Homecoming: The Billionaire Brothers (10 page)

He flinched a little, and she tightened her fingers around the tray until the plastic edge cut into her palm.

“I get that,” Dylan said, straightening his shoulders. “And I understand your stance on second chances, but that’s exactly what I’m asking for. A chance to spend time with you, with no lies between us, no secrets.”

Fear and temptation shuddered through her, all her limbs weighed down with the paralysis of wanting to simultaneously fling herself into his arms and push him away. In fact, she’d stopped paying attention to her tray, which abruptly tilted far enough for the last remaining plate to slide off it and shatter on the café floor.

China cracked and grits splattered everywhere. For a breathless instant, Penny flinched in horror, the old familiar nightmare rushing over her.

But no loud, angry voice shouted from the kitchen. Trent wasn’t here; he couldn’t ever hurt her again. And when she started to stammer an apology to Grady Wilkes, whose jeans leg was now speckled with sticky globs of white, he didn’t look at her coldly and impassively like the faceless café patrons in her dream. He leaned in and said kindly, “You’re fine, no harm done. Look, your friend there has it almost all cleaned up already.”

Penny whirled to see Dylan on one knee beside the mess, carefully collecting the sharp pieces of broken plate.

He looked up at her, the strength in every line of his body at odds with the humble pose. And when he said, “Don’t push me away,” there was no plea in his tone—it was all firm, gentle understanding.

“You have every reason to be cautious,” Dylan said quietly. “But there’s a fine line between protecting yourself and Matt, and hiding from life.”

Lord, he was right. No second chances—she wasn’t only denying Dylan if she stuck to her policy. She’d be denying herself, and her son, the possibility of a future with this handsome, flawed, deeply loving man.

“Maybe I’m not the man you should take that next step with.” Dylan’s shoulders slumped. “You make me want to work hard to be better, for you and Matt. But I’m not there yet. At least I know better than to try and woo you with fancy cars or luxury homes, dinners out at gourmet restaurants and jewels for every finger … and crap, is that terrifying. Because without that, what’s left? What do I have to offer?”

Penny’s heart cracked down the middle at the honest desperation and confusion in Dylan’s ragged voice. The fact that he truly didn’t know if she’d be able to love the man underneath the money battered down the last of the walls around her heart.

“You dummy,” she said, getting a good grip on the collar of his leather jacket and hauling him to his feet. He dropped the pieces of plate he’d gathered. “Don’t you get it? What’s left is all that matters.”

She stepped forward, slipping on a smear of spilled grits and swooning into the arms Dylan opened automatically to catch her. Wrapping her own arms around his shaking back, she held on for dear life. “If you offer me your heart and nothing else, I’ll take it. And consider myself the richest woman alive.”

The entire Firefly Café erupted in applause and cheers, with a few cheerful wolf whistles thrown in for good measure. It was like fireworks going off all around them as Dylan dropped his forehead to rest against hers.

“Penny,” he whispered brokenly. “You and Matt welcomed me into your family when you thought I was a penniless handyman. Is there a place there for a reformed Bad Boy Billionaire?”

Worry speared through her. “Oh, Matt. I told him you lied to us, that you were leaving—we need to call him…”

“No, we don’t.” Dylan pulled her closer, locking them together. “Matt knows exactly where I am. He’s the one who convinced me to stay and fight for you.”

“He knows about us?” Penny groaned, hiding her smile against Dylan’s shoulder. “That’s a little embarrassing.”

“Why? The kid’s smart, he gets people. He sees things other people don’t,” Dylan said, pride touching his voice with warmth. He nudged a hand under her chin and tipped her face up to his. “For instance, Matt could see how much I love you. And in spite of what I’d done, he saw that if I left without telling you, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.”

“Remind me to thank him.” Penny stood on her tiptoes to brush her lips over Dylan’s.

A second round of applause and catcalls, boots stomping on the floor and silverware clanging on the tables reminded Penny suddenly that they were still standing in the middle of the café.

Grinning wide enough to split her cheeks, she pulled away and called in the direction of the kitchen, “I think I’ll take that break now!”

“Go on, get out of here,” Lonz yelled back, laughing.

