Czytaj książkę: «Her Sinful Secret»

CHAPTER ONE

“LOGAN, WE’VE GOT a crowd outside. Logan. Are you listening?”

Frustrated by yet another interruption, Logan Copeland tore her gaze from her script, yanked off her headset and glared up at her usually very capable assistant, Joe Lopez. She’d come to think of him as a genius and a blessing, but he wasn’t much of either at the moment. “Joe.”

“We’ve got a problem.”

“Another one?” she asked incredulously. They were down to less than twenty-four hours now before tomorrow night’s huge gala fund-raiser, the biggest of Logan’s career, and nothing was going right in the tech rehearsal for the fashion show that would happen during the gala, and nothing would go right if Logan continued to be interrupted.

“We honestly don’t have time for this. I don’t have time for this. And if you want to run the show tomorrow on your own, that’s fine—”

“I don’t,” he interrupted, expression grim. “But this is big, and I can’t manage this one without you.”

“Why not? And why does everything have to be a big problem right now?” she retorted, aware that every interruption was costing more time with the crew, which cost more money, which meant less money for the charity. “If this isn’t life or death, you need to deal with it, and let me get one good run-through in before—”

“The media has descended. Full-on, out of control paparazzi stakeout. Here.”

Logan’s expression brightened. “But, Joe, that’s great news. The PR team is succeeding. I heard they were the best. How is that a problem?”

“Logan, they’re not here because of tomorrow’s Hollywood Ball. They’re not interested in the Gala or doing good. They’re here for you.”

Logan suddenly found it hard to breathe. She pressed the clipboard to her chest, headset dangling from her fingers. “For the press conference about the Ball,” she said firmly, but then at the end her voice quavered, and the fear and doubt was there.

“No.” Joe shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. He was a smart, young, artistic twentysomething just a couple years out of college, and he’d been invaluable to Logan since coming to work for her two years ago, a little over a year after her whole world had imploded due to the scandal surrounding her father, Daniel Copeland. Lots of people had wanted nothing to do with Logan after news broke that her father was the worst of the worst, a world-class swindler and thief preying on not just the wealthy, but the working class, too, leaving all of his clients nearly bankrupt, or worse.

Joe had grown up in a tough Los Angeles neighborhood marked with gang violence, so the Copeland scandal hadn’t been an issue for him. He wanted a job. Logan needed an assistant. The relationship worked.

He, like everyone, knew what her father had done, but unlike most people, he knew the terrible price Logan had paid. In most business and social circles she was still persona non grata. The only place she could work was in the nonprofit sector. “They are here to see you,” he repeated. “It’s to do with your dad.”

She stilled. Her gaze met Joe’s.

His dark brown gaze revealed worry, and sympathy. His voice dropped lower. “Logan, something’s happened.”

The tightness was back in her chest, the weight so heavy she couldn’t think or breathe.

“Have you checked messages on your phone?” he added. “I am sure you’ll have gotten calls and texts. Check your phone.”

But Logan, normally fierce and focused, couldn’t move. She stood rooted to the spot, her body icy cold. “Was he freed?” she whispered. “Did the kidnappers—”

“Check your phone,” a deep, rough, impatient male voice echoed, this one most definitely not Joe’s.

Logan turned swiftly, eyes widening as her gaze locked with Rowan Argyros’s. His green gaze was icy and contemptuous and so very dismissive.

She lifted her chin, her press of lips hiding her anger and rush of panic. If Rowan Argyros—her biggest regret, and worst mistake—was here, it could only mean one thing, because he wouldn’t be here by choice. He’d made it brutally clear three years ago what he thought of her.

But she didn’t want to think about that night, or the day after, or the weeks and months after that...

Better to keep from thinking at all, because Rowan would use it against her. More ammunition. And the last thing a former military commander needs is more ammunition.

He didn’t look military standing before her. Nor had he looked remotely authoritative the night she met him at the bachelor auction fund-raiser to benefit children in war-torn countries in need of prosthetics. He’d been a bachelor. She’d helped organize the event. Women were bidding like mad. He would go for a fortune. She didn’t have a fortune, but when he looked at her where she stood off to the side, watching, she felt everything in her shift and heat. Her face burned. She burned and his light green gaze remained on her, as the bidding went up and up and up.

She bought him. Correction: she bought one night with him.

