Logan (The Kings of Brighton Book 2) Read online

  Silver: Hey—WYD?

  What am I doing? Sulking on my couch and dealing with the orgasmic aftershocks that hit me, every time I think about your brother-in-law.

  Silver: Noah says you

  and Logan went on a

  lunch date today—

  true or false?

  False. Logan and I didn’t have lunch and what happened between us couldn’t be considered a date by any standard of measurement. We had an argument, during which he told me for the hundredth time to leave him alone—and then he chased me down, kissed me stupid and made me come so hard I’m still seeing spots.

  Silver: Is everything

  okay? I talked to Went

  and he said you looked

  upset this afternoon.

  This one gives me pause. I didn’t see Went today so I have no idea what she’s talking about or how he knows I was upset… oh, yeah. He was supposed to pick Noah up from school today. They must have been in the parking garage around the same time as Logan and me, which would explain how Logan ended up with Noah in the first place. The realization sends my face up in flames and makes me wonder just how much Went actually saw. What he might’ve heard.

  Silver: Are you okay?

  Did something happen

  with Logan today?

  A lot of somethings happened today— I tried my hand at breaking and entering. A brief period where I was fairly certain Logan was, at best, some sort of deranged stalker. An embarrassing revelation that I’m the actual stalker and that I’ve been half in love with Logan—or at least the idea of him—since I was a stupid, teenage girl. And then, just when I finally get it, when I finally accept that he really wants nothing to do with me, Logan flips the script. Drags me back under.

  Then he pushes me away again.

  Silver: Look, I don’t know

  what happened but I do

  know that I talked to Logan

  today and even though it’s

  always hard to tell with him,

  I could see that there was

  Something wrong.

  Silver: Jane? I’m

  getting worried.

  Please answer me.

  Tossing my phone on the coffee table, I finally sit up. Force myself to think about Logan. Not about what happened or what he said to me afterward. Him. The way he looked at me as the elevator doors slid closed between us. He wasn’t angry. He didn’t look like he regretted what he did to me or like he wished it never happened.

  He looked scared.

  Of me.

  Himself.

  What happened between us.

  When I’d asked him if he’d ever acted on his instincts instead of thinking things through, Logan told me no.

  Not even once—I can’t afford to be impulsive.

  But what if that’s not true?

  What if Logan has a reason to be afraid?

  Rescuing my laptop from under the couch, I wait impatiently for it wake up, all the while telling myself to leave it alone. Leave him alone.

  I wish I could.

  I really wish I could.

  As soon as the internet connects, I type his name into the search bar and hit enter. Just like before, a list of links flood the screen—all of them linking to articles about his brothers. Nothing about Logan. Scrolling to the end of the list, I hit next and watch as a new batch of links replace the old.

  Nothing.

  I hit next again.

  Nothing.

  I hit next again.

  And then, there it is. An article from the Boston Globe, dated March 18th, 2011.

  BILLIONAIRE’S BROTHER QUESTIONED IN DIAPPEARANCE OF MIT CO-ED.

  Heart pounding in my chest, I let my finger hover above the mouse pad for a brief moment before I click on the link.

  The screen flashes, but instead of an article about a missing college girl, I’m given an article about what looks like quantum mechanics. Thinking the computer got its wires crossed somehow, I refresh the page. After a few seconds, the same article pops up. Nothing about Logan or the disappearance promised by the article’s title. Defeated, I close the laptop while I think about my options.

  I could let it go.

  Even though that’s what I should do, I almost laugh, because if the last week has proved anything, it’s that letting stuff go isn’t something I’m capable of—especially when it comes to Logan Bright.

  I could confront Logan. Ask him about the article.

  And he’ll just shut me down. Tell me to leave him alone. Stop picking at him like a scab that won’t heal.

  Or I could ask someone else. Someone who was there. Someone who’s kinda famous for telling the truth, even when it’s ugly.

  Setting my laptop aside, I pick up my phone to answer Silver’s last text.

