by Jane Porter
He was fire. And when he touched her, she blistered and living with burns wasn’t her idea of a calm, centered, happy life.
She needed a calm, centered, happy life. It was the only way to provide for Jax. The only way to raise Jax in a healthy home.
Rowan Argyros might be seduction on two legs, but he wasn’t the daddy she wanted for Jax, or the partner she needed—and then suddenly he was back, dropping into the leather seat across from hers and extending his legs, his dark head tipping back, his eyes closing, hiding his intense green eyes.
But even with his eyes closed the air felt charged. Magnetic.
She glared at him, hating how her pulse jumped and raced and her body grew hot all over again just because he was close.
Without even opening his eyes he said, “We still have a good four plus hours to go. I’d sleep if I were you. You’ll feel better—”
“This is not my first international trip,” she said curtly, cutting him off. Of course he’d think she was staring at him. And yes, she was, but that was beside the point.
The edge of his mouth lifted. “Suit yourself.”
“Yes, I will.”
The corner lifted higher.
Her stomach tightened. Her pulse raced. She pressed her lips into a thin, hard line, trying to hold back all the angry words she wanted to hurl at him.
He brought out the worst in her. He did. She needed to get away from him, and the sooner the better. But how?
She wasn’t dealing with an ordinary man. If she set aside her personal feelings for a moment, she’d admit that he was extraordinary in every way, but that was the problem. With Rowan she couldn’t set aside her personal feelings. With Rowan it was nothing but personal.
The night he’d spent with her had changed her forever. His touch was so profound that he might as well have taken a hammer and chisel to her heart, carving his name into the very marrow of her being.
Even now she could feel him as if his hand was on hers.
As if his chest was pressed to hers.
She could feel him because just the smell, touch, taste of him made her burn. She wanted him still. She wanted more.
But more would break her. More would crack her all the way open, draining her until there was nothing left of Logan Copeland.
But maybe that’s what he wanted. Maybe he wanted to destroy her.
If so, he was off to a good start.
* * *
Logan woke to the sound of murmured voices. Opening her eyes she spotted Rowan standing across the aisle with Jax in his arms. They were facing a big screen and watching a Disney movie featuring fish, and Rowan was discussing the cartoon with her. Jax had her finger in her mouth and seemed more fascinated by Rowan than the huge blue tang searching for her parents.
Jax was already a petite little girl and tucked against Rowan’s chest, in his muscular arms, she looked impossibly small.
Logan swallowed around the lump filling her throat. Jax was her world. Her center. Her sunshine. And Logan didn’t want to share her, and she most definitely didn’t want to share her with someone who didn’t deserve her.
Just like that, she heard another voice in her head.
It was her mother’s voice, raised, emotional. He doesn’t deserve us...he doesn’t deserve any of us...
She must have shifted, or maybe she made a sound, because suddenly Rowan was turning and looking at her. “You were out,” he said.
“How long?”
“Long enough for us to watch a movie.” And right on cue the film’s credits rolled.
“Dory,” Jax said to Logan, pointing to the enormous flat screen.
Logan smiled at her daughter. “You love Dory, don’t you?”
Jax nodded and, popping her finger back into her mouth, looked at Rowan. “Dory can’t ’member.”
Rowan nodded. “But she still found a way to be successful. That’s what’s important. Never give up.” And then his gaze met Logan’s over Jax’s head. “A good lesson for all of us, I think.”
Logan left her seat and reached for her daughter. “I’ll take her. See if we can find a snack—”
“She ate while you were sleeping,” he answered, handing her back. “She likes chicken. And she couldn’t get enough cantaloupe.”
And then he was walking away, and Logan gave Jax a little cuddle and kiss, even as her heart pounded, aware that everything in her life had changed. There were men you could escape. There were men you could forget. But Rowan Argyros was neither.
* * *
They landed just before noon on a long, narrow runway that sliced an emerald green field in two. The touchdown was so smooth it felt like they’d landed on glass. Logan kissed the top of Jax’s head. Her daughter had been awake for the past several hours and she was relaxed and content at the moment, quietly sucking on her thumb. Logan had worked hard to discourage the habit but she let it go now as it probably helped Jax’s ears adjust to the change in pressure.
The jet slowed steadily and then did a smooth turn on the landing strip, and began a long taxi back the way they’d just come.
Logan returned her attention to the emerald expanse beyond. It was misty outside, the windows covered with fine water droplets. Now that they were on the ground she could see that the fields were actually a vast lawn, and the green lawns gradually rolled up to a hill dominated by a large gray castle with a tall square stone tower and smaller towers at different corners.
As they taxied, they headed closer to the castle, and different features came into view. The big square tower’s parapet. The tall Gothic windows. The arches above the narrow windows. There were no trees or shrubs to soften the starkness of the castle. Instead it just rose up from a sea of green, and it didn’t strike Logan as a particularly friendly castle. Maybe it was the dark sky and drizzly rain, but the forbidding exterior made her think it was a fortress, not a home, and the last thing she wanted was to be locked up. Trapped.
