by Maisey Yates
“We’re too young to be as serious as we were.”
Suddenly after two years, they were too young.
“Of course,” she said.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, and she believed it. Because with the way all the other men at school had been treating her since the news about her father came out, it wouldn’t have surprised her if he’d retracted the marriage talk and offered a contract for a purely sexual arrangement.
But he hadn’t done that. Eddie was self-interested, but he had a shred of honor. He couldn’t help the self-interest part. It was bred into him. He was a Howell, after all, and they would be working hard to distance themselves from the scandal. If it were even possible. Proving Jason had been hiding his little prostitution ring from firm partners was going to be difficult.
She had a feeling Eddie was ready to burn bridges between the two of them, and between himself and his father if necessary.
“I know you don’t, Eddie,” she said. He was hurting her, though, and that shocked her. She’d felt numb to his abandonment during the funeral, during these past weeks, but this was so final.
She’d lost her friends—such as they were—all except Nora and Harlow. Lost her sorority. Her place at school. And losing Eddie was like having one of the last lifelines cut, leaving her hanging over an unknown abyss, staring into the blackness. Wondering how far she had left to fall.
She’d never thought of herself as being dramatic, but here she was, indulging in a little bit of it.
“If you ever need anything, Addison, you can call me.” And she could hear, beneath his smooth civility, the desperate plea for her to never use his number again.
“Thank you,” she said. “I will.” And she hoped that he could hear, beneath her own civil tone, her resolve to never speak to him again. Her resolve to never even do a Google search of his name to check on his progress.
They hung up, and she felt numb, and still a little bit as if she’d been hit in the head.
That was over. She was out of the sorority. Harlow hadn’t even returned her email. Her boyfriend had dumped her.
And she was living in a hotel with a man who didn’t wear shoes.
All in all, things had yet to start looking up.
*
Addison reappeared in his office, two hours later, looking pale, but as polished as she’d been the first time he saw her.
She’d changed her clothes, he noticed. From the pristine white of earlier to a gray dress that conformed to her curves, sleek and wrinkle free. She was everything clean and unruffled. And he found it endlessly fascinating.
Imagining what all that softness would feel like beneath his hands.
Remember the last time you touched a woman?
He curled his hands into fists, rubbing calloused fingertips over his palm. A reminder of why he didn’t deserve softness beneath those hands. Not after what he’d done.
She cleared her throat and clasped her hands in front of her. “Is there anything you’d like me to do?”
“Answer the phone when it rings,” he said, distantly aware that his tone was harsher than was called for in such a neutral scenario, unable to correct it. “You can sit at my desk.”
“And you’ll sit?”
“Elsewhere.”
“Okay.” She moved over to his desk and sat, rolling the chair forward, looking very clearly confused.
He picked up his iPad from the desk, then walked over to the other side of his office and sat on the floor, resting his back against the wall.
She looked up but didn’t say anything before looking back down. She wasn’t going to betray the fact that she thought his actions were odd, and he wasn’t going to explain.
He looked down at the tablet in his hands and started going through his email. He preferred email because it put the control for the pace of interaction in his hands. Phone calls were not something he enjoyed, but he could handle them. Though having Addison do it instead would certainly make for an easier day.
He stood after a few minutes, pacing the length of the room, restless energy fueling his veins while Addison sat at his desk, hands folded on the polished surface as she stared straight ahead. Rigid. Unmoving.
The sight of her made his clothes feel heavy. Made the weight of being civilized feel too damn intense.
She was such a stark reminder of what was expected of him. Of people like them.
Of all he couldn’t do.
The phone rang and she reached over and picked it up. “Mr. Black’s office. Yes. He’s here.”
Well, damn, that negated her presence. He didn’t want the phone passed to him.
He arched an eyebrow and she gave him a befuddled look. Then she cleared her throat. “Um…is he free to meet with you? Downtown? I don’t…uh…”
He took the phone from her. “Black.”
The voice on the other end was familiar, a contractor he’d been working with on his newest project. Converting a row of brownstones into a luxury boutique bed-and-breakfast.
“Mr. Black, I want you to come down to the site, if you’re available. There are some things I need you to see.”
Logan shifted, imagining what it would be like to go down to the brownstones today. No. The decision was made that quickly.
“I am unable to make it today,” he said. “We can hold a video conference if that suits you.”
“There’s a lot of damage to the pipes. We’re going to need to replace some. I thought you should see it for yourself.”
“I am busy,” he repeated. “It will just have to be handled.”
He hung up the phone and turned back to Addison, who was looking slightly shocked now. Finally he’d succeeded in rattling her cool.
He wondered how long it would take before he scared her off completely.
“What did I say about phone calls?”
“You said I was supposed to field your messages. You didn’t say anything about what I was supposed to do with the calls.”
He held in a growl and turned away from her, prowling across the length of the office. “Always say I’m too busy to take a call, even if I’m sitting in the corner playing a game on my phone.” Not that he even had games on his phone. “I don’t like to talk to people until I initiate it.”
