by Maisey Yates
“Because you don’t need to know. And I mean…you don’t want it in your head, Addison. I don’t want it in mine, but I can’t ever forget it. I won’t.” He turned to her, his expression fierce, his lips pale, pressed into a hard line. “You won’t ever want to touch me again. Not when you know.”
“Tell me,” she said, knowing that he spoke the truth. That she didn’t want to know. That it would probably break what was between them. That it would probably break something in her. “After tonight I imagine you’ll never let me touch you again anyway.”
She could see that it was ravaging him, destroying his life, and she couldn’t let him carry it alone anymore. Or he would never be able to sleep in a bed, or go out in public. Somehow she knew that much.
That if he kept it inside it would always end with him crouched in the corner in the rain.
He didn’t speak. They stayed in the shower until her fingers got wrinkled and her skin turned red.
When they got out, her clothing was plastered to her body.
“I have a robe,” he said, carefully keeping his eyes averted from her breasts, which she knew, were fully visible through the sodden T-shirt. “It’s hanging on the back of the door. Put it on. I’ll wait.”
He walked out of the bathroom, closing the door firmly behind him. She peeled her T-shirt off her body, her pants following. Then she pulled a plush black bathrobe from a hook and put it on. It was far too big for her, sized for Logan’s frame, the sleeves extending down well past her fingertips.
But it was better than being wet. And it was better than being naked.
“Just a second,” she said. “I mean, I still want to know, but I think it can wait until we get some essentials.”
They were having this talk, they were having this moment. Even if it was only tonight, she was going to force him to share his burden, just for a while.
She picked up the handset to the phone that was positioned on the side table in the corner and dialed the front desk. “Hi,” she said. “This is Addison Treffen. Yes, I’m in Mr. Black’s suite.” She knew what they would think, and she didn’t care. For once in her life, she didn’t care what anyone else thought. “Can you send up some food?”
“Food?” the woman on the other end asked.
“Yes. Steak and potatoes. Green beans if you have them. Still water and a Diet Coke.”
“Sure,” the woman said, recovering from her initial bit of shock. Addison knew that requests from Logan’s room—coming from strange women—for food at five in the morning were probably very uncommon. But Logan was rich enough that his eccentricities should be catered to by his staff. “That will probably take a little time. But I’ll have the kitchen get to it as soon as possible.”
“Thank you.”
She hung up.
“Steak?” he asked. “It’s five in the morning.”
“Yeah, I know, and I have a feeling you have some things to say. But I also thought you might be hungry.”
Logan nodded once. “I’m going to go change.”
Addison paced back and forth across the living room, waiting for Logan to reappear while she called herself several different kinds of idiot. She was insane. She was staying here, in a hotel room with a man who had just grabbed her throat. She had gotten into the shower with him, taken his shirt off him. And now she was staying to listen to the story he told her she didn’t want to hear.
She should know by now that when Logan said something was bad, he was talking about bad on a level that was difficult for her to comprehend. He was talking about sinking ships, the screams of the dying. He was talking about not being able to leave his hotel for three months.
He was talking about waking nightmares, about the kinds of memories that pulled him out of bed, even in sleep, that forced him to punish himself while he was dreaming.
She should know that when he said something was bad, he meant it. And when he said he didn’t want to tell her, she should accept that.
But she didn’t. She couldn’t.
Logan reappeared a moment later, wearing black sweatpants low on his hips and no shirt. Even now, after all the trauma she’d experienced over the course of the last hour, his bare chest had the power to affect her.
“I really missed steak,” he said, his voice rough. “I ate a lot of plants. A lot of fruit. Meat when I could manage, but…it was always spare.”
“You were thin when you came back. I remember the pictures.”
“Yeah. Strong, though. I spent my spare time on the island working out because it kept me sane.” He laughed, the sound bitter, humorless. “Or not, I guess. Tough to argue a case for my sanity at this point.”
There was a knock at the door. “I’ll get that,” she said, crossing the room and opening the door. There was a staff member out there with the cart, the food on it covered by a dome.
“Fantastic. That was fast.”
“It was for Mr. Black,” the woman said, giving her a look that definitely bordered on envious. “Enjoy.”
Addison wasn’t used to women envying her for anything other than her shoes. But, considering that she was in Logan’s room in the wee hours of the morning, wearing nothing but a robe, while he sat in the background, shirtless and devilishly handsome, it was natural the woman was making assumptions.
And were the situations reversed, Addison would have been envious.
Even though this was definitely not what it looked like.
“I will,” Addison said, grabbing the edge of the cart before the woman could protest, and pulling it into the room, closing the hotel room door.
She wheeled the cart into the center of the room, and Logan took the tray from it, sitting down on the floor, leaning against the couch.
Addison took the Diet Coke from the cart and popped the tab on the can. “Tell me,” she said, taking a sip of the soda.
Logan looked up from cutting his steak. “I’m going to give you another chance to change your mind. I’m not being dramatic. Trust me. There are things in life that you can’t unknow. That you can’t unsee. And they change things.”
