The Billionaire's Intern - Part 3
Maisey Yates
The Forbidden Series: billionaires who can look, but shouldn't touch!In Part Three of The Billionaire's Intern, everything that Addison thought she knew about her sexy, tortured boss, Logan Black, is about to be turned on its head. After the shocking revelations about her father, Addison didn't think anything else could surprise her. But if Logan has lied about this, what else has he lied about?
The Forbidden Series
Billionaires who can look, but shouldn’t touch!
In Part Three of The Billionaire’s Intern, everything that Addison thought she knew about her sexy, tortured boss, Logan Black, is about to be turned on its head. After the shocking revelations about her father, Addison didn’t think anything else could surprise her. But if Logan has lied about this, what else has he lied about?
The Billionaire’s Intern - Part 3
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.
The Forbidden Series
Billionaires who can look, but shouldn’t touch!
The Billionaire’s Intern
Part Three
Things were starting to look up for Addison Treffen. She was finally settling in at her new job, the press had no idea as to her whereabouts and she was starting to figure out who Logan Black really was…or so she thought. His recent bombshell has brought her to her knees. Everyone she trusts has lied to her—and now Logan has joined that list. But Logan is different. She’s the only one who has seen how vulnerable he is. Despite his warnings to stay away from him, Addison wants to get closer. But is it still for business reasons or are her feelings deeper? Maybe once he explains, everything will be all right again. She needs to show him that the truth could set him free, that he’s not a lost cause. Because of her father, she knows secrets have the power to destroy. But Logan’s truth might wreck everything they’ve been working so hard for…
Contents
Chapter Ten (#u033cdabd-7d52-5e3a-a13f-61773149f811)
Chapter Eleven (#u08b6a765-79c7-5985-aff1-e082a79f6079)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten
“What?” Addison asked. “But you told everyone…”
Logan looked back down at his hands, unsure of why he was saying any of this. Of what it would mean when it all finally came out.
But he had to. For one reason, and one reason only
When he wrapped his hands around Addison’s neck tonight, he’d proven that whether he talked about this or not, whether he believed it was hidden or not, it was the thing that haunted his sleep. It refused to be buried. And if he wouldn’t talk about it, it seemed determined to break through the surface of the soil and claw at whoever was near him.
Because all this, the memories…they were in him. They were him. And in his sleep they crept over him like a fog and they were all he saw. All he knew.
“I lied,” he said, the words hard, cold. “Remember that. I am a liar, and when I came back from that island I told lies for everyone’s comfort. Including my own. But the biggest lie I told was to Kelly’s father. Kelly McIntire. That was her name. She was my…lover. Not really a girlfriend.”
“Oh, Logan…”
“No, don’t say it like that. I’d slept with her, but I had no more emotional attachment to her than I did to anyone else on the boat. It’s not like I was in love with her.” He cleared his throat. “But I saw her in the water, and I was able to pull her up onto the wood I was floating on. And we managed to make it to shore sometime the next morning. It became very clear, very early it was only the two of us who made it. But…”
He stopped, reliving that moment. When his feet had made contact with the sand. When he’d finally been out of that dark, horrible water. Full of hidden dangers, waiting to devour them. The water itself the most deadly. Dark, frigid and fathomless.
The island, in that moment, had seemed like a paradise. Rocks, dirt, trees. A secluded rain forest out there in the ocean.
How quickly he’d learned that it was its own hell.
“She was hurt,” he said. “Injured by…furniture or pieces of the boat. Something that happened during the storm. She was bleeding from her abdomen. I managed to use some clothes to stanch the wound. I made her a place to lie down. Then I got to work right away building a shelter. That’s one thing about being stranded. One thing about survival. You can’t stop, even when you’re exhausted, because nothing in nature is going to wait for you to catch your breath.” He swallowed hard. “I left her there after I was sure she was stable. Climbed up to see what I could see. If there was a town. Roads. People. Shit, there was nothing. Nothing but howler monkeys and birds. Bugs. Spiders the size of baseballs. No people. That was…a horrible thing to find out. That we’d reached land, but not help. Still, I was sure they would come.”