He turned back to her, expecting to find an expression of wide-eyed fear on her face. Instead he saw nothing but serenity.
“Okay,” she said, keeping her hands folded in front of her, her shoulders straight.
“I don’t like things to be unpredictable,” he said. “I make the phone calls. People come to me. I prefer to do business on my own terms.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” she asked.
“What does that mean?”
“Everyone prefers to do business on their own terms. I mean, everyone prefers to live life on their own terms, but that doesn’t mean it’s possible to do all the time.”
“It is if you’re rich enough,” he said.
“Was that important?” she asked.
“Why?”
“It was someone with direct access to you, which I get the feeling you don’t give easily,” she said. “That leads me to assume it’s someone who might have important business with you.”
“And if it was?”
“Are you too busy to see him?”
“You’ve been here for two and a half hours. And for two hours of that time you were taking a nap in your room. What makes you think you’re qualified to comment on how I run my business?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I’m not. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to comment. Or ask you what’s going on.”
“You want to play question and answer?” he asked. “We can do that. But you’ll play too.”
“Well, that would be one way for us to get to know each other,” she said, smiling brightly. Too brightly in his opinion. Her top layer was starting to show cracks.
She was a funny creature, Addison Treffen. She made him want to tear the facade from her. She made hi
m want to see what she was beneath the polished exterior. He had a feeling there was steel beneath the cream and silk on the surface. He wondered if anyone else knew, if anyone else had seen it. He wondered if Addison herself even knew.
He was fascinated.
And he was so rarely fascinated by people anymore.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Right now or philosophically?” She unclasped her hands and traced a circle on the wooden surface of his desk with one slender finger. “Right now I would actually like a coffee. On a broader scale? To make it through this. To come out the other side with some idea of what I’d like to do. I have almost finished my degree. Maybe I could be successful in this industry.” What she said about the industry seemed false. He doubted she cared at all about business. Not right now. What she’d said about surviving…that he believed. That he recognized.
“A dry goal. Survival.” She was so well trained. So bound by the chains of life. He knew what that was like. And he was free of them. Of course, now he was bound by chains of another kind.
Crushing guilt. Regret. Anxiety. Darkness, hot and wet with blood and sweat. Tears.
“And what is your goal?” she asked, cutting into his thoughts.
“Do I need one?” he asked. “I’m already a billionaire.”
“Right. Which means if you didn’t have a goal you could go off somewhere and never work another day.”
If only that didn’t sound so enticing. “Impossible,” he said. “I am the savior of Black Properties. The one who will continue to push the company forward. Who will carry out the legacy.”
“And the legacy matters?” she asked. “I’m sorry, I only press as one who recently discovered that her legacy is mud.”
“Let me tell you a story,” he said, wondering why in hell he was talking to her about this. One thing he didn’t believe in was giving explanations for himself. He didn’t owe his story to anyone. He used their discomfort at his inability to conform to his advantage, and he didn’t apologize for it. And yet something about Addison made him want to talk. And why should he waste a moment justifying that? Even to himself. “When I got on that yacht four years ago I was the despair of my father. And I deserved that. I was given everything from the time I was born, and with it I did nothing. Nothing but spend, coast through school, knowing I would get a pass because my father was David Black, and no one would dare fail his son. In my own mind, I was the damn chosen one, Addison. Nothing could touch me. Nothing was withheld from me. Invincible. A god. For no reason other than that I was born with blue blood and a full bank account.”
He watched her face closely, watching for a ripple in the calm. So far, he hadn’t managed it.
He continued. “I hate that arrogant man,” he said, “the one who walked onto a yacht four years ago for a weekend of drinking and sex. Who had never in his life spent a penny of his own money. I hate him. As far as I’m concerned he died on that island. Unfortunately my father died in Manhattan, while I was gone. And he will never know any other son than the one he had before. I was the son who made his mother cry, who left headlines that would shame his family. And now I have a second chance. Doesn’t my father deserve his legacy to be carried out? Doesn’t my sister deserve to have the company in good condition?”
“Does your sister want to run it?” Addison asked.
“No. But it’s the inheritance of future generations, and I’m sure she’d like to have children someday. Those children might appreciate it if their uncle didn’t destroy their legacy. I should think you would understand something about that.”
“And your mother?” she asked.
“Deserves to be proud of me for once. Not for my sake, but for hers.”
“Isn’t the business healthy enough for you to put someone else in charge?”
“No,” he said. “At least it wasn’t when I came back. I disappeared. My father died. And for about six months my mother had someone else in the position of CEO and things failed to improve. Then…I was rescued.” It was a strange term for what had happened to him. Because rescue, to him, implied something that was happy. And happy was never the emotion he associated with it. “Back from the dead. My mother lost her husband, but her son had returned. And I owe a debt to my family. I’ve restored what was lost. I intend to make everything stable so that they never have to worry again. So no, I can’t just go off and leave it to rot. Does that answer your questions?”
