Книга - The Billionaire’s Intern

The Billionaire's Intern
Maisey Yates


The Forbidden Series: billionaires who can look, but shouldn't touch!For Logan Black, Jaiven Rodriguez and 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…When Addison Treffen finds herself working for Logan Black—the notorious billionaire who literally came back from the dead—she thinks it's a safe haven from the shocking scandal surrounding her family. Little did she know that she's about to get very personal with her billionaire boss!Collect all three novels in The Forbidden Series:THE BILLIONAIRE'S INTERN by USA TODAY bestselling author Maisey YatesTHE BILLIONAIRE'S FANTASY by USA TODAY bestselling author Kate HewittTHE BILLIONAIRE'S INNOCENT by USA TODAY bestselling author Caitlin Crews







The Forbidden Series

Billionaires who can look, but shouldn’t touch!

For Logan Black, Jaiven Rodriguez and 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…

When Addison Treffen finds herself working for Logan Black—the notorious billionaire who literally came back from the dead—she thinks it’s a safe haven from the shocking scandal surrounding her family. Little did she know that she’s about to get very personal with her billionaire boss!

Collect all three novels in The Forbidden Series:

THE BILLIONAIRE’S INTERN by USA TODAY bestselling author Maisey Yates

THE BILLIONAIRE’S FANTASY by USA TODAY bestselling author Kate Hewitt

THE BILLIONAIRE’S INNOCENT by USA TODAY bestselling author Caitlin Crews




The Billionaire's Intern

Maisey Yates





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To Caitlin and Kate, for being amazing partners in crime on this series. You made things that were hard feel much easier. I’m so thankful for your talent, your generosity and your friendship. Love you both.




Contents


Chapter One (#uc738b2cc-b3e8-50f4-b784-85e01c4cff86)

Chapter Two (#uc23768fc-2421-599e-a83e-c4d32b6c2a0d)

Chapter Three (#u5d9c5ddc-b074-5153-a05b-f611d9c24776)

Chapter Four (#u333b8d68-3335-5c40-8ed1-16e651acb649)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)




Chapter One


Well, really, things just couldn’t get much worse. Addison sat in her older brother’s office, numbness wrapping itself around her like a heavy blanket.

She was officially banned from her sorority, not that she cared much, since school was awful just at the moment, as was her sorority. But still, leaving of her own accord would’ve hurt a lot less.

They hadn’t exactly said the word banned, but the sorority’s president had made it abundantly clear that Addison’s presence was a “distraction.” And that links to “prostitution” and “snipers” were not exactly fitting with the relaxing environment of sisterhood and education they were so striving for.

Well, obviously. But nobody seemed worried about whether or not Addison felt she had sisterhood, or a relaxing environment for education.

She had nothing.

Her father had been killed in front of her only days after she discovered he was he was running a prostitution ring, behind the facade of a law office that championed for the downtrodden.

She’d lost not only her father, but the memory of him and any bit of safety and security she’d ever felt in her name, or in her family home.

Her sorority might be disturbed by associations with snipers’ bullets piercing the windows of the wealthy and elite at midnight, and with associations to sex rings and scandal, but she could guarantee it was a lot worse for her.

Added to that, her boyfriend, Eddie, was suddenly and conveniently on vacation in Bermuda, and while he sent his regrets, he could not interrupt his vacation. Which she had a sinking feeling meant that her rather distant boyfriend was putting more distance between them now, thanks to the scandal.

Her schooling was on temporary hiatus, and she was finishing what she could online because campus was impossible for her to navigate. What with male students asking if she sold her favors, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, since her father had obviously dealt in sex, and with most female students now avoiding her so they didn’t get her contaminants on them.

Truly, people were terrible.

Her father had been shot and killed in front of her, and she’d had to go to his funeral. A funeral she, her brother and her mother had had to put on as though they still cared because even given what he’d done, none of them could quite bring themselves to leave Jason’s body in an unmarked grave.

Though the marker on his grave was bland enough.

Jason Treffen, 1955–2014.

No beloved father, beloved husband, beloved boss. He wasn’t beloved by a single person by the time that bullet passed through him. And it was his own fault. As more and more details emerged, it became harder to remember him as the man she’d always believed he was. Instead her old, beautiful memories were twisting. Making it hard to see anything other than the monster.

And just as well.

Even in death, he hurt others. He was gone, and they were all left to deal with the fallout. They were all coping in the best way they could.

For her brother, Austin, it meant hoping his legacy as a true advocate for women never fell under the shadow of what their father was. It meant working harder, with even greater integrity than he had to begin with.

For her future sister-in-law, Katy, it meant living with the crushing death of her sister, trying to move on and make Sarah’s life matter, through the foundation she was establishing.

For Addison’s mother it seemed to mean blocking out the world and shoe shopping. Addison had no idea what it meant for her.

Which was why she was sitting in her brother’s office when she should have been in class.

“Are you okay?” Austin asked, studying her from his position behind his desk.

She smiled, knowing that Austin would see through her, no matter how convincing a smile might appear. “Wonderful, aren’t you?”

“I think I’m doing better than you are. But then, I have someone I’m sharing all this with.”

“Yes, I know. You’re in love, Austin. It’s impossible to miss.”

His lips curved up into a smile. “Yeah, I am.”

“I’m pleased for you.”

He lifted his hand and threw a bag of Skittles down onto the desk in front of her. “Sugar,” he said. “Your favorite variety. Eat.”

Austin had always brought her candy. He was so much older it had been hard for them to relate to each other in some ways, but he’d always brought her treats when they spent time together. And as a result, she had a slight Skittles habit she couldn’t kick. All thanks to her older brother. They wouldn’t taste half as good if they didn’t come with memories of better days.

She took the bag and tore the corner off, pouring some of the candy into her hand, and rattling it around in her palm before rolling them onto the table and slowly sorting them into color-coded piles. “What’s going on? You’re being really nice to me.”

“You’ve been through hell the past couple weeks. And it pisses me off. Because I worked damn hard to bring that bastard down and try and to make sure you and Mom didn’t suffer needlessly.” He paused and looked out the window. “I tried, Addison. I tried to make things right. For Sarah. For Katy, for every woman he hurt. And the last thing I wanted to do was hurt anyone. Especially Mom. Especially you.”

“I’m fine, Austin,” she said, sliding the red group of Skittles from the table, into her hand, the strong fruit flavors exploding on her tongue before fizzling into sour sugar.

“I’m not sure I would be fine if I saw what you did.”

A sharp, shocking flash of that night assaulted her mind’s eye, and with it, the familiar ice-cold fear. But there was no point in heaping guilt on Austin. No point in betraying just how horrific it had been.

No point in telling him every night she woke up drenched in sweat and shivering, feeling as if demons were reaching for her in the dark.

“It was awful,” she said, putting the candy down. “I won’t lie. But I was smart enough not to go and investigate closely. I went in the bathroom and called 911. I was scared, but…I didn’t see much.”

Not that it stopped the unending terror. But her older brother carried too much on his shoulders already. And if there was one thing Jason Treffen had passed on to her, it was the ability to appear cool while the world burned to ash around you.