He let out a long breath and pressed on. “I didn’t have any way to clean Kelly’s injury. And by the third night there, it was horribly infected. She had a fever. She was starting to hallucinate. She didn’t want me to leave her ever, because she was afraid. And I didn’t blame her. She mostly slept, and when she slept I tried to get things for us. Food. A way to make a fire. I was a dumb rich kid who didn’t know how the hell to light a fire in the first place, much less in a rain forest with no matches. And she was shivering. And vomiting. And in so much pain. And when I left…if she woke up she would scream.” His throat closed up, his muscles locking tight as if his body was trying to force him not to tell the rest. “I couldn’t…I couldn’t take care of her. I couldn’t take care of me. But we were the only two people in the world, as far as I was concerned.”
Addison didn’t say anything, she only watched him, her expression serious, but cautious. She was trying not to look scared or horrified, but he could see it all there, glittering in her blue eyes.
And he would have to watch it all rise to the top when he told her the rest. But she deserved to know why. Deserved to know why when Kelly had said “Logan, please” he’d put his hands around her throat.
And he would have to watch as the desire he’d glimpsed in Addison’s eyes turned to horror. Watch the moment when she saw him as the monster he was.
“She was so afraid, Addison. And so was I. I didn’t know what to do. I had nothing to give her for pain. Nothing…there was nothing.”
He closed his eyes and replayed those last moments. Like the way he did. Over and over again. Kelly, beads of sweat on her forehead, blood, sweat and dirt matting her dark hair.
Logan, please. Please make it stop. Please make it stop. I keep trying to hold my breath, but then I make a mistake and breathe again. Just help me make it stop.
“She begged me,” he said, making sure he kept his gaze on Addison’s. “She begged me to end it. To make her stop breathing.” He took a sharp breath, a reminder of what he’d denied her. Of what he still had. “So I did.”
He let the full meaning of his words sink in. Not just for Addison, but for him. Let it all sink into the room like a stain. One that could never be removed. It was said, and it couldn’t be unsaid.
It was done. And he could never go back and see it undone.
“We’d been stuck there for two weeks by then,” he said. “I was…I didn’t…” He could see it so clearly still. Feel it. His hands on her neck, her pulse, weak already, slowing. Nausea, terror, riding up in him even as she faded away. Until she closed her eyes. Until the pulse stopped. As if she were asleep.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” he said. “She was going to die. And I…” His head cleared and suddenly he was back in the present, looking at Addison’s horrified expression. “I might have died too,” he said, giving voice to the rest of it. To his deepest fear. Why not? He was saying all this anyway, repeating it out loud. He might as well tell the rest. “In the end, I chose myself, Addison. That’s what I do. She was sick, and she was dying…and having it finished only helped me in the end. That’s the kind of man I am. I didn’t fight for her. I let her give up. I helped her give up…so I could be free to fight for me.”
She didn’t say anything. She just sat there, frozen.
“Get out,” he said.
She didn’t move. She just sat there, clutching that damn Coke can. He reached forward and grabbed it, threw it against the wall, trying to jar her. Trying to force a reaction from her. “Did you understand what I just said?” he asked. “I could have killed you out there on that balcony. I was seeing her. I was seeing that night. I was remembering her begging me to take her life, and then me following through with it. Why aren’t you running? Why are you still here?”
Addison stood up and looked at him, eyes wide, expression frozen. “Logan…you didn’t…”
“I didn’t kill her?” He shook his head. “Don’t give me that condescending shit. I felt her breathing stop, because of me. Because I stopped it for her. And yeah, she asked, in a feverish stupor for me to do it, but it doesn’t change the fact that I did. I could have left her there screaming and alone. I could have sat there and listened to it. But I chose to do what she asked. I chose to help her end her life. So don’t tell me I didn’t kill her, when I know I damn well did. When it’s burned into me like a brand. I remember what it was like to put my hands over that horrible injury of hers. To have her blood up to my elbows…don’t tell me what happened. Don’t tell me what you think you know when you weren’t there. When the memories are with me, all the time, like a movie I can never turn off. Now get out.”
“Why? What do you mean get out? You’re going to tell me something like…like that and then tell me to leave?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m doing. What’s so difficult to understand about it?” he asked, his stomach so tight he could hardly breathe, he could hardly move. In one moment he’d said everything he’d barely let himself think, let alone voice. And it had all come pouring out and she—she had heard it all.
What was it about this woman that made him open his veins and bleed for her to see? She had unleashed something in him and he had no idea how to cage it back up.
