Logan (The Kings of Brighton Book 2) Read online

  Planning my next cut, I rest the tip of my knife on the cutting board and bring the blade of it down, shaving a perfect, paper-thin slice from the lemon.

  Who’s the donkey now?

  Beside me, Noah opens the fridge with a shrug. “Dad’s supposed to go on a trip for work tomorrow but he says he’s not going because he doesn’t want to leave us alone and Mom is telling him he has to because he’s the boss and that he’s just being ridiculous because of the baby again.”

  “Hmm…” Logan makes a purely male, non-committal sound in the back of his throat. Whether he’s willing to say it out loud or not, he agrees with Tobias not wanting to leave Silver alone while he goes to London on business.

  And for some reason, it pisses me off.

  “You agree with him?” I ask, turning away from the cutting board to glare at him. “Seriously?”

  He stares at me a moment like he’s trying to figure out when the rules changed. When it suddenly became okay for us to address one another in front of others like we know each other. Finally deciding that the rules haven’t changed and that I just decided to break them, Logan scowls at me. “I didn’t say that.”

  “Yeah.” I feel my eyebrows lower in a scowl to match the one he’s giving me. “But you didn’t not—” Still looking at him and distracted, I bring my knife down against the lemon but instead of fruit, I cut my finger, the sharp edge of the blade slicing into the skin. Tearing my gaze away from his with a yelp, I look down at my hand. Blood. A lot of it. Pain is instantaneous, so intense it takes my breath. I drop the knife and step away from the counter, hand clenched in a fist. I can see blood leaking between the seams of my fingers and it makes me lightheaded enough to send me swaying into the countertop. “Oh boy…”

  “Go tell your parents I’m here,” Logan says, his voice buried again under the scrape of a barstool. He’s in front of me in an instant, standing over me and reaching for my hand. “Now, Noah.” His tone is different than before. Heavier. Deeper. It’s the tone of someone who’s given an order and expects to be obeyed. Watching his wide blue eyes ping-pong between us, I can tell it’s not a tone he’s ever heard from his uncle before but Noah doesn’t disappoint. He’s gone in an instant, across the apartment and down the hall, leaving us alone.

  As soon as Noah’s gone, Logan uses his grip on me to gently pull me over to the sink.

  “Is it bad?” I squeak up at him in a voice I don’t recognize as my own. “It feels bad.”

  “I don’t know.” Holding my bloody fist over the basin, he frowns, giving my wrist a gentle, prompting squeeze. “How about you open your hand so I can find out?”

  “What if I chopped my finger off?” I ask, the thought bringing with it a slow, rolling wave of nausea. “It’s a lot of blood. I probably chopped my finger off.”

  “If you chopped off a finger, we’ll stick it in a glass of milk and take you to the emergency room so we get it sewn back on.”

  “Milk?” I squeak it at him in that thin, panicky voice I don’t recognize. “Milk? I didn’t lose a tooth for God’s—”

  He starts laughing, his long, rough fingers still wrapped around my wrist. That’s when I realize he’s teasing me. I’m standing here, bleeding to death, and he’s making jokes. “You’re going to feel really bad if I open my hand and I only have four fingers,” I tell him, the sound of his laughter leeching away some of the panic.

  “I will.” Laughter subsiding, he gives me a solemn nod. “I’ll feel horrible, I promise,” he says while giving my wrist another squeeze. “Now open your hand.” It’s that tone again—the authoritarian tone he used on Noah a second ago and I can suddenly understand why he was so quick to obey because my fist pops open like its set on a timer, the deep vibrations of his voice leaving me a little breathless.

  “All fingers are present and accounted for,” he tells me, head tipped down to examine my wound. “It’s deep but not deep enough for stitches.” Using his elbow to turn on the faucet, Logan guides my open hand under the cool stream, and holding it between his own, begins to wash away the blood that’s beginning to dry and cake against my palm and between my fingers, kneading and stroking until my dizziness has nothing to do with blood loss.

  “Why don’t you think it’s a good idea for Tobias to go on his business trip?” I ask quietly, gaze fixed and aimed at his fingers, watching them stroke and move against mine.

