by Maisey Yates
She took a deep breath and headed toward the door, then stopped cold when she heard a knock. There hadn’t been a buzz or any other signal that someone was here. Maybe Austin or Katy had come back for something?
“Who is it?”
“Logan.”
Her heart dropped to her feet, the breath rushing from her lungs. “Logan?”
She would call it coincidental that he was here, because she’d just been thinking about him. But she was always thinking about him. Every minute from the moment he’d walked into her life.
She rushed to the door and opened it, then just stared. There he was. So tall and broad and sexy and yet somehow looking like the very definition of hell.
“You’re very mobile these days.”
“When I have proper motivation.”
“You look…awful. And what are you doing here?”
“Thanks,” he said, walking past her and into the room, pacing back and forth like an animal in a cage. That was the very first thought she’d had about him when she first saw him, and it hadn’t changed.
“Answer. The. Question,” she ground out.
“Did you have an accident in here?” he asked, gesturing to the glass.
“Yes, I broke a vase. With Skittles. Obviously. Now, why are you here exactly?”
He rounded on her and moved to her, putting his hands on her arms and pulling her in close. “I am here because I needed to see you. Because no matter that I should leave you alone, I can’t seem to function without you. So here I am.”
“For more therapy? To lose control with me, just for a while? Until you’re ready to get rid of me, of course.”
“No,” he said, his voice rough. “Not for that. Well…dammit, yes for that. For all that, except the getting rid of you. But for more too. Addison, there’s so much more.”
“What?” she asked, her voice strangled. “What else is there?”
“I’m not dead,” he said, the words filled with desperation, wonder.
“I know.”
“But I didn’t. Or…I did but I thought so much that I should be that I started to believe it. You were right. I was on the island still. But not by accident. Not because I couldn’t move on. But because I didn’t feel like I should. Because I felt that I didn’t deserve it. That I couldn’t ever…I have spent the past two years determined to live my life for everyone else.”
“That’s my whole life, Logan. Until you.”
“Addison…I just…I need to say this. I don’t know if I’ll ever let go of the guilt. The regrets. The what-ifs. I’ve been consumed by the darkness of it. The pain. Especially Kelly. She was with me, and I wasn’t alone. And she became my chance to…redeem what had happened. If she lived, then we triumphed. Then the loss of everyone in the water was…bearable maybe? I don’t even know what I thought because it all got distorted somewhere along the way. In those years by myself. When she begged me to end her life, I did. And that action not only made me alone…it made me see myself as an animal. Not a man. And I lived that way for all those years. In hell for what I had done. My fit punishment. And then I was rescued. Brought up out of the pit, but I felt so much like I couldn’t accept it. So I’ve…banished myself to purgatory. Not in hell and not here. So that I never forget. So that I pay. So that I remember what I have done.”
“No, Logan, don’t,” she said. “Don’t stay there anymore. Come into the light with me. I forgive you, and I know they aren’t my sins to forgive, but I do. And I know everything. The whole truth. I see everything that is dark in you and I love you anyway.”
“No,” he said, lowering his head, his voice rough, choked. “You can’t. You can’t love me.”
“I do.”
“Why?” he asked, desperation lacing his words. “I have given you nothing but pain. It’s all I ever give. All I ever can give. I’m broken.”
“So am I. But you…you never asked me not to be. You never asked me to be anyone but who I am. You let me work though all these…things. These things I’m still working through. You made me feel like I could be myself and it would be okay. That I could cry for my father when I wanted to and hate him when I wanted to. You made me want to stop being quiet, stop protecting myself. So that I could live. And that’s what I want for you. Even if you can’t love me, I want you to live. Fully. Like you’ve inspired me to do.”
“If I can’t love you?”
“I know that the island…that it changed things in you. I know you might not be able to give me what I want. Hell, you might not want to. But I love you either way. You need to know that. I need you to know that.”
“Addison, I love you so much it killed me to walk away from you. And I’ve seen death. I’ve felt it. When I say it killed me, I say it with all the weight the word deserves. With all the pain, the fear and the despair. The utter hopelessness of it. Leaving you, being without you, was the hardest thing I have ever done. And again, that has weight coming from me.”
