“Logan, we’ve got a crowd outside. Logan. Are you listening?”

Frustrated by yet another interruption, Logan Copeland tore her gaze from her script, yanked off her headset and glared up at her usually very capable assistant, Joe Lopez. She’d come to think of him as a genius and a blessing, but he wasn’t much of either at the moment. “Joe.”

“We’ve got a problem.”

“Another one?” she asked incredulously. They were down to less than twenty-four hours now before tomorrow night’s huge gala fundraiser, the biggest of Logan’s career, and nothing was going right in the tech rehearsal for the fashion show that would happen during the gala, and nothing would go right if Logan continued to be interrupted.

“We honestly don’t have time for this. I don’t have time for this. And if you want to run the show tomorrow on your own, that’s fine—”

“I don’t,” he interrupted, expression grim. “But this is big, and I can’t manage this one without you.”

“Why not? And why does everything have to be a big problem right now?” she retorted, aware that every interruption was costing more time with the crew, which cost more money, which meant less money for the charity. “If this isn’t life or death, you need to deal with it, and let me get one good run-through in before—”

“The media has descended. Full on, out of control paparazzi stakeout. Here.”

Logan’s expression brightened. “But, Joe, that’s great news. The PR team is succeeding. I heard they were the best. How is that a problem?”

“Logan, they’re not here because of tomorrow’s Hollywood Ball. They’re not interested in the Gala or doing good. They’re here for you.”

Logan suddenly found it hard to breathe. She pressed the clipboard to her chest, headset dangling from her fingers. “For the press conference about the Ball,” she said firmly, but then at the end her voice quavered, and the fear and doubt was there.

“No.” Joe shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. He was a smart, young, artistic twentysomething-year-old just a couple years out of college, and he’d been invaluable to Logan since coming to work for her two years ago, a little over a year after her whole world had imploded due to the scandal surrounding her father, Daniel Copeland. Lots of people had wanted nothing to do with Logan after news broke that her father was the worst of the worst, a world-class swindler and thief preying on not just the wealthy, but the working class, too, leaving all of his clients nearly bankrupt, or worse.

Joe had grown up in a tough Los Angeles neighborhood marked with gang violence, so the Copeland scandal hadn’t been an issue for him. He wanted a job. Logan needed an assistant. The relationship worked.

He, like everyone, knew what her father had done, but unlike most people, he knew the terrible price Logan had paid. In most business and social circles she was still persona non grata. The only place she could work was in the nonprofit sector. “They are here to see you,” he repeated. “It’s to do with your dad.”

She stilled. Her gaze met Joe’s.

His dark brown gaze revealed worry, and sympathy. His voice dropped lower. “Logan, something’s happened.”

The tightness was back in her chest, the weight so heavy she couldn’t think or breathe.

“Have you checked messages on your phone?” he added. “I am sure you’ll have gotten calls and texts. Check your phone.”

But Logan, normally fierce and focused, couldn’t move. She stood rooted to the spot, her body icy cold. “Was he freed?” she whispered. “Did the kidnappers—”

“Check your phone,” a deep, rough, impatient male voice echoed, this one most definitely not Joe’s.

Logan turned swiftly, eyes widening as her gaze locked with Rowan Argyros’. His green gaze was icy and contemptuous and so very dismissive.

She lifted her chin, her press of lips hiding her anger and rush of panic. If Rowan Argyros—her biggest regret, and worst mistake—was here, it could only mean one thing, because he wouldn’t be here by choice. He’d made it brutally clear three years ago what he thought of her.

But she didn’t want to think about that night, or the day after, or the weeks and months after that…

Better to keep from thinking at all, because Rowan would use it against her. More ammunition. And the last thing a former military commander needs is more ammunition.

He didn’t look military standing before her. Nor had he looked remotely authoritative the night she met him at the bachelor auction fundraiser to benefit children in war-torn countries in need of prosthetics. He’d been a bachelor. She’d helped organize the event. Women were bidding like mad. He would go for a fortune. She didn’t have a fortune, but when he looked at her where she stood off to the side, watching, she felt everything in her shift and heat. Her face burned. She burned and his light green gaze remained on her, as the bidding went up and up and up.

She bought him. Correction: she bought one night with him.

And it only costs thousands and thousands of dollars.

The remorse had hit her the moment the auctioneer had shouted victoriously, “Sold to Logan Lane!”

The intense remorse made her nauseous. She couldn’t believe what she’d done. She’d filled an entire credit card, maxing it out in a flash for one night with a stranger.

