Beg for Me

by Natalie Anderson

  But surely Logan Hughes of all people would be okay with the concept of a second chance? Surely Logan Hughes understood how people sometimes screwed up?

  Except Logan Hughes wasn’t the kind to ever admit a mistake. Logan Hughes didn’t bat an eyelash about being the star of a sex tape, about being labelled the city’s most notorious slayer. Logan Hughes never showed any weakness.

  Min stared sightlessly at her phone, trying to formulate a plan. What she had to do was emulate Logan Hughes. Fight fire with fire, right?

  No more frozen panicking. She had to pull on the ‘professional’ persona.

  She put her phone on the seat beside her and patted her jacket pockets hopefully. No comb sadly, but there was an ancient lip-gloss at the bottom of the inside breast pocket. Squaring her shoulders she quickly rubbed some on, using the window as her mirror. She determinedly ignored the berry stains on her fingers and hoped he would too. Then she loosened her hair and rebraided it more neatly.

  It wasn’t that she was beautifying herself for him. Definitely not. This was armor. Frankly it was a vague attempt to look halfway respectable given her clothes.

  The car slid to a smooth stop in front of a tall building. Min stared at the conspicuous expense of the place, her spirits sinking deeper into her sneakers. Her last minute snap-it-together effort wasn’t going to be enough.

  “Remain in the car please.” The driver said.

  Min did as she was told. Authority figures did that to her—made her obey despite the fact she was bristling inside. But this guy had ‘obey-or-feel-the-consequences’ stamped all over him.

  Next second he opened her door and waited close by for her to get out. Once she was standing on the sidewalk he escorted her to the building’s entrance. He walked on the awkward side of personal space, his arm pointing the way—not that there was any question as to where they were headed, or as if there was anyone in their way. Did he think she was about to be set upon? Or did he think she’d try to do a runner?

  Damn tempting idea. In a ‘fight or flight’ moment, Min was more one to flee than throw a punch.

  But this was different. She had to be different. Because this was her business—her identity, her income, her dignity.

  You’ll never succeed. It’s a waste of time. Who’d want to contract you—you haven’t any experience.

  Her mother’s pessimistic doubts haunted her. Her mother’s bitter disappointment when Min had called her to say she’d ended her engagement...

  Words. Just words.

  Min tucked her chin into the collar of her denim jacket as the driver let her through the door. More of her mother’s mantras taunted her. Tatty jeans and an old tee didn’t fit in around here.

  If you want to make it in the world, you have to fit in. Look the part. Sound the part. That’s how you’ll meet the right match.

  It was all about the match for her mom.

  Or be nothing.

  “Ms Jones is here.” The driver informed yet another scary looking enforcer type who was stationed behind a high reception desk.

  Min switched her phone to mute and decided she was quite glad of the driver, his presence meant she’d not needed to speak and she had a few more minutes to combat the nerves and relax enough to be able to talk at all.

  “Follow me please, Ms Jones.”

  Enforcer Number Two accompanied her into the lift. He swiped a card and entered a stupidly long key code before pushing the top button. Min barely refrained from rolling her eyes. Where was the retinal scan? The whole-body x-ray? This all round security seemed ridiculous.

  Yet smooth as the elevator was, she still lost her stomach.

  Logan stood in the middle of the room and glared at his massive computer screen currently showing the live security feed from the lobby. A slim thing in jeans was walking alongside Ed. With her jacket collar turned up and that denim, tee and sneaker combo she looked positively boyish. Godammit, how old was she, twelve? Was he breaking all kinds of child labor laws employing her?

  It might be just past working hours, but didn’t she want to make a better impression on the client she’d just pissed off? Jeez, that was the last time he trusted Tyler. What had the guy been thinking? Had his brain gone ‘I’m-about-to-be-a-daddy’ soft?

  Logan stepped forward and toggled the applications on his computer to bring up her personnel file again. According to that, Ms Araminta Jones was twenty-three and had graduated first in her communications degree in Minnesota. Since completing her degree, only six months ago, she’d moved to New York and set up her own social media management company. A one woman operation.

