I just opened the boutique. I couldn’t possibly leave. I only have Peyton and Rachel to help me with it, and besides, I have nowhere to go even if Michael lets me take her.”
“Okay, I get it. But you have to think of yourself. I want to help you, but I can’t if I don’t know what he has planned. You need to sit down with O’Shea and make him tell you what’s in his head.” I had to be straight. There was no dancing around it. He didn’t have time to fuck around.
She nodded. “I’ll try.”
“You have to tell me what he tells you.”
She looked hesitant.
“That’s the only way I can help you.”
“Logan, I just don’t know. I’m risking a lot by being here, but something inside me tells me I’m safer here than anywhere else. What I don’t get, though, is . . . why do you want to help me? Aren’t we supposed to be on opposite sides?”
I shook my head. “No, we’re not on opposite sides. We’re on the same side. I promise.”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
I brushed some hair from her face. I knew I shouldn’t be touching her but I had to. “Because all I want is to keep you and that precious little girl sleeping in the other room safe.”
She leaned into my touch and I felt it everywhere in my body. “I don’t understand. Why? Why would you help us?”
There was no way I couldn’t be honest. Not when she was this close to me. Not when her voice was pleading with me to tell her. “Because, Elle, you remind me of someone I should have helped but didn’t. Someone I failed.”
Our eyes locked. I swear her lips parted. I know I felt my own mouth open and I couldn’t stop my tongue from sneaking out and licking my bottom lip. In my mind, I was imagining how much better she’d feel about all of this if I could drive my cock deep inside her. What a fucked-up thought. I shook it away.
Finally, I cleared my throat. “I want you to stay here tonight. And then tomorrow, when O’Shea gets back, you’ll talk to him. I can’t help you if I don’t know what he’s planning to do. But Elle, you can’t tell him you’re talking to me. Not yet.”
She nodded in silent agreement as if she didn’t want him to know either.
Interesting.
“You take the bedroom. I’ll sleep out here.”
She nodded again. “Do you mind if I take a shower? It’s been a long day.”
“No, go ahead.”
Oh fuck, the things I was already picturing.
Elle stood up and I watched her as she grabbed her bags and went back into the bedroom. She paused at the door. “Thanks, Logan. For everything.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” I said.
If she knew what I was thinking, she wouldn’t.
She disappeared into the darkness and I refocused. My dirty mind aside, I couldn’t help but think to myself, Please trust me.
Trust in what I told you.
Trust me when I tell you how dangerous this is.
Because if you don’t—we’ll both be dead.
ELLE
Nausea twisted my gut.
If what Logan had told me was true, and Michael was in over his head, he wasn’t wrong—we were in trouble.
And something told me there were no lies in Logan’s words.
Michael had told me just enough, hinting at the danger but making it sound like everything would be okay. Was he being overly optimistic or was Logan being paranoid?
I just had no idea.
Stepping inside the large space, I left the door open a crack from the bathroom to the bedroom in case Clementine woke up. I dimmed the bathroom lights and looked around. Marble covered almost every surface and the heat lamps in the ceiling were supposed to warm me, but the chill I was feeling wasn’t one that could be cured by supplied heat.
My clothes felt like they weighed a hundred pounds as I stripped out of them and let them fall to the floor. When I turned on the shower faucet, the water sprayed from jets in every direction. I stood outside the shower and decided to allow my skin the luxury of being warmed by the steam as the water got hotter.
When I felt ready, I stepped inside. A bar of soap sat in a small alcove built into the shower along with bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. The soap and shampoo had been used, but not the other two. I cracked open the body wash