Читать книгу Modern Romance June 2017 Books 5 - 8 - Jane Porter, Andie Brock - Страница 13
ОглавлениеROWAN WAS POURING HIMSELF a neat shot of whiskey when Logan appeared in the narrow kitchen galley.
She stood in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. She was so much thinner than she’d been three years ago. He’d known she worked hard, but he hadn’t expected her to look quite so stressed. If he’d known she was pregnant...if he’d known there was a child...
He threw back the shot and looked at her. “Yes, love?”
“I’m not your love.”
His fingers itched to pour another drink but he never had more than one. At least, never more than one in a twelve-hour span. He couldn’t afford to lose his head. Ever.
But he had lost it once. He’d lost it March 31 three years ago to her. The evidence of that was curled up in a chair, hair in two tiny ponytails. They’d used protection the night of the bachelor auction. He knew he’d used protection. Clearly it hadn’t been the right protection, or enough.
“Have you heard anything about Bronson? Is he stable or still in critical condition?”
“Bronson will remain in ICU for another few days, but he’s been stabilized. The decision to keep him in ICU is for his protection. It’s easier to secure the ICU unit than another floor.”
“And Victoria? Where is she is right now? Who exactly has her?”
“By now your sister should be with Drakon and Morgan—”
“Oh, that’s going to go over beautifully.”
“Why?”
“They don’t get along. At all.”
“Drakon and Victoria?”
“Morgan and Victoria.” She frowned. “I wouldn’t leave Victoria there. She should go to Jemma. They’re close. Victoria will be far happier there.”
“It’s too late for that. What’s done is done and hopefully your sisters will realize that this isn’t the time to bicker.”
Her eyebrows rose. “They don’t bicker. They’ve had a massive falling out, over my father. It’s painful for everyone.”
“Then I wish Drakon well because it’s his problem now.” Rowan leaned back against the narrow galley counter, the stainless steel cool against his back. He allowed his gaze to slide over Logan’s slender frame, studying her intently. “Why didn’t you get an abortion?”
If his question shocked her, she gave no indication. “It wasn’t the right choice for me,” she answered, her voice firm and clear.
She was good, he thought. She sounded so grounded and smart and reasonable, which just provoked him even more.
He gripped the counter’s edge tightly. It was that or grab her by the shoulder and drag her into his arms. His kiss wouldn’t be kind.
He was not feeling kind.
It was difficult to feel kind when his cock throbbed in his trousers and his body felt hard and hungry.
He remembered the smell of her and the taste of her and how soft and warm and wet she’d been as he’d kissed her there, between her legs, and made her body tighten and break with pleasure. And then he’d thrust in, burying himself hard, and she’d groaned and stiffened and he’d thought that had been pleasure, too.
Now he knew he’d taken her virginity ruthlessly. Not knowing...
Not knowing the first damn thing about her.
A Copeland. A virgin. A society princess dethroned.
“Don’t fire Joe,” she said, breaking the tense silence. Her voice was husky. He heard the pleading note, and it made him even angrier. Why did it bother him that she was pleading for Joe? Was it because he worried that she cared for him? Or was it because he wanted her to plead for him...
She’d begged him three years ago, begged for his hands and his mouth, begged to be touched and taken, and he’d obliged.
Now look at them. Parents of a tiny girl.
He wouldn’t ignore his responsibilities. He wouldn’t punish the girl the way he’d been punished when his father knocked his mother up.
His father who drank too much and let his fists fly. His mother who drank too much and forgot to come home.
Not that he blamed her. Home was not a nice place to be.
“Please,” Logan started again. “Please don’t—”
“Joe doesn’t need you begging for his job,” Rowan said curtly, unable to bear hearing her plead any longer. It was far too reminiscent of a childhood he hated. It was far too reminiscent of a person he didn’t want to be. “He knew what he was doing. He made his own choices—”
“For Jax.”
“For you,” he corrected. “I know he cared for you. I know he developed...feelings...for you. I know when his attachment became more than just a strong sense of duty.”
“And yet you left him on the job.”
Rowan really wanted another drink, craving the burn and the heat in his veins because maybe then he wouldn’t want to push her up against the galley wall and put his hands into her hair and take her soft mouth and make her whimper for him.
He felt like an animal.
He didn’t want to be an animal.
His work usually kept him focused but right now he had none. Just her and her wide, searching blue eyes and that dark pink mouth that demanded to be kissed.
“No,” he ground out, knuckles tight as he gripped the stainless counter harder. “I didn’t leave him on the job. I relieved him months ago. Back before the Christmas holidays. He refused to step down. He refused to abandon you.”
Her lips curved, tremulous. “Unlike you?”
If she’d been icy and mocking he could have ignored the jab. If she’d shown her veneer, he would have let her be. But her unsteady words coupled with the tremble of her lip made his chest squeeze, the air bottled within.