“That’s…good.”

She shrugged, pouring more candy into onto the table, pushing the green in with the green, the purple in with the purple, wondering if she was overplaying the casual attitude.

Wondering if Austin would even notice something was wrong.

Austin was a caring older brother, but he was more than ten years older than her. And he’d moved out when she was a kid. He was always nice, but in general he’d seemed like an adult to her ever since she could remember. One thing he’d always been was a bearer of candy. Oh yes, and protective. Very protective.

And no, she wasn’t…okay. But she just had to deal with what had happened. And talking about it over Skittles and coffee wasn’t going to help that happen.

“And school?”

“Well…I’ve been politely ejected from my sorority…”

His dark eyebrows snapped together. “That’s bullshit. I’ll write a letter.”

“I left of my own accord. No one forced me to go. It was just heavily suggested. And who’s going to stay where they aren’t wanted?” That question was punctuated by her eating another grouping of Skittles.

“And your boyfriend?” Austin asked, applying a level of disdain to the title that Addison almost found funny. Almost.

“In Bermuda, of all places, likely blinding beachgoers with his exposed WASPy kneecaps and trudging around wearing sandals and tube socks, as rich boys are wont to do on holiday.”

“That was why he didn’t come to the funeral. I assume that’s why his dad didn’t come either. Or maybe that was them desperately trying not to get scandal all over them. What’s he doing about school?”

Addison sighed heavily. “I don’t know, Austin. Are you genuinely concerned for his education?”

“Questioning why the hell he’s not with you when you need him.”

Addison lifted a shoulder, proud of herself for not flinching when a shaft of pain hit her chest. “Probably because I’m a liability for him too. I understand.”

“Why are you with him?”

“Because,” she said, “he’s suitable.” Just as Columbia was a suitable university, and her sorority was a suitable house for a Treffen. Just as everything in her life was suitable down to the ground, for a man who was now six feet beneath it.

“So, what are you going to do?” Austin asked.

“About Edward Howell the Third?” she asked, invoking her boyfriend’s full name.

“About school. About where you sleep.”

“I don’t know. We have places I can stay, so I’m not really concerned about that. There’s the house upstate, the penthouse. If I really wanted to I could go to Bermuda to Mom and Dad’s beach house.”

“Finishing your degree?”

“I will,” she said, crossing her ankles and leaning back in her chair.

Though right now she wondered what the point of it all would be. She’d pursued Columbia to make Jason proud. And she’d chosen hospitality because she knew it was a field that would benefit a future society wife. Considering how things had turned out, she wondered if any of it mattered.

“But right now?”

“I’m on sabbatical. Because the entire student body is convinced that I am a prostitute because Dad…well, you know.” She tipped the Skittles bag over and poured a sizable amount onto the table.

Austin tented his fingers, leveling his dark eyes on her. She had a feeling he was about to try and solve all her problems. He had that look about him. It was very Austiny. “I have a solution for you.” As she’d suspected. “Or rather, I have a way for you to spend your time.”

“Please tell me it has nothing to do with planning your wedding. I love you. I love Katy, but…pay someone to do that. You’re rich. There is no reason to subject friends and family to this.”

“I know. But I can’t because my wife-to-be is a party planner, and binders with colored tabs make her…well, let’s just say the whole thing works out well for me.”

She blinked. “Thank you for oversharing.”

“I could have gone further.”

“Well, don’t. Ever. I’m pleased for your happiness…but I’m your sister and no, I don’t need to hear about all that.”

“I’ll spare you the details,” he said, still looking too smug for her liking. “But back to my plan, which has nothing to do with you looking at flower arrangements.”

“I’m listening.”

“You know Logan Black, I assume?”

“Everyone knows Logan Black, Austin. He was the only headline in the world two years ago. He got more press than Dad, and that’s saying something. He came back from the dead, after all.”

“Fair point,” Austin said. “I assume, since you’re aware of his circumstances, you’re also aware that he’s now the acting CEO of Black Properties.”

“I’m aware of that, yes. I do own a TV. Also, I make it a point to stay abreast of things that affect high society. Lest I appear gauche at luncheons,” she said, her tone dry.

“Logan and I knew each other in college. He’s…a friend. Or rather…I think he’s a friend. What passes for a friend to Logan isn’t the same as friendship for most people. At least not these days.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“Because I got you an internship with him.”

“What?”

“Unpaid drudge work with the man at the top of your industry. You’re welcome.”

She blinked. “You’re assuming I actually want to work in that industry.”

“Actually I’m assuming that you’d like to escape the press.”

The media had been in a frenzy ever since the story broke about Jason. And now the press was camped outside their house upstate, the event of a death intense enough for them to break their moratorium on leaving the city, and outside Austin’s office building. They were also roaming around the Manhattan penthouse her mother owned.

“And you honestly think taking an internship with Black will help me avoid the press?”

“If there’s one thing Black knows, it’s how to stay out of the spotlight when he wants to. No one has to know you’re there. And if the press does find out you’re there, it won’t seem at all unusual given your field of study.”

Addison leaned back in her chair. “You’ve thought a lot about this, haven’t you?”

“Handy thing about guilt, it can really tap in to your problem-solving skills.” Austin stood and started to pace the length of the room. “Logan Black is not someone I would typically want you around, given his reputation. But he seems to have calmed down some. Since his resurrection.”

Austin wasn’t wrong. About the chance to hide out from the press, or about Logan Black. Considering his story, Logan should’ve been a media darling. But the man had a knack for staying out of the spotlight when he wanted to. He had changed a lot in the past four years. Two of which he’d spent presumed dead.

And when he came back, the playboy had transformed into something else entirely. A ruthless businessman who, by all accounts, was difficult, demanding, unpredictable. And reclusive.

And Austin had set her up to work with him. For free.

Her month really was getting better and better.

But considering her situation, she didn’t have a better option.

She was tired of being hounded by the press, and she needed to keep busy. Otherwise she would end up curled into a sugarcoated ball of misery. Reliving that night over, and over. The night that everything had gone to hell. The night her father had most certainly gone to hell.

“He’s…” Addison started, not really sure how to broach the topic of Logan. Or how to express her concerns. Going from living with one male psychopath to another wasn’t exactly what she wanted.

Not that Logan was a confirmed psychopath, but…

She started again. “He’s not the same.”

“He’s not,” Austin said. “But he’s not going to hurt you either. Actually I would have trusted him with you a whole lot less before than I do now. I mean, at least he’s not going around seducing everything in a skirt.”

“I prefer to wear pantsuits in the office. And you’re assuming I’m seduceable.”

Austin’s expression turned fierce. “No, I’m assuming nothing about you. But what I do know is that I’m slightly wary of men who treat women like they exist for nothing more than sex. I don’t want you exposed to anything like that.”

“You mean you don’t want me to be exposed to anything like that again. You forget I lived with our father for almost all of my life, and he was certainly one of those men. Wasn’t he?” A small part of her hoped that Austin would say no. A small part of her was still hoping to wake up and find this was all a terrible mistake.

