by Jane Porter
Logan couldn’t breathe. She’d never seen Jax look at anyone like that. Not even Joe, whom she adored.
Logan’s pulse still raced but her heart felt unhinged, flip-flopping around inside of her, hot emotions washing through her, one after another.
They were having a tea party in the garden. A father-daughter tea party.
And not just a casual affair, but this one had an arrangement of purple pansies in a little milk pitcher, and a silver tiered tray of sweets filled with little iced cakes and fragrant golden scones.
Someone had gone to a great deal of effort. Had Orla planned this? It seemed to be the sort of thing a professional nanny would think of, and yet there was something about the way the pansies spilled out of the pitcher that made Logan think this wasn’t Orla, but someone else...
Her gaze settled on Rowan. He was smiling at Jax, his expression infinitely warm and protective. Doting, even.
Logan’s eyes burned and she struggled to get air into her lungs but she couldn’t see and she couldn’t think, not when she was feeling so much.
Rowan looked like a giant in the small blue chair, his shoulders immense, drawing his shirt tight across his broad back, while the fine wool of his black trousers outlined his muscular thighs.
But Jax wasn’t the least bit intimidated by the size of Rowan. If anything, she was delighted with her company, beaming up at Rowan as she sipped her tea, her chubby fingers clutching the little cup before she set it back down to ask if he needed more tea.
He nodded and Jax reached for the pot to top off his cup. As she started to pour the tea, she noticed her mother, set the pot down with a bang, and waved to Logan. “Mommy!”
“Hello, sweet girl,” Logan said, blinking away tears before Jax could see them.
“We’re having a party!” Jax cried, reaching up to adjust her tiara. “I’m a princess.”
“Yes, you are.” Logan walked toward their little table, but avoided Rowan’s gaze. He was too much of everything.
Jax frowned at her mother’s bare legs. “Where are your clothes, Mommy?”
“I need some, don’t I?”
“Yes. You look naked.” Jax sounded scandalized.
“I know, and it’s a princess party. I’m terribly underdressed. I’m sorry.”
Logan leaned over and dropped a kiss on her daughter’s forehead. “Is that real tea you’re drinking?”
Jax nodded vigorously. “Yes.”
“If apple cider is tea,” Rowan replied, his voice pitched low, but even pitched low she heard the amusement in it.
She darted a glance in his direction, not sure what to expect, but thinking he’d be smug this morning, after last night.
Instead his expression was guarded. He seemed to be gauging her mood.
Logan wished she knew how she felt. Everything was changing and she felt off balance and unable to find her center. “Is this her breakfast?” she asked, noting the little cakes and miniature scones on the tiered plate taking center stage on the table.
“It’s tea, Mommy,” Jax said sounding a bit exasperated. “Breakfast was at breakfast.” She then looked at Rowan, and her expression softened, her tone almost tender as she asked him, “More tea?”
“I haven’t drunk my last cup,” he answered Jax regretfully.
“Then drink it.” Jax turned back to her mother, earnestly adding, “We only have two cups. Sorry, Mommy.”
Logan couldn’t help thinking that Jax didn’t seem the least bit sorry that her mother couldn’t join them. The little girl was soaking up the attention. “That’s okay. I should probably go dress.” But Logan found it hard to walk away. The party was so charming and Jax had never not wanted her company before. It was new, and rather painful, being excluded.
Rowan glanced at her, looking almost sympathetic. “You don’t have to leave. We can find you a chair, if you’d like.”
The fact that he seemed to understand her feelings made it even worse. He wasn’t supposed to be the good guy. He was the bad guy. And yet here he was, dressed up in black trousers and a white dress shirt, balancing himself in a pint-size chair, and drinking apple cider in a cup about the size of a shot glass.
“How nice of Orla to arrange this,” she said, injecting a brisk cheerful note into her voice. “I’ll have to thank her when I see her.”
“Orla won’t be here for another half hour,” Rowan answered.
Logan frowned, confused. “But she made arrangements for the tea, yes?”
“No,” he said.
“My daddy did,” Jax said, casting another loving look on Rowan.
Her daddy.
Daddy.
He’d told her.
Logan shot Rowan a disbelieving look, and he was prepared. He didn’t shy away—instead he met her gaze squarely, apparently utterly unrepentant.
She felt completely blindsided and her lips parted to protest, but she swallowed each of the rebukes because this wasn’t the time, not in front of Jax.
“We’ll talk when Orla arrives,” he said casually, as if he hadn’t just pulled the ultimate power play, rocking her world again.
How dare he? How dare he?
She was so shocked. So upset. Anger washed over her in hot, unrelenting waves. “Is that what this party was for?”
“Orla will be here in thirty minutes.” His voice was calm and quiet but she heard the warning underneath. Don’t do this now. Don’t upset Jax.
She bit back the hot sharp words that filled her head and mouth, battling the sense of betrayal.
He played dirty. He’d always played dirty. He would never change.