  That was about to be shut down.

  Logan couldn’t believe that the woman-child had graduated first in her class. Not when she’d managed to screw this up so monumentally. It had to be a crap course.

  A discreet knock sounded at the door. Drawing a cooling breath, Logan sat behind his desk, aiming to be as unfriendly and as intimidating as possible. Not gonna let any tearful apology move him. She was at the end of her very little line and she could just go back to her small town.

  Another knock.

  “It’s okay Ed, come right in.” Logan called out and schooled his face into seriousness.

  But the second she walked in the door, he forgot his scary-boss intentions.

  Bright green eyes snatched and held his attention. Like moss found in the undergrowth of a cool climate they were luminous green. Fresh, verdant, vital.

  Those eyes widened fractionally as they locked on him.

  For a moment there was nothing in the room but silence, stillness and staring.

  There were years of experience in those eyes—uncertainty, hurt, strength. But she quickly veiled that vulnerable expression. She stood taller, lifted her chin, visibly preparing to face him.

  No child at all, this was all woman. She was nervous, but proud. And composed.

  Logan liked that lift of her chin. He liked that she wasn’t cowed and about to fall to tearful pieces, which was frankly the scene he’d anticipated. Sometimes some women pulled on the tears to get close. Araminta Jones most definitely didn’t want to get close—not given the way she was standing like a leggy gazelle on alert for a lion. But she wasn’t running away.

  He liked that silent show of spirit. Unbelievably a surge of something fierce and hot rose in his chest. An urge of protectiveness.

  WTF? Had he taken a knock to the head?

  But her eyes held more experience than most other twenty-three year olds. And more cool criticism than any woman who’d ever looked him in the eye. Who was the one who’d screwed up here? Because she was looking at him like he was the one who’d done the damage. Protectiveness be damned, she didn’t need it. Not when she could shoot that kind of poison from her eyes.

  With a single look, everything changed. Logan’s residual anger disappeared, amusement surged instead. It seemed Ms Jones was the fighting kind.

  He stood and moved around his big desk, unable to resist the urge to move closer.

  “Please come in, Ms Jones.” He walked over to the door, nodding for Ed to leave them.

  She stepped forward, passing him to take position in the center of the room. As she moved Logan glimpsed a hint of curves beneath her jacket. But it was the faint scent that made him pause. Not perfume, but something more deliciously fragrant. His mouth watered—caramel? Vanilla?

  Logan quietly closed the door behind Ed and turned.

  That’s when he saw what hadn’t been obvious on the computer screen. That’s when the warmth in his chest shot straight down like a scalding arrow to his groin.

  The broad braid hung almost to her waist. Golden, glorious hair bound into a thick rope that he could wind around his wrist to tether her to him while he...

  Sexual attraction sizzled in the pit of his belly. His skin tightened in that old familiar way when he encountered pretty, feminine prey. It hadn’t tightened like this in an age. And it shouldn’t now. This was the woman who’d just destroyed the little h
e had left of his credibility. He was supposed to be tearing a strip from her, then giving her the sack, not deciding how edible she was.

  Carefully he moved forward, away from her. But he couldn’t stop looking at that gorgeous braid. Logan had spent most of his adult life in the company of some of the world’s most beautiful women. He understood the tricks. Hell, he’d been bored out of his brains many times waiting for make-up artists to work miracles and turn scrawny plain Janes into raving beauties ready to be photographed. It was all smoke and mirrors and Photoshop. So he knew hair like hers was rare. That’s if it was all her own. But given the lack of artifice about every other aspect of her, he’d bet his life it was hers. No extensions. He wasn’t even sure it had been colored. He wasn’t sure he’d ever met a woman who didn’t color her hair. Not that he minded hair dye, he appreciated a woman’s desire to make herself more attractive. He understood the urge to attract and to be attracted.