  Silver: Jane, I’m

  Getting worried.

  Please answer me.

  Me: You don’t need

  to worry. Everything’s

  fine.

  She texts me back almost immediately.

  Silver: Okay… do you

  want to come over? I

  have a stash of pizza

  rolls. We can watch

  Pretty Woman.

  Me: Thanks for the

  offer but I can’t. I’m

  going to Gilroy’s for

  Ladies Night.

  Thirty-Four

  Logan

  Jane is here.

  I tell myself it’s not a big deal.

  She’s been here before.

  Stopped by after work to drop paperwork off to Patrick or to grab a stack of job applications from the office so she can check references. A quick in and out—Jane’s here for those apps or Hey, Cap’n, Jane left some shit on the desk for you in the office. I never really noticed her before. She was never more than a business casual blur, rushing in and out of the bar, usually buried under an armload of file folders.

  I’m noticing her now.

  Because six hours ago I was making her come while I had her pushed up against a wall in some dark, damp parking garage and I’ve been wanting to do it again ever since.

  Can’t stop thinking about it.

  How good she felt.

  How my name sounded, coming out of her mouth.

  How much I want to do it again.

  Which is a problem, really because if I know anything, it’s that the tables have somehow turned on me. Jane is the one who wants to be left alone and I’m the one who can’t seem to stay away.

  I almost knocked on her door after I dropped Noah off. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d had the stones to actually go through with it. Probably something that involved getting her naked.

  She showed up about ten minutes ago and hasn’t so much as given more than a passing glance in my direction. She’s talking to Went, who’s on door duty because even though its June and colleges campuses have gone dark for the summer, its Ladies Night at Gilroy’s which means it’s plenty busy with its usual odd mix of financial district suits, rough-neck locals and college bros stragglers clocking the coeds, flight attendants and tourists, while they crowd the bar, looking for Patrick, Mr. Boston’s Most Eligible Bachelor. They find Con instead—a cockier, inked-up version of his cousin—and think they’ve died and gone to barfly heaven. A year ago, he would’ve been leading a steady stream of them in and out of the bathroom for a quick round of dirty sex. It was so commonplace that his sexscapades had a name—getting Gilroyed. He used to joke that he was going to start selling T-shirts—I got Gilroyed and all I have to show for it is this lousy T-shirt.

  That was before Henley came back into his life.

  These days, you can practically hear the hearts break when he flashes them the Claddagh ring on his left hand, along with an apologetic grin and some variation of thanks but no thanks when they proposition him.

  Went throws a look at me over his shoulder, a smirk plastered across his face. I take a firm hold of the jealousy spiking through my bloodstream and give it a rough, mental shak
e. You gave her a quick, half-assed orgasm behind a stairwell—big fucking deal. That doesn’t make her your property, asshole.

  The internal lecture doesn’t help because when I watch Went flash her a grin before reaching out to give her ponytail a playful tug, I have to mentally nail my feet to the floor to keep myself from flying over the bar to tackle him.

  “Where are your glasses?”

  Speak of the devil.

  Jerking my gaze away from the sight of Jane and Went talking quietly at the front of the bar, I give Con a shrug. “Broke ‘em,” I say, making it impossible not to remember how. Clearing my throat, I reach up to rub the bridge of my nose. “I fell asleep at my computer again.” I’ve trashed more than one pair that way and he knows it. “I’m stuck with contacts until I can get a new pair.”

  “Mmm…” Con nods while he lines up a half dozen rocks glasses on the bar in front of him. “So, how’re you likin’ the new place?”

  I give Con a quick, painful smile that earns me a loud, booming laugh. “That bad, huh?” he says, reading my facial expression perfectly.

  “Took me a day and a half to figure out the steam shower,” I tell him with an answering laugh. “Don’t even get me started on the automatic blinds.”

  Con keeps laughing while he tips a perfectly timed pour of well vodka into a shaker full of ice. “The shower is 100% my fancy-ass cousin, but that automatic blind bullshit is your brother’s fault.” He tops the vodka with a three-count of Triple Sec and another of lime juice before fitting the top on and giving it a vigorous shake. “You know about the rooftop pool, right?”

