Perfect Persuasion (Love's Second Chance Book 2) Read online

  So he tamped down the unease and forced himself to continue eating.

  Claire felt like scum for lying to Logan so directly. She glanced over at him in the dim confines of his car. His handsome face was illuminated by a glow from the dashboard screen and, as if sensing her regard, he looked over at her. She did her best not to flinch and look away.

  “Thanks for agreeing to dinner,” he said. “We’re almost at your street. Do you mind if I come in for a few minutes?”

  “I don’t know,” she hedged. “It’s late.”

  She didn’t want to be forced to talk to him more, not when she felt so terrible. Claire hadn’t planned on having to lie to Logan. Ever. He wasn’t supposed to suspect her pregnancy. He wasn’t supposed to find out. Maybe she hadn’t exactly thought things through since her life had gone into meltdown mode, but her plan had been to leave LM and Logan both and never look back. Now she was realizing how foolish she’d been to think she could so easily extricate herself from this horribly complicated situation.

  “Just for a few minutes?” Logan pressed. “I’d like to discuss that business we never quite got to at dinner.”

  “Why bother?” His persistence frustrated her. Whenever they were alone together, bad things tended to happen. She couldn’t afford to allow that to happen now.

  He pulled into the driveway at Sophie’s house and slid the car into park. “I’m determined, Claire,” he told her, unhooking his seatbelt. “I’ll get the door for you.”

  Claire’s fierce sense of independence wouldn’t allow her to wait in the car for Logan to come and open her door. So she ignored both him and the look of annoyance he gave her as she passed him and made her way to the front door. He stood behind her, a large, unsettling presence waiting as she fished through her oversized bag.

  As her fingers closed around her keys, she turned back to him. “Thanks for dinner, Logan,” she managed politely. “Good night.”

  “Nice try.” He plucked them from her fingers and brushed past her, unlocking the door and gesturing for her to enter first.

  “I’m afraid your skills as hostess leave something to be desired,” he drawled as he followed her inside.

  “And I’m afraid your skills at taking a hint and leaving stink,” she countered, deciding that maybe if she counteracted his rudeness with some of her own, she could actually win this battle.

  He merely raised a brow at her. “Is there some place we can sit down and talk like two rational, levelheaded adults? Bickering with you does have its merits, but…” He shrugged.

  “Fine.” She stalked into the living room. Logan Monroe had a patent way of making her feel two inches tall. “In here.”

  She seated herself on a loveseat, hoping he would at least take this hint and settle for the sofa opposite her. Claire should have known better. Being deliberately obtuse, he sat next to her, crowding her with his large body.

  She scooted over an inch or two until her right thigh pressed into the arm of the loveseat. Logan scooted closer, eating up the space separating them.

  Even more annoyed than before, she rose and sank down into the blessedly empty sofa. Logan sent her a knowing look.

  “Don’t trust yourself, Claire?”

  She snorted. “Wouldn’t you like to think so? Look, Logan, enough of the games. You hate me. You’ve hated me for years, ever since I first started in the Creative Team at LM eight or nine years ago.” Claire crossed her legs, awaiting his answer.

  “It was nine years ago,” he corrected, eyeing her with that intense stare she found so unsettling. “And I never hated you.”

  “You did give me the creative director’s position,” she acknowledged, still baffled that he had, given his obvious dislike of her. “But other than that, you’ve always had it out for me.” She thought of all their workplace battles over the years. She had loved her job, but there was no denying he was an arrogant control freak at times, and they’d done their fair share of clashing.

  “If you’re an asset to the company, that’s all that matters.”

  “I’m not staying, Logan,” she said quietly, holding her ground.

  “I’d be willing to let you buy into the company,” Logan continued, as though he hadn’t heard her rejection. Maybe he hadn’t. Those ears probably no longer processed the word “no” since he was so accustomed to hearing only “yes.”

  “No.”

  “A share of the company, a twenty-five percent raise, more vacation time, a redecorated office, a company car.” Logan ticked the items off on his fingers.