  He played the game too because there was nothing nicer than collecting the winner’s spoils. Or at least he had played until he’d found it monotonous. Then he’d gone a step or three too far. But he’d been acting the super-saint way too long if he was feeling even a hint of attraction to this scruffy thing who’d screwed up so badly. And as for that random moment of protectiveness?

  He gritted his teeth.

  Don’t get suckered by big eyes and beautiful hair and softness. Don’t go light on her because she looks all vulnerable-yet-determined.

  It was his brother and his buddies who were the heroic sort, Logan was all shark.

  Min waited, trying to keep her anxiety from building. Trying to breathe.

  Be still my beating heart.

  He was... he was...

  Be cool my heating blood.

  She’d seen him in a million pictures, yet none had prepared her for the reality of Logan Hughes in the flesh.

  Living, breathing, hot. So devastatingly handsome with his dark hair and hewn features and those eyes.

  No wonder the guy had supposedly slept with a billion women, one look at him and she was clenching her own thighs together to stop them sliding apart. As for the damp heat seeping onto her panties already? A second in his presence and she was already thinking sex. Tall, compelling, he was freaking mesmerizing.

  It’s his reputation. It’s only because you’ve been told over and over and over what a sex god he is.

  But it wasn’t just his reputation. He looked at her—steadily, implacably, judging. His blue eyes hadn’t been graphics-program enhanced. Maybe they were colored contacts? Maybe he really was some paranormal creature? Min’s mind circled, giddy, all out stupid.

  Then he walked closer. Close enough for Min to figure they weren’t contacts, his eyes really were that ice blue.

  “Araminta Jones,” he said slowly, almost seeming to savor her name—except there was that edge.

  A lethal bite was but a second away.

  She inclined her head but didn’t answer. She should. She should say ‘Logan Hughes’ in an equally cool, patronising voice. But her damn vocal cords were unreliable when she was this nervous.

  Her best chance of avoiding a stutter was to speak with a whisper. Put on a ‘voice’. But damned if she wanted to do her Marilyn Monroe impression for this guy. He’d think she was coming on to him. And that was never happening. Ever. Even if he did look like a cross between a Hollywood bad boy and a Greek god—chiselled, stony perfection.

  She could handle this situation some other way. Theoretically she could handle any situation. Her mother had hammered manners into her from the moment she was born, as part of her ‘you must marry-well’ plan. The plan mom had enacted for herself several times over.

  Min could apologize, bow, scrape, grovel, smile and get out of here relatively unscathed.

  Except there was something in Logan Hughes’ eyes that made her want to refuse to apologize. She didn’t want to bow and scrape and grovel to him. If anything, she had the wicked urge to piss him off even more. That fallen angel face reflected it all, he was an arrogant jerk who’d had everything his own way for far too long. The whole world knew that.

  “Please take a seat.”

  He gestured to the large sofa. She glanced at the chairs either side of his big desk. He didn’t want to go formal? He wanted to sit on the sofa next to her? That entirely inappropriate awareness shot through her system again—a wave of heat connecting her lips and breasts to that ache burning deep within her belly.

  All those parts wanted to be touched—taken—by him.

  Oh for Heaven’s sake, get a grip.

  She’d stand. She’d stay here only long enough for the bullet to her career and then she’d leave. Five minutes, tops.

  He walked to the other side of the room, taking a moment to glance out the window. She turned to face him and caught his gaze briefly resting on her butt. Oh he was shameless. And she was not blushing.

  “You don’t want to sit?” He actually smiled.

  Min’s ‘impending danger’ alarm rose. So did her temperature. It was too hot in here. Why was he smiling, why wasn’t he shouting at her already?

  The last thing she wanted to do was use her breathy voice. But it was either speak slow and airy and sound bubble-headed, or be stuck on the first letter of his name for the next half hour. Or just be stuck.

  She could manage telephone conversations so much better. She didn’t have to look at the person. She could keep her eyes on the catch phrases she used most often and had written down and had practiced to death. Most of the time it was manageable. But right now it was in the forefront of her brain.

  Don’t stutter, don’t stutter, don’t stutter.