  “Uhhh…” My gaze shoots across the bar again, finding Jane almost instantly. She’s still talking to Went. Leaning into him, her hand on his thick, heavily muscled bicep. Smiling up at him like he’s the second-coming. “Yeah,” I say, dragging my gaze back to meet Con’s. “A neighbor mentioned it.”

  “Neighbor?” The corner of Con’s mouth lifts and he shoots a quick glance across the bar. Spotting Jane, he laughs. “Right… neighbor—how’d you say you broke your glasses again?” Before I can double down on my lie, he tosses the lid to the shaker and pours its contents down the long row of rocks glasses. “Here you go,” he says with a practiced wink, passing the round of Kamikazes across the bar to a star-struck college girl who’s obviously been harboring her fair share of Conner Gilroy bathroom fantasies. “That’ll be twenty-four bucks.”

  Making a show of it, the coed slowly pulls a couple of crumpled twenties from the front pocket of her skin-tight jeans while flicking a quick look at the ring on his finger, her only concession to the fact that Con is obviously taken. “So, I was wondering if—”

  “Sorry.” The smile on his face doesn’t waver but the green of his eyes darkens just enough to tell me he’s not sorry at all. “Not interested.”

  “Are you sure?” Missing the change altogether, the coed gives him a flirty laugh. “I mean, I’ve heard—”

  “You see the redhead.” Con tips his chin toward the back of the bar, past the pool tables, where Cari and Henley are sitting together in a back booth, huddled over a pile of bridal magazines. Every once in a while, Tess buzzes by the table to grab a quick break from making her rounds as a Gilroy’s shotgirl. “The drop-dead gorgeous one, covered in the most lickable freckles you’ve ever seen in your goddamned life?” When she gives him a reluctant nod, Con reaches out to swipe the money off the bar. “I’m marrying her in thirty-two day, twelve hours, six minutes and forty-seven seconds and she’s the only woman I’m interested in fucking—ever. So yeah, I’m sure.” Counting back her change, he holds it out to her. “Tell your friends,” he tells her with another smile, this one considerably cooler than the last. Seeing it, I’m reminded why Conner and I became friends in the first place—because we understand each other. Because we’ve both spent our lives pretending to be someone we aren’t. Something different than what we really are.

  “Okay…” Trying to save face, the coed aims an appraising look in my direction and I freeze, like a deer caught in a set of high beams. “What about you, Cat Boy? You interested?”

  Before Tess hooked up with Declan, she was my shield. She’d sit across from my station at the bar and pretend to be interested in me. Shoot daggers and growl at any woman who gave me a second look. Not because she was staking her claim, but because Tess is Tess. She’s fierce and loyal and would take a bullet for someone she considers a friend.

  And that’s what Tess and I are.

  We’re friends.

  Either way, it made coming to work a helluva lot easier. These days, every shift is a mine field. A tightrope walk between playing the flirty bartender and the guy who just wants to be left the hell alone.

  Usually I can manage it. I can smile and wink. Give them the funny, slightly nerdy bartender routine. The harmless guy who’s fun to flirt with. The guy you don’t have to worry about taking you seriously.

  Right now, I’m not that guy.

  Right now, I’m 100% the guy who just wants to be left the hell alone.

  “Uhhh…” Waiting for my brain to slip out of neutral so I can start making sense, I shake my head. Shit. Usually I’m better than this but the last few days have been nothing but upheaval and I—

  “Cat Boy’s taken too.” Con gives her one of his dimpled grins and shoos her away from the bar. “Bye now.” As soon she’s gone, he turns the grin on me. “Someone’s been a bold lad,” he says in his best Irish brogue. “Care to confess your sins to Father Gilroy?”

  “There’s nothing to confess,” I say, telling him a bald-faced lie. He knows it too because that dimpled grin of his dims a bit in response.