“Who lives there?” she asked uneasily, hoping against hope that this was not the Irish estate Morgan had talked about. Morgan and Drakon had visited Rowan’s Irish estate a year or so ago and she’d made it sound palatial. This was not palatial.
“I do.” Rowan shifted in his chair, legs extended, hands folded on his lean flat stomach. “When here.”
She glanced out the rain-splattered window and sucked on the inside of her lip, trying to maintain her calm because as impressive as the castle was, it lacked warmth. She couldn’t find anything inviting about such a massive building. “I can see why you don’t spend that much time in Ireland.”
“I’m here quite often, and I am very fond of the place. I gather you don’t like it?”
“It’s stark.” She hesitated, before adding, “And very gray.”
“There’s a lot of stone,” he agreed. “But it’s sturdy. The oldest towers are over six hundred years old. The newer sections are two hundred years. But when I bought it, I refurbished the interior and you’ll find it quite comfortable.” His smile was crooked. “I love my mother’s country but I must have a little too much of my father’s Greek blood, or maybe I’m just getting older, but I don’t like being cold.”
Her gaze met his and there was something mocking in his eyes, but it wasn’t unkind as much as challenging. He seemed to be daring her to say something, daring her to disagree, but looking at him there was nothing old or weak about him. He was powerful from the top of his head to the intense gold of his eyes, to the tips of his toes.
“I somehow don’t think the cold bothers you all that much,” she answered. “At least, I remember your saying three years ago that you trunk it when you surf in California. Even in winter.”
He shrugged carelessly and yet there was a flicker of heat in his eyes, as if surprised that she’d remembered. But of course she remembered. That was the pro
blem. She remembered everything.
“I don’t like wetsuits.” Rowan’s deep voice rumbled in his chest and his head was turned, his gaze fixed on the drizzly landscape beyond the window. “Not even here, when I’m surfing in Wales or Scotland.”
The jet had rolled to a stop. The flight attendant was at the door. Logan glanced at him and then at Rowan who’d also unfastened his seat belt and was rising.
“Are there good waves in the UK?” she asked.
“One of my favorite breaks is in Scotland. Thurso East. I like Fresh in Pembrokeshire, too.” He gazed down at her for a moment, a faint smile playing at his lips and yet the smile didn’t touch his eyes. Those were a cool green, a much cooler green than the emerald lawns outside, and then he extended a hand to her. “Fresh can be dangerous, though. The reef break is heavy and significant, and then there is the army firing range above. It’s not for beginners.”
“And you like that it’s frightening.”
“I’d call it exhilarating.” His lips curved ever so slightly, his expression almost mocking. “Just as I am finding you exhilarating. I had no idea I had a family. Everything is changing. Fáilte abhaile,” he said in Gaelic. “Welcome home.”
She’d had three plus years to get over him. Three years to grow a thick skin...an armor...and yet he’d dismantled her defenses with just a few words, a careless smile, a hot, searing kiss...
Logan held her own cool smile, even as she drew a slow breath to hide the frantic beating of her heart. “It shall be fascinating to see your home,” she said, unbuckling her seat belt and rising, shifting Jax to her hip. “I consider it an adventure. I have always enjoyed a good adventure. And then it will be time for me to return home. As fun as it is to have a little getaway, I’ve a business in Los Angeles, and obligations there—”
“Your obligations are to your family first, and as the mother of my child, you and I will want to make the necessary adjustments to ensure that you and she are safe.” His gaze never wavered. “Castle Ros is safe. If you do not wish to live here year-round we can discuss other options, but there is no place in the United States where you’d be safe right now.”
“I don’t wish to argue in front of Jax—”
“Then let’s not.”
She ground her teeth together, determined to keep her composure as an emotional outburst would only alienate Rowan and frighten her daughter. “You don’t want me,” she said softly, urgently. “And I don’t want you—”
“You wanted me very much three years ago. You’ll want me again.”
Her gaze swiftly dropped to her daughter. Her voice dropped even lower. “Everything I cherished was stripped away by my father. Love is all I have left, and you are not going to take that from me. I deserve the chance to be loved, and we both know that is not something you’re offering. And love is the only reason I’d ever marry. The only one,” she repeated.
And then, desperate for air and space, she walked past him and headed for the plane door, too agitated to return for her purse and Jax’s diaper bag. Purses and diaper bags could be retrieved...replaced. Her sanity was another matter.
* * *
Rowan followed Logan off the jet and took a seat next to her in the armored car. He was sure she didn’t know the luxury sedan had bulletproof glass and extra paneling in the sides. She didn’t need to know that. She didn’t need to know that the perimeter of his estate was walled and patrolled and every security measure had been taken to make Castle Ros one of the safest places in Europe—whether for a head of state needing protection or his own woman and daughter.
His gaze rested on Logan’s profile.
His woman.
She was.
She’d been his from the moment he laid eyes on her at the auction. She hadn’t even known that he’d seen her long before she’d noticed him. He’d picked her from the others, chosen her from every woman there as the one he’d wanted, and he’d willed it, made it happen, focusing on her so that she couldn’t help but know who he was...couldn’t help but feel his interest and desire.
