by Jane Porter
She glanced away from him and crossed her legs, aware that she could feel the weight of his inspection even from behind his sunglasses. “Morgan told me how much you love your little games.” She looked back at him, eyebrow arching. “You must be feeling very powerful now, what with the daring helicopter rescue and clandestine moves.”
“I do like your sister,” he answered. “She’s good for Drakon. And he for her.”
Logan couldn’t argue with that. Her sister had nearly lost her mind when separated from her husband. Thank God they’d worked it out.
“Hard to believe you and Morgan are twins,” he added. “You’re nothing alike.”
“Morgan chose to live with Dad. I didn’t.”
“And your baby sister, Jemma, she just chose to move out, even though she was still a teenager.”
Logan swung her leg, the gold buckle on her strappy wedge sandal catching the light. “You’re not a fan of my family, so I’m not entirely sure why we’re having this conversation.”
“Fine. Let’s not talk about your family.” His voice dropped, deepening, going almost velvet soft. “Let’s talk about us.”
Let’s talk about us.
Her entire body went weak. She stopped swinging her leg, her limbs suddenly weighted even as her pulse did a crazy double beat.
Us. Right.
She couldn’t see his eyes, but she could tell from the lift of his lips that he was enjoying himself. He was having fun, the same way a cat played with its prey before killing it.
She could be nervous, show fear, try to resist him—it was what he wanted. Or, she could just play along and not give him the satisfaction he craved.
Which, to her way of thinking, was infinitely better.
She smiled at him. He had no idea who he was dealing with. She wasn’t the Logan Lane he’d bedded three years ago. He’d made sure of that. “Oh, that would be fun. I love talking about old times.” She stared boldly into the dark sunglasses, letting him get a taste of who she’d become. “Good times. Right, babe?”
For a moment he gave her no response and then the corners of his mouth lifted even higher. A real smile. Maybe even a laugh, with the easy smile showing off very white, very straight teeth. The smile changed his face, making him younger and freer and sexy. Unforgivably sexy. Unforgivably since everything inside her was responding.
Not fair.
She hated him.
And yet she’d never met anyone with his control and heat and ability to own a room...and not just any room, but a massive ballroom...as if he were the only man in the entire place. As if he were the only man on the face of the earth. As if he’d been made just to light her up and turn her inside out.
Her heart raced and her pulse felt like sin in her veins. She was growing hot, flushing, needing...and she pressed her thighs tighter.
No, no, no.
“We were good,” he said, still smiling at her, and yet his lazy drawl hinted at something so much more dangerous than anger.
Lethal man.
She’d wanted him that night and the fascination was back, slamming into her with the same force of a two-ton truck.
Something in her just wanted him.
Something in her recognized something in him and it shouldn’t happen. There was no reason for someone like Rowan to be her type...
“It was you,” she said, feeling generous. And what harm could there be in the truth? Because he was good—very, very good—and he was making her feel the same hot bright need that she’d felt during the bachelor auction. And it’d been forever since she’d felt anything sexual, her hunger smashed beneath layers of motherhood and maternal devotion. “You have quite the skill set.”
“Years of practice, love.”
“I commend your dedication to your craft.”
His dark head inclined. “I tried to give you value for your twenty grand.”
She didn’t like that jab. But she could keep up. He and the rest of the haters had taught her how to wrap herself in a Teflon armor and just deflect, deflect, deflect. “Rest assured, you did. Now, if I knew then what I know now, I might have given you a few pointers, but I was so green. Talk about inexperienced. Talk about embarrassing. A twenty-four-year-old virgin.” She shuddered and gently pushed back a long tendril of hair that had fallen forward. “Thankfully you handled the old hymen like the champ you are.”
He wasn’t smiling anymore.
Everything felt different. The very air was charged, seething...pulsing...
She gave him an innocent look. “Did I say something wrong?”
Rowan drew off his sunglasses and leaned toward her. “Say that again.”
“The part about the hymen? Or the part where I wished I’d given you a few pointers?”
His green eyes were no longer cool. They burned and they were fixed intently on her, laser beams of loathing.
She’d finally gotten a rise out of him. She had to work very hard to hide her victorious smile. “But surely you knew I was a virgin,” she added gently. “The blood on white sheets...?”
“It wasn’t blood. It was spotting.”
She shrugged carelessly. “You probably assumed it was just from...vigorous...thrusting.”
His eyes glowed and his square jaw turned to granite. “You weren’t a virgin.”
“I was. And don’t you feel honored that I picked you to be my first?” She glanced down at her hands, checking her nails. She must have chipped one earlier, when she fainted and fell. She rubbed a finger across the jagged edge and continued conversationally. “You set the bar very high, you know. Not just for what happened in the bedroom, but after.”