“Almost. Why do you hate the man you were?”
“Is that important?”
“I’m curious.” She looked down for a moment, then back up. “I’m curious about what it takes to change like you did.”
“I hate the man I was because he had everything and with that he did nothing.”
“So, what you’re saying is in order to change, it would really help if I hated my former self?”
“It doesn’t hurt.” He studied her expression, the unnatural neutrality of it. He wanted to see beneath it. And he had no right to that curiosity. Because it fed something in him that he knew he needed to keep hungry.
He turned away feeling suddenly restless, a current of electricity crackling between his skin and clothes making him feel constricted, confined.
“I am not your role model for change, Addison. Don’t get confused and start thinking that because this is an internship I’m here to guide you in some way. I’m doing Austin a favor, and as long as you serve my needs I will continue to do so. You are here for me. And you will follow my rules. Never tell anyone who calls that I’m available.”
“Should I be writing this down?”
He paused midstride and turned back to her. “If you think you might need to.”
She blinked. “I guess it depends on how long the list is.”
“This is not a joke, Addison, and if you think it is perhaps you should leave now.”
“I didn’t mean it as a joke. I want to do well for you. I want to do this.” For one fleeting moment the expression on her face changed a ripple of fear disturbing the stillness. But it only lasted a moment. Even so, the slight burn of triumph he felt at having unsettled her lingered long after the distress had faded from her features.
It was the first sign of weakness she’d betrayed, and for him, knowing the weaknesses of everyone around him was essential.
That had been one of his very first lessons on the island. You could be predator or prey. You could hunt or be hunted. He had chosen to hunt. And even now that he was back, it was the way he chose to live.
It occurred to him now that this was why Addison’s serenity had bothered him so much. It had made it difficult to find her vulnerability, her weakness. But he saw it now. She was afraid to lose this. And now that he knew the fear was there, he can use it.
“You’re afraid to leave,” he said.
She tilted her chin up, expression of defiance. “Not afraid,” she said. “But I would like to avoid getting harassed by the press.”
“And you’ll be safe from them here. But if you want to stay, you will follow the rules.”
Her eyes met his, her blue gaze cool. “Are you trying to intimidate me?” She stood from behind the desk, her movements smooth. “Because you realize that I spent almost all of my life sharing a residence with Jason Treffen? I get the point you’re pretty scary, Logan. But my dad was one of the bad guys.”
“Be careful, Addison,” he said, moving toward her. As he drew closer to her he felt the air thicken, could see that she felt it too, that she was struggling to pull in breath. How poetic. If it wasn’t so macabre he could have laughed. “Just because you’ve looked into the darkness doesn’t mean you’ve seen everything that’s hiding there.” As he drew closer, she tensed, her lips parting, the action sending a slug of desire down to his gut. “Just because I’m not one of bad guys doesn’t mean I’m one of the good guys.”
Chapter Four
Addison woke up with the sheets tangled around her legs, sweat making them stick to her skin. That was when she real
ized she was naked. She must have stripped her clothes off in her sleep. She’d been doing that lately. As her nightmares worsened, heat and the fires of hell closing in, she started removing layers.
She opened her eyes and looked around. The room was unfamiliar and for a second she was seized by pure terror, making her freeze, turning her breath into a solid ball that rested in the center of her chest.
The thoughts that raced through her head, fears that had been gnawing at her for weeks, flashed bright and fast. Had she been sold? One of her father’s men? Was someone going assault her?
And in a split second, the fog cleared. And she realized where she was.
Logan’s hotel. Where she was staying for her internship. Logan’s hotel that was safe. Well, assuming the man himself was safe.
She wasn’t certain yet that she could assume that. At this point in her life she didn’t think she could assume anything.
She started shaking, her entire body trembling as she extracted herself from her sheets and padded toward the shower, letting the hot spray wash the sweat and stale terror from her skin.
She performed the rest of her routine like a zombie. Applying makeup thoughtlessly, with a practiced skill her mother had helped her hone from the time she was thirteen. It was a necessary ingredient, as far as her mother was concerned, in the creation of a perfect veneer. And in the Treffen world, veneer was everything. If only she’d learned a little more about dealing with things beneath the surface. Beneath the polished outer shell she felt vulnerable. She’d spent far too long bolstering up the outside, letting the inside grow weak. Pale.
She pinned her blond hair back into a low bun, not bothering with a flatiron before slipping her skirt up over her hips, along with a pair of black nylons that had a seam running down the back.
She added a pair of black pumps and examined her reflection in the full-length mirror. It was a bit…flashier than typical intern wear, at least flashier than she imagined intern wear to be. Not something she would have worn to classes either. This was what she might wear to a luncheon. An outfit that would help her fit in, while simultaneously allowing her to stand out a bit. It was the hallmark of Socialite Addison. And she needed a little Socialite Addison.