It was everything. His desire, his fear, his regret, his rage. She had found a weakness in him. In his control. Four years of blocking it all out. Four years of survival, and Addison was reawakening pieces of himself he’d thought were dead.
She made him feel.
And she made him honest. With her and with himself and he wished to God it would stop.
He needed space. He needed to get away from the look in her eyes. The one that mirrored his own feelings. The one that was afraid that, at his heart, he was nothing more than a murderer.
No, less than that. An animal, who had done nothing more than ensure his own survival, wrapped in the guise of helping someone end their suffering. A man who knew nothing more than base instinct.
A man who wasn’t a man.
It was why he hadn’t touched a woman in four years. Because the last time, he had ended the woman’s life. And tonight, the first time, the firsttime, he’d touched someone since his return…and it had been to wrap his hands around her throat.
He couldn’t imagine giving a woman pleasure with his hands after what he’d done with them. He didn’t even deserve the fantasy.
And yet…and yet Addison made him want. Made him feel. The good, the bad. Like a limb with hypothermia being warmed up, his feelings were starting to come back. To hurt, and burn and make him wish he’d just cut them off.
“You know what?” she said, shoving the sleeves of his robe up to her elbows. “I’m not going to beg you to stay here and deal with you and all your…your…life. It’s too hard anyway. And I have my own things to deal with. I really, really don’t need this, Logan,” she said, and he could see her pain, written all over her face. Knew this was her rejecting him to make his rejection sting less. “I have enough of my own. So I’m not exactly looking to add yours to the pile. I’ll be in the office tomorrow to work. And we don’t have to talk again.”
“You going to make this about you now, little girl?” he asked, rage roaring through him. Because it was about her. If not for her he never would have said anything. He never would have had to hear himself say it all out loud. Never would have had to finish the thoughts that had always circled his mind, like vultures, waiting for a vulnerable moment when they could sweep in and tear his flesh from his bones.
“Tell me more about all the tortured years you spent in your mansion, sweet little Addison Treffen, living off Daddy’s money,” he spat, knowing he was being unfair. Knowing he was taking things out on her because he was ashamed. Because he burned with that shame. Because he wanted her to leave, not just his room, but his hotel so that he wouldn’t have to look in the eyes of the one person who knew his secret. Who knew just what he was.
“All right, congratulations,” she said. “You win, Logan Black. Spend your life alone. Spend it in this hotel. See if I care.”
“Are you leaving?” he asked, his voice hoarse, everything in him wanting to tell her to stay. While simultaneously wanting to drive her away.
There was no name for what he was. Fucked up, maybe, but that was it.
Yeah, that about summed it up.
“It’s what you want me to do.”
“I told you it wouldn’t fix it,” he said. “Nothing can fix this. Confiding in you was hardly going to change that.”
She met his eyes for one long moment, and she didn’t bother to hide the hurt. Oh, there was anger, lots of it. But beneath that, he could see her pain. And he hated himself a little bit.
But that was why he had to send her away now. It was why he had to stop this thing—whatever it was—before it turned into more. Before he started wanting more, when he knew damn well that was impossible.
Before he wanted to touch her again. Strip off all their clothes, all his control, and find freedom. With her. In her.
Then she lowered her head, and he found he wanted to take her chin in his hand, force her to look at him again. That he wanted to fork his fingers through her hair and tug hard, angle her head backward.
Feel her pulse. Strong. Steady.
To make sure his touch hadn’t damaged that in some way. Hadn’t damaged her.
But he didn’t. He didn’t deserve the luxury.
And then she turned and walked out of the bedroom, out of the suite.
He could only assume she would walk out of the hotel, and out of his life too.
And he should be grateful.
Instead he turned around and drew his fist back and punched the wall, the plaster biting hard into his knuckles, sending blood running down his arm.
And he welcomed it. That made sense at least. Pain. Pain he could understand. Good feelings were for better men.
Pain was all he had.
Chapter Eleven
Logan didn’t sleep for the rest of the night, and by the time he walked into his office he was in a terrible frame of mind. That wasn’t remarkable in and of itself.
He was in a foul mood, but he was also determined.
When he’d tried to get back to sleep last night, it wasn’t Kelly’s ghost that had haunted him. No, that honor had belonged to the specter of Addison Treffen.