He said nothing and so she looked up from her nails and stared into his eyes. “I can’t help but wonder, if I hadn’t climaxed during each of the...sessions...would you still have called me a whore?” She let the question float between them for a moment before adding, “Was it the fact that I enjoyed myself...that I took pleasure...that made me a whore? Because it was a very fast transition from virgin to whore—”
“Virgins don’t spend twenty grand to get laid,” he said curtly, cutting her short.
“No? Not even if they want to get laid by the best?”
* * *
He’d stopped smiling a long time ago. He had a reputation for being able to handle any situation but Logan was giving him a run for his money.
If it were any woman but Logan Copeland, he’d be impressed and maybe amused. Hell, he’d been amused at the start, intrigued by the way she’d thrown it down, and given it right back at him, but then it had all taken a rapid shift, right around the time she’d mentioned her virginity, and he didn’t know how to fight back.
She’d been a virgin?
He didn’t do virgins. He didn’t take a woman’s virginity. And yet he’d done her...quite thoroughly.
Dammit.
“You’re taking my words out of context,” he said tightly, trying to contain his frustration. “I didn’t call you a whore—”
“Oh, you did. You called me a Copeland whore.”
He winced inwardly, still able to hear the words ringing too loud in the kitchen of her Santa Monica bungalow. He could still see how she’d gone white and the way her blue eyes had revealed shock and then anguish.
She’d turned away and walked out, but he’d followed, hurling more insults, each a deliberate hit.
He despised the Copelands even before the father’s Ponzi scheme was exposed. The Copelands were one of the most entitled families in America. The daughters were fixtures on the social scene, ridiculously famous simply because they were wealthy and beautiful.
Rowan grew up poor and everything he had, he personally had worked for.
He had no time for spoiled rich girls.
How could shallow, entitled wome
n like that respect themselves?
Worse, how could America adore them? How could America reward them by filling their tabloids with their pictures and antics? Who cared where they shopped or which designer they wore?
Who cared where they vacationed?
Who cared who they screwed?
He didn’t. Not until he’d realized he’d screwed one of them senseless.
But it hadn’t been a screw. That was the thing. It had been so much more.
Rowan’s jaw worked. His fingers curled into fists. “I regret those words,” he said stiffly. “I would take them back, if I could.”
“Is that your version of an apology?”
It had been, yes, but her mocking tone made it clear it wasn’t good enough. That he wasn’t good enough.
Rowan wasn’t sure whether to be offended or amused.
And then he questioned why he’d even be offended. He’d never cared before what a woman thought of him.
He’d be a fool to care what a Copeland thought of him.
“It is what it is,” he said, the helicopter dipping, dropping. They’d reached the Ontario airport. His private jet waited at the terminal.
Her head turned. She was looking down at the airport, too. “Why here? Do you have a place in Palm Springs?”
“If I did, we’d be flying into Palm Springs.”
“I find it hard to believe you have a place in Ontario.”
“I don’t.” He left it at that, and then they were touching down, lowering onto the tarmac.
Rowan popped the door open and stepped out. He reached for Logan but she drew back and climbed out without his assistance.
She started for the terminal but he caught her elbow and steered her in the other direction, away from the building and toward the sleek white-and-green pin-striped jet.
She froze when she realized what was happening. “No.”
He couldn’t do this again, not now. “We don’t have time. I refuse to refile the flight plan.”
“I’m not leaving Los Angeles. I can’t.”
“Don’t make me carry you.”
She broke free and ran back a step. “I’ll scream.”
He gestured to the empty tarmac. “And what good will that do you? Who will hear you? This is the executive terminal. The only people around are my people.”
She reached up to capture her hair in one hand, keeping it from blowing in her face. “You don’t understand. I can’t go. I can’t leave her.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Jax.” Her voice broke. “I’ve never been away from her before, not overnight. I can’t leave her now.”
“Jax?” he repeated impatiently. “What is that? Your cat?”
“No. My baby. My daughter.”
“Your daughter?” he ground out.
She nodded, heart hammering. She felt sick to her stomach and so very scared. She’d forced herself to reach out to Rowan when she’d discovered she was pregnant, but he’d been even more hateful when she called him.
“How did you get my number?” he demanded.
“Drakon.”
“He shouldn’t have given it to you.”
“I told him it was important.”
He laughed—a cold, scornful sound that cut all the way to her soul.
“Babe, in case you didn’t get the message, it’s over. I’ve nothing more for you. Now, pull yourself together and get on with your life.”
And so she had.
She didn’t tell him about the baby. She didn’t tell him he was having a daughter, and whatever qualms she had about keeping the information to herself were eventually erased by the memory of his coldness and hatefulness.
Her father had broken her heart, shaming her with his greed and selfishness, but Rowan was a close second. He was despicable. Like her father, the worst of the worst.
Thank goodness he wasn’t in Jax’s life. Logan couldn’t even imagine the kind of father he’d be. Far better to raise Jax on her own than have Jax growing up with a father who couldn’t, wouldn’t, love her.
