made mistakes.” He shook his head. “And now my own ego is going to be my downfall.”

  Silence settled over the room. So many things jumped to my mind; things I would have told Rawn if we were alone. That it wasn’t his fault; that he wasn’t being egotistical. That wanting to hold onto the image of his father as a hero was a beautiful thing, not a bad one. But I couldn’t say those things now, not in front of Conrad.

  “Is there anything in the memos that specifically says that the patient deaths were caused by a fault in the laser?”

  “No,” Rawn said softly. “But if anyone were to compare the old blueprints to the new ones, they would be able to see the mistake the inventor made. It would be glaringly obvious.”

  “But to release that to the press would be a complicated move. They would have to have an expert back it up and that would not appeal to many reporters.”

  “It might right now, what with the press coverage of Madison and Mellissa’s ordeals, and then the suggested scandal of Logan’s seizure.”

  “But neither of those received a lot of attention,” Conrad said, patting himself on the back a little. “The press still hasn’t really figured out what happened at that photoshoot, and they’re lost in the details of Peggy and Mellissa’s fragile connection with the kidnappings. They haven’t even made the connection to Cepheus. Not really.”

  Rawn leaned back and pulled his fingers through his hair. “They could also go to the FDA, and the FDA really frowns on covering up patient deaths.” Rawn pulled out his cellphone and called up a text message that he showed to Conrad. I moved up behind him to read it over his shoulder:

  If you do not hand in your resignation by Friday morning, the things taken from your safe will anonymously land on a desk at the FDA first thing Monday morning.

  “When did you…?” I asked.

  “Just after the police called.”

  “Did you try to text back?” Conrad asked.

  “It came back undeliverable. It must have been a burner phone, or some computer trick.”

  Conrad grunted, as he studied the message a moment longer before handing the phone back to Rawn. “If we go to the FDA first, maybe they’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  Rawn’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah, well, they might give me a break because I was a seventeen-year-old-kid at the time. But what about my father? The CEO? Or Cepheus in general? Do you really think they’ll let all of them walk away unscathed?”

  “But you can’t resign,” I said. “What would you do?”

  Rawn shook his head, dragging his fingers through his hair again. “I don’t know. But I can’t hang Cepheus and my father out to dry to save my own ass.”

  “You have until Friday,” Conrad said. “Give me that long to see if I can come up with something.”

  That, I knew, was why Rawn had come here. He trusted Conrad despite the fact that he once thought he might have been connected to my kidnappers. When it came to PR, to spinning a bad situation into a good one, Conrad was the best. And, right now, he was Rawn’s last and best hope.

  “Thursday night. After that…”

  ***

  Annie

  The plane landed as the sun set. Logan gestured for me to lead the way down the steps to where another black SUV was waiting for us. I expected this car to take us to a five star hotel; I was actually looking forward to enjoying room service on Rawn’s dime, but it ascended the hills of Mulholland Drive, taking us deep into the secluded areas of the stars’ homes.

  “What is this?” I asked as we paused outside the wrought iron gate of one particular house.

  “My place.”

  I glanced at Logan before turning back to the windows, straining to see everything I could about his home. I’d heard he had an expensive apartment in New York where he’d spent a great deal of time while making the space movie that had elevated his career spectacularly a year ago. But I didn’t know he had a house in LA.

  It was nothing like what I might have imagined. It was designed like an old English manor, with a stone exterior and box-like shape. It was at least two stories, maybe three, with a marble porch that spread out toward the driveway like the train of a wedding dress. The double doors were made of wood and iron like the gate of a medieval castle. I could almost imagine Mr. Carson’s double appearing at those doors, a cloth draped over his arm and a silver tray in the other hand.

  It was…impressive.

  And that was only the outside.

  Logan led the way inside like he was walking into a studio apartment, gesturing toward one corner of the marble and glass entry way in a casual indication of where the driver should drop our bags. He grabbed a stack of mail waiting on a low table and wandered into the bowels of the house. I hesitated to follow, feeling like I should kick off my shoes or hide the ratty exterior of my old suitcase. But follow I did, walking into an old-fashioned solarium with so many windows I could only imagine how bright this room would be during the day. Now, with the sun quickly disappearing along the horizon, it was filled with a purplish, pink color that turned the white furniture into something like a preteen girl’s dreams.

