Brontë gazed up at Logan, shocked. This . . . this was a big secret. He was trusting her with everything. Giving her everything that he was.
He wanted—needed—her in his life that badly?
She realized then that Danica had been wrong about Logan. He didn’t treat everything like business. He’d come down into this basement knowing full well that his friends—and business partners, it seemed—would be utterly furious with him. He was risking everything.
For her.
“I love you, too,” she told him with a catch in her throat. “But I think your friends are going to kill you.”
A grin lit his face, and he pulled her close. “They’ll get over it.” He kissed her—long, hard, and fierce. So fiercely that her knees went weak, and she sagged against him.
Behind them, someone cleared his throat. “This is really quite moving,” Griffin said in a cultured voice. “But you seem to forget the implications for the rest of us. We’re not in love with her.”
She turned to look at them, unhappy that this moment of trust was going to cost Logan so much. “You’re all such close friends—I don’t want this to be a problem.”
“Too late,” Jonathan said flatly.
Brontë looked at Logan. “Is there something I can sign that would prove it? That I can stay quiet? That you can trust me?”
“A nondisclosure agreement?” Logan asked.
“Yes, that’s it,” she said with a nod, glancing back at the table. “Would a nondisclosure agreement work?”
“It depends,” Reese said. “Exactly how many other women are we going to be dragging in here and sharing all our secrets with?”
“Only this one,” Logan said, grinning. “I’m not in love with anyone else.”
A warm feeling swept through her, and she couldn’t stop smiling.
“Oh, jeez,” Reese said. “They’re so cute together I want to puke.”
“Be nice,” Cade said. “I’m happy for you both, Logan and Brontë. Come have a seat. We’ll get things worked out as we play.”
Logan moved to the table and pulled out his chair for Brontë, motioning for her to sit down. She did, pretending she didn’t see the wary looks on the men’s faces. While Logan had invited her in for the evening, it was clear that she still wasn’t exactly “invited” in their eyes. “Get an extra chair,” Logan said.
“There are no extra chairs,” Griffin pointed out succinctly. “There’s never anyone else down here but us.”
“We need to get another chair for in the future, then,” Logan said.
It got very quiet. Cade began to push some chips toward her, but Brontë shook her head. “I don’t know how to play poker,” she lied, sensing that her playing would push a few of the men past their comfort zone. “And I don’t think I’ll be coming back.” She smiled at Logan reassuringly. “Just because we’re a couple doesn’t mean we have to be together every moment. This is your time with your friends.”
“Marry this one,” Reese proclaimed, picking up his cigar again.
“I plan on it,” Logan said.
Brontë blushed, getting up from the chair so Logan could sit down. Was that just more guy talk? It was far too early to be thinking about marriage. But their banter and her backing off from the table had the desired effect. She immediately sensed a bit of the tension easing off the table and knew she’d made the right decision. These were Logan’s friends, and Logan’s club. He was welcome to it, and she wouldn’t share the secret.
As if he could tell what she was thinking, Logan sat down in the chair and dragged her into his lap. Two drinks were set in front of them—whiskey or brandy from the looks of it.
“Drink up,” Jonathan said.
They did, and Brontë coughed at the burning taste of the drink, which made the men laugh. Her face flushed with embarrassment, but Logan only pulled her closer, settling her on his lap. “This meeting of the brotherhood is called into session,” he said, grinning up at her.
***
As the evening wore on, drinks, cards—and business advice—flew freely around the table. Brontë lost track of most of the conversation due to the drinks that the men kept sending her way—deliberately, she suspected, to distract her. That was fine. She ended up spending half the night discussing the exaggerations of the account of Atlantis in Plato’s Timaeus. Griffin was funding an archaeological dig in Spain for a theoretical site near Cadiz, and they chatted about it while the men played cards. It seemed that while Plato thought Atlantis was an island in the ocean, recent theory was that Atlantis was on the Spanish coast, and it intrigued him to investigate it. He even offered to take her and Logan to see the site sometime, which made her brighten and Logan scowl.
“Quit flirting with my woman, Griffin.”
“I’m not flirting with her, you Neanderthal. We can discuss mutual interests without it being flirting,” Griffin said, but he winked at her as if sharing a joke.
Logan snorted. “I’d believe it if I thought that talking archaeology didn’t give you a hard-on.”
Griffin just shook his head, but Brontë noticed he didn’t meet her gaze again, which told her that Logan had hit pretty close to the mark.
At some point, Logan kissed her ear and stood up, sliding her out of his lap. “I’m heading upstairs to chat with Reese and Jonathan, love. We’ll be back in a moment.”
“All right,” she said, clutching her newly refilled glass to her breast, her head buzzing. “Don’t take too long.”