  “You keep putting words in my mouth, Jane.” Logan frowns again but doesn’t look up at me, concentrating on his effort to save my finger. “I don’t like it.”

  “Yeah, well you ran to my mother and tattled on me, and I didn’t like that.” I know I sound petty and ungrateful but I can’t help it. “So, I guess that makes us even.”

  Gaze still aimed at my hand, the frown on his face deepens into a scowl. “I wouldn’t have had to if you’d just told me the truth from the beginning.” Hands still wrapped around mine, he uses his elbow to shut off the tap, same way he turned it on. Shifting his hip away from the counter, he lets go of my hand long enough to pull open one of the kitchen drawers to grab a dish towel. “Building on top of that, none of this would’ve even happened if you’d just minded your own business in the first place.”

  “I’m curious,” I tell him, rattling off my personal mantra. “It’s okay to be curious.”

  He makes that sound in the back of his throat again, that sound that says he disagrees but doesn’t want to give it a voice, and just like that, I’m livid again. “If I’d have minded my own business, you never would’ve seen the outside of that place. You got out of Brighton because of my curiosity,” I tell him, sounding far more self-righteous than I actually feel. “I paid for it too, just in case you’re thinking that I didn’t.” For some reason, I feel like my mother’s parenting skills and the way she raised me are being called into question and I feel the need to defend her. “My mom grounded me. I missed—”

  He smirks at me, giving me a brief flash of his ice blue eyes before he concentrates on my hand again. “I heard.” Wrapping the dish towel around my finger, Logan applies pressure to the wound, holding it in a slightly elevated position between us. “Homecoming with Jacob Donovan—I’m sorry you had to miss it,” he says, his tone flat and sarcastic. “I’m sure it would’ve been a magical evening.”

  Because his comment stains my cheeks with embarrassment for some reason, I angle my head downward and snag his gaze with my own. “You never answered my question,” I remind him, shifting my gaze to track his when he tries to look away. “Why don’t you think it’s a good idea for Tobias to go on his business trip?”

  Giving up on trying to break eye contact, Logan sighs. “Because I know,” he tells me. “I know what happens to women who live by themselves. Women who are left alone. I know what happens and if something like that happened to Silver or to—”

  Across the living room and down the hall a door slams shut, the curt snap of it cutting off the rest of Logan’s explanation. “Jane, are you okay?” Silver calls out on her way to the kitchen.

  “Yeah,” I answer back quickly, feeling guilty for making her worry. “I just—”

  Without warning, Logan lets go of my hand and moves away from me completely, seconds before Silver appears in the kitchen doorway, Tobias cradling the baby on his chest and a wide-eyed Noah, not far behind her.

  “Yes,” I say, trying again to reassure her. “I’m fine, but I think my chicken piñata days are over.” Looking past her, I give Noah a flat, apologetic smile. “I bled all over your lemons,” I tell him. “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t care.” Noah shakes his head at me, a little pale, his wide-eyed stare glued to my towel-wrapped finger. “Did you cut your finger off?”

  Since it’s exactly what I was sure of less than five minutes ago, I shake my head and laugh. “Nope. It was touch and go there for a second but your uncle Logan managed to save it,” I tell him while risking a quick look at Logan. He’s standing a few feet away from me, arms crossed over his chest, gaze aimed str
aight ahead of him. “He’s my hero.”

  When I say it, he makes that sound again, his straight dark brows lower and move together in a frown but Logan doesn’t look at me and he doesn’t argue, even though it’s obvious that he doesn’t agree.

  Twenty-Two

  Logan

  Hero?

  I’m not a hero.

  Not even close.

  Want to know why?

  Because the entire time I was rinsing blood off Jane’s hand and assessing the damage she did to her finger, all I could think about was how soft her skin is. Remember how good she felt, pressed up against me at the hospital the day we met. How amazing she smelled.

