Logan (The Kings of Brighton Book 2) Page 14

  Logan

  Bringing Jane was probably a mistake.

  The smart thing to do would’ve been to kick her out of my apartment without an explanation for what she found. Let her believe whatever horrible things her little recon mission convinced her about me. Let her keep being afraid of me. Let her think the worst.

  That I’m like my father.

  Maybe not exactly like him—not yet—but enough like him that giving me a wide berth would be in her best interests.

  Yeah, it would’ve been the smart thing. Would’ve solved my Jane problem once and for all.

  Maybe that would’ve been true a few days ago but not now. Now, my Jane problem is completely out of control—so much so that I’ve been silently justifying my decision to invite her along to myself for the past thirty minutes.

  You had to bring her. If she thinks you’re some kind of psycho for real, she’ll tell your brothers the truth about you. She’ll tell everyone and then everyone will know your secret. Who and what you really are, and then you’ll lose everything.

  It makes perfect sense—but it doesn’t explain why I’m holding her hand.

  Right.

  This isn’t a date, dummy.

  This is your job—your real job—so, act like it.

  Using the door as an excuse, I untangle my fingers from hers so I can open it and usher her into Benny’s crowded waiting area with a small, impatient gesture. I was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago. Hopefully, she hasn’t given up on me and left yet.

  “You’re late,” Nora barks at me as soon as she spots me weaving through the sea of customers, either waiting for a pickup order or gambling on the possibility of a table before their lunch hour is up. “She’s been here for nearly twenty minutes now and looks about as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.” Before I can apologize or make an excuse, she shoos me away with an impatient wave of her hand. “Go on, don’t waste time apologizing to me—I’m not the one you kept waiting,” she tells me while giving Jane a healthy dose of side-eye as we scuttle past the hostess booth. “I’ve seen you in here before, haven’t I? You work for my boys?”

  Jane opens her mouth to answer but I don’t let her. Instead I grab a hold of her wrist and pull her away from Nora and deeper into the diner, toward the booth that Nora keeps in reserve for the Gilroys, and by proxy, me.

  When she catches sight of us approaching, the blonde sitting in the booth sits up a little straighter, her large brown eyes bouncing from Jane’s face to mine, looking for some sign that we’re the people she’s waiting for.

  “Kimberly?” I say, noting that she bears more than a passing resemblance to her older sister. Same straight, wheat-blonde hair. Same dark brown eyes. Same long, slightly hooked nose. When she nods I usher Jane into the booth ahead of me before I slide into the seat next to her, placing the folder on the table between us.

  “Are you—” Kimberly looks at the file for a second before aiming her gaze at me, letting it wander over my thick-rimmed glasses and unmanageable shock of black hair. The lanky frame covered in worn jeans and Heathcliff the Cat T-shirt. There’s a momentary look of confusion on her face that I’m used to because I’m never what they expect, but then it passes. “I don’t know your name but are you the one…” I don’t give my name to the people I work for. I don’t always operate inside the law when I do what I do and the last thing I need is to catch another headline—BILLIONAIRE’S BROTHER CONFIRMED HACKTAVIST—or the inevitable deep dive into my past that would follow. “Did you find her? Did you find Abbey? Is she—” Her voice breaks and her eyes fill with tears before she can finish it.

  Dead.

  Is she dead?

  This is always their biggest fear. That the sister or mother or daughter they’ve come to me to find is dead. That they looked too late. Lost their chance to make it right.

  Thankfully, this isn’t one of those time.

  Shaking my head, I’m very aware of Jane sitting next to me, watching and listening to the exchange. “No,” I tell her, not wanting to draw her into a panic. “She’s okay. Sober. Works as a dental assistant in Philadelphia.” I push the file folder across the table until it’s in front of her. “Abbey gave me permission to give this to you,” I say, lifting my hand off the file. “Her phone number is in there—she wants you to call her.” Sometimes, they don’t. Sometimes, when I find them, they don’t want to be found. They want to stay lost. Those jobs are hard, sitting across from mothers and fathers, with tears in their eyes, and having to the tell them that the children they’re looking for don’t want them to know where they are.