“He was,” Austin said, his tone grave. “But Logan isn’t. Not now. And that’s all I mean.”

Addison cleared her throat. “Great. That’s…I mean, this is great, Austin. Thank you.”

“And he’ll provide lodging.”

She arched her eyebrows, a strange jolt of foreboding settling in her stomach. “Will he?”

“Yes. He was quite adamant about that. It has to do with his work schedule, and you’ll be fulfilling the role of personal assistant. But I think it will be especially good, since you don’t have the sorority house, and since the press seems to be permanently camped outside Treffen residences.”

“Probably suits you too. Related to you being in love, you don’t want me in your penthouse…being in your way.” Austin was entirely head over heels for his fiancée, in ways Addison could not imagine ever being for anyone. But while she didn’t relate to exactly what he was feeling, she logically understood that he would rather be alone with Katy than sharing his space with her.

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Well, that too. Without going into emotionally scarring details.”

“You’re too kind, Austin.”

“Hey, a chance to stay in a luxury hotel and live in style, while taking a break from school? That’s not bad.”

“And who’s going to pay for my ‘living in style’?”

“Me. And then Dad’s big effing insurance payout.”

She made a face. “I don’t really like taking money from him. Money from what he did.”

“Like it or not,” Austin said, turning his chair to face the city skyline, “our entire life was financed by him.”

She stared straight ahead, her vision blurring. “What a legacy.”

“Yeah. So let’s make it a better one.”

Addison pushed the individual Skittles piles together. “Yes. Let’s do that.”

She would. She would make things better somehow. Even if it just started with her being a good intern. Because she wasn’t just lying down and giving up, no matter what the people around her seemed to think. Her life wasn’t over. It was just beginning.




Chapter Two


Logan Black looked out the window, directly across from his desk. The view of Fifth Avenue was both entrancing and slightly off-putting. Depending on his mood.

And his moods were subject to change at a moment’s notice.

The streets were packed with cars, nothing unusual, but the kind of thing that made his vision swim when it caught him off guard. Like just now.

He should have closed the curtains.

He turned his focus away from the view and leaned back in his chair, looking at the time displayed on his phone. Addison Treffen was due to arrive any moment. The beautiful daughter of the recently murdered Jason Treffen. If her brother hadn’t called in the favor, he would have happily chosen almost anyone else.

There was no place for soft, beautiful women in his life. Not now.

But Austin was one of the few people who tried to maintain a friendship with him since his return. And while Logan hadn’t done much to reciprocate, the gesture was appreciated.

Still, the idea of bringing Addison into Black Book, keeping her here…

Yesterday, it had seemed that it might work. Today, he was less certain.

He was used to that. To his moods changing like the tide. To New York feeling like a storm he could swim through one day—and one that would drown him in the depths the next.

Some days were much harder than others and he could never quite pinpoint what kind of day it would be. It usually started with shoes. That was often the biggest clue. How much did they bother him when he put them on? How much did he resent having to wear them?

If the shoes were a problem, it was a fair bet that the Manhattan streets would be too. That the traffic below would feel like his own personal hell.

Shoes had been a problem this morning. Which meant his meeting with Addison would be interesting indeed.

Though it occurred to him he might need to put his shoes on before she arrived.

He looked down at the pair of shoes and socks beneath his desk. Just a standard pair of black dress socks, and a pair of very expensive, handmade leather shoes.

He’d left them under there last night after he kicked them off.

Funny, he’d owned the shoes for something like five years now, but they’d rarely been worn. In part because they’d been new when he left, and in part because since he’d returned he worn them as little as possible.

He didn’t want to wear them. So he wouldn’t.

Ms. Treffen would learn very quickly what it was to work with him. He did not bend for convention. He forced others to bend to him.

But he was aware now of what was necessary and what was simply an extra rule imposed by society. He’d been a man stripped down to nothing. A man at his simplest, at his darkest. Where there was nothing more than life or death. Where there certainly weren’t rules about what sort of shoes he should wear into work. Or if he should wear them at all.

Though he realized that whether he cared or not, others did.

He also realized that sometimes there was a lot of power in making others uncomfortable.

There was a knock at his office door, and he knew it had to be her. Because she was the only person the front desk had permission to allow up. And because he didn’t like being paged over the intercom, a knock was the only way anyone could signal their presence.

There were a lot of things he didn’t like now. One of the many reasons his old friends, barring Austin Treffen, seemed to find him boring these days. But it didn’t bother him.

The feeling was entirely mutual.

“Come in,” he said, putting his hands on his desk, palms down, as strange, restless energy surging through him. It was like this with people. Always.

The door cracked open, and she led with her leg. A shapely, stocking-clad leg. There was no avoiding the fact that it was a nice leg. That wasn’t even up for debate. Even in his twisted brain, where things often seemed backward or upside down, a nice leg made sense.

The woman that followed the leg was even better than the body part in isolation. Blond, petite, with blue eyes that were like a deep, clear sea. Her lips were full, a pale pink not like anything found in nature on his island. It was far too delicate a shade.

She was wearing a white skirt that tapered to fit her shape, ending just below her knee, a matching, fitted jacket conforming to her curves.

And on her feet, adding, he had no doubt, to the shapeliness of her legs, were a pair of black high heels that added nearly four inches to her height and likely pushed her feet into a near-impossible position.

He’d never given much thought to women’s shoes prior to his experience on the island. But now that he resented his own footwear so damn much, he couldn’t help wondering just how contorted Addison’s feet would be in something like that.

Though the wonderment in no way detracted from her legs.

Every part of Addison Treffen was exquisite. Photos of her in the news didn’t do her justice.

“Mr. Black,” she said, his eyes level with his. “I’m Addison Treffen. My brother arranged this meeting and—”

“I’m fully aware of the details of the arrangement.”

She blinked, her expression remaining neutral. “Well, I had thought it possible my brother spoke with someone you worked for.”

“One thing you will learn about me, Ms. Treffen—nothing happens here without my approval. And no one would be permitted in my office, on my floor, in my hotel, without my arranging it.”

The hardness in his tone didn’t ruffle her. The petite, small-framed woman with her smooth hair, skin and clothes, staring him down with an expression that bordered on serenity, was not at all what he’d expected. “Was the hotel room on offer for anyone who took up the spot?” she asked, her fingers shifting on her handbag, the only slight tell of nerves he’d seen since she walked in.

“Yes,” he said. “I understand that an internship, an unpaid one, is not the easiest thing to negotiate, so it seemed a nice offer.” And in addition to that, he rarely left the hotel. Which meant any assistant of his had to be here.

“Technically, that makes it paid in a way,” she said.

“If you like.”

She smiled and for a moment he was at a loss as to the appropriate social response. Smile back, obviously.

Yes. Obviously.

He smiled, but had a feeling it looked more like a grimace. “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the chair that was situated across from his desk.

She crossed the room and complied, her gold bag held tight against her stomach, her hands wrapped around it like claws.

Still, her overall demeanor was calm and when she sat, some of the tension eased from her hands.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “it’s been a strange couple of weeks. To say the least.”