  The woman nearly amputated her own finger in a kitchen accident and all I could think about was kissing her. And it didn’t get any better after that. Matter of fact, the longer I was around her, the dirtier my thoughts got. By the time dinner was over, I was giving serious consideration to luring her up to Patrick’s apartment and figuring out a way to get her naked.

  So, yeah.

  Not a hero.

  Not even close.

  “You’re quiet.”

  My brother’s observations of my behavior, no matter how innocent or accurate, always irritate me. Always make me feel examined. Judged.

  “I’m always quiet,” I remind him with a sullen shrug, my gaze aimed out the car window a few inches from my face. It’s late. Hours after Noah and I salvaged the mess Jane made of dinner and Tob is driving me home. He offered me keys from a jumbled mess in a bowl by the front door. Just take one of my cars, he said with an absent-minded wave like he didn’t care which one I took or if I ever gave it back. When I ignored his offer and called up the bus schedule app on my phone, he just sighed and reached into the bowl to fish out the keys to the Range Rover he’s been favoring these days and motioned me toward the front door.

  “Not always,” he says with a quiet chuckle, that dies about as quickly as it springs up. “So…” He frowns a little, gaze aimed through the windshield of the Rover. “When are you leaving?”

  “Leaving?” Even though I know exactly what he’s asking me, I play dumb. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ve been in Boston for a while now—so long I thought maybe you’d stay,” he says, shooting me an irritated look. “But both Gray and Jase say you’ve been acting weird lately and I know the signs, so yeah…” He trails off with a tired shrug that reminds me that we’ve been doing this dance for a while now. “when are you leaving?”

  Tonight.

  Right now.

  As soon as you drop me off, I’m pulling up stakes and taking off.

  It’s what I went over to his place to tell him, both yesterday and today, but both times Jane was there, and I just couldn’t seem to get the job done. Even though she’s the main reason I should be running, I looked at her and couldn’t pull the trigger.

  “I’m not leaving,” I mumble, ignoring the heaviness in my chest that comes with the lie. “I told Gray that—I promised him I’d stay this time.”

  “Then why have you come by the apartment twice in the past two days?” Tob asks quietly, reminding me that he knows me better than I’m comfortable with.

  “Does Jane have a boyfriend?” I’m not sure where it comes from. I just blurt it out—half desperate attempt at changing the subject, half genuine curiosity and hearing myself say it, I realize how it sounds. Like Jane is the reason. Like I was looking for her, and I realize something else.

  That maybe I was.

  Tobias goes quiet for a second, his mouth hanging open slightly like he can’t figure out what I’m asking him. Finally, he clamps it shut and shakes his head. “Jane?” He says it like he has no idea who I’m talking about. “Silver’s friend Jane?” There’s no mistaking the incredulous edge to his tone. Like he’s not sure why I would ask him a question like that.

  “Forget it,” I mumble, glare aimed out the window, while I shake my head. “It was a stupid question.”

  “It wasn’t a stupid question,” Tobias insists, his usual frustration creeping in to soften his tone. “You’ve just never shown—” Frustration turns into unease. “I mean you’ve never asked—”

  “I’m not gay.” I have to force my jaw to relax so I can get the words out. Not because I’m angry that he would think that I am, but because I hate talking about myself. Hate opening myself up. Because being open makes it okay for people to ask me questions and eventually, those questions will lead to ones I don’t want to answer.

  Questions I can’t answer.

  “For the record, I don’t give a shit if you’re gay or not.” Tobias sighs, my blunt declaration and what it implied, taking the edge off his frustration. “It’s just that you’ve never shown any interest in women before—at least not in front of me—and it caught me off guard, that’s all.”

  He's right. I’ve always been careful when it comes to women. Always kept my sex life as uncomplicated as possible and off the radar.

  Jane Halstead is as complicated and as on the radar as it gets.

  “It’s fine,” I tell him, forcing myself to look at him. To smile. “Seriously—forget it. I don’t even know why I asked.”

  Yes, you do. You asked because her having a boyfriend would put a decidedly rough bump in the get Jane naked plan you’ve been subconsciously plotting on since that day at the hospital.