  Kimberly makes a strangled sound and presses a hand to her face to trap it inside her mouth. Nodding, she flips the file open and gives its contents a cursory glance because it’s too much to process. Too much take in. Still nodding, she closes the folder and looks up at me, dropping her hand to give me a watery smile. “You said there was no charge for finding her but I—”

  Time to leave.

  “No,” I tell her, gently but firmly shutting down the offer before she even makes it as I maneuver my way out of the booth. “I don’t do this for money.”

  “Oh…” She nods, confused again. “Okay,” she says, watching me stand before offering a hand to Jane to help her out of the booth. “Your boyfriend is amazing.”

  Jane slips her hand in mine and lets me help her stand. As soon as she’s on her feet, she laces her fingers between mine and gives my hand a squeeze. “I know,” she says before pushing herself up onto her toes to press her mouth against mine.

  As soon as her lips make contact, I feel myself go rigid. Tense up like I’m bracing for impact. There’s a moment of shock. A moment of reason, the rational part of my brain telling me to push her away. To tell this stranger, and anyone else who might be listening, that I’m not her boyfriend. That Jane is nuts and that she’s nothing more than an annoyance to me. To end it, the way I’ve been trying to end it for the last week. And then I realize that I don’t want to.

  That I haven’t actually been trying to end anything.

  That I want Jane.

  Her mouth.

  Her hands.

  Her body.

  I want her, exactly where she is.

  The pressure of her mouth changes against mine. She’s about to pull away and I lift a hand to stop her. Slide my fingers along the side of her neck to wrap them around the back of it, using the pressure of them to tilt her head slightly so I can deepen the kiss. Skim my tongue along her lower lip while fighting the urge to push my way inside and she whimpers in response, a warm, helpless hum against my mouth that shakes me down to my foundations. Makes me want to question everything I know about myself. Everything I believe about who I am and what I’m capable of.

  Risk it all, just to have her.

  Someone drops their fork. The sharp, metallic ring of it against their plate reaches in and grabs me by the back of the neck. Shakes some sense into me.

  Shit.

  What the fuck is this woman doing to me?

  Tearing my mouth away from hers, I force myself to pull back, a low groan vibrating in my throat. Hooking my gaze into hers to hold her in place, I make a conscious effort to loosen my grip around the back of her neck. “Let’s go home,” I say to her in a tone I never used in my life before I met her.

  She nods, her gray-green eyes round and wide, as the fingers laced through mine tighten against the back of my hand. “Yes… home,” she whispers, still nodding like she doesn’t know how to stop. “Okay.”

  People are looking at us.

  I know they are.

  I can feel them staring, watching us.

  Any one of them could belong to my father. Any one of them could have followed us here with the intention of reporting my activities back to him. It was a mistake, bringing her with me. More than just a mistake to kiss her.

  It was dangerous.

  “Good luck, Kimberly.” That tone again and I don’t even bother to look at her w
hen I say it. Don’t even wait for her to answer me before I’m dragging Jane away from the table and toward the closest exit.

  Twenty-Nine

  Jane

  Apparently, telling people that Logan is my boyfriend to help him out of sticky situations is just something I do now. I’ve done it twice. The day we met at the hospital and not more than twenty minutes ago, in the middle of a crowded restaurant.

  But kissing him?

  That’s something new.

  Not wanting to.

  That’s not new at all.

  I’ve wanted to kiss him since that day at the hospital—maybe even longer than that—even if I wasn’t ready to admit it yet. I wanted to do more than kiss him. I wanted his hands on me. Wanted my clothes gone so I could feel the rough, hard push of lean muscle and heavy bone against my bare skin. Even though I was afraid and more than a little confused about what was happening—the fact that he kept refusing to admit the truth and was angry at me for knowing who he really is—and I felt relieved.