Her eyes stung and her throat sealed closed and it was all she could do to hold her emotions in. No wonder he’d been so successful in his career. He was extremely strategic. And he had no conscience. He didn’t care who he hurt, not as long as he won.
“You’ve time for a hot bath and a light bite,” he added conversationally. “I’m sure you’d feel better with some coffee and food in you. It’s already past lunch. You must be hungry.”
“It’s past lunch?”
“Yes. It’s already after two.”
“Two?”
“You had a good sleep-in, and a well-deserved one.” He briefly turned his attention to Jax as she’d just offered him a little iced cake from her own plate. The cake was now looking a tad sticky but he accepted it with a smile of pleasure.
He held his smile as he focused back on Logan. “I’m glad you slept. I think you were...spent.”
She heard his deliberate hesitation and knew exactly what he was implying. She was spent because he’d worn her out with his amazing performance last night.
“It was a grueling day,” she agreed shortly, turning away because there was nothing else she could do. She wasn’t wanted at the garden party and she was cold in just the T-shirt.
Shivering, Logan returned to the kitchen to see about coffee and one of those scones she’d spotted coming out of the oven.
“Do you think I could get some coffee and one or two of those scones?” she asked the cook.
“I’ll send up a tray immediately,” the cook promised.
The tray with coffee and scones, and a bowl of fresh berries, was delivered just minutes later to Logan’s bedroom, and Logan sat cross-legged on the large bed, enjoying several cups of coffee and the warm flakey scones slathered with sweet Irish butter and an equally thick layer of jam, before bathing and dressing.
By the time Jax returned to the room, Logan was very much ready to shift into mommy mode, but Jax had other ideas. After giving her mother a big hug and kiss she announced that she and Orla were going to watch a movie in the castle theater.
“But wait, how was tea?” Logan asked.
“Lovely.”
Lovely. Now th
at wasn’t a word American toddlers used often. “Did Orla teach you that word?”
“No, my daddy did.”
Once again, her daddy.
She ground her teeth together, struggling with another wave of resentment. For the past two plus years she’d been the center of Jax’s world, fiercely vigilant, determined to be both mother and father, and yet overnight her role had been changed. She’d been nudged over—no, make that shoved—and she was supposed to be good with it. She was supposed to just accept that Rowan was now in their lives, making changes, shifting power, redefining everything.
“What do you think of him?” she asked carefully.
“My daddy?”
“Yes.”
“He’s nice.”
Logan smiled grimly. “He is, isn’t he?”
“Orla says he’s lovely.”
So that’s where she learned the word. Wonderful. “And where is Orla?” Logan asked, determined to hide her anger from Jax, even as she made a mental note of yet one more thing to discuss with Rowan. It was unprofessional for nannies—even cheerful Irish ones—to refer to their male bosses as lovely.
“Outside, in the hall.”
Logan went to the door and opened it, and yes, there stood Orla with her ready smile. “Good afternoon,” Orla greeted Logan with a lilt in her voice. “Did Jax tell you we’re going to go see Cinderella in the theater?”
“No.” Logan was finding it very difficult to keep up with all the twists and turns in the day. “There’s a theater here?”
“Yes, ma’am. Downstairs in the basement.”
“Castles have basements?”
“Well, it was the dungeon but we don’t want to scare the little girl.” And then she winked at Logan. “Or the big girls, either.”
And then Orla and Jax were off, walking hand in hand as they headed for the stairs, both apparently very excited about the movie. The movie, undoubtedly, being Rowan’s idea.
Which meant it was time to deal with Rowan.
Logan stepped into shoes, grabbed a sweater, and went to find him. It wasn’t a simple thing in a castle the size of Ros. She checked the study and then outside, walking through one garden and then another, before returning to the house and climbing the stairs back to the second floor where she opened the door of his bedroom to see if by chance he was there.
He was. And he was in the middle of stripping off his clothes and he turned toward her, completely naked.
Her gaze swept over him, lingering on the thick planes of his chest, the narrow hips, the tight, honed abs and then below. He was gorgeous.
He knew it, too.
“Come back for more, have you?” he asked, his smile cocky.
Logan flushed but didn’t run away. She closed the door behind her. “You had no business telling her you were her father—”
“Oh, I absolutely did.” His smile was gone. “You were in no hurry to tell her.”
“I had a plan.”
“I’m sure you did. One that didn’t include me.” His dark hair was damp. His body still gleamed with perspiration. He made no attempt to cover himself. “But I’m not interested in being shut out or being relegated to the background as if I’m on your staff. I’m her father, not a babysitter or hired help.”
She wished he’d put his clothes back on. How could she argue with Rowan when he was naked? “I’ve never said you were hired help,” she snapped.
“You certainly haven’t treated me as an equal, have you? But you’re a Copeland. Why should I expect otherwise?”
“Not that again!”