To the memory of how soft she had been beneath his fingers. The memory of how she’d touched him in the shower. How tender she had been. The way she’d cared for him. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had done that.
And he didn’t deserve to lust after her, given the nature of the touching. The fact that she’d practically been bathing him as if he were a mental patient, after he’d nearly… He had hurt her. And whether it had been intentional or not didn’t change the fact that it happened.
Didn’t change the fact that he had no right to lust after her. Or to say what he was about to say.
Knowing he didn’t have the right didn’t change what he was going to do. Because if there was one thing he knew for sure, if his time on the island had taught them anything, it was that he was capable of doing a whole host of things most men would never dream of.
That reality haunted his dreams. And there was no altering it. All things considered, he didn’t see why he shouldn’t use it to his advantage.
He’d made a decision last night. Lying there, with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, with an erection so hard it ached, and no relief on the horizon. There was no redemption for him. But there was Addison. And he wanted her, whether he should or not.
And he was determined to have her.
“Good afternoon, Addison. Sleep well?”
Addison looked up from her position at the desk, one eyebrow raised, the corners of her lush lips turned down. “Go to hell, Logan.”
“Been there, got the commemorative parasite. Thankfully it was curable.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why are you jovial? And joking about tapeworms? This is unlike you. And particularly given last night…”
“I made a decision.”
“I hope it has something to do with the hardware for the brownstones. Because Steve has been calling me nonstop about it.”
“It has nothing to do with hardware. I’m sure you find that devastating.” He ignored the guilt that was already starting to gnaw at his gut.
“Not half as devastating as Steve will find it.”
“Do you still want to play with me, princess?” He already had a spot in hell reserved just for him. Right now he was sure the fires were being stoked hotter.
She blinked rapidly. “What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. You said you were stronger than I thought you were. Prove it to me.”
His words barely made a ripple on the calm surface that was Addison Treffen. And he found that irritating. “And why are you suddenly so eager to allow me to prove it? I thought you said you weren’t going to touch me.”
“Well, I realized something,” he said, pausing and running the tip of his fingers across the puncture wound left behind on his palm. “I already have. So why bother resisting? I didn’t want to touch you because I didn’t want to hurt you. Because I prize my control over everything else, and that means I haven’t touched any women since my return from the island. But I touched you. And it’s too late to take it back.”
She looked down, her focus very carefully not on him. “What exactly are you asking for? Because I feel like I’ve already made an idiot out of myself in front of you and I don’t really want to do it again.”
“Until you confess to killing someone with your bare hands, I think we can safely say I have more to lose than you do. If you decide to run out of the hotel screaming, it isn’t like I can easily chase you. And you have a direct line to the press. Just think of the damage you can do to me. Just think of all the heat it would take off the Treffen family. I’m the one with the most to lose here, Addison. And I’m still asking for this.”
“But you aren’t asking for it,” she said, her tone raw. “I feel you’re just going to make me say it again, and then you’re going to reject me.”
Heat burned in his stomach, flames licking down south, pooling in his groin. He leaned in, breathing in her scent, that fresh, rain-washed smell. She was too good for him. Too bright, too innocent no matter how strong she seemed to think she was.
But he was not a man of honor. He never had been.
Before the island, he’d been at best a harmless philanderer, at worst, irresponsible on a catastrophic scale. The kind of man who put others in harm’s way simply because he failed to think. And after the island? Well, some might say he was a murderer.
All things considered, the fact that he’d ever tried to resist her was almost laughable.
He reached out, cupping her chin with his hand. Her blue eyes went wide. Looking at her, the innocence there, was almost painful. Because he knew that just touching her was going to corrupt that.
It’s too late. You’ve already done it. You might as well go all the way.
“I don’t want to reject you, Addison. I want to keep you. I want to strip off all your clothes, push you against the wall. Bury myself in you. Wanting you like this, it’s like drowning.” He leaned in another fraction, his lips only a whisper from hers. “And I know what that feels like. To be trapped beneath the surface of the water, lungs burning. That’s what this has been like.” He allowed himself a moment to run the tip of his thumb over her cheek, before dropping his hands to his side again. “No good man could resist this. And I am not a good man. You deserve better.”
He moved away from her, knowing that if he didn’t put some distance between them he wouldn’t wait for her permission.
