after he’d made love to her again, more slowly this time, wanting to eradicate all the hurts she’d experienced as a child.
He moved a strand of her hair away from her face and thought about all the reasons why it was a bad idea to continue seeing her and couldn’t come up with any, not now that she no longer worked for him. Since they were both single, there was no reason they couldn’t continue an affair for as long as it lasted.
Other than the fact that Cassidy seemed more determined to get away from him than to stay with him but maybe that was only because she didn’t know how he felt about her.
Which raised the question—how did he feel?
He liked her. He was insanely attracted to her. But it felt like more than that. She was the smartest, sweetest, most caring woman he’d ever met. He loved it that she matched him in so many ways. In the boardroom, the bedroom and even on the gym mat. If he ever lost his fitness edge, he knew she’d cut him off at the knees, and the knowledge that he could bend her but not break her was extremely appealing.
He also wanted to protect her and take care of her. And that was definitely new. He’d always avoided engaging his emotions with women in the past. Sex had always been just sex, but he was struggling to think of it that way with Cassidy.
What would she say if he asked her to stay on in Arrantino? If he told her he wanted to continue seeing her? It wasn’t that much of a stretch. He could set her up in an apartment not unlike this one. He could get her a local job so that she was free to see him after work and on weekends.
But would she go for that?
And did he really want it? The fact that he was even considering doing all that to keep a woman in his life seemed crazy. But the alternative was that she fly back to New York, probably as early as tomorrow, and while he might not be one hundred percent sure about what he did want, he knew what he didn’t want and that was for her to leave.
He liked waking up with her lying in bed beside him and he wasn’t ready to say goodbye to that. And he knew she liked being with him this way. It was in every soft smile that she gave him, every tender touch.
He blew out a breath and contemplated the unpainted beams that crisscrossed the ceiling.
Unused to wanting something more with a woman than a good time, he found himself once again in the unusual position of not knowing how to proceed.
Cassidy stirred beside him, rubbing her calf along his leg, and he immediately thought about one way he could proceed—and a much less complicated one at that.
Shelving his vacillating thoughts with a much more pleasurable objective, he was about to roll her onto her back and press her into the mattress when he heard the first thump on his cousin’s door.
Frowning, he didn’t move just in case he’d been wrong when three extra-loud thumps followed.
Gently untangling himself from Cassidy, he murmured for her to remain asleep and rolled to his feet.
Given that he hadn’t received much sleep the night before, his body wasn’t impressed with being dragged out of bed as dawn touched the horizon and he padded grumpily downstairs to the front door.
‘Your Majesty. It’s Lukas.’
His head of his security?
Opening the door, Logan took in his grim demeanour. ‘Your mother sent me.’
Instantly on high alert, Logan barely showed a flicker of emotion. ‘Is she okay?’
‘The Queen is fine, sir. But there’s been a stir. In the news.’
A sense of dread even worse than when Leo had called washed over Logan. ‘What kind of a stir?’
‘The press have certain information.’ He could tell his head of security was trying to be diplomatic and Logan strode over to the kitchen and switched on his phone.
A million messages pinged into the receiver, but he bypassed those and pulled up an international news site. A picture of Cassidy and himself at the lookout yesterday, his arms caging her in, her face turned sweetly up to his, was the first image that greeted him. The next ones were much more revealing.
‘Logan, what is it?’
He heard Cassidy pad up behind him, leaning in to get a look over his shoulder before he could stop her. She gasped and he turned to find her fingers covering her mouth.
He glanced over her head at Lukas. ‘How bad is it?’ He knew Lukas would have already fully apprised himself of what had happened. ‘And don’t pull any punches.’
‘A journalist, Todd Greene, has published an exposé on your relationship with Miss Ryan. He’s included information on her family and interviews from her home town.’
Logan took one look at Cassidy’s stricken face and frowned. ‘This photo was taken yesterday. How can that be possible?’