He walked toward her, muscles taut, jaw tight. “Not that again? I’m not allowed to be troubled by your family? By your sordid history? I’m not supposed to care that your father destroyed my family?” He made a rough low sound, correctly reading her surprise. “Yes. Your father quite handily dismantled my family. It’s embarrassing how quickly he ruined us. I blame my father, too. He was the one who chose to work for your father.”
He paused to search her face. “Yes, my father once worked for your father. Did you know that?” He laughed shortly, mockingly. “And your father was underhanded even then, already an expert in white-collar crime.”
Her heart raced and she held her breath, shoulders squared, bracing herself for the rest.
“Your father has been a sleazy con artist forever. But he was able to get away with it for years, hiding behind his big Greenwich house, with his big Greenwich lifestyle.”
Logan swallowed, pulse thudding hard, and yet she refused to say a word, aware that he wasn’t done, aware that anything she said would just infuriate him more. The fact that he couldn’t accept that she and her father were two different people was his problem, not hers, and it had been his problem from the very beginning. She also understood now that it would never change.
He would never change.
“He was able to hide, your dad, by creating a veneer of sophistication with money. Other people’s money. Taking their incomes and their nest eggs and draining them dry so he could pose and preen, a consciencless peacock—” He broke off, and looked away, toward the window with the view of the rolling green lawn and the dark hedges beyond.
“There is power in money,” he added flatly, harshly after a moment. “It provides an extra layer or two of protection, allowing your father to continue his charade for decades, whereas others, those who worked under him, or for him, were caught up in the schemes and exposed. And those men paid the price early. They went to jail. They served time.”
His voice roughened, deepened, and Logan’s skin prickled as she suddenly began to understand where Rowan was going with this.
His dad had worked for her father years ago.
Her father had been a con artist even then.
Her father had gotten away with the...schemes...while his father hadn’t.
Finally she forced herself to speak. “Your father,” she said huskily, “he served time?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Long enough.” He faced her, expression hard. “It destroyed his reputation, while your father escaped unscathed.”
“I don’t remember any of this.”
“It happened before you were born. I was just a boy, and my brother was a toddler.”
She balled her hands into fists, her fingernails digging into her palms. “Why would my father be able to escape unscathed? Why did just your father take the fall?”
“Because my father was paid to take the fall.” Rowan’s voice was as sharp as glass. “And it wasn’t a lot, not even by a poor man’s standards, but your father didn’t care. It wasn’t his problem how the Argyros family survived. It wasn’t his problem that a young Irish wife with two young children wouldn’t be able to get by when Mr. Argyros went to prison, taking away income. Depriving the family of a father, a husband, a breadwinner.”
For a moment there was just silence.
“If your father had been exposed then, if my father had refused to take the fall alone, your father wouldn’t have been able to defraud thousands of people billions of dollars. Your father’s career as a con artist would have ended. Instead, my father caved and took the blame and served the time, destroying all of us, but leaving you Copelands privileged, spoiled, glamorous and untouched.”
And this is why he hated her father so much.
This is why he’d scorned her when he’d discovered who she was.
She was a privileged, spoiled, glamorous, untouched Copeland girl, while he was the son of a man who served time for her father’s machinations. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and she really, truly was. She felt the shame of her father’s actions so strongly. She’d been deeply ashamed for years, and the weight of the shame had almost suffocated her years ago. It’s why she’d moved from the East Coast to
the West. It’s why she’d pushed her family away. It’s why she’d dropped the Copeland from her name. Not to hide. She wasn’t an ostrich. She’d never buried her head in the sand. She knew how selfish her father was. But it was impossible to survive mired in guilt. The move to California was a desperate, last-ditch effort to shift the pieces in her heart and head so that she could have something of a life. So that she could be someone other than Daniel’s daughter.
But Rowan would never see her as anyone but Daniel’s daughter.
For Rowan she would always be the enemy.
He shrugged carelessly, callously and turned around, heading for his en suite bathroom. As he walked away from her, she didn’t know where to look or what to think or how to feel.
From the back he looked like a Greek god—the very broad shoulders, the long, lean waist, his small tight glutes.
But he also had the cruelty of the Greek gods.
He would punish her forever. He’d never forgive her. She’d spend the rest of her life punished and broken.
Hot tears stung the back of her eyes. “I’m not my father,” she shouted after him. “I have never been him, and you are not your father!”
He disappeared into the bathroom. He didn’t close the door, but he didn’t answer her, either.
“And you have been punishing me from that very first morning in Los Angeles for being a Copeland, and you’re still punishing me, and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of this. Your motives aren’t pure—”
“No, they’re not.” He reappeared in the doorway, still stark naked, the hard, carved planes of his body reminding her of the large marble statue of Hercules she’d seen in Rome years ago. “But I take being a parent seriously, as I know how important parents are for young children, and you had no right to cut me out of my daughter’s life. I just thank God that your father did die, and I was the one to come for you because otherwise I’d still be oblivious that she even exists.”
Fine, he could be livid, but she was seething, too. “I should have been part of that conversation today, Rowan.”