  They were very, very tempting items, she had to admit. Claire looked at his long, tanned fingers and swallowed. “No,” she managed to all but croak.

  “I won’t accept an answer,” he told her, rising from the loveseat. “Not yet. You think about it this week and get back to me. I’m offering you a lot. Far more than you’ll get anywhere else.”

  No one knew that better than Claire. And that was just one of many problems on the apparently endless list facing her. What he offered her was very attractive. The ramifications were not.

  She rose as well. “My answer is still no. No to everything. Can’t we just leave it at that?”

  “You aren’t thinking clearly.” Logan strode back to her. “Let’s just acknowledge some things between us.”

  “What things?” Claire watched him warily, taking a step back until the backs of her knees pressed against the sofa cushion. When Logan examined her with that scorching gaze, she felt giddy.

  Yes, giddy, ridiculous as that was.

  “First of all,” he murmured, skimming the back of his hand across her jaw. “I want you.” Ever so slightly, he turned his hand until he cupped the side of Claire’s face. “And second, you want me. Third, we have fantastic sex together.”

  “Oh really?” Claire tried to sound aloof and unimpressed, but her voice gave her true feelings away. “Before, you said it was just nice.”

  “Understatement of the millennium,” he said, his other hand cupping the base of her skull, his fingers sinking into her hair. “Don’t you agree?”

  Logan’s mouth was so close Claire lost her ability to utilize her common sense. She nodded, knowing she’d agree to anything he said.

  He lowered his head, grazing her ear with his lips as he spoke. “We’re good together. In bed and out of it. There’s no reason why we can’t enjoy a partnership.” His tongue traced the shell of her ear, making Claire shiver. “You’re single. I’m single. Think of how well we did together on the Pierpont account.” Logan kissed the side of her neck, his hot, velvety tongue licking a path to her collarbone. “It can only get better.”

  Claire knew one way it could certainly get better. If he kissed her. Through the cloud of desire currently fogging her brain, she knew Logan was trying to seduce her into agreeing to stay at LM. But she didn’t really care right now. She just wanted that brooding mouth on hers.

  He began talking again, planting soft kisses on the side of her neck in between words. Claire interrupted him.

  “Logan?”

  “Hmm?” He stilled, tilting his head back to meet her gaze.

  “Shut up and kiss me.”

  “Happy to.”

  In the next instant, his mouth was on hers. And it wasn’t a sweet, soft kiss either. It didn’t initiate. It demanded. It was a fiery, hungry kiss that was all about two people who had waited too long to get what they both wanted. Each other.

  Logan kissed Claire as if he wanted to consume her, slanting his lips over hers with just enough pressure to make her quiver. He sucked her lower lip and a tiny moan escaped her. He crushed her closer to him, his tongue sweeping ruthlessly into her mouth. Her tongue meshed with his, slipping inside his mouth to taste him. He tasted like the wine he’d consumed with dinner, sweet and seductive.

  In the far corner of her mind, Claire conceded defeat. The two of them together defied description. Being with him, touching him, was more than electric, more than white lightning striking her. When he touc
hed her, kissed her, she became a new woman, a vibrating, sensual, alive woman.

  Being with Garrett had always been safe, comfortable even. But being with Logan was wild, exciting…frenetic. She’d been sleeping through life, not knowing what she’d been missing in her humdrum existence. Then Logan Monroe had kissed her lips and showed her a world of passion. And like a greedy kid opening presents on Christmas morning, she wanted more.

  A moan rose in her throat and she reached down to yank Logan’s shirt from his trousers and slide her hands up over his smooth, well-muscled stomach and chest. Somehow, his hand migrated to her breast, cupping it firmly. She arched. He made a low sound of satisfaction deep in his throat.

  More, she thought, more. She wanted Logan’s skin on her skin, him on top of her, inside her, in a thousand different ways. In his arms, Claire forgot everything and everyone but him. He became the center of her every sensation, every thought.

  “God I want you,” Logan murmured against her mouth. “Now.”