She didn’t even know then what Dunamas Maritime was. Insurance for yachts? Ship builder? Cargo exporter?

He knew that, too, from his faint mocking smile. He knew why she’d bought him.

She’d bought him for his intense male energy. She’d bought his confidence and the fact that of all the attractive men being auctioned, he was by far the most primal. The most sexual.

She’d bought him because he was tall and broad shouldered and had a face that rivaled the most beautiful male models in the world.

She’d bought him because she couldn’t resist him. But she hadn’t been the only one. The bidding had been fierce and competitive, and no wonder. He was gorgeous with his deep tan, and long, dark hair—sun-streaked hair—and his light arresting eyes framed by black lashes. There was something so very compelling about him that you couldn’t look away. And so she didn’t. She watched him…and wanted him. Like every other woman at the charity event.

They’d all looked and wanted. And many had bid, but she was the one who’d bid the longest, and bid the highest, and when the heart-pounding bidding frenzy was over, she came out the victor.

The winner.

And so, from across the room that night, he looked at her, his mysterious light hazel eyes holding hers, the corner of his mouth lifting, acknowledging her victory. Looking back she recognized the smile for what it was—mockery.

He’d dared her to bid, and she had, proving how weak she was. Proving to him how easily manipulated.

By morning he would hate her, scorning her weakness. Scorning her name.

But that hadn’t happened yet. That wouldn’t happen until he’d taken her again and again, making her scream his name as she climaxed once, twice and then, after a short sleep, two more times before walking out the door the next morning.

The sex had been hot, so hot and so intense and so deeply satisfying. With anyone else it might have felt dirty, but it hadn’t been with him. It’d just felt real. And right.

But she did feel dirty, later, once he’d discovered she wasn’t Logan Lane, but Logan Lane Copeland, and the shaming began.

It was bad enough being hated by all of America, but to be branded a slut by your very first lover? A man that wasn’t just any man, but one of the best friends of your twin sister’s new husband?

Of all the people to sleep with…of all the men to fall for…why did it have to be Rowan Argosy with his passionate Irish-Greek heritage and ruthless nature? There was a reason he’d risen through the military. He was a risk taker with nerves of steel. A man who seized opportunities and smashed resistance.

She knew, because he’d seized her and smashed her.

Logan exhaled now, blocking the past with its soul-crushing memories. She hated the past. It was only in the last year she’d come to terms with the present and accepted that there could be a future. A good one. If she could forgive herself…and him.

Not Rowan—she’d never forgive Rowan. It was her father she needed to forgive. And she was trying, she was.

“My father,” she said now, her gaze sliding across Rowan—still so tall and intimidating, still so sinfully good looking—and then away, but not before she realized his long hair was gone. Shorn. He looked even harder now than before. “Is…he…?”

Rowan hesitated for just a fraction of a second, and yet his expression didn’t soften. “Yes.”

She willed herself not to move, or tremble. She firmed her voice so it wouldn’t quaver. “How?”

He hesitated yet again, and she knew that he knew every detail. He was a maritime antipiracy specialist, based out of Naples, with offices in Athens and London as well as a large country estate in Ireland. He hadn’t told her any of that. Her sister Morgan and her husband Drakon Xanthis had, after their wedding.

“Does it matter?” he asked quietly, coolly.

“Of course it matters,” she retorted, hating him even more. Hating him for taking her virginity and mocking her afterward for enjoying his body and touch andbfor leaving her to deal with the aftermath on her own, as if he hadn’t been the one in that big bed with her…

His silence made her fear the worst. Her heart hammered. Her stomach fell. She wished she was hearing this from Morgan or Jemma, or her older brother Branson. They would all have broken the news differently. “Did they…did they…?”

And then she couldn’t wait for the words, the confirmation that her father, kidnapped and held hostage off the coast of Africa, had been killed, possibly executed. It was all too sickening and her legs wobbled and her head spun, her body hot, then cold and then very cold.

She tried to look for Joe, the very best assistant one could ever hope for, but all she saw was Rowan and he was staring her down with those pale hazel-green eyes.

“Don’t,” he growled, his deep, rough voice now sounding far away, as if he was standing at the far end of a tunnel.

Maybe he was.

She couldn’t see him well. Things were cloudy at the edges. He was cloudy, and she blinked, almost amused that Rowan could think he could still dictate to her, once again telling her body what to do…

“You’re not doing this now,” he snapped.

But she did. Her world went dark.