Dylan and Penny tumbled out of the café and onto the sun-warmed deck, unwilling to let go of each other. The ocean breeze and the sound of the waves, the screeching gulls and the far-off blast of the ferry’s horn were a symphony of all the things Penny loved about island life.

And when Dylan tugged her to his chest and covered her mouth with his, she added a new love to the list.

When they came up for air, she gasped and shuddered with the excess of happiness flowing through her blood. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I love you, too, Dylan. No matter what your name is or what your family is like—I love the essential Dylan, the man who fixed my kitchen sink and told me about his childhood and taught my son about self-defense. I love you.”

Sinking down to sit on the stone wall at the edge of the deck, Dylan clenched his big hands at her hips and drew her close to stand between his denim-clad thighs. Resting his forehead against her collarbone, he said, “I don’t deserve you.”

“There’s your mistake,” Penny said fondly, running her fingers through the soft bristles of his buzzed hair. “Thinking you get to decide what we deserve. Silly man. But don’t worry, Matt and I will help you learn to believe.”

“This love thing is pretty new to me. And I was always a crappy student.” He mouthed at the tender skin of her neck. “It might take a while for the lesson to sink in.”

Joy lit Penny up from within. “That’s okay. We have a lifetime.”

The Summer Cottage

Chapter One

Jessica Bell studied her boss as he sprawled at the kitchen table, his long legs splayed as if he were reclining on a throne instead of an old-fashioned ladder-back chair. It was the first time in months she’d seen Logan Harrington sitting still, and without his high-tech tablet, spec sheets, or other work-related tools in hand.

This sojourn to Sanctuary Island was going to work. It had to.

“If you keep staring at me like that, I might get ideas,” Logan drawled, narrowing his electric-blue eyes.

Jessica’s long-standing habit of deflecting Logan’s flirtatious comments had her responding automatically. “Have any ideas you want. Just so long as you focus on resting and recuperating, sir.”

His mood, always mercurial, turned sullen. Folding forward over the table, Logan propped his head on his hands. “I hate it when you call me ‘sir.’”

Which, of course, was why Jessica did it. To remind them both that their relationship might be full of banter that skirted the edge of unprofessionalism, but at the end of the day, Logan could never be more to her than that.

Logan Harrington was her job. Nothing more. And, certainly, nothing less—Jessica took her job extremely seriously.

Hell, at this point, she could write the definitive manual on the care and feeding of brooding billionaire geniuses.

Burrowing his long, agile fingers into his tousled brown hair, Logan tipped back in the chair and blew out a sigh at the ceiling. It was completely unfair, Jessica reflected. As the person whose job it was to bully Logan into sleeping and eating like a normal human being, she knew for a fact he hadn’t slept more than three hours at a time in months. Ever since he started the new clean energy project, Logan’s idea of a well-balanced meal was a stale pot of coffee with a vodka chaser.

By all rights, he should be gaunt and pale, with bags under his eyes and stubble on his cheeks. Instead, with his broad shoulders, powerful physique, and expensive haircut, Logan Harrington looked more like a male model than a mad scientist.

“Why did you bring me here?” he said, all mischief and humor drained from his tone, leaving behind nothing but wire-taut exhaustion. “I have work I need to be doing. The lab…”

“The lab will not fall apart without you,” Jessica said briskly, moving to the sink to take stock of the cottage’s kitchen amenities. “They’ll call me if they run up against anything they can’t handle, but you left them a nearly finished project. If your techs can’t take your copious notes and run them into the end zone, we seriously need to start a headhunt for better techs.”

There was no dish towel hanging by the sink, nor were there paper towels on the counter. Jessica hitched up her tailored linen slacks and crouched to investigate the cabinet under the sink for supplies.

The incident at the board meeting the day before had shoved Jessica into High Alert mode, and she’d hustled Logan out of town before he was recovered enough to put up a fight. So they’d arrived at his grandparents’ vacation home unexpectedly, giving the caretaker no time to prepare the summer cottage for guests.

But it turned out that Logan’s younger brother, Dylan, was already staying up at the main house, and knowing Logan’s love of privacy, Jessica was determined to make the cottage work.