  “Alright…” He cast another look toward the front of the bar. Jane’s still there. Still talking to Went. “But Jane is family—Patrick and Declan would take exception to her getting hurt,” he says. “Especially if it was by someone they trusted.” What he doesn’t say is that so would he. The Gilroys are tight—nearly impenetrable. They stick together and once they claim you as one of their own, they’ll kill for you—no questions asked.

  And if you betray their trust or take advantage of it, God help you.

  I feel my shoulders stiffen but, I give him a blank stare, like I have no idea what he’s talking about. “Who’s Jane?”

  “Okay, if you say so...” Now, Conner laughs for real, shaking his head like I’m a poor, dumb bastard for even trying to lie to him. “But if shit goes sideways, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Thirty-Five

  Jane

  Usually when I come here on a busy night, I’m in a hurry, squeezing past Went with a few apologies tossed over my shoulder to the grumbling line of hopefuls, waiting to get in—I’m sorry. I work here. I’ll only be a few minutes—I almost always exit a few minutes later, buried under files and paperwork to hurry home or back to the office. Nine times out of ten, I manage to get in and out without being noticed.

  Tonight is different.

  Instead of jumping the line, I cue up like everyone else and wait my turn. Not because Went wouldn’t let me in, no questions asked, or because I think it’s unfair to use my privilege here, especially if I plan on staying and hanging out. No, I’m standing in line with everyone else because I’m stalling. I don’t really want to do what I’m about to do because as soon as Logan sees me, he’s going to know. He’ll know I’m here to pry and push my way into his private life again and he’ll be angry at me for it. Because no matter what happened this afternoon or how I wish it changed things between us, it hasn’t. Logan slipped. He lost control for a second and he made it clear has no intention of letting it happen again.

  I have to know why.

  “Oh my god.” The brunette in front of me reaches out and grips her friend’s arm while she cranes her neck to check out the bar through the open door. “He’s sooo hot—tonight’s the night. I gonna ask him if he wants to...”

  I have no idea who she’s talking about. To be fair, it could be any of them—thanks to the gu
ys who staff it, Gilroy’s boasts a disproportionate number of drool-worthy men. I know I did my fair share of staring when I first started working for Declan and Patrick. Last week, Declan walked out of his studio without his shirt on and I barely batted an eye.

  “I like the other one,” one of her friend whispers back. “The hot nerd with the glasses and messed up hair—” She flicks her gaze in my direction to make sure I’m not listening and I look away, pretending that I’m not. “I don’t know what it is… but there’s something about him. He looks like he could fuck for days.”

  There’s only one hot nerd behind the bar.

  She’s talking about Logan.

  Thankfully, before I can give into my urge to snatch this chick up by her hair and drag her down the sidewalk, the line in front of me surges forward—the brunette and her large group of friends cluster around Went, waiting for him to check their ID and let them inside while doing me the favor of hiding me from his view. I contemplate attaching myself to them and sliding past him, unnoticed, because as much as I don’t want to go inside, I really don’t want to face Went. Before I can make up my mind, they’re gone, released into the wilds of Gilroy’s and heading straight for Conner’s station behind the bar, fluffing their hair and adjusting their shirts to achieve maximum cleavage.

  Figures.

  “ID.” Gaze aimed at my shoes, Went’s standing just outside the bar, shoulder braced against the open door frame, barring my entry. Reaching into my back pocket, I pull out my driver’s license and hold it under the black light he uses to check for fakes. I hold my breath, hoping he’s not really checking. Hoping he’ll just give me the nod and let me pass.

  Tonight really isn’t my lucky night.

  Went’s head pops up and he pins me to the sidewalk with his devil black gaze before turning to aim a fast, over the shoulder glare in Logan’s direction. “Stay,” he growls at me, before leaning around the corner of the building to do a quick head count. Even though it’s crowded inside, Went waves them all up and after doing a cursory ID check, clears the line in short order. As soon as we’re alone on the sidewalk, he looks at me again. “Are you okay?”