And it only costs thousands and thousands of dollars.

The remorse had hit her the moment the auctioneer had shouted victoriously, “Sold to Logan Lane!”

The intense remorse made her nauseous. She couldn’t believe what she’d done. She’d filled an entire credit card, maxing it out in a flash for one night with a stranger.

She didn’t even know then what Dunamas Maritime was. Insurance for yachts? Ship builder? Cargo exporter?

He knew that, too, from his faint mocking smile. He knew why she’d bought him.

She’d bought him for his intense male energy. She’d bought his confidence and the fact that of all the attractive men being auctioned, he was by far the most primal. The most sexual.

She’d bought him because he was tall and broad shouldered and had a face that rivaled the most beautiful male models in the world.

She’d bought him because she couldn’t resist him. But she hadn’t been the only one. The bidding had been fierce and competitive, and no wonder. He was gorgeous with his deep tan, and long, dark hair—sun-streaked hair—and his light arresting eyes framed by black lashes. There was something so very compelling about him that you couldn’t look away. And so she didn’t. She watched him...and wanted him. Like every other woman at the charity event.

They’d all looked and wanted. And many had bid, but she was the one who’d bid the longest, and bid the highest, and when the heart-pounding bidding frenzy was over, she came out the victor.

The winner.

And so, from across the room that night, he looked at her, his mysterious light hazel eyes holding hers, the corner of his mouth lifting, acknowledging her victory. Looking back she recognized the smile for what it was—mockery.

He’d dared her to bid, and she had, proving how weak she was. Proving to him how easily manipulated.

By morning he would hate her, scorning her weakness. Scorning her name.

But that hadn’t happened yet. That wouldn’t happen until he’d taken her again and again, making her scream his name as she climaxed once, twice and then, after a short sleep, two more times before he walked out the door the next morning.

The sex had been hot, so hot and so intense and so deeply satisfying. With anyone else it might have felt dirty, but it hadn’t been with him. It’d just felt real. And right.

But she did feel dirty, later, once he’d discovered she wasn’t Logan Lane, but Logan Lane Copeland, and the shaming began.

It was bad enough being hated by all of America, but to be branded a slut by your very first lover? A man that wasn’t just any man, but one of the best friends of your twin sister’s new husband?

Of all the people to sleep with...of all the men to fall for...why did it have to be Rowan Argyros with his passionate Irish Greek heritage and ruthless nature? There was a reason he’d risen through the military. He was a risk taker with nerves of steel. A man who seized opportunities and smashed resistance.

She knew, because he’d seized her and smashed her.

Logan exhaled now, blocking the past with its soul-crushing memories. She hated the past. It was only in the last year she’d come to terms with the present and accepted that there could be a future. A good one. If she could forgive herself...and him.

Not Rowan—she’d never forgive Rowan. It was her father she needed to forgive. And she was trying, she was.

“My father,” she said now, her gaze sliding across Rowan—still so tall and intimidating, still so sinfully good-looking—and then away, but not before she realized his long hair was gone. Shorn. He looked even harder now than before. “Is...he...?”

Rowan hesitated for just a fraction of a second, and yet his expression didn’t soften. “Yes.”

She willed herself not to move, or tremble. She firmed her voice so it wouldn’t quaver. “How?”

He hesitated yet again, and she knew that he knew every detail. He was a maritime antipiracy specialist, based out of Naples, with offices in Athens and London as well as a large country estate in Ireland. He hadn’t told her any of that. Her sister Morgan and her husband Drakon Xanthis had, after their wedding.

“Does it matter?” he asked quietly, coolly.

“Of course it matters,” she retorted, hating him even more. Hating him for taking her virginity and mocking her afterward for enjoying his body and touch and for leaving her to deal with the aftermath on her own, as if he hadn’t been the one in that big bed with her...

His silence made her fear the worst. Her heart hammered. Her stomach fell. She wished she was hearing this from Morgan or Jemma, or her older brother, Bronson. They would all have broken the news differently. “Did they...did they...?”

And then she couldn’t wait for the words, the confirmation that her father, kidnapped and held hostage off the coast of Africa, had been killed, possibly executed. It was all too sickening and her legs wobbled and her head spun, her body hot, then cold and then very cold.