“I know,” she said, looking down at the top of the Coke can. “I saw my father get shot in the head.” It was weird to say. More as if she were hearing someone else say the words. As if it were someone else’s experience. “This was after finding out that the man I considered to be an idol was selling women’s bodies. I know all about that, Logan. And I have a right to know about this. I just saw you…sleepwalking out on a balcony. You put your hands on my throat. You could have…I need to know why. I need to know what you see. I know it’s a memory or something. I know it’s…I know it’s real and it’s big. And I don’t think you can carry it alone.”
“I have,” he said. “For four years.”
“And it’s not going well, obviously.”
“You don’t understand,” he said. “You think we can sit here and talk this out over a steak. You think somehow if I share the burden it will fix something that is beyond fixing. That’s how I know you have no idea what…you have no idea.”
“Okay,” she said, putting her Coke down on the cart. “Maybe I don’t. But give me credit for what I’ve been through. I’m no more a sheltered rich girl than you are the playboy that you were before you landed on that island. I’m still standing. After everything I’ve been through, I’m still standing. So I think maybe I’m stronger than you give me credit for.”
Stronger maybe than she’d given herself credit for.
“I think maybe my past is a whole lot darker than you can possibly imagine.”
“Try me. What do you have to lose? Nothing. This is just tonight. Tomorrow I’ll go back to being your assistant. But tonight I’m just me. And you’re just you. Tell me who you are. Not who everyone thinks you are, or who you want people to think you are. Tell me who you really are.”
She didn’t say anything more. She just waited. For long seconds that turned into minutes.
Finally Logan looked up, his blue eyes meeting her
s. “I wasn’t the only person who survived the shipwreck.”
Chapter Ten
“What?” Addison asked. “But you told everyone…”
Logan looked back down at his hands, unsure of why he was saying any of this. Of what it would mean when it all finally came out.
But he had to. For one reason, and one reason only
When he wrapped his hands around Addison’s neck tonight, he’d proven that whether he talked about this or not, whether he believed it was hidden or not, it was the thing that haunted his sleep. It refused to be buried. And if he wouldn’t talk about it, it seemed determined to break through the surface of the soil and claw at whoever was near him.
Because all this, the memories…they were in him. They were him. And in his sleep they crept over him like a fog and they were all he saw. All he knew.
“I lied,” he said, the words hard, cold. “Remember that. I am a liar, and when I came back from that island I told lies for everyone’s comfort. Including my own. But the biggest lie I told was to Kelly’s father. Kelly McIntire. That was her name. She was my…lover. Not really a girlfriend.”
“Oh, Logan…”
“No, don’t say it like that. I’d slept with her, but I had no more emotional attachment to her than I did to anyone else on the boat. It’s not like I was in love with her.” He cleared his throat. “But I saw her in the water, and I was able to pull her up onto the wood I was floating on. And we managed to make it to shore sometime the next morning. It became very clear, very early it was only the two of us who made it. But…”
He stopped, reliving that moment. When his feet had made contact with the sand. When he’d finally been out of that dark, horrible water. Full of hidden dangers, waiting to devour them. The water itself the most deadly. Dark, frigid and fathomless.
The island, in that moment, had seemed like a paradise. Rocks, dirt, trees. A secluded rain forest out there in the ocean.
How quickly he’d learned that it was its own hell.
“She was hurt,” he said. “Injured by…furniture or pieces of the boat. Something that happened during the storm. She was bleeding from her abdomen. I managed to use some clothes to stanch the wound. I made her a place to lie down. Then I got to work right away building a shelter. That’s one thing about being stranded. One thing about survival. You can’t stop, even when you’re exhausted, because nothing in nature is going to wait for you to catch your breath.” He swallowed hard. “I left her there after I was sure she was stable. Climbed up to see what I could see. If there was a town. Roads. People. Shit, there was nothing. Nothing but howler monkeys and birds. Bugs. Spiders the size of baseballs. No people. That was…a horrible thing to find out. That we’d reached land, but not help. Still, I was sure they would come.”
He let out a long breath and pressed on. “I didn’t have any way to clean Kelly’s injury. And by the third night there, it was horribly infected. She had a fever. She was starting to hallucinate. She didn’t want me to leave her ever, because she was afraid. And I didn’t blame her. She mostly slept, and when she slept I tried to get things for us. Food. A way to make a fire. I was a dumb rich kid who didn’t know how the hell to light a fire in the first place, much less in a rain forest with no matches. And she was shivering. And vomiting. And in so much pain. And when I left…if she woke up she would scream.” His throat closed up, his muscles locking tight as if his body was trying to force him not to tell the rest. “I couldn’t…I couldn’t take care of her. I couldn’t take care of me. But we were the only two people in the world, as far as I was concerned.”
Addison didn’t say anything, she only watched him, her expression serious, but cautious. She was trying not to look scared or horrified, but he could see it all there, glittering in her blue eyes.
And he would have to watch it all rise to the top when he told her the rest. But she deserved to know why. Deserved to know why when Kelly had said “Logan, please” he’d put his hands around her throat.
And he would have to watch as the desire he’d glimpsed in Addison’s eyes turned to horror. Watch the moment when she saw him as the monster he was.