“I heard about your father,” he said, watching her expression. Something kicked over in him, reminding him that he had skipped something important. Something appropriate. “I’m sorry.” The words came too late to seem genuine.

She remained utterly still in her chair, stiff, unmoving. “I’m sorry I had to see it.”

The thought of this soft creature witnessing the death of her own father twisted something deep inside him and left behind an emotion that held a vague echo of sympathy. He knew what that was like. To be jolted out of your privilege and headfirst into every ugly thing the world held.

She didn’t deserve it. It could be argued that he had.

“So,” he said, changing the subject, “what is it you want to get out of this time at Black Properties?”

“I’m here to learn. I’d like to open a hotel someday, a small one. So I think anything I can learn from you would be valuable.”

“And what about school?”

“I’m going to school. I’m a senior at Columbia and should be graduating at the end of the year. Majoring in business, minoring in hospitality. I would love to finish on campus, but at the moment that is…difficult. I’m making arrangements with my professors.”

“But you will finish,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow. “Because school is important?”

“Not particularly,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, her lips making the shape of the word and holding for a moment before she continued. “I’ve never had a job. I went from living at home to going to school. And my parents always took care of me. They still sort of are.”

“Are you trying to dissuade me from giving you the position?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. The alternative is hiding out somewhere until the press goes away.”

“Or you can hide here,” he said. “And you can get work experience. How does that sound?”

“It sounds slightly more productive than my plan.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Why not?”

“Not a very definitive answer,” he said. “But one I’ll take.”

He rose from his position behind the desk and Addison followed his lead. He watched her movements. Graceful, poised. She was the product of an aristocratic family, as he had been. She’d been given every tool to succeed from an early age, a private school education of the highest quality that had turned each movement into art, and conversation into a performance.

There had been a time when he’d had those things, but they were lost to him now. Funny how two years of solitude could break a lifetime of habits. He was rarely conscious of it anymore, but something about Addison forced him to be.

Perhaps it was the contrast. The society sweetheart who still lived in it, and society’s favorite former playboy who had retreated so far into the darkness he could only peer in on the world he’d once belonged to. Not because the door was locked, but because he couldn’t remember why in hell he’d ever wanted to be part of it. Because even if he wanted it, he wouldn’t be able to.

Just the thought of it made a cold sweat break out on his neck, made a sick sensation slip down into his stomach.

No, it wasn’t even a possibility for him. And he didn’t want it to be anyway.

“Would you like a rundown on your responsibilities?” he asked.

“Aside from making you coffee or tea?”

“I don’t drink coffee,” he said. “Or tea.”

“Oh.”

“Or alcohol.”

“Oh,” she said again, a crease appearing between her finely arched eyebrows.

“I never got used to it again,” he said. “Alcohol just makes me vomit. Coffee gives me a headache.” Possibly too frank judging by the brief contortion of her lips. He could never seem to strike the right balance.

“I see. So…what do I get you, then?”

“I can tell you’re already slightly concerned that rumors of my mental state are true,” he said, watching the momentary flicker in her expression, which was now smooth as glass. As telling as any expression of horror could ever be. “But not wanting a shot of whiskey after dinner doesn’t make me crazy.”

He walked out from behind his desk, and her eyes fell to his bare feet. She blinked a couple of times.

“Not wanting a shot of whiskey after dinner doesn’t make me crazy,” he repeated, “but there are other things.”

“I see.” She cleared her throat and took a breath, looking back at his face as if she was determined to skip over the lack of shoes. “What do I do for you, then?” she asked, the softly spoken, crisply articulated words moving over his skin like a breeze that signaled an impending storm. “If I can’t make you coffee or pour you a drink.”

“You can start by fielding the endless messages I get every day.”

“Pardon my impertinence, but why is it you don’t have a paid PA or secretary for this?”

“They keep quitting,” he said. “Hence the internship. I needed someone with no job experience who couldn’t just go out and find another position.”

“Why is that?”

He looked back down at his feet, then back up at her, the left side of his mouth turned up of its own volition. “You’ll see, I imagine.”

Her blue eyes remained level with his. Unblinking. “I have a feeling I will. So, would you mind giving me directions to my room?” she asked.

The idea of her wandering around on his floor without direction made his pulse spike. For the first time, he questioned the wisdom of allowing her to stay here.

But it made sense. And she was just a woman. Nothing to get crazy about.

“I’ll show you to your room,” he said. “Did you bring your things?”

“Yes,” she said. “The staff assured me that they would be sent up ahead of me.”

“And yet you were still testing me. Seeing if I would dismiss you. Hoping I would?”

She smoothed her hair. “Probably that’s what I was doing, yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t just turn you down. Austin would have a fit.”

“Would he?”

“He thinks he’s taking care of me… I think he believes this internship is going to magically fix everything that I’ve been through recently. It’s not that simple.”

“You’re preaching to the converted,” he said. “I know all about that.”

“I imagine you do. Which brings me back to the question, what drink do I bring you? Should I juice a pineapple?”

He nearly laughed at that. The impulse was strange and unfamiliar.

“Water,” he said.

“Water?”

“That’s all you need, isn’t it?”

“Most men I’ve met are more concerned with want than need. Sometimes it seems like want must be…more important.” She sounded confused by the concept. As though she didn’t operate on that level. But he knew differently. A woman like Addison Treffen couldn’t possible know about self-denial.

“Here it is,” he said. “But there are a lot of other places where that isn’t the case. I can think of one in particular.”

The corners of her lips turned down. “I apologize. For the comment about the pineapple. It’s probably not something you like people to make joke about.”

He thought about it for a moment, processing the feeling he’d had when she made her pineapple juice comment. Sometimes it took a while for him to evaluate what he felt when he talked to people because he’d spent so long feeling nothing. Well, nothing nuanced. Elation, rage, terror and despair were his primary emotions. The rest had been squeezed down and sorted into one of those four.

“It doesn’t bother me,” he said finally, because that was true enough. “Actually people don’t like to mention it, unless they want to grill me, and I’d prefer a casual joke to that.”

“Well, that’s good to know. Or not, if I’m still trying to get you to fire me.”

“You may as well stick this out. You don’t have any better prospects and I’m willing to bet that after your father’s assassination no one will want you around.”

“I think the assassination bothers them less than the fact that he dealt in…very unsavory things, but I could be wrong.”

“Are you in danger?” he asked.

“Would it bother you if I was? Because if the grudge was against the Treffen family, it could make me a hazard.”

“No, it wouldn’t bother me.” For some reason the idea of a rogue gunman bothered him less than stepping out onto the city streets.

He’d given up trying to make sense of himself.

“Oh,” she said. “Well, anyway, the best the police can figure is that it was a professional hit. My father was targeted because he was prepared to accept a plea bargain. To name names in order to shorten his sentence. So it has nothing to do with me, because I know nothing.”

“One hopes the sniper knows that.”

She blinked rapidly. “Thank you for that.”

“Sorry,” he said, knowing the words had little weight. He barely felt them at all. “Sometimes I’m too blunt.”

“Strange. I was expecting a little more charm. Especially given that, from what I’ve heard, you’re a notorious playboy.”