“Do I?” she asked, her voice unsteady. “My father was shot and killed in front of me. And he was an evil, horrible man. And…and I feel like I might be drowning too. Like I’m caught in the waves and I don’t know if I’m swimming deeper beneath the water or if I’m getting closer to the surface. I don’t know if I’m getting closer to salvation or death. I don’t know what I’m allowed to feel,” she said, tears glittering in her blue eyes. “How can I be sad that he’s dead, Logan? He was a bad person. And I knew it. I always knew it. But he was my father. And I’m…I’m so sad he was never the father I wished he was. I was never able to have the relationship with him that I wanted, and it’s because everything he was was a lie. I’ll never have that father. That fantasy is dead and over along with him. And I shouldn’t cry. Not for him. Not when he hurt Austin’s fiancée, my mother, countless women. I shouldn’t be sad. But I am and it doesn’t make any sense!”
Her shoulders shook and she took a deep breath, her expression so lost and desolate he felt it, deep inside him. She was adrift, and didn’t he know that feeling.
If he was another man, a better man, he would pull her into his arms and hold her. But he wasn’t another man, or a better one. He was just him. And it was probably better for her if he didn’t try to comfort her. He wasn’t qualified.
She was better off if he didn’t touch her.
Brilliant. Since it’s too late.
Yeah, well, fair point. Still, he stood rooted to the spot with his arms pinned at his sides. Because he’d forgotten this. This human connection thing.
Or maybe he’d never had it, and before he’d never noticed the absence because he’d never stopped to look at other people. He’d touch them, take what he wanted, and moved on. He was starting to wonder if he’d always been a monster. And it had simply been the island that brought it out. That had made him face it.
Maybe there had never been more in him. Maybe this was all he was.
He watched her shiver, shake apart from the inside out. Holding herself because he was too damn broken to go over and do it for her. Because it was best if she never thought she could count on that from him.
It would be best if she never counted on anything from him.
“If it helps,” he said, because standing there inactive really didn’t feel right at a certain point, “I don’t think there are actually rules on how we’re allowed to feel about things. I mean, maybe there are, but they’re bullshit.”
“What?” she asked, looking up, scrubbing her face.
“Feelings don’t make sense. They’re feelings. They aren’t supposed to be logical. And you know what? In the right conditions, or wrong conditions as the case may be, your brain isn’t even all that logical. I’ve been hungry enough, thirsty enough, tired enough where I would have believed anything, felt anything. Stress is a funny thing.”
“I just….am I even allowed to…”
“Who cares?” he asked. “I feel things that I can’t ever tell anyone because it makes so little sense…they’d lock me up. So I have to keep it under control. I have to keep me under control. Because…it all makes me seem crazy.”
“The panic? Or other things?” she asked.
He looked at her, all desperate, lost and corrupted. And he knew he owed her this. “The other things. Like the fact that sometimes I just wish I could go back. Back to the island. Away from this and people. And worrying about whether I’m okay or not.”
Addison took an unsteady breath. “That’s what I want. To go back. To when things were simple. Selfish. I know it is. But I can’t help it.”
“It’s not selfish. Or if it is, it’s no more selfish than what anyone else in your situation would want.”
“It’s terribly selfish. Because I’d rather be comfortable and ignorant than know the truth and deal with this. Because he hurt people and now that he’s dead he can’t hurt people and I’m still….wishing things could go back. It meant everything to Katy to have him stopped. Because it’s his fault her sister killed herself, and since Katy’s marrying Austin, she’s my sister and I just…Feeling this seems like a betrayal. Of her. Of so many people.”
“Because what happened betrayed you, Addison,” he said. “Because it changed your life. That’s why. Because he was your dad even if he was a prick.”
She laughed. “I know. And part of me…it’s like you have a picture of who your dad is. Of what a dad is. You get it when you’re really little. And Jason was never around much for me. But I would see him walking through the house in his suits. In a tux, ready to go out. And I thought he was…I admired him. I thought he looked perfect. I thought he was what everyone’s dad should look like. He wasn’t around much. He never paid a lot of attention to me. But I think part of me never gave up on the hope that he would. But…it’s too late. Now he’s dead. No redemption. No change. And I don’t have the father I hoped I could.” He let her words fade into silence, watched her take in shaking breath after shaking breath, until she lifted her head again. Her eyes met his, like fierce blue jewels glittering in the light. “Well, since I can’t have that, I suppose I’ll just have this.”
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