“She was so afraid, Addison. And so was I. I didn’t know what to do. I had nothing to give her for pain. Nothing…there was nothing.”
He closed his eyes and replayed those last moments. Like the way he did. Over and over again. Kelly, beads of sweat on her forehead, blood, sweat and dirt matting her dark hair.
Logan, please. Please make it stop. Please make it stop. I keep trying to hold my breath, but then I make a mistake and breathe again. Just help me make it stop.
“She begged me,” he said, making sure he kept his gaze on Addison’s. “She begged me to end it. To make her stop breathing.” He took a sharp breath, a reminder of what he’d denied her. Of what he still had. “So I did.”
He let the full meaning of his words sink in. Not just for Addison, but for him. Let it all sink into the room like a stain. One that could never be removed. It was said, and it couldn’t be unsaid.
It was done. And he could never go back and see it undone.
“We’d been stuck there for two weeks by then,” he said. “I was…I didn’t…” He could see it so clearly still. Feel it. His hands on her neck, her pulse, weak already, slowing. Nausea, terror, riding up in him even as she faded away. Until she closed her eyes. Until the pulse stopped. As if she were asleep.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” he said. “She was going to die. And I…” His head cleared and suddenly he was back in the present, looking at Addison’s horrified expression. “I might have died too,” he said, giving voice to the rest of it. To his deepest fear. Why not? He was saying all this anyway, repeating it out loud. He might as well tell the rest. “In the end, I chose myself, Addison. That’s what I do. She was sick, and she was dying…and having it finished only helped me in the end. That’s the kind of man I am. I didn’t fight for her. I let her give up. I helped her give up…so I could be free to fight for me.”
She didn’t say anything. She just sat there, frozen.
“Get out,” he said.
She didn’t move. She just sat there, clutching that damn Coke can. He reached forward and grabbed it, threw it against the wall, trying to jar her. Trying to force a reaction from her. “Did you understand what I just said?” he asked. “I could have killed you out there on that balcony. I was seeing her. I was seeing that night. I was remembering her begging me to take her life, and then me following through with it. Why aren’t you running? Why are you still here?”
Addison stood up and looked at him, eyes wide, expression frozen. “Logan…you didn’t…”
“I didn’t kill her?” He shook his head. “Don’t give me that condescending shit. I felt her breathing stop, because of me. Because I stopped it for her. And yeah, she asked, in a feverish stupor for me to do it, but it doesn’t change the fact that I did. I could have left her there screaming and alone. I could have sat there and listened to it. But I chose to do what she asked. I chose to help her end her life. So don’t tell me I didn’t kill her, when I know I damn well did. When it’s burned into me like a brand. I remember what it was like to put my hands over that horrible injury of hers. To have her blood up to my elbows…don’t tell me what happened. Don’t tell me what you think you know when you weren’t there. When the memories are with me, all the time, like a movie I can never turn off. Now get out.”
“Why? What do you mean get out? You’re going to tell me something like…like that and then tell me to leave?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m doing. What’s so difficult to understand about it?” he asked, his stomach so tight he could hardly breathe, he could hardly move. In one moment he’d said everything he’d barely let himself think, let alone voice. And it had all come pouring out and she—she had heard it all.
What was it about this woman that made him open his veins and bleed for her to see? She had unleashed something in him and he had no idea how to cage it back up
.
It was everything. His desire, his fear, his regret, his rage. She had found a weakness in him. In his control. Four years of blocking it all out. Four years of survival, and Addison was reawakening pieces of himself he’d thought were dead.
She made him feel.
And she made him honest. With her and with himself and he wished to God it would stop.
He needed space. He needed to get away from the look in her eyes. The one that mirrored his own feelings. The one that was afraid that, at his heart, he was nothing more than a murderer.
No, less than that. An animal, who had done nothing more than ensure his own survival, wrapped in the guise of helping someone end their suffering. A man who knew nothing more than base instinct.
A man who wasn’t a man.
It was why he hadn’t touched a woman in four years. Because the last time, he had ended the woman’s life. And tonight, the first time, the first time, he’d touched someone since his return…and it had been to wrap his hands around her throat.
He couldn’t imagine giving a woman pleasure with his hands after what he’d done with them. He didn’t even deserve the fantasy.
And yet…and yet Addison made him want. Made him feel. The good, the bad. Like a limb with hypothermia being warmed up, his feelings were starting to come back. To hurt, and burn and make him wish he’d just cut them off.
“You know what?” she said, shoving the sleeves of his robe up to her elbows. “I’m not going to beg you to stay here and deal with you and all your…your…life. It’s too hard anyway. And I have my own things to deal with. I really, really don’t need this, Logan,” she said, and he could see her pain, written all over her face. Knew this was her rejecting him to make his rejection sting less. “I have enough of my own. So I’m not exactly looking to add yours to the pile. I’ll be in the office tomorrow to work. And we don’t have to talk again.”
“You going to make this about you now, little girl?” he asked, rage roaring through him. Because it was about her. If not for her he never would have said anything. He never would have had to hear himself say it all out loud. Never would have had to finish the thoughts that had always circled his mind, like vultures, waiting for a vulnerable moment when they could sweep in and tear his flesh from his bones.