She, who was working that night at the auction, had scrambled to bid, and he’d kept his attention locked on her throughout the bidding, and she’d done what he’d demanded...
She’d won him.
And he’d rewarded her. All night long.
And as the night turned to morning, he’d lain in bed next to her, watching her sleep and listening to her breathe, and wondering how to keep her and incorporate her into a life where he was rarely in one place long.
He was a bachelor. He needed to be a bachelor. And yet with her he felt settled, committed. He felt as if he’d come home, which was impossible as he’d never had a true home. He’d never belonged anywhere—he’d shifted between continents and countries, languages and cultures. Rowan had been raised as a nomad and outsider, caught between his fierce, moody, ambitious Greek father and his kind but unstable Irish mother. After the initial love-lust wore off, his parents couldn’t get along. He still remembered the arguing when he was very young. They fought because there was never enough money, and never enough success. His father was full of schemes and plans, always looking for that one big break that would make him rich, while his mother just wanted peace. She didn’t need a big windfall, she just wanted his father home. And then his father hit the jackpot, or so he thought, until he was arrested and sent to prison for white-collar crime.
The time away broke the family.
It broke what was left of the marriage and his mother.
Or maybe what broke the marriage, and his mother, was losing Devlin, Rowan’s little brother. Devlin drowned while Father was in prison.
Rowan tensed, remembering. Devlin’s death at two and three quarters had been the beginning of the end.
Rowan’s father blamed Rowan’s mother. Rowan’s mother blamed Rowan’s father. And then Rowan’s father was out of jail, and the fighting just started over again. Rowan was glad to be sent to boarding school in England, and he told himself he was glad when his parents finally separated, because maybe, finally, the fighting would end. But the divorce dragged on for years, and school holidays became increasingly chaotic and painful. Sometimes he’d visit one parent in one country, while other times neither parent wanted him and if there was no classmate to invite him home, he’d remain at school, which was in many ways preferable to visits with strangers, including his parents who became little more than strangers as the years went by.
After finishing school, he went to university in America, and then returned to Britain to serve in the Royal Navy and never again returned home. Because there was no home. He’d never felt at home, which is why the attachment to Logan had been unsettling.
How could she feel like home when he didn’t know what home was? How could he care for her when he didn’t know her?
It had been almost a relief to discover she was a Copeland. She had been too good to be true. His rage had been swift and focused, and he’d let her feel the full impact of his disappointment. But it wasn’t Logan he was truly angry with. He was angry with himself for dropping his guard and allowing himself to feel. Emotions were dangerous. Emotions were destructive. He couldn’t let himself make that mistake again.
And now she was back in his life, and she wasn’t merely a beautiful but problematic woman, she was also the mother of his child.
And that changed everything. That changed him. It had to change him. There was no way he’d allow his child to be caught between two adults battling for control. Nor would he let Logan disappear with his daughter the way his mother, Maire, had disappeared with him after Devlin’s death.
So there would be a wedding, yes, but beyond that?
Rowan didn’t have all the answers yet. He wasn’t sure how he’d keep Logan and Jax in Ireland. He wasn’t sure how he’d ensure that they couldn’t disappear from his life. He only knew that i
t couldn’t happen. And it wouldn’t happen. He’d keep Logan close, he’d make her want to stay, and if he couldn’t do it through love, he’d do it through touch...sex. Love wasn’t the only way to bond with a woman. Touch and pleasure would melt her, weaken her, creating bonds that would be difficult, if not impossible, to break.
Was it fair? No. But life wasn’t fair. Life was about survival, and Rowan was an expert survivalist.
Fáilte abhaile mo bride, he repeated silently, glancing once more at Logan’s elegant profile, appreciating anew her stunning gold-and-honey beauty. Welcome home, my bride.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE LUXURIOUS INTERIOR of Castle Ros hid its technology well. At first glance one didn’t see the modern amenities, just the sumptuous appointments. The scattered rugs and plush carpets. The rich paneling and decoratively papered walls. The glow of lights in intricate fixtures. The oil portraits and massive landscapes in ornate gold frames. But then as Logan settled into her suite of rooms, a suite that adjoined Rowan’s, she noticed the electrical outlets and USB ports tucked into every surface and corner.
There was a remote on the bedside table that controlled the temperature, and the blackout blinds at the windows, and an enormous painting over the fireplace that turned into a flat-screen TV. A refrigerator, sink and marble-topped counter had been tucked into one of the adjoining closets. On the white marble counter stood an espresso machine, and next to that was a lacquered box lined with pods of coffee. Milks and snacks filled the refrigerator. A small wine rack was stocked with bottles of red and white wine.
Apparently Rowan—or his estate manager—had thought of everything. There was no reason Logan couldn’t be comfortable in the lavish suite.
Now Jax was another matter.
The castle wasn’t child-friendly. There wasn’t a small bed or even a chair suitable for a two-year-old anywhere, never mind the massive fireplaces—with fires—missing screens, and the steep stone staircases without a gate or barrier to slow a curious toddler’s exploration.