And now, facing Rowan on the tarmac, Logan knew she’d made the right decision. Rowan might be a military hero—deadly in battle, formidable in a combat zone—but he was insensitive to the point of abusive and she’d never allow him near her daughter.
“You’re a mother?” he said.
She heard the bewildered note in his voice and liked it. She’d shocked him. Good. “Yes.”
His brow furrowed. “Where is she now?”
“At home.” Logan glanced at her watch. “Her sitter will leave at five. I need to be back by then.”
“You won’t be. You’re not going back.”
“And what about Jax? We’ll just leave her in a crib until you decide you’ll return me?”
His jaw worked, the small muscle near his ear pulling tight. “Drakon never mentioned a baby.”
Her heart did a double beat and her stomach heaved. “They don’t know.”
“What?”
“No one knows.”
“How can that be?”
“It might surprise you, but we don’t do big family reunions anymore.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “Who is her father?”
She laughed coolly. “I don’t think that’s any of your business, do you?”
He sighed. “What I meant is, can’t her father take her while you’re gone?”
“No.”
“I think you need to ask—”
“No.”
“Not a good relationship?”
She felt her lip curl. This would be funny if one enjoyed dark comedy. “An understatement if I ever heard one.”
“Can her sitter keep her?”
“No.” The very idea of anyone keeping Jax made Logan’s heart constrict. “I’ve never been away from her for a night. She’s a toddler...a baby...” Her voice faded and she dug her nails into her palms, waiting for Rowan to say something.
He didn’t. He stared at her hard.
She couldn’t read what he was thinking, but there was definitely something going on in that head, she could see it in his eyes, feel it in his tension. “I need to get home to her.” Her voice sounded rough. She battled to maintain control. “Especially if there are paparazzi at the house. I don’t want them doing anything—trying anything. I don’t want her scared.”
“Logan, I can’t let you anywhere near the house. I’m sorry.” He held up his hand when she started to protest. “I’ll get her. But you must promise to stay here. No taking off. No running away. No frantic phone calls to anyone. Stay put on my plane and wait.”
She glanced toward the white jet and spotted his staff waiting by the base of the stairs.
He followed her gaze. “My staff will make sure you’re comfortable. As long as you stay here with them you won’t be in any danger.”
Stiffening, Logan turned back to face him. “Why would I be in danger? It’s just the paparazzi.”
“Bronson was shot late last night in London.” Rowan’s voice was clipped. “He’s in ICU now, but the specialists believe he should make a full recovery—”
“Wait. What? Why didn’t you say something earlier?” Bronson was the oldest of the five Copelands and the only son. “What happened?”
“Authorities are investigating now, but the prevailing theory is that Bronson was targeted because of your father. The deputy chief constable recommended that all members of your family be provided with additional security. My team has already located Victoria and is taking her to a safe location. Your mother is with Jemma already. And now we have you.”
Logan felt the blood drain from her head. Fear made her legs shake. “Please go get Jax. Hurry.”
“Give me y
our phone.”
“I won’t call anyone—”
“That’s not why I want your phone. I’m taking it so I can be you and make sure Joe understands what I need him to do.”
“You’re involving Joe?” she asked, handing him the phone.
“You trust him, don’t you?”
She nodded. “The password is zero, three, three, one.”
Rowan started for the helicopter and then turned around. “Didn’t we meet March 31?”
She went hot all over. “That’s not why it’s my password.” She heard her defensive tone and hated it.
“Never said it was. But it does make it easy for me to remember your code.” And then he signaled the pilot to start up the chopper and the blades began whirling and he was climbing in and the helicopter was lifting off even before Rowan had shut the door.
CHAPTER THREE
ROWAN WAS GONE for two hours and twenty-odd minutes, and during those long two plus hours, Logan couldn’t let herself think about anything...
Not Bronson, who’d been hurt. Or her family who were all being guarded zealously to protect them from a nut job.
She couldn’t think about her daughter or how frightened she must be.
She couldn’t think about her huge event taking place tomorrow and how she now wouldn’t be there to see it through.
She couldn’t think about anything because once she started thinking, her imagination went wild and every scenario made her heartsick.
Every fear pummeled her, making her increasingly nauseous.
But of all her fears, Jax was the most consuming. She loved her brother and sisters but they were adults, and it sounded as if they now had a security team protecting them. But Jax...her baby...?
Logan exhaled slowly, struggling to keep it together. Rowan had to be successful. And there was no reason he wouldn’t be. He was the world’s leading expert in hostage and crisis situations and removing a toddler from a Santa Monica bungalow was not a crisis situation. But that didn’t mean her heart didn’t race and her stomach didn’t heave and she didn’t feel frantic, aware that all kinds of things could go wrong.
But Rowan being successful meant that he would be with Jax, and this terrified her. The haters and shamers had hardened her to the nonstop barbs and insults, but Jax was her weakness. Jax made her vulnerable. And maybe that’s because Jax herself was so vulnerable.