  “Yes,” the word hissed from her lips. She kissed him again, her tongue teasing the corner of his delicious mouth. She tore at his shirt, fumbling with the buttons and popping half of them off as she pushed his shirt to the floor. Finally, she was free to explore the broad, deeply defined plane of his back.

  A shrill noise invaded her consciousness once, twice, then three times. It occurred to her that the annoying noise was actually emanating from the cordless phone on a nearby table. With the greatest of reluctance, Claire pulled away from him. She admired him for a moment, six-foot-plus of half-naked, highly aroused, very gorgeous man.

  “I have to get that,” she managed, not quite certain if she was trying to convince Logan or herself.

  “The hell with the goddamn phone,” he growled, looking frustrated.

  For a brief moment, Claire found herself hypnotized by his beautifully sculpted chest. Then she shook her head. “No. I can’t. It might be my sister.”

  Before she could change her mind, Claire turned and grabbed the phone, hitting the talk button without checking the caller ID.

  “Hello?” She sounded breathless.

  “Claire, it’s me,” came an unexpected voice on the other end of the line.

  “Garrett.” She glanced back at Logan, who was sporting a murderous scowl. “Now’s not really a good time.”

  There was silence for a few seconds as Garrett digested that. Logan bent and retrieved his shirt, stuffing his arms into the sleeves with angry motions.

  “I get it,” Garrett said, sounding hurt. “The ink’s not even dry on the divorce papers yet. Is someone there with you?”

  “No,” she denied, sending Logan an apologetic look with her eyes. “I’m just tired. Let’s talk later. Please.”

  Logan cast her another dark look and spun on his heel, striding from the room. She didn’t want him to leave, not like this.

  “I’ll call you,” she told Garrett, barely waiting for his reply before she hung up and hurried after Logan.

  And not a moment too soon. His hand was resting on the doorknob when she made it to the entry hall. Her mind and her heart were a jumbled mix of emotions. She didn’t know what she was feeling or why, just that she didn’t want him to leave, not like this.

  “Logan, wait,” she called. “Don’t go yet.”

  He looked at her over his shoulder, his eyes glittering with intense anger. “I think our business is done. Don’t you?”

  She stopped in her tracks, searching Logan’s gaze. “Business?”

  “Yeah. Business.” He turned to face her completely. “If I have to fuck you to get you to stay at LM, I will. But next time, make sure your ex-husband doesn’t interrupt us.”

  At his harsh words, Claire unaccountably felt tears stinging her eyes. Unnatural emotionalism, she told herself, a known side effect of pregnancy. Still, she couldn’t reconcile this cold, harsh stranger with the man who’d been burning in her arms.

  “You’re a jerk,” she said softly, the words carrying the weight of an accusation.

  “No.” That single word vibrated with fury as it left Logan’s lips. He slammed his fist against the closed door. “I’m not the one in the wrong here. You are. One second you’re panting for me and the next you drop everything to answer your ex-husband’s call. Why don’t you quit LM and hide here forever?”

  “I’m not hiding.” Claire glared at him. “Not that my personal life is any of your business.”

  “You made it my business.” He looked her up and down scornfully.

  That did it. God, it really was amazing how she could be insanely attracted to someone one minute and utterly loathe him the next.

  “Leave, Logan.”

  He nodded, his usually sensual mouth a tight, grim line. “I’m out the door, but you need to think about some things. Figure out what the hell you want.”

  With that parting shot, he was gone.

  He shouldn’t give a damn about Claire Morton. He shouldn’t want to touch her, to kiss her, to care about her. On the way home, Logan repeated this mantra to himself over and over again, hoping that if he heard the words long enough he would actually begin to believe them.

  Something was wrong with him. He’d never felt this restless before, this unsatisfied and determined to have something he knew he had no business wanting. He needed help.

  He slammed his fist into his steering wheel as he pulled up to the black iron gate blocking his driveway. It slid to the side after he punched the remote opener he kept inside his car. His home loomed up ahead, mocking him.