“I haven’t been one of those for quite some time. That was in my other life. Now, would you like to see your room?”

* * *

Addison looked at the man, taller than she’d anticipated. She’d only ever seen Logan Black on TV. Years ago as the playboy moving his way through all of Manhattan’s socialites—her being an exception, as she was barely legal at the time—and now as the miracle heir to Black Properties, back from the dead after two years. Pictures that had flashed onto the television and on newsstands then had been filled with a thinner, more hollow-cheeked version of him. Long hair, a beard. More Swiss Family Robinson than Swiss banker. But none of those articles or clips on TV had prepared her for the presence of the man.

Of course, he was frequently mentioned in business news now, the photo of the grinning playboy back, in place of the gaunt castaway. Before his time away, he’d always been a heartthrob. His lean frame and wicked smile had dropped panties from St. Bart’s to the Upper East Side. He was different now. He didn’t smile. Any snapshots she’d seen on TV recently were definitely old. Because this Logan didn’t look capable of a real smile. And the spark was gone from his eyes. He was larger too. Broader. Any hint of boyishness was gone now.

“Yes,” she said, the word coming slowly. “I think I would like to see my room.”

Logan circled around behind her and Addison felt like prey being hunted by some kind of big jungle cat. And she had the feeling she was willingly walking into his den.

“I’m happy to take you there.”

“Thanks,” she said, trying to force some air into her lungs. Something about him made it hard to breathe. Which was strange because she didn’t usually have that issue with men, even nice-looking ones.

Her aim had always been simple. To conform, to please. To try and gain that elusive, impossible approval from a father who had never deserved that kind of devotion. Not from her or anyone.

So she’d dated one man, the man she’d been expected to date since before she was old enough to even have a crush on a boy. And that relationship had been…passionless didn’t begin to cover it. It had been an obligation.

Because Eddie was the son of one of the firm’s partners. And they were expected, she was sure, to have some kind of dynastic union. Now that she thought about it, and his behavior, she had a feeling he was as coerced as she was.

With all that tied up in her dating life, she hadn’t really looked at men recreationally.

Good-looking guys didn’t thrill her. Usually. This one seemed to be choking her.

“Great, thanks,” she said. “I have some things to do.”

“You have some work to do.”

“Could I get a moment to set up?” she asked.

He assessed her, his expression unreadable. Well, this was going to be a long few months. “I suppose.”

“You’re going to be fun,” she said, “I can tell.”

“No. I won’t be. Ask anyone who knows me.” He pulled open the office door and held it for her and she walked out in front of him, a whisper of electricity shimmering over her skin, a shot of nerves settling in her stomach. Having him behind her made her uncomfortable. And she couldn’t quite figure out why.

Maybe it was because in many ways he seemed to resemble a predator more than a man.

There was something untamed about him, which was a strange thought, here in the middle of a highly polished hotel. That added to it. Heightened the contrast.

They walked down the long, dimly lit hallways. The wall sconces casting glimmering light onto the polished black marble, the tiles shimmering like an oil slick. The deep purple walls reminiscent of an old-fashioned gaming house. Rich with decadence and sin. A shining mix of Victorian Gothic elegance with an edge of modernity. Several stages of civilization represented under one roof, with a man that seemed to possess only the thinnest veneer of the civilized.

And no shoes.

Or maybe she was crazy, and because of that, she was overthinking. Considering all she’d been through lately, that thought wasn’t completely without merit. Actually the fact that she wasn’t showing signs of crazy seemed to worry the people in her life a lot more than witnessing her having a mental breakdown might have.

Which reminded her that she owed Nora a text. Nora was sort of acting as “big sister by default”, since Harlow was in Europe working an internship in the European branch of her father’s law firm.

Another pocket of the world no doubt hit hard by Jason’s uncovering, and his demise. She wondered how it was there. How Harlow, and everyone, was doing.

Harlow had been Addison’s assigned big sister in the sorority house when Addison first pledged, and she still seemed to feel the need to take care of her.

As Harlow’s best friend, Nora was filling in that overprotective gap since Harlow had gone off to Europe. It was hard for Addison to feel close to people. It always had been, with her father’s presence in her life looming so large, his expectations so daunting she had a tendency to hold people at a distance.

Harlow was the person she’d been closest to at school, and when she’d graduated two years earlier, Addison had felt alone again. Even more so since she left the country.

It had only been six months since Harlow left, and it felt like a lifetime since they’d all stood around, toasting her success. Now she doubted Harlow was feeling so triumphant. She had to wonder if her friend felt it was all tainted since the revelation about Jason. Harlow had always been involved in human rights volunteer groups at school, and over the last year, her focus had been turned to human trafficking, and how she could use her law degree to combat it. All a bit too close to Jason’s poison of choice.

That made her want to avoid Nora and Harlow even more. She was embarrassed. That she was connected to Jason. That she cared about Jason. That part of her grieved him.

But, as so few people seemed to care, unless they shared the same last name she did, she supposed she should try and placate Nora with an “I’m fine” text.

It wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to hide. For the next decade. Maybe right here in Logan’s hotel. Possibly forever. So she could find a way to be Addison Treffen again. Rather than Addison Treffen, the daughter of the man who victimized countless women, and who was shot in front of her by a sniper. And the girl who then huddled in the bathroom until the police came, and even then had to be essentially forced out of the corner she’d wedged herself into.

Maybe if she hid under the covers long enough, she would find out she’d been sleeping the whole time. That it was all just a dream. Stranger things had happened, surely.

Maybe she would wake up and find out that her father wasn’t evil. Distant, yes. But not a pimp. Not dead.

She stopped, reaching up to touch one of the ornate gold light fixtures, the metal burning the tip of her finger. She hissed and pulled her hand back. The heat seeping into her fingertips didn’t lie. She was awake.

This was reality.

Her head started to thud, the floor feeling unsteady against her feet.

She looked back at her escort, who was standing a few paces behind her, his face shrouded in shadow, light casting a spray of brightness over his broad chest and shoulders, his neat black tie. Then he stepped forward, the light bursting over his face, sharp cheekbones, blue eyes and his lips…

They were still wicked. As if they belonged to a playboy he’d been. But his eyes…they were cold. The chill reaching in and making her shiver deep inside.

She didn’t know what to do with that. She wouldn’t know what to do with that on a normal day, and today was not a normal day.

“So…I don’t know where I’m going.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. A smile attempt. She’d seen him do it a couple of times now, and each instance rang false. “End of the hall.”

“Okay, thank you.” She turned away from him and continued walking, stopping at the ornate black door at the very end of the corridor.

“You can program the door with your own code,” he said. “It can be whatever you like. You can do it all from your phone. Now, I can override it, but I probably won’t,” he added, reaching past her and entering in number on the keypad quickly.

“You probably won’t?”

“Never say never.” The light on the door handle turned green, and then he stood back, as if waiting for her move.

“You really could say never to invading my privacy,” she said.

“With the way my life has gone so far, I never discount anything. Now go in. Or go home.”

“Is this my out?” she asked, her throat dry.

