The Billionaire's Intern

Hours rolled on and calls continued to roll in, but her boss remained notably absent. After lunch she was starting to get second and third calls from people who had called that morning, and who were getting increasingly desperate to speak to Mr. Black.

Addison was starting to care less and less that Mr. Black did not like to be disturbed when he was in his rooms. She had a feeling that had she elected to come into work hours late today, he would’ve stormed her room, thrown her over his shoulder and carried her down into the office by force.

Granted, he was the boss, but even so. She had a list people for him to call back, and she had a feeling that most of them were quite important. Which meant she had to decide whether or not she thought she would get into more trouble for interrupting Mr. Black in his hallowed suite, or for failing to deliver potentially essential messages.

Going back to the rules from earlier, she decided she’d take a chance on finding his suite.

Addison was rarely at a loss when it came to dealing with people. Keeping social wheels greased, making sure people were happy, reading their moods, was part and parcel to being Jason and Lenore Treffen’s daughter. To being a trophy-wife-in-training.

Logan made her feel as though she was at a loss.

She did not like the feeling. She was disturbed already without feeling she’d lost the sense of how to deal with social situations.

Addison stepped slowly out of the office and into the hall. As always, it was quiet on this floor. She looked both ways, then went back in the direction of her room, her eyes on the different doors. And she was suddenly unbearably curious about what might be behind each one. Were they all his? All entrances to his suite? How large was it?

Large enough for a gym, apparently.

This was his habitat, his lair—for lack of a better word. Dark, enclosed. Private and lush. Which fit with her earlier realization that he was more predator than human.

Thinking of it that way made her question her decision to confront him here, but she’d made up her mind. She was here to assist him and to make sure she facilitated his work, and right now, with him in hiding, she couldn’t do that.

She knocked on one door and tried the handle. Locked and no answer.

Then she went two doors down and paused. There was no card reader or code. Just an old-fashioned brass handle. She pushed it down and it gave.

She opened the door and slipped inside. The air inside the room was heavy. She’d been expecting a bedroom, a well-appointed sitting room or, you know, just a room with lights on.

But she was starting to realize that the only thing she could count on, as far as Logan went, was unpredictability.

A deep, masculine sound cut through the silence like a bass note. Addison stopped, her eyes going to the back of the room. Partly hidden in the darkness was a steel bar stretched between two poles, and there, suspended in the air, was Logan, holding a chin-up pose, his eyes closed, every muscle in his body tight. Hard and unmoving like stone. He lowered himself and she watched, shamelessly. Powerlessly, really. Riveted by the shift and ripple of every muscle in his bare torso as he moved with complete control, with a slow deliberation that spoke of discipline in a clear and silent way.

Then she watched as he pulled himself back up, the only sign of strain in the slight shiver of his pectoral muscles as he did.

She drew in a sharp, short breath and his eyes opened. He released his hold on the bar, dropping to his feet noiselessly, landing in a crouched position, down in the darkness.

She couldn’t read his expression from her position across the room, his face nothing more than dark shadow, his broad frame lined in gold from the hints of sunlight streaming in beneath the heavy drapes on the back wall.

He stood upright, moving his body into the light. He rolled his shoulders back, ab muscles shifting with the motion. Yesterday’s clothing had only hinted at his strength. Here, she could see it unveiled, no custom-made suit covering his body as a nod to civility. In this place she could see full evidence of the animal he was.

And he really was quite an impressive animal.

“What are you doing in here?”

“I was looking for you,” she said. “I’ve taken about twenty messages this morning, and people are starting to get restless. Rome seems to be burning, et cetera.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Is there literal fire?”

“Well, no. Not literal fire.”

“Then there is no excuse for you to be in here,” he said.

“Wait a second. You laid out all your rules yesterday, but you didn’t say anything about you showing up to work hours late, or not at all. And you did not say what I should do in the event that I was left to field things by myself.”

Logan grabbed a towel off the bar to his left and started rubbing it over his chest and back, the action much more interesting than it should have been, all things considered. The man was wiping sweat off himself, for heaven’s sake. There should be nothing interesting about that.

“Then consider this a formal notification and warning,” he said, his tone hard. “No one comes in here.”

“If you feel that strongly about it, you should probably consider locking the door.”

Addison knew the moment the words left her mouth that she’d made a mistake. She never made a mistake. She never said the wrong thing.

Until now. Until Logan.

Logan cast the towel onto the floor, stalking toward her, his blue eyes fixed on hers.

Reflexively, Addison took a step back, then another as he continued to advance on her. She didn’t stop until her shoulder blades butted up against the wall. Logan drew closer, all muscle and heat and angry man. And it all did something to her. Something that she didn’t understand, something she didn’t want.

She should be afraid of him, and really, she was. But the fear was mixed with something else, a low hum of excitement that started low in her belly and radiated outward, spread downward, pooled in places lower. Slick and sweet and wrong. So very, very wrong.

“Or perhaps,” he said, “you should have considered knocking. Even with my limited social skills, I understand that it’s customary.”

She drew in a shaking breath, tried to speak with a steady voice. “You make it sound like it’s a foreign custom to you.”

“I understand what people do. And I even understand why. For me, what civility has lost is its importance.” He placed a hand on the wall behind her leaning in, his breath fanning across her cheek. She looked up, into his eyes, and she could see exactly what he was trying to say. Because there was no spark of humanity there, no facade at all. It was like staring down into a bottomless well, and where she might’ve expected to find a soul, she saw nothing but darkness. “You can only cross so many lines before you’ve gone too far to come back.”

Her throat felt hot, dry and prickly, her skin too tight for her body. And yet again, she could feel words she shouldn’t say pressing against her lips. And yet again, they won. “You’ve crossed those lines?”

He lifted his hand, his palm hovering just above her cheek. She expected him to touch her, expected him to cup her cheek. Found herself anticipating it. But instead he lowered his hand and took a step back as though he’d been burned.

“You don’t want to know about me, Addison,” he said, his voice rough.

For some reason, she wanted to push. Wanted him to come back to her, and look at her with those dangerous eyes. She should want him to stay over there. She should want