  The words of her mother overlaid the tune in her head—turning into a cacophony, a mash-up of disapproval and defiance.

  Speak properly Araminta. Don’t stutter. Come on, hurry up. Don’t stutter. Speak clearly. Don’t stutter. Don’t be silly. Out with it. Don’t stutter.

  It was mortifying. There was nothing else for it. Min breathed in and breathed out her whispering response.

  “I will when you do.” Marilyn Monroe all the way.

  She saw his sharp glance, the way his head tilted like a hawk who’d just heard the soft rustle of prey miles down on the ground below. She felt the sudden intensity of his focus.

  No, she wasn’t coming on to him. She was just trying to speak smoothly.

  He sat on the far corner of the sofa, angling towards her. His eyes alert, his expression serious. He still looked like a fallen angel. Beautiful, masculine. So promising, yet a threat to any sane, sexually-aware female.

  Min perched on the opposite end of the sofa, keeping her knees locked together, wriggling her toes in the toes of her sneakers to let some tension escape her body. Five minutes. Five minutes, she’d weather his fury and then be out of here. Then she’d ensure she was never in the same physical space as him again.

  “So apparently I’m engaged.” Logan said in that deep, amused, sinful voice.

  “This really doesn’t need to be a problem,” Min tried not to blush as she adopted her breathy-speak technique. “If you’d let me delete it—”

  “The rest of the world has already read it.” His lips twitched and he leaned back, seeming to study her. “And any deleted tweet gets double the exposure, right?”

  He knew his stuff.

  And she knew he was surprised by something. Most likely her husky voice.

  “You can say it was a joke,” she said.

  “Why would I joke about getting married? It makes me look a fool.”

  Min swallowed. “Well, ‘she’ c-could be anyone. And the ‘yes’ could be to anything.”

  “Such as?”

  Hell, she didn’t know. “A model, agreeing to work with you?”

  “And that would make me the ‘happiest guy on earth’? How disappointing.” He kept his eyes fixed on her. “I’m the trending topic in Manhattan at the moment. There needs to be a very good story behind the ‘yes’.”

&nb
sp; Well how was she supposed to think when he was staring at her the way a hawk would a mouse? With those damn piercing eyes.

  She thought desperately. “Do you have a g-girlfriend or someone who—”

  “No.”

  She gritted her teeth and tried again. “It could be your mother—”

  “No.” He snapped before she’d hardly started.

  Annoyance began to seep through the professional veneer she’d tried to assume. “Are you going to say ‘no’ to every suggestion I make?”

  “Possibly.”

  For a moment she met his eyes directly. Sexual awareness zinged through her. He made the room shrink, made her see only him.

  She’d better not be blushing.

  “We should have met before,” he said thoughtfully. “That was remiss of me.”

  His gaze idly swept over her body and then returned to her eyes. His were so very cool blue. Very intent. She wasn’t sure what kind of intent.

  She swallowed, but refused to break the eye contact. Her ancient Scooby tee was too thin. That was the trouble with genuine vintage, the fabric was precarious. And right now her nipples were tighter than two little bolts. She wasn’t thinking about his hands. Oh no. Oh she so wasn’t going to succumb to the man’s charms. She was a professional and she worked for this guy and she’d just screwed up. She would not be sexually attracted to him. “I prefer to work remotely from my clients.” Very, very remotely.

  “You like working from home, Ms Jones?”

  “It has its perks.”

  “Such as?”

  “I can wear what I like.”

  Big mistake, he was looking at her body again. She lifted her chin and defiantly offered him the same discourtesy.

  He, like she, wore jeans. Only his weren’t torn, weren’t faded and weren’t fraying at the hem. His tee bore no slogan, it was a thicker material, but it clung to his chest. There were muscles. Min reproached herself. The man was a model, he probably spent most of his morning honing his physique.

  “You don’t like me very much, do you Ms Jones?”

  His direct question startled her. “It’s not my job to like you,” she answered, desperately trying to regain some kind of professionalism.