His lips curved upward again, and this time, there was no mistaking—at all—that this wasn’t a smile in the way other people meant them. This was predatory. Deadly. Once again, she had the strange feeling she’d gone from the frying pan into the fire.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked.

“No,” she said, trying to keep her breathing steady.

He moved away from her then, his gaze steady on hers. “Interesting.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, keeping her tone steady. “Interesting.”

“Just what it means. Interesting.”

“Well, then.”

She reached past him and pushed the door open. The room was…well, as expected, she supposed, but unexpected in a way that she never could have anticipated either. A giant four-poster bed with black, wooden columns that nearly touched the ceiling took up most of the space in the room.

There was a desk in the corner, fashioned like an ornate writing desk, but obviously equipped for modern conveniences. In the opposite corner was a large wingback chair and a little table. Probably intended to be eaten at. Or not. Perhaps the person this room was designed to accommodate was supposed to eat out with friends or family.

But not her. Because her family had their own issues, her friends—such as they were—were gone. And if she dined out, it would just be Addison and the paparazzi.

“I only meant I will be interested to see if that changes,” he said, still in the doorway. He hadn’t crossed the threshold. “I have plenty of time to frighten you.”

The air in her lungs contracted, making it difficult to breathe.

He almost sounded as though he wanted to scare her. And the really strange thing was…not even that scared her. She was…numb. Numb except for that strange bit of something she felt when she looked at him.

“Could I have a few moments?” she asked. She needed time alone. Needed some time to try and orient herself to her surroundings. To her life.

“If you need to. But I expect to see you again in a couple of hours.”

“As you wish,” she said, unsurprised when the movie reference failed to make him smile.

He turned away from her, his broad back filling the door frame, before he closed the door behind him without giving her another glance.

She walked over to her bag, like a robot completing motions it had been programmed to do. She opened it and took out her computer, going to the wingback chair and setting the laptop on the small table, situating herself so that she was in a rather uncomfortable, rigid position.

She typed in her password and opened her email, waiting for the client to wake up and connect to her inbox. No new messages. Well, that sounded about right.

She thought back to all the people she’d known over the years. To cocktail parties and luncheons and teas. She did well in those venues. She always knew what to say, knew how to keep inoffensive conversation flowing.

But outside of those settings? She didn’t know those people. They didn’t know her. Were they in her position, a liability to the ease of a dinner party, she doubted she would be in touch either.

Because dealing with serious issues required a depth that none of her relationships seemed to have. She was aware of a lot of people, and a lot people were aware of her. She wasn’t certain if anyone knew her. If she really knew anyone.

Especially after discovering her father had a secret life…she wasn’t sure she knew anyone at all.

The closest thing to friends she still had were Nora and Harlow. And that meant there could be no more contact avoidance.

She took her phone out of her pocket, typing in a quick text.

Things are OK. Austin got me an internship with Black Properties, so I’ll be busy. Don’t worry.

She also felt as if her insides were imploding, but she didn’t want to tell anyone that. Because there was no place for that. It wasn’t pleasant. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t what people wanted to hear.

If there was one thing she’d been trained in, it was the fine art of talking about what people wanted to talk about.

Pain was not one of those things.

A message pinged back a couple of seconds later.

Great news! Hey, have you heard from Harlow at all lately? She’s not answering texts.

No. But I haven’t tried in a while.

K. If you hear from her let me know?

Sure.

Addison put her phone down and frowned before pulling up a new email message. She typed in Harlow’s name.

Hey, sorry to bug you. I know you’ve been working hard. And I really hope things haven’t been shaken up too much, given…recent events. But Nora and I are getting concerned, so please touch base?

—A

She closed her computer and let the silence in the room settle over her. It felt thick. Oppressive. She was used to a large house full of staff and movement. A sorority house full of talking and laughter.

For a hotel, the Black Book was strangely quiet. At least on this floor.

She felt like throwing herself on the bed and crying. Wailing. Filling the silence. But some voice, her mother’s, her father’s maybe, whispered in her ear and said ladies in Chanel skirts didn’t thrown themselves around.

Not that she felt much like a lady. She felt like a wraith. And she imagined they were genderless. Or, at the very least, that they didn’t have to care about what anyone thought about the way they lay down.

Still, she sat in the chair, her posture so rigid her neck ached. Her eyes ached too.

She was arid. Her eyes were dry. Her brain was dry. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t feel. Not anything other than this stale, crackling burning that pervaded her entire body and left her feel like that patchwork dirt you saw in desert climates.

She just felt fuzzy and disconnected.

She suddenly noticed a little white card, folded like a tent on the edge of the table. She reached out and picked it up, reading the embossed lettering on the front.

Welcome to Black Book. Download the Black Book app to create your unique pass code.

She pulled up the app store on her phone and searched for Black Book, finding the app with an insignia matching the little white card and loading it.

Then she opened it. It pulled up a white screen with black script and four blank boxes that were, she imagined, for numbers.

She entered in the digits for her mother’s birthday, and it accepted them. Then she closed the app and set her phone on the table, trying to decide if she should leave it on. She decided to switch it off. To give herself some time to be alone. To be inaccessible. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that. It wasn’t good hostess behavior, that was for sure.

But she wasn’t hosting anything. And no one was inviting her.

And Jason was dead. So why not break a few of his rules? At least one.

She just needed a couple of hours. And she then had to at least go pretend she was living. For Austin. For her mother.

She stood from the chair and walked over to the bed, sitting on the edge, fingers curled around the edge of the mattress.

Maybe if she faked it long enough, she would start to feel as if it was for her.




Chapter Three


Her hotel phone ringing woke her up from her nap, which had been about as effective as knocking herself out with blunt trauma. Her head hurt, and she was still tired.

She reached across her pillow and picked up the receiver, drawing it up to her ear.

“Addison?”

She grimaced internally and realized that was probably not the response you wanted to have when you heard your boyfriend’s voice on the other end of the line.

But then, something had changed since she last spoke with him. Or a lot of somethings. And he’d just left her to deal on her own. And even weirder than that, she hadn’t been upset at him, because she’d never expected him to stand with her. She’d expected to stand on her own. To stand strong. The way her father had taught her.

“Eddie,” she said, “how’s Bermuda?”

“I’m back at Columbia. Why was your phone off? Do you know how hard I had to work to track you down?” An apology hovered on the tip of her tongue, and she held it back. Which was the second good socialite rule she’d broken in only a few hours.

But there was no one here to see.

She took a breath. “Oh, well, that’s…I’m not. I moved out of the sorority house.”

“I heard. I wasn’t overly pleased with how you were treated.”

She couldn’t tell by the completely unaffected monotone of his voice. But didn’t say so. “I’m fine. Austin made arrangements for me.”

She was not fine. But she couldn’t say that. Not even to the man she’d been dating for nearly two years. The man whose lips had touched hers, and whose hands had been….well, frankly, on parts of her body no other man had touched. He hadn’t taken her to bed, but they’d explored certain…things. All over her clothes, of course. All that considered, she would have thought they’d reached a certain level of intimacy.

His actions right now seemed to indicate she was wrong about that.