  “Wow.”

  Logan looked up. “You like it?”

  “It’s impressive.”

  “It’s oppressive. I rent it from this actress who has very odd tastes. One of the rooms upstairs has a jungle theme, complete with a hidden sound system that plays monkey noises at odd times.”

  I wanted to laugh. But I also kind of wanted to see it.

  “You rent it?”

  “I needed a place to stay, and she’s been in Paris for more than a year, but she didn’t want to let the house to go.”

  “Works out.”

  “Yeah. And it’s got an awesome kitchen. If you give me a minute to deal with some of this,” he said, waving the stack of papers and mail he had in his hand, “I’ll make you some dinner.”

  “I’d like that.”

  He turned his back to me, so I decided to give myself a little tour of the house. I wandered out of the solarium and stumbled into a library that was filled with mostly romance novels, but there were a few classics that were impressive. Whoever this actress was, she had a first edition Gone with the Wind on her shelves. The theater was down the hall from the dark den, designed with recliners instead of movie theater-style chairs. There was a game room that sported a pool table, several arcade games, and every game console ever invented along with a large majority of the games.

  The house had just about every luxury a person might want. There was a gym, a room massage room, a room that was apparently dedicated to wrapping presents, an indoor pool…it was mind boggling. I walked around for an hour and never saw the same room twice.

  By the time I found the kitchen, Logan was already there, sautéing something that smelled absolutely divine on the stove.

  “What can I do to help?”

  He glanced over at me. “Just keep me company.”

  “That I can do.”

  I jumped up onto the counter a small distance from where his pan was popping and sizzling, grabbing a bottle of wine that was sitting there. I opened it and filled both glasses also sitting out, assuming that was his intention, handing him his as he finished seasoning his skillet of vegetables.

  “What are we having?”

  “A homemade chicken soup with crostini with mozzarella cheese and tomatoes.”

  “That sounds…complicated.”

  “It’s really pretty simple. Just seems difficult.”

  I sipped my wine a
nd looked around the kitchen, impressed by the yards and yards of marble countertop, the restaurant-style refrigerator, and the massive gas stove. I could see why someone who liked to cook would like a room like this.

  “Have you lived in Portland all your life?”

  I looked up and caught Logan studying me. He’d set down his wine glass and was stirring his vegetables, but not really watching what he was doing. A couple of translucent onion slices came out of the skillet, making a funny sound when they burned in the fire.

  “No. I grew up in the Bend area, mostly.”

  “Bend?”

  “It’s in the eastern part of the state. There’s a ski resort nearby, so it’s kind of a touristy town.”

  “Do you ski?”

  I laughed into my wine glass. “I don’t think you can honestly call what I do skiing. I’m not that athletic.”

  “Can I tell you a secret?”

  “Sure,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound as excited as I felt.

  A secret from Logan Mitchell? I was really moving up in the world.

  “I’m not that athletic, either. I would prefer to watch a good horror movie than go for a run with my trainer…but with my chosen career…”

  “You like horror movies?”

  “Love them.”

  I smiled as heat crept up my cheeks. “Me too.”

  Logan turned his attention back to his cooking vegetables, but he glanced at me even as he poured something that looked like weak chicken broth over them.

  “What’s your favorite?”

  I groaned as I leaned my head back and pretended to think hard on his question. The truth was, however, it was no guessing game.

  “I’m always torn between Psycho and The Birds.”

  Logan’s eyebrows rose. “I don’t know. I’m more partial to the Stephen King arena. Carrie, Salem’s Lot, and Christine are my absolute favorites.”

  “Really?”

  He shrugged. “But I’ll always sit through a showing of The Fly.”

  “The original or the Jeff Goldblum remake?”

  He groaned as he stirred the concoction bubbling in his skillet. “Vincent Price is amazing, but you can’t really turn your nose up at Goldblum either. It’s kind of a neck to neck race.”