She tried to look for Joe, the very best assistant one could ever hope for, but all she saw was Rowan and he was staring her down with those pale hazel-green eyes.

“Don’t,” he growled, his deep, rough voice now sounding far away, as if he was standing at the far end of a tunnel.

Maybe he was.

She couldn’t see him well. Things were cloudy at the edges. He was cloudy, and she blinked, almost amused that Rowan could think he could still dictate to her, once again telling her body what to do...

“You’re not doing this now,” he snapped.

But she did. Her world went dark.

* * *

Swearing, Rowan dove to catch Logan before she crashed to the ballroom floor, but he was too far away and couldn’t break her fall. Her head slammed on the edge on the stage as she went down.

He was there to scoop her up and he swore again, this time at himself, for not reaching her more quickly, and then at useless Joe, for not catching her, either.

She was still out cold as he settled her into his arms, her slender body ridiculously light. He shifted her so that her head fell back against his biceps, and his narrowed gaze raked her pale face, noting the blood pooling at the cut on her temple, and beginning to trickle into her thick honey-colored hair. She was going to have a nasty bruise, and probably one hell of a headache, later.

She was also still impossibly beautiful. High cheekbones, full lips, the elegant brow and nose of a Greek goddess.

But beauty had never been her issue. If she’d just been a pretty face, he could forgive himself for their night together, but she wasn’t just a beautiful girl, she was Logan Copeland, one of the scandalous Copelands, and as amoral as they came.

It was bad enough being bought at a charity auction but to be paid for with embezzled funds?

“Grab her things,” he told the man hovering at Logan’s side. He wouldn’t be surprised if Joe was Logan’s lover. A boy toy—

He broke off, unable to continue the thought. He didn’t like the thought. But then, he didn’t like anything about being here today.

He didn’t have to be the one doing this. He could have sent one of his men. Every one of his special ops team at Dunamas Intelligence had come from an elite military background: US Navy SEALs, British Special Forces, Russia’s Alpha Group, France’s National Gendarmerie Intervention Group, Spain’s Naval Special Warfare Force. Rowan hadn’t just interviewed and hired each, he’d then trained them personally for intelligence work and rescue operations.

Any one of his men could do what he was doing. He should have sent anyone but himself.

But Rowan wasn’t about to let anyone else near her. He told himself it was to protect them—she was a siren after all—but with her in his arms, he knew it was far more personal and far more primal than that.

He didn’t want any man near her because even three years later, her body belonged to him.

* * *

Logan struggled to open her eyes. Her head hurt. Her thoughts kept scattering. She was being carried up and up. They were moving, climbing, but climbing what? She could hear breathing as well as the sound of heavy, even thudding close to her ear. She was warm. The arms holding her were warm. She battled to open her eyes, needing to focus, wanting to remember.

She stared hard at the face above her, noting the jaw, a very strong, angular jaw with a hint of dark beard. He had a slash of cheekbone and a firm mouth. And then he looked down at her, and the sardonic hazel-green depths sent a shiver through her.

Rowan.

And then it started to come back. Joe saying there was a problem. Something with her father and then Rowan appearing...

She stiffened. “Put me down.”

He ignored her, and just kept climbing stairs.

Panic shot through her. “What’s happening? Why are you carrying me?”

She wiggled to free herself.

His grip grew tighter. “Because you fainted, and you’re bleeding.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did. You smacked your head on the edge of the stage when you fainted, probably have a concussion.”

“I’m fine now,” she said, struggling once again. “You can put me down. Now. Thank you.”

“You won’t be able to make it up the stairs, and we’ve got to get out of here, so don’t fight me, because I’m not putting you down,” he said shortly, kicking the door to the roof open. “And if you don’t like being carried, then next time don’t be clumsy. Faint somewhere soft.”

“Where’s Joe? I need Joe!”

“I’m sure you do,” Rowan gritted as they stepped into the dazzling California sunshine. “Don’t worry, he’s following with your things.”

“My things? But why?”

“I’ll fill you in once we’re in the air. But enough chatter for now.” His cool gaze dropped and swept from her face down her neck to the swell of her breasts. “You’re not as light as you like to think you are.”

But before she could react, they were at the helicopter and the pilot was jumping out and opening the door. Rowan was putting her in the helicopter in one of the passenger seats but she turned in his arms, leaning past to find Joe.