  Logan’s house wasn’t really a house. He thought as much to himself every time he drove up the winding, tree-bedecked driveway that led to his imposing, three-story ode to Classical architecture. From the outside, it looked like an overgrown mausoleum, a family crypt on steroids.

  He braked as he pulled into the circular parking area at the end of the drive. Logan killed the engine and sat for a moment, staring up at the well-lit exterior of his home. It was gorgeous, outside and in. He’d had every last one of the twenty-one rooms inside decorated to the point of extravagance by a Philadelphia designer. It was incredible to look at, which it damn well should be since it had cost him upward of four million when he’d bought it a few years ago.

  The final jewel in his crown.

  Yeah, he knew his employees called him King Monroe, and he usually enjoyed the sobriquet. He had built an empire, so why not revel in his creation? Why not flaunt the money he’d worked so hard to accumulate? Looking at his world, from the outside in, no one would guess that he’d once been a dirt-poor foster kid grubbing food from alley dumpsters.

  His early life hadn’t been easy, or happy, or even particularly good. Logan didn’t know who his parents were, only knew that they hadn’t wanted him. He’d been pawned off onto a line of foster parents, some caring, others more interested in the extra cash he brought them each month. At fourteen he’d run away, living on the streets for a year, until an elderly woman had taken him into her home. Eunice Withers had literally saved Logan’s life. She’d put him through college and given him the financial backing to build LM. Eunice had been the only person to ever tell him that she loved him.

  She’d died of heart failure eight years ago, and sometimes Logan forgot just how much he missed her. Forgot just how much it meant to have someone close their arms around him, to say those words and mean them. I love you.

  Inexplicably, he thought of Claire. His house was so empty, so cavernous. A maid came to clean it three times a week, but beyond that, Logan was entirely alone, with the exception of his cat, Caesar. But Logan was growing weary of watching late-night TV with a fat, purring feline.

  Was Claire lonesome too, by herself in her sister’s house? She didn’t even have a cat to keep her company. Of course, she did have an ex-husband. She’d probably called him the second Logan’s ass cleared her doorway and the two of them were necking right now while Logan was mooning over her in his car. God, he was pathetic.

  Disgu
sted with himself, he hit the garage door opener and drove inside. He killed his engine and got out of the car when the eerie sensation that he wasn’t alone hit him. He spun around, tensed and ready for an assailant. But it wasn’t an assailant standing behind him. It was Derek Shaw, one of Logan’s oldest, most trusted friends.

  “How goes it, Monroe?” Derek asked, his voice sounding a little odd, discordant almost.

  “Derek.” Logan caught his friend up in as manly a hug as they could both muster without feeling as though they had sacrificed their masculine pride. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “Sorry.” Derek cocked his head to the side, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his pants. “I followed your car into the garage. Hope you don’t mind. This place almost has tighter security than I used to have.”

  Logan frowned, wondering how in the hell Derek had gotten there. “Where’s your car?”

  “Not here.”

  A familiar dread sank into his gut. “Come inside.”

  They headed into the house and passed through a mud room which led directly to Logan’s enormous kitchen. He flicked on a light and popped open the refrigerator, looking at Derek over his shoulder. “Need a drink?”

  “Thanks, but no,” Derek said, casting him a grin that looked more weary than anything else. “Unless you have bottled water?”

  Logan rummaged around on the shelves, found a bottle of spring water, and tossed it to Derek before pulling out one for himself. He’d been about to grab a beer given the night he’d had, but he didn’t want to make Derek uncomfortable by drinking in front of him. From the looks of things, Derek had just emerged from another extended stay at the Starling Foundation, a nearby rehabilitation center. It would explain why his friend had gone radio silent in the last few months and hadn’t returned a single call, text, or email. Logan had come to know the clues well enough by now.

  “I took a taxi here from Starling, but you weren’t home, so I decided to wait. Hell,” Derek laughed, a bit uncomfortably, “it’s not like I have anywhere to go. I didn’t want to check into a hotel and have the paparazzi up my ass.”