“Then why did you…you love me? Why did you leave me? Why did you say all those horrible, insulting, vile…”
“I had to,” he said. “Because when I was up there giving that speech, resigning myself to a life I hated, to a punishment I richly deserve, I realized the stress I put on you. That I was drawing all my strength from you and giving you none in return. I realized I would take everything from you. That I was using you, those moments where we were out of control together, to find the strength to deal with life. And I love you too much to do that. Unless…” He took a breath. “Unless I can change. Addison, you make me want to change. You make me want to live, not the life I feel I have to. Not the punishment. You make me want to get off the island. To find freedom, not just in bed, but everywhere. To leave the ghosts in the grave. And I don’t know…” He took a sharp breath, his eyes glossy. “I don’t know if I can ever be all that you deserve. But I feel like…if you want to be with me, if you still love me, then you need me far more than any of the people I left behind. And I’ll be here for you, and not there with the dead.”
“Oh, Logan. I want that. I want you. I want to be with you for…forever. I know that’s crazy. Or maybe it isn’t. Because I will never find anyone else who fits me this way. Because I was remade with you. Or maybe made for the first time. And now there is no one else for me, and I don’t want there to be. It’s you, Logan Black. Always you.”
“A man like me? An animal? A killer?”
“A survivor. You aren’t selfish. You aren’t a killer. And you know that, but you have to tell yourself that you are to keep yourself safe. You keep yourself in check, don’t you?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“Because if you let yourself see it all for what it is, that’s when you move on. And you’re afraid to do that.”
“I’ve never felt like I deserved it.”
“But you do. You didn’t cause the storm. You didn’t cause her injury. You did what you could for a scared, dying friend who cried out to you in pain. And you suffered every moment for it. Don’t trick yourself anymore. Don’t lie to yourself and say that you did it for your own survival.”
“I was afraid I might have,” he said. “All that time alone and it gets…confusing. And I…It was easier alone. Easier without someone who was injured.”
“I know. But harder too. And you have suffered every day. It’s time to stop now. It’s time to rest. I’ve already forgiven you. I was never angry. But you need to forgive yourself.”
Logan looked down at Addison, at the love shining from her. And for the first time, he saw what he’d given to her. Not just what he took.
“Addison…Help me.”
“I love you,” she said. “Forgive yourself. If not for you, then start by doing it for me. For us.”
He took a breath. “I forgive myself.” A tear rolled down his cheek. Finally the release he needed. One that couldn’t be found in the gym. Only with her. “I’m ready to be here. I’m ready to be with you. All with you. I love you so much, with no part of me hel
d back.”
“Oh, Logan.” She wrapped her arms around him, her face buried in his neck, her tears on his skin. “I love you. I love you. And I will never get tired of saying it.”
“I will never get tired of hearing it.”
“I’m yours,” she said.
“No…Addison, I’m yours.”
Epilogue
“All right, what are we doing up here?” she asked.
“We,” he said, “are about to see your surprise.”
“So you said.” Addison crossed her arms beneath her breasts and followed him up the curvy, dirt road.
This morning Logan had proclaimed that he had a surprise and had ferreted her out of bed way too early for her liking. He was getting more confident in his ability to go places, and he’d been taking full advantage of that fact.
“And that’s all I’m saying until we get there,” he said.
“Well, I have to be back in time to meet with Nora and Louise. And considering this is the only way we’re going to find anything out about Harlow, it’s important. So your surprise can’t take too long.”
“I promise, it will be a concise surprise.”
“I look forward to finding out what that means.”
They rounded the corners, and the trees parted, a massive Victorian-style home coming into view. “What is this?” she asked, looking at him. “Logan…what is this?”
“I want to invest in a new property. It won’t be part of Black Properties. It’s…for you. You’ll pay me back, obviously. I would give it to you as a gift, but I know you’d balk at that. So it’s…just an investment. In what I know will be the most successful and luxurious bed-and-breakfast in upstate New York.”
“You’re investing in your competition?”
“Yes. But it’s not the only thing about us that doesn’t make sense on the surface.”
“And you’re…giving me this? Investing in this for me?”
“Yes. You’re almost done with your degree. And this is what you wanted.”
“Logan…I don’t even know what to say…”
“I hope you won’t say ‘I changed my mind. I was planning on becoming a lawyer.’”
“No! No…this is…this is for me. I have something for me. And I know what I want. It’s amazing.”
“Good. That was part one. I know that it wasn’t strictly a present, but the rest is.”
“What? I don’t think I can handle anymore!” Her head was swimming, her heart full.