  “No,” Tobias says, answering my earlier question, even though I told him to forget it. “Jane doesn’t have a boyfriend that I know of.”

  That I know of means he knows for a fact. If I know my brother and I do, he had one of the private investigators he keeps on staff do a full background check on her as soon as he realized she was a fixture in Silver and Noah’s life.

  When all I do is shrug at his answer, Tobias clears his throat and decided to do us both a favor by changing the subject. Sort of. “Speaking of Jane—thanks for earlier. For tending to her while Silver and I—”

  “Fought?” I don’t like the way it sounds. coming out of my mouth. Like an accusation, and neither does he.

  “We weren’t fighting,” he says, defending himself because he already knows how I feel about it, without even asking. “We were negotiating.”

  “Yeah.” This time it’s my turn to laugh. “That’s what I heard,” I tell him, shooting him a quick look across the interior of the Rover. “What were you negotiating about?” I ask, even though it’s none of my business and I already know.

  “I’m supposed to leave for London for business in twelve hours and I told her I was cancelling the trip.”

  “And?”

  “And I’m smothering her.” Tobias sighs and gives me a shrug. “And I’ve forgotten that she raised Noah without my help for the first four and a half years of his life. And Jane and her infamous baseball bat lives two downs down from us so, what could possibly happen. And I’m ridiculous—take your pick.”

  Jane lives in Silver and Tob’s building.

  I didn’t know that.

  When I was digging up her life, I purposely didn’t look up her current address because I know myself well enough to know that if I did, I’d figure out a way to use it.

  I’d end up on her doorstep.

  Find a way in.

  “Well, Silver’s right about that,” I say with a tight smirk to hide the fact that even though I’m the one who brought it up, I suddenly don’t want to talk about it. “You are pretty ridiculous.”

  “I should’ve known you’d side with her on this.” Tob rolls his eyes. “You always do.”

  “For your information, I happen to agree with you on this one,” I inform him.

  “I know I’m being over-protective and over-bearing and that Silver is a strong capable woman who can take care of—wait.” Tob throws me some quick, incredulous side eye, “What?”

  “I know,” I say, laughing at the stunned look on his face. “I’m surprised too.”

  “You agree with me?” He says it carefully, like he’s sure we’re experienci
ng some sort of language barrier and he doesn’t want to get his hopes up. “Silver and I had a disagreement and you agree with me? Your brother? The guy you disagree about everything with on general principle?”

  “Don’t be an asshole,” I say, flicking another sullen glance in his direction. “And yes, I do. I don’t think you should get on a plane and fly ten thousand miles away less than a week after your woman gives birth to your kid.” I place blame on the fact that Silver just had a baby while ignoring the fact that even if she hadn’t, I still wouldn’t agree with my brother flying off and leaving her alone, but I also know my brother well enough to know that it wouldn’t even be a discussion if making the trip weren’t necessary. “On a scale from one to ten, how important is this trip?”

  “Scale of one to ten?” Tobias blows out a long, heavy breath. “A twelve.” What he doesn’t say is that since he’s re-connected with Silver and found out about Noah, Tob has taken a giant step back from his company, The Bright Group, and all of its holdings. Even though he’s still listed at the CEO, and attends the occasional board meeting, he’s handed over day-to-day operations over to Jase.

  Thinking I’ve solved the problem I look at my brother. “Send Jase.”

  “Can’t.” Tob gives me another shrug, this one decidedly wearier than his previous efforts. “Jase is heading for Chicago—he’s invested in a nightclub there. The guy he’s partnered with sold his half off to his assistant and Jase needs to check things out so he can decide if he wants to keep his stake in the club or sell it to the new owner.”

  Okay, so Jase is out. “What about Gray?” I say, quickly amending my suggestion when Tob starts to laugh at the idea of Gray in a suit and stuffed into a Lear jet. “I mean, if you have to go, go—Gray can take care of Silver and the kids while you’re gone. Matter of fact he’d probably be pissed if you didn’t ask him.”

  “Gray is already taking care of something for me,” Tobias tells me with a tight shake of his head. “He can’t afford the distraction right now.”