Jessica stood and opened the quaint, vintage refrigerator in the corner of the kitchenette. As she’d suspected, it was completely bare.

“End zone.” Logan perked up. “A football reference. You like football? You grew up with older brothers, or maybe you were close to your father…”

Before he could spin one of his elaborate imaginary histories for her, Jessica cut him off. “It’s only an expression. I could just as easily have said ‘hit it out of the park’ or ‘ride the wave.’”

Logan scowled. “Doesn’t it ever bother you that you know every intimate detail of my life, while I know nothing but your basics?”

“No.” In fact, that was the way Jessica liked it.

“Anyway, that’s not the point,” Logan grumped, setting his clenched fists on the table. “Project Reactor might be done, but there’s always more. If I’m not there to direct the lab, who will—”

“The work will still be there when we get back, after you rest. It’s time for a break.” Jessica kept her voice firm. Logan would attack any sign of weakness. “This island is perfect for that. Look at it rationally. If you run yourself into the ground, the quality of your work will suffer. You need to refill the well.”

“I don’t buy into those studies,” Logan snapped. “And I certainly don’t need to refill some mythical, metaphorical well. You’re my assistant. You take orders from me, and I’m ordering you to get on the phone and call the company plane to come pick us up. Now.”

Pushing back from the table with a screech of wooden chair legs on linoleum, Logan made to stand up, but Jessica stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Logan, be reasonable. There’s no place to land a plane on an island as small as Sanctuary.”

“The chopper, then.” Impatience crackled around Logan like a force field.

“I’m not calling the helicopter!”

“That’s it,” Logan snarled. “You’re fired.”

Jessica gritted her teeth. “For the millionth time, you can’t fire me. I work for your brother—I take my orders from him. It’s my job to take care of you. Let me do my job.”

“Your job is supposed to be making my life easier, not dragging me off to some backwater island with no decent Internet access or cell service,” he complained.

His shoulder was rock hard with tension under her light touch. Blowing out a breath, Jessica played her trump card. “Logan. You collapsed in the middle of a presentation to the entire board of Harrington International. You are going to take the time you need to get healthy. Period. If I have to sit on you to make you slow down for a while, I will.”

A glimmer of interest lit Logan’s intense blue eyes. “I could be into that.”

She ignored him and continued, “I don’t ask for much from you. But I’m asking now. Please, give Sanctuary Island a chance.”

He glanced aside, jaw working, and Jessica’s heart quickened. He was close to giving in, she could feel it.

But when he met her eyes once more, head canted to one side in sudden calculating consideration, her blood froze. She knew that look.

Logan Harrington had one of his genius ideas.

“How much is it worth to you?” he asked. “Me here on this island, soaking in all the mind-numbing serenity and wasting days of my life when I could be working. What would you be willing to give me in return for my time?”

The rush of heat to her core was as shocking and confusing as it was unwanted. Jessica dropped her hand from Logan’s shoulder and backed up a step.

Anger mixed with disappointment curdled in her stomach. As much as Logan flirted, as many times as he’d come on to her, she never thought he would stoop to emotional blackmail.

“I’m not going to sleep with you to get you to do what’s right for your own health,” she snapped.

Genuine surprise flashed across his expressive face. “What? No, Tink, that’s not what I meant.”

Jessica stared into his wide eyes and felt her anger dissolve. She believed him. And that nickname—Tink, a play on her last name, Bell, and the fact that Logan considered her fine-boned features pixie-like—gave her the usual, undeniable thrill.

She hid how much she liked the nickname with the ease of long practice. “What did you mean, then?”

Arching a brow, Logan warned, “You might not be any happier about this. But here are my terms: for every day I waste on this island, you answer one personal question.”

Jessica sucked in a breath, an instinctive denial on the tip of her tongue. Before she could say anything, Logan held up a hand. “I’m talking full and complete answers, to my standard of satisfaction—no simple yes or no. I want details, specificity.”

What Logan was asking was dangerous—to her mental health, if nothing else. Jessica knew him. He wasn’t going to be satisfied with inane questions about her favorite color. If she gave her insatiably curious, demanding boss this opening, he’d make the most of it. He wouldn’t be happy until he knew all the secrets she’d worked so hard to bury.