“I won’t. We’re just going to discuss . . . your nondisclosure agreement.”
She nodded, her brain fuzzy, and sat back down in Logan’s chair.
Cade frowned as the three men left and then stood himself. “I’d better go and see what they’re up to.”
He left, and Griffin followed him out. That left Brontë holding her glass and the man seated next to her, who had been quiet all night. He’d been careful not to look over at her, and she was curious about him.
Hunter. Did he not like her? Brontë frowned and took another swig of her whiskey, watching him over the rim of her snifter.
“Your friend,” Hunter said after a long moment. His voice was deep and gravelly. He spoke as if the words were a chore. He was an odd man. “The redhead. Tell me about her.”
“You mean Gretchen?”
“Gretchen.” He repeated the name, as if tasting it. “What is her last name?”
“Why? How do you know about Gretchen?”
“I saw her with you the other day. Tell me more about Gretchen.”
Brontë frowned, her thoughts slow and diffuse from alcohol. Something about giving her friend’s information to a stranger seemed . . . not right, but she was having a hard time reasoning as to why. “Why should I tell you about Gretchen? So you can stalk her?”
Hunter stared down at his cards, and she realized he was carefully hiding one hand behind the other. Interesting.
“I am an admirer of hers . . . from afar.”
“Like a stalker,” Brontë repeated drunkenly.
“Not a stalker. I simply wish to know more about her.”
“That’s what a stalker would say,” she pointed out, taking another sip of her drink.
He ground his teeth and glared over at her. Brontë got her first good look at his face . . . and she suddenly understood why he’d been so careful to turn away from her, and why he hid his hand. Thick white scars stood out in relief against his tanned skin. They crossed his face in an irregular, scattered pattern that indicated massive trauma. One corner of his eye was tilted down, as if the repairs had altered its shape, and the side of his mouth had a jagged white line curving from it—a seam that had been torn open and repaired. Even the hand he’d covered showed the white, gouging lines of scarring.
It was not a pretty sight. Not in the slightest. Brontë swallowed hard, her stomach churning from the alcohol.
“Your friend is quite safe from my romantic interests,” Hunter gritted out. “I simply wish to learn more about her.”
“Oh,” Brontë said, forcing herself to turn away from the hideous webbing of scars. She stared down at her glass, which seemed a little too empty at the moment. “Penway,” she said. “Her last name is Petty. She writes books.”
“What kinds of books?”
“Books with other people’s names on them.”
His gaze seemed to pin her to Logan’s chair, and she wished she had a bit more to drink. “A ghostwriter?”
Brontë nodded, then stopped because it made the room wobble. “That’s right. And Cooper’s in love with her.”
“Cooper?” He rasped the word out harshly.
“It’s okay, though. He won’t make a move. He knows Gretchen isn’t interested in him that way. She wants adventure or a fairy tale or something.”
The scarred man snorted and lifted his own drink, and Brontë peeked over at him. Nope, the scars didn’t look any better on the second glance.
“Is Logan coming back?” she asked, feeling a little faint. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Hunter smiled grimly over at her. “Depends on whether Jonathan and Reese have given him a few black eyes yet.”
She stared at him in surprise, then bolted to her feet. The room shifted woozily, and she grasped at the chair. “But . . . they . . . I don’t want them to hurt Logan! I said I’d sign the nondisclosure agreement.”
“The agreement takes care of the future. Fists take care of right now,” Hunter said. “Sit down before you hurt yourself.”
Brontë flopped back to her seat, holding her stomach. Suddenly, being drunk in a dark, smoky room didn’t seem like such a good idea. “I need a drink of water, I think. And Logan. I want Logan.”
Hunter set a tumbler in front of her and filled it with water. When she reached for it, he laid a hand over it, blocking her. “Tell me more about Gretchen.”
Brontë glared at him and brushed his hand aside. She took the glass anyhow and started sipping it. When her stomach stopped doing flips, she began, “Well, she has a cat . . .”
Chapter Fourteen
When Brontë woke up the next morning, her head was pounding and her mouth felt like a dirty, old sock. She groaned, rolling over in the bed and smacking into Logan’s broad chest.
His arms went around her, and he pulled her close, nuzzling her ear. “Morning.”
Even that small word made her head hurt insanely. She groaned and closed her eyes, pressing the heel of her palm to her forehead. “I hurt.”
“Do you need aspirin?”
Just the thought of dry, medicinal-tasting aspirin sticking to the roof of her mouth made her want to vomit. “Dry toast, please?”
He kissed her cheek. “Coming right up.”
The bed shifted as he climbed out of it, and Brontë spent the next five minutes trying not to throw up from the quaking that small movement had produced. There was something not quite . . . normal about where she lay. There was a roaring in her ears.