“Well, I’m pleased to hear that,” he said, his voice stilted.

They sounded like strangers talking to each other. Or an old married couple who’d reached a certain level of indifference. And since they were neither, it was a bit of a disturbing revelation.

“Yes,” she said.

Why was this hard? What was she supposed to say?

“Listen, Addison.” Oh well, he appeared to have something to say. “I know the timing is poor. For both my vacation and for this, but it can’t be helped.”

She knew what was coming then. Before he even said the rest. But she didn’t interrupt; she just let him keep talking.

“I don’t think this is working between us.”

“Right,” she said, unable to say much else, not because she was hurt—but because there was no diplomatic response.

Her father had been exposed. She’d seen him killed in front of her. She’d left school. She was holed up in a hotel alone. And he just wanted to break up with her.

“I have to focus on law school. I have a lot of ground left to cover, and…I’m just not where I need to be for this to work.”

Obviously Eddie was as well trained as she was—better, even. He was taking the blame, though he was utterly transparent. He was lying with smooth, even tones and saying what had to be said in order for her to feel better.

It was a high-society breakup if there ever was one.

“Right,” she said, still not ready to commit to saying anything other than that, her throat tightening, grief, completely unexpected and unwanted, filling her chest. Another abandonment. Another loss.

“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 him 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 realized 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.

Perhaps because Socialite Addison was by far the most confident Addison.

And confidence would be required today. Since she seemed to lack any at night. She hated how afraid she’d become. All the time.

It was as Logan had said. Suddenly, life had consequences. Life had weight, where before it had been…

It had been a game in so many ways. Not now.

She cleared her throat and grabbed her purse off the nightstand, checking her email as she walked down the hall. Still nothing from Harlow. Which was strange.

She paused for a second and pulled up her friend’s phone number, deciding to go ahead and give her a call, even though she wasn’t entirely certain of what time it was in Europe.

The phone went straight to a standard message. A recorded, robotic female voice saying that the number she’d dialed was no longer in service.

Addison swallowed hard and lowered the phone, her hands shaking a little. Possible still, in part due to her dream. And possibly because of the message.

Because all of it seemed wrong. And right now everything felt random and uncertain. She didn’t trust life at all.

Addison let out a sharp breath and shook her head, closing her eyes briefly before walking on and to Logan’s office. It hit her then she wasn’t sure if they were staying here today or going out. That she wasn’t sure if he went out at all.

She had no way to predict her new boss’s eccentricities. He was an enigma, and that was the last thing she’d been expecting when Austin told her she was coming to work for Logan Black.

Yes, she’d seen the headlines. What’s wrong with Logan Black? But she still hadn’t known what to expect. She still didn’t.

She knocked on the office door and didn’t get an answer. She pushed it open and looked inside. Empty. Well, great. Where was she supposed to meet him? Had he gone to his corporate office? And had she been meant to guess that?

She let out an exasperated sigh and stood in the middle of the room for a moment, tapping her foot. Then she walked to the desk and dialed a zero to get the front desk. A chipper, professional woman answered.

“Hi,” Addison said. “This is Addison Treffen, Mr. Black’s new assistant.” She was an intern, but assistant sounded more authoritative. “I can’t seem to find him. Did he go out?”

“Oh,” the woman said. “No. I would assume he’s in his suite. He might be in his gym.”

“And where is that?” Addison asked.

“His floor. But no one is to disturb Mr. Black when he’s in his suite.”

Addison blinked. His floor. This one, not quite the top, which would of course be reserved for guests wanting penthouse suites, was Logan’s domain. She should have realized that. There wasn’t a bustle of employees or unfamiliar faces on this floor.

It was only him. And now…her.

The thought made her stomach tighten. She immediately visualized walking into a tiger’s cage unarmed.

“Right. Well. Thank you, for that. I will…carry on.” Addison hung up the phone and let out a long, slow breath.

So, no one was to disturb Mr. Black when he was in his room. Well, that had not been in her list of rules from yesterday. And while she hadn’t, in fact, written any of his rules down, she remembered well enough to know he hadn’t mentioned anything along those lines.

In spite of that, she was reluctant to disturb him. Dealing with Logan was unnerving. He lacked a carefully cultivated veneer that most everyone she was accustomed to interacting with seemed to possess. He was guarded, certainly, but this was not with the cloak of civility.

No, Logan seemed more animal than man in his movements. Not even his custom suits could make him look like a typical businessman. He was never still, always prowling through the office like a cat on the hunt.

It made her wonder what exactly he was hunting. Scratch that, she didn’t want to know. She was afraid she wouldn’t like the answer.

She crossed the office and headed to his desk, taking a seat in the large leather chair. She flattened her palms on the glossy surface, sliding her hands over the smooth desktop. One positive thing she could say about him was that he was neat. There wasn’t one bit of excess clutter in the entire room. No errant knickknacks, no decorative art. Nothing that signified a human man actually worked here all day, every day.

He wasn’t wrong about the number of phone calls he got. They came in a steady stream from nine o’clock on. Black Properties employees with important questions and various emergencies.

Hours rolled on and calls continued to roll in, but her boss remained notably absent. After lunch she was starting to get second and third calls from people who had called that morning, and who were getting increasingly desperate to speak to Mr. Black.

Addison was starting to care less and less that Mr. Black did not like to be disturbed when he was in his rooms. She had a feeling that had she elected to come into work hours late today, he would’ve stormed her room, thrown her over his shoulder and carried her down into the office by force.

Granted, he was the boss, but even so. She had a list people for him to call back, and she had a feeling that most of them were quite important. Which meant she had to decide whether or not she thought she would get into more trouble for interrupting Mr. Black in his hallowed suite, or for failing to deliver potentially essential messages.

Going back to the rules from earlier, she decided she’d take a chance on finding his suite.

Addison was rarely at a loss when it came to dealing with people. Keeping social wheels greased, making sure people were happy, reading their moods, was part and parcel to being Jason and Lenore Treffen’s daughter. To being a trophy-wife-in-training.

Logan made her feel as though she was at a loss.

She did not like the feeling. She was disturbed already without feeling she’d lost the sense of how to deal with social situations.

Addison stepped slowly out of the office and into the hall. As always, it was quiet on this floor. She looked both ways, then went back in the direction of her room, her eyes on the different doors. And she was suddenly unbearably curious about what might be behind each one. Were they all his? All entrances to his suite? How large was it?

Large enough for a gym, apparently.

This was his habitat, his lair—for lack of a better word. Dark, enclosed. Private and lush. Which fit with her earlier realization that he was more predator than human.

Thinking of it that way made her question her decision to confront him here, but she’d made up her mind. She was here to assist him and to make sure she facilitated his work, and right now, with him in hiding, she couldn’t do that.

She knocked on one door and tried the handle. Locked and no answer.

Then she went two doors down and paused. There was no card reader or code. Just an old-fashioned brass handle. She pushed it down and it gave.

She opened the door and slipped inside. The air inside the room was heavy. She’d been expecting a bedroom, a well-appointed sitting room or, you know, just a room with lights on.