He’d hurt her, because he’d meant to hurt her.
He was very good at what he did.
Rowan reached for her wrist, his fingers circling her slender bones and he pulled her toward him. She stiffened but didn’t fight him. If anything she’d gone very still.
“Let me see your head,” he said gruffly, bringing her hips almost to his. He lifted a heavy wave of honey-colored hair from her forehead to inspect her temple.
With one hand still in her hair, he tipped her head, tilting this way and that to get a proper look. It didn’t look too bad. She must have cleaned the wound while he’d gone to pick up Jax. The cut was scabbing, and he saw the start of a dark bruise. The bruise would be uglier tomorrow, but all in all, she was healing.
“I’m sorry I didn’t catch you,” he said, his deep voice still rough. They might not be on good terms but he didn’t like that all he did was bring her pain. “You went down hard.”
“I’ve survived far worse,” she answered, her smile full of bravado, but the bold smile didn’t reach her blue eyes, and in those blue eyes fringed by thick black lashes there was a world of hurt and shadows. Far too many shadows.
He tipped her head farther back to look into her eyes, trying to see where she’d been and all that had happened in the past three years and then he felt a stab of regret, and blame.
He’d left her out there, hanging.
He’d left her, just as she’d said.
He, who protected strangers, hadn’t protected her.
His head dropped, his mouth covering hers. It was a kiss to comfort her, a kiss to apologize for being such an ass, and yet the moment his mouth touched hers he forgot everything but how warm she was and how good she felt against him. Her mouth was so very soft and warm, too, and her chest rose and fell with her quick gasp, the swell of her breasts pressing against his chest.
He had not been celibate for the past three years. He liked women and enjoyed sex, and he’d found pleasure with a number of women but Logan didn’t feel like just any woman—she was different. She felt like his. But he didn’t want to explore that thought, not when he wanted to explore her, and he slid a hand down the length of her back, soothing her even as he coaxed her closer, heat in his veins, hunger making him hard.
He wasn’t going to force her, though. She could push him away at any moment. He’d let her go the moment she said no, the moment she put a hand to his chest and pressed him back.
And then her hand moved to his chest, and her fingers grabbed at his shirt, and she tugged on the shirt, tugging him toward her.
The heat in his veins became a fire.
He deepened the kiss, his tongue tracing the seam of her lips until she opened her mouth. His tongue flicked over her lower lip and then found the tip of hers and teased that, and then the inside of her upper lip, teasing the delicate swollen skin until he felt her nails dig into his chest, her slender frame shuddering. He captured her hip, holding her close, wanting nothing more than to bury himself in her and make her cry his name again...
She wasn’t like any other woman. He’d never met another woman he wanted this much.
The kiss became electric, so hot he felt as if he was going to explode. He didn’t want to want her like this. He didn’t want to want anyone like this. He didn’t want his control tested, didn’t want to feel as if he couldn’t get enough, that he’d never have enough, that what he missed, needed, wanted was right here in this woman—
He broke off the kiss and stepped back. He was breathing hard, his shaft throbbing but that was nothing compared to what was happening in his chest, within his heart.
She was not the right one for him.
She couldn’t be.
He didn’t like spoiled, entitled society girls, and he didn’t respect women who’d never had to work for anything...
“One of us should be with Jax,” he said curtly. “Make sure she’s safe in case there’s turbulence.”
“I was just on my way back to her,” Logan replied turning around and walking away, but not before he saw the flush in her cheeks and the ripe plumpness of her pink lips.
He nearly grabbed her again, wanting to finish what he’d started.
Instead he let her go, body aching, mind conflicted.
There was no love lost between them. They couldn’t even carry on a civil conversation but that didn’t matter if he took her to bed. They didn’t have to like each other. In fact, it might even be better if they didn’t like each other. It didn’t matter with them. The sex would still be hot.
* * *
Logan returned to her seat and carefully scooped Jax back into her arms and sat down with her daughter, not because Jax needed to be held but because Logan needed Jax for safety. Security.
Rowan’s kiss had shaken her to the core.
Her heart still pounded, her body flooded with wants and needs that could destroy her. Rowan was not good for her. Rowan was danger...
She swallowed hard and closed her eyes, determined to clamp down on her emotions, determined to slow her pulse.
She didn’t want him. She couldn’t want him. She couldn’t forget what happened last time, and she wasn’t even talking about the blisteringly hot sex, but the emptiness afterward. The sex hadn’t just been sex. It hadn’t felt like sweat and exercise...release...it’d felt transformative.
It’d been...bliss.
And then he’d walked out of her Santa Monica house, door slamming behind him, and her heart had shattered into a thousand pieces. Never mind what he’d done to her self-respect.
She couldn’t be turned on now. She couldn’t be so stupid as to imagine that he’d be different, that the lovemaking would be safer or that the aftermath would be less destructive.
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 problem. 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 it 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.