“Logan,” Joe said, trying to reach her.

Rowan kept his arm up, blocking Joe from getting too close. “Put her things down,” Rowan directed, “and step back.”

But Logan grabbed Joe’s sleeve. “Handle things at home, Joe. Please?”

Joe’s dark eyes met hers and held. “Where are you going? When will you be back?”

“She’ll call you,” Rowan said drily. “Now say goodbye.”

“Tomorrow’s event,” Logan said.

Joe nodded. “We’ll make it work. I’ll make it work. Don’t worry.”

And then Rowan was climbing into the helicopter and the pilot began lifting off, forcing Joe to run backward to escape the intense wind from the churning blades.

“Nice boy,” Rowan said, shutting the door as Joe scrambled to safety. “Definitely on the young side, but so much more trainable before twenty-five.”

Logan shot him a furious glance. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Your lover, whatever.” He shrugged. “It’s not for me to judge what you do with your father’s money—”

“I don’t have a penny of my father’s money.”

“I’m sorry. It wasn’t his money. His embezzled billions.”

She ground her jaw tight and looked away, chest aching, eyes burning, mouth tasting like acid. She hated him...she hated him so much...

And then he leaned over and checked her seat belt, giving it a tug, making the harness shoulder straps pull tight on her chest.

She inhaled sharply, and his fingers slid beneath the wide harness strap, knuckles against the swell of her breasts.

“Too tight?” he asked, his gaze meeting hers, even as her nipples tightened.

“With your fingers in there, yes,” she choked, flushing, her body now hot all over. The linen and cotton fabric of her cream dress thin enough to let her feel everything.

He eased his hand out, but not before he managed to rub up against a pebbled peak.

And just like that memory exploded within her—his mouth on her breast, alternately sucking and tonguing the taut tip until he made her come just from working her nipple.

Her response had whetted his appetite. Not content with just the one orgasm, he devoted himself to exploring her body and teaching her all the different ways she could climax. It had been shocking but exciting. She’d been overwhelmed by the pleasure but also just by being with him. He’d felt so good to her. She’d felt so safe with him. Nothing he did seemed wrong because she’d trusted him—

Logan bit into her bottom lip hard to stop the train of thought. Couldn’t go there, wouldn’t go there, not now, not when her head ached and the helicopter soared straight up, leaving the top of the old Park Plaza Hotel building so quickly that her stomach fell, a nauseating reminder that she still wasn’t feeling 100 percent.

She put a hand up to her temple and felt a sticky patch of blood. She glanced down at the damp crimson streaking her fingers, rubbed them, trying not to throw up. “I know you specialize in rescue and intelligence, but isn’t the helicopter getaway a bit much?”

Rowan thrust a white handkerchief into her hands.

She took it, wiping the blood from her fingers, hoping she hadn’t gotten any on her dress. This was a new dress, a rare splurge for her these days. As she rubbed her knuckles clean she could feel him watching her. He wasn’t amused. She wasn’t surprised. He didn’t have a sense of humor three years ago. Why should he have one now?

“I just meant, it’s a little Hollywood even for you,” she added, continuing to scrub at her skin, feeling a perverse pleasure in poking at him, knowing he’d hate anything to do with Hollywood. Rowan Argyros might look like a high-fashion model, but she’d come to learn after their—encounter—that he was hardcore military, with the unique distinction of having served once in both the US Navy and the Royal Navy before retiring to form his own private maritime protection agency, a company her brother-in-law had invested heavily in, wanting the very best protection for his Greek shipping company, Xanthis Shipping.

Even more bruising was the knowledge that Morgan and Drakon were such good friends with Rowan. They both spoke of him in such glowing terms. It didn’t seem fair that Rowan could forgive Morgan for being a Copeland, but not her.

“Look down,” Rowan said tersely, gesturing to the streets below. The huge hotel, built in 1925 in a neo-Gothic style, filled the corners of Wilshire, Park View, and West Sixth Street. “That mob scene is for you.”

Still gripping the handkerchief, she leaned toward the window which made her head throb. A large crowd pressed up against the entrance to the building, swarming the front steps, completely surrounding the front, with more bodies covering the back.

It was a mob scene. They were lying in wait for her. “Why didn’t they go in?” she asked.

“I chained the front door. Hopefully your Joe will find the key, or he’ll be in there a while.”