“There’s a house on the property, back behind the house, more up in the mountains. It’s…the kind of place I’ve always seen myself happiest. The kind of place I would, ideally, like to continue to manage Black’s from.”
“Really?” she asked, her throat suddenly dry.
“Yes. And that I did buy for you. For us. Along with this.” He reached into his interior jacket pocket and pulled out a small velvet box. “Now the B and B is yours without obligation. But I’m living in the house either way. So if you say no, things could get awkward.”
“I am not going to say no!” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard on the lips. “I love you.”
“You haven’t seen the ring.”
“I don’t need to. I’ve seen the man. And he’s the only thing I really need.”
*
Maisey Yates
MAISEY YATES knew she wanted to be a writer even before she knew what it was she wanted to write.
At her very first job she was fortunate enough to meet her very own tall, dark and handsome hero, who happened to be her boss, and promptly married him and started a family. It wasn’t until she was pregnant with her second child that she found her very first Harlequin Presents® book in a local thrift store. By the time she’d reached the happily ever after, she had fallen in love. She devoured as many as she could get her hands on after that, and she knew that these were the books she wanted to write!
She started submitting, and nearly two years later, while pregnant with her third child, she received The Call from her editor. At the age of twenty-three, she sold her first manuscript to the Harlequin Presents line, and she was very glad that the good news didn’t send her into labor! She still can’t quite believe she’s blessed enough to see her name on not just any book, but on her favorite books.
Maisey lives with her supportive, handsome, wonderful, diaper-changing husband and three small children across the street from her parents and the home she grew up in, in the wilds of southern Oregon. She enjoys the contrast of living in a place where you might wake up to find a bear on your back porch, then walk into the home office to write stories that take place in exotic, urban locales.
‘As soon as I see a Maisey Yates book I snap it up as fast as I can as I know that it will be good, but I think this is probably one of the best Harlequins she has ever written.’
—Goodreads, Dee on
Avenge Me
Book 1 in
The Fifth Avenue Trilogy
‘Yates’ edgy page-turner is an exceptional mix of laugh-out-loud humor and intense revelations painted perfectly by the powerful narrative.’
—RT Book Reviews on
His Diamond of Convenience
‘Yates’ romance has all the bells and whistles: beautifully opulent sand-scapes, deadly desert dangers, and a haunted, penitent royal hero.’
—RT Book Reviews on
Sheikh’s Desert Duty
‘Yates’ desert tale is metaphoric magic, ripe with iconic costumes and sand-scapes.’
—RT Book Reviews on
To Defy a Sheikh
The Forbidden Series
Billionaires who can look, but shouldn’t touch!
For Logan Black, Jaiven Rodriguez and royal Zair al Ruyi, New York is spread out before them like the Garden of Eden…and no one knows the sweet taste of forbidden fruit better than America’s most ruthless billionaires!
Jaded, cynical, with a darkness that threatens to consume them whole, they think they’ve seen it all. But temptation has something new in store for each of them…
Three women united in one goal—to find their missing friend—are about to cross the paths of these ultimate bad boys. And it won’t be long before they are enslaved to an impossible desire.
You’ve discovered:
The Billionaire’s Intern
by Maisey Yates
The trilogy continues with:
The Billionaire’s Fantasy
By Kate Hewitt
When Louise Jensen spent one wicked night with billionaire bad boy Jaiven Rodriguez, she thought it would be enough. But now that Jaiven has had a taste of his greatest fantasy, he wants more! Louise is about to be taken on a sensual journey by this billionaire bad boy!
Full ebook available June 24, 2015
If you can’t wait that long, Part 1 of The Billionaire’s Fantasy will be available on June 14, 2015
The Billionaire’s Innocent
by Caitlin Crews
When Nora Grant decided she wanted to make something of her life, she didn’t realize it would lead straight to billionaire prince Zair al Ruyi. Beneath his polished royalty, Zair has warrior’s blood running through his veins, and he’s found his next conquest! No matter how innocent Nora is, she can’t resist the touch of this royal billionaire.
Full ebook available July 1, 2015
If you can’t wait that long, Part 1 of The Billionaire’s Innocent will be available on June 21, 2015
All available from www.Harlequin.com
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ISBN: 9781460390009
The Billionaire’s Intern
Copyright © 2015 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Special thanks and acknowledgement are given to Maisey Yates for her contribution to The Forbidden Series.
All rights reserved
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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