  Relieved that I’d found him again after all these years.

  That he was okay.

  That fate got tired of waiting and intervened.

  Finally brought us together.

  I can admit that now.

  That a part of me has been holding my breath since I was fourteen, waiting for him. That I’ve been half in love with Logan since the night I snuck his psychiatric file out of my mother’s work bag and read it at our kitchen table.

  Let’s go home.

  That’s what he said and even though I have no idea what’s going to happen when we get there, I’m not afraid.

  I’m relieved.

  And he’s angry.

  At least, he looks angry.

  Hands wrapped tight around the steering wheel. Jaw clenched so tight I can see the pulse and flex of it against the side of his neck. The intense gaze of his eyes aimed out the windshield. This time he didn’t let go of my hand. He held it as we backtracked our way through Benny’s, out the front entrance and across the parking lot. Unlocked Tobias’s Rover and fed me into it gently, shutting the door behind me with a quiet snap before circling around the back of it to slide into the driver seat a few seconds later.

  Even though I’d been hoping he would, he didn’t reach for my hand again. He left me stranded and alone while he drove us back to Back Bay because even though there’s no more than a few feet of space between us, Logan might as well be a million miles away.

  We’re almost home, just a few more blocks until we get there and I have no idea what I’m doing. The Logan who kissed me back in that diner is gone, carried away on a tide of doubt and rationality and I have no idea how I’m going to get him to come back to me.

  Finally, we pull up to the gate that secures the Back Bay building’s underground parking garage and I watch while Logan punches in his security code. The gate guarding the entrance rolls open, granting us access. Seconds later, we’re pulling into Tobias’s designated spot for the Rover and Logan kills its engine.

  “I know you’re not my boyfriend.” I blurt it out, immediately wanting to punch myself in the face for saying it out loud. “I mean, I know I keep saying it—I keep telling people—” Shut up, Jane. Jesus Christ just shut up. “I’m not crazy, I’m just—”

  “Curious.” He doesn’t look at me but the corner of his mouth kicks up in something caught between a smirk and a sneer. “That’s what you are, Jane. You’re curious. About me. About what happened to me. How badly it fucked me up,” he says, jaw tight. Mouth pressed into a grim line. “About what would happen if I took you upstairs. What it would feel like if I gave in and fucked you.”

  A sudden flush erupts across the back of my neck and my mouth hangs open for a second before it snaps shuts so hard, the crack of it rattles my teeth down to their roots. I wait for him to say something else. To tell me that it’s never going to happen. That kissing me was a mistake—one he has no intention of repeating. I don’t think I can handle it if that happens so, I do the dumb thing and dive in for round two.

  “You’re angry,” I say with a curt, decisive nod. “I know I—”

  He interrupts me again, this time with a harsh bark of laughter, so loud it jolts me in my seat. “That’s just it, Jane—you don’t know,” he tells me, hands tightening around the steering wheel like he’s trying to strangle it. “You don’t have a fucking clue what you’re doing. What kind of animal you’re poking at here, but—”

  “You’re not an animal.” For some reason, hearing him say it makes me think of his father and it bothers me. “You’re nothing like—”

  He finally stops trying to kill the steering wheel, letting his hands fall away from it to land in his lap. “You don’t know that,” he says, talking over me with a firm shake of his head. “You don’t know anything about me, Jane, or what I’m capable of.”

  “I—” I stop for a second, trying to collect my thoughts. Finally, I sigh and give him a helpless shrug. “I know you,” I tell him quietly. “I’ve known you since I was fourteen.”