Logan reached for her purse and slipped the handkerchief inside and then removed her phone. “Where did you put the key? Joe can’t stay in there—”

“That’s right. You’ve left him with instructions to manage things at home.” He watched her from beneath heavy lids. “What a good boy.”

She ignored him to shoot a quick text to Joe.

Rowan swiped the phone from her hands before she could hit Send.

She nearly kicked him. “Why are you so hateful?”

“Come on, babe, a little late now to play the victim.”

Logan turned her head away to stare out the window, emotions so chaotic and hot she could barely see straight. “So where are you taking me?”

“To a safe spot. Away from the media.”

“Good. If it’s a safe spot, you won’t be there.” She swallowed hard, and crossed her arms over her chest. “And my father. He’s really dead?”

“Yes.”

She turned her head to look at him. Rowan’s cool green gaze locked with hers, expression mocking. “If it makes you feel better,” he added, lip curling, “it was natural causes.”

Blood rushed to her cheeks and her face burned. Good God, he was even worse than she remembered. How could that be possible? “Of course it makes me feel better.”

“Because you are such a dutiful daughter.”

“Don’t pretend you cared for him,” she snapped.

“I didn’t. He deserved everything he got, and more.”

She hated Rowan. Hated, hated, hated him. Almost as much as she wanted to hate her father, who’d betrayed them all—and she didn’t just mean the Copeland family, but his hundreds of clients. They’d trusted him and he’d robbed them blind. And then instead of facing prosecution, instead of accepting responsibility for his crimes, he’d fled the country, setting sail in a private yacht, a yacht which was later stormed off the coast of Africa—he was taken prisoner. Her father was held captive for months, and as time dragged on, the kidnappers’ demands increased, the ransom increased. Only Morgan was willing to come up with money for the ransom...but that was another story.

And yet, even as much as she struggled with her father’s crimes and how he’d shamed them and broken their hearts, she still didn’t want him suffering. She didn’t want him in pain. Maybe she didn’t hate him as much as she thought she did. “So he wasn’t murdered. There was no torture,” she said, her mouth dry.

“Not at the end.”

“But he was tortured.”

His eyes met hers. “Shall we just say it wasn’t a picnic?”

For a long moment she held her breath, heart thumping hard as she looked into his eyes and saw far more than she wanted to see.

And then she closed her eyes because she could see something else.

The future.

Her father was now dead and so he would never be prosecuted for his crimes, but the world still seethed. They demanded blood. With Daniel Copeland gone, they’d go after his five children. And while she could handle the scrutiny and hate—it was all she’d been dealing with since his Ponzi scheme had been exposed—her daughter was little more than a baby. Just two and a quarter years old, she had no defenses against the cruelty of strangers.

“I need to go home,” she choked. “I need to go home now.”

* * *

Rowan had been watching the emotions flit across her face—it was a stunning face, too. He’d never met any woman as beautiful. But it wasn’t just her bone structure that made her so attractive, it was the whole package. The long, thick honey hair, the wide-set blue eyes, the sweep of her brows, the dark pink lips above a resolute chin.

And then the body...

She had such a body.

He’d worshipped those curves and planes, and had imagined, that night three years ago, that maybe, just maybe, he’d found the one.

It’s why he became so angry later, when he discovered who she was, because he’d felt things he’d never felt. He’d felt a tenderness and a connection that was so far out of his normal realm of emotions. What had started out as sex had become personal. Emotional. By morning he wasn’t doing things to her, he was making love with her.

And then it all changed when he discovered the pile of mail on her kitchen counter. The bills. The magazine subscriptions.

Logan Copeland.

Logan Copeland.

Logan Lane Copeland.

It had blindsided him. That rarely happened. Stunned and then furious, he turned on her.

Many times he’d regretted the way he’d handled the discovery of her true identity. He regretted virtually everything about that night and the next morning, from the intense lovemaking to the harsh words he’d spoken. But over the years the thing he found himself regretting the most was the intimacy.

She’d been more than tits and ass.

She’d meant something to him. He’d wanted more with her. He imagined—albeit briefly—that there could be more, and it had been a tantalizing glimpse at a future he hadn’t thought he would ever have. But then he saw it and realized that he wanted it. He wanted a home and a wife and children. He wanted the normalcy he’d never had.