But she was starting to realize that the only thing she could count on, as far as Logan went, was unpredictability.

A deep, masculine sound cut through the silence like a bass note. Addison stopped, her eyes going to the back of the room. Partly hidden in the darkness was a steel bar stretched between two poles, and there, suspended in the air, was Logan, holding a chin-up pose, his eyes closed, every muscle in his body tight. Hard and unmoving like stone. He lowered himself and she watched, shamelessly. Powerlessly, really. Riveted by the shift and ripple of every muscle in his bare torso as he moved with complete control, with a slow deliberation that spoke of discipline in a clear and silent way.

Then she watched as he pulled himself back up, the only sign of strain in the slight shiver of his pectoral muscles as he did.

She drew in a sharp, short breath and his eyes opened. He released his hold on the bar, dropping to his feet noiselessly, landing in a crouched position, down in the darkness.

She couldn’t read his expression from her position across the room, his face nothing more than dark shadow, his broad frame lined in gold from the hints of sunlight streaming in beneath the heavy drapes on the back wall.

He stood upright, moving his body into the light. He rolled his shoulders back, ab muscles shifting with the motion. Yesterday’s clothing had only hinted at his strength. Here, she could see it unveiled, no custom-made suit covering his body as a nod to civility. In this place she could see full evidence of the animal he was.

And he really was quite an impressive animal.

“What are you doing in here?”

“I was looking for you,” she said. “I’ve taken about twenty messages this morning, and people are starting to get restless. Rome seems to be burning, et cetera.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Is there literal fire?”

“Well, no. Not literal fire.”

“Then there is no excuse for you to be in here,” he said.

“Wait a second. You laid out all your rules yesterday, but you didn’t say anything about you showing up to work hours late, or not at all. And you did not say what I should do in the event that I was left to field things by myself.”

Logan grabbed a towel off the bar to his left and started rubbing it over his chest and back, the action much more interesting than it should have been, all things considered. The man was wiping sweat off himself, for heaven’s sake. There should be nothing interesting about that.

“Then consider this a formal notification and warning,” he said, his tone hard. “No one comes in here.”

“If you feel that strongly about it, you should probably consider locking the door.”

Addison knew the moment the words left her mouth that she’d made a mistake. She never made a mistake. She never said the wrong thing.

Until now. Until Logan.

Logan cast the towel onto the floor, stalking toward her, his blue eyes fixed on hers.

Reflexively, Addison took a step back, then another as he continued to advance on her. She didn’t stop until her shoulder blades butted up against the wall. Logan drew closer, all muscle and heat and angry man. And it all did something to her. Something that she didn’t understand, something she didn’t want.

She should be afraid of him, and really, she was. But the fear was mixed with something else, a low hum of excitement that started low in her belly and radiated outward, spread downward, pooled in places lower. Slick and sweet and wrong. So very, very wrong.

“Or perhaps,” he said, “you should have considered knocking. Even with my limited social skills, I understand that it’s customary.”

She drew in a shaking breath, tried to speak with a steady voice. “You make it sound like it’s a foreign custom to you.”

“I understand what people do. And I even understand why. For me, what civility has lost is its importance.” He placed a hand on the wall behind her leaning in, his breath fanning across her cheek. She looked up, into his eyes, and she could see exactly what he was trying to say. Because there was no spark of humanity there, no facade at all. It was like staring down into a bottomless well, and where she might’ve expected to find a soul, she saw nothing but darkness. “You can only cross so many lines before you’ve gone too far to come back.”

Her throat felt hot, dry and prickly, her skin too tight for her body. And yet again, she could feel words she shouldn’t say pressing against her lips. And yet again, they won. “You’ve crossed those lines?”

He lifted his hand, his palm hovering just above her cheek. She expected him to touch her, expected him to cup her cheek. Found herself anticipating it. But instead he lowered his hand and took a step back as though he’d been burned.

“You don’t want to know about me, Addison,” he said, his voice rough.

For some reason, she wanted to push. Wanted him to come back to her, and look at her with those dangerous eyes. She should want him to stay over there. She should want him to stay away from her. But she didn’t.

“But if you don’t tell me your story, how will you frighten me away?”

A cold smile curved his lips upward. “I’m sure I’ll find a way,” he said, bending over and picking up a T-shirt from the floor, tugging it over his head. She held the sound of disappointment in as he concealed all that gorgeous skin.

What was wrong with her? She didn’t do this. She didn’t…ogle men. Most especially men who seemed to have something essential missing from their makeup. Hadn’t she had enough of men with no conscience?

He has a conscience. He’s not like Jason.

She was not going to listen to her inner voice. Her inner voice had proven to be a very poor judge of character.

Even knowing that, it didn’t change the fact that looking at Logan made her feel slightly breathless and a little light-headed. The simple fact was, she had no experience with men like him. She had no experience with men at all.

All the boys at school were just that—boys. A category Eddie most certainly fell into.

Logan Black was not a boy. Not even close. Logan Black was a man. In every sense of the word.

She wasn’t fortified against the kind of magnetism he possessed, against that caliber of body. Wasn’t fortified against…whatever the feelings were that she was having. Feelings that seemed to have materialized as heat and localized in her face, her stomach and her…oh Lord. It was really hot in here.

She took a moment to look away from him, and regain her sanity, while taking in the rest of the room. It wasn’t a gym in any way she recognized it. There was…scaffolding everywhere. A thick rope suspended from the ceiling. A punching bag. No treadmills or ellipticals. No fancy equipment of any kind. A lot of it looked as though it might have been homemade. It was crude and simple. And looked well beyond her fitness routine, which consisted in a walk down the street to get a bagel and a latte.

Not that walking on the sidewalk was any mean feat. Especially considering these days it meant dodging paparazzi.

“What time is it?” he asked.

His words brought her attention back to him. And she tried to keep her focus on his face, and not his impossibly broad chest and narrow waist, which had now had the veil torn from them, so to speak.

Of course, his face was just as distracting, and now that she’d really noticed his body, it was even more so. And she didn’t even want to know why that was.

“It’s nearly one o’clock.”

He frowned and reached above his head, gripping the bar. “I lost track of time.” He lifted himself, with one damn arm, thank you very much, and curved his legs over the bar, hanging upside down. Then he curled upward, his chest meeting his knees. The world’s most extreme sit-up.

“Oh well.” She tried very hard to look anywhere but at him. “Do you often lose track of time?”

“Does it really matter to you, Addison? After all, you’re just hiding out from the press, aren’t you?”

For some reason, his words caused a rash of annoyance to rock through her body. Maybe that was the underlying reason for being here, but for some reason now she felt driven to do her job. And to do it well. Maybe because the recent events made her feel that she had no direction, no purpose. No father to please. No love interest for whom to transform herself into the perfect society bride.

It all made her feel that she needed to do something for herself. Even if, for now, that just meant doing well at this internship.

Succeeding in this was better than drifting. Anything was better than that.

“Maybe,” she said, “but I’m here. So it seems like I should try to do a little more than just coast through this. Anyway, as interesting as your workout routine is, I feel like we should discuss the job.”





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