  “You’ve known me…” He shakes his head and laughs like I just made some sort of joke. Turning in his seat, he pins me to my seat with an ice-blue glare. “Just how delusional are you? You don’t know me,” he tells me, leaning over the center console to push himself into my space. I know I’m supposed to be intimidated. Afraid. Supposed to shrink back in my seat, away from him, but I’m not and I don’t. When I refuse to put space between us, Logan sighs. “You don’t know me,” he repeats himself. “You read my juvenile psych eval. A few paragraphs about how messed up I am. Saw a few polaroids of me, stapled to the front of my file and you built some dizzy, schoolgirl fantasy about me in your fucking head—” He sits back in his seat before swiping a rough hand across his mouth. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I know you wear stupid cat T-shirts every damn day, even though I’ve been in your apartment, so I know you don’t even own a cat,” I tell him, turning in my seat to face him head on. “I know you kept Emmett as your middle name, even though it must remind you of your father, every time you have to use it.” I look away from him, sure that the blush on my face is evident, even in the dim lighting of the garage. “I know that Abigail Reid was lost. I know that you found her, bought her home. I know she’s not the only one and I know why you do it.”

  “Stop.” His jaw clenches again and he shakes his head, gaze aimed at something just over my shoulder because he doesn’t want to look at me. “Stop, Jane—don’t say another word.”

  I can’t.

  I can’t stop.

  I can’t let it go.

  Can’t let him go.

  I wish I could.

  I wish I could get out of this car and walk away from him and never look back. I wish I’d never read his file, all those years ago. Never begged my mother to help him. That when we met last week he’d been a stranger, because if he’d been a stranger, maybe if I didn’t know all his secrets, things could be different between us. He’d be able to lie to me the way he lies to everyone else. He could be the person he pretends to be with me instead of who he really is.

  “Want to know what else I know, Logan?” I say it quietly, afraid to say the rest of it any louder than a whisper. “I know you kissed me back—you wanted to kiss me back and I know that you’re just as curious about fucking me as I am about you.”

  He jerks back in his seat like he intends to deny it. Like I accused him of something unthinkable—like wanting to kiss me was some sort of crime against humanity. “Curiosity isn’t your problem, you know,” he tells me. “Your problem is that you’re impulsive. You do and say things without thinking them through. Without thinking about how those things might be dangerous.”

  I feel the back of my neck go stiff and tight and my eyes narrow down to slits because as much as I want to deny it, he’s right. I am impulsive. I don’t think things through. Don’t think about the consequences before I dive in, headfirst. How those consequences can hurt me. The pe
ople around me. Logan is right about me—about all of it—and I hate him for it.

  “And you’re always rational?” I fire back. “You’ve never been impulsive before? Never said or done something without thinking it through?”

  “No.” He shakes his head, jaw tight with determination. “I can’t afford to be impulsive.”

  I know what he means. It doesn’t matter if he wanted to kiss me or not. What matters is that, despite what he may or may not want, he has no intention of doing it again.

  “That’s too bad.” Reaching up, I swipe a frustrated hand across my face and it comes away wet. Shit, I’m crying. “Don’t worry, Logan—I hear you, loud and clear this time. I’ll leave you alone.” Turning away from him, I grapple with the Rover’s door handle, yanking it open so I can get as far away from him as possible before I start to cry for real.

  Thirty

  Logan

  It’s the truth.

  I’m never impulsive.

  I’m always careful. Always think before I act. Before I speak, because when the person you pretend to be is a lie and the life you live is the biggest lie of all, you can’t afford to be impulsive. You do everything you can to stay hidden. When there’s something inside you that you don’t want to face, you force it down. Keep it in a stranglehold. Refuse to look it in the eye.

  That’s the truth.

  At least it was true before I met Jane.

  Since she barged into my life, I’ve been making one irrational, impulsive mistake after another, each one progressively more disastrous than the last. Looking at her is like looking at myself. The real me. Not Logan Bright. Not Tobias Bright’s weird little brother. Not the funny, slightly awkward bartender. Not the mysterious stranger who helps people find the loved ones they’ve lost.

  Jane forces me to see the truth.

  Who I really am.

  What I really want.

  And that scares the shit out of me, but not half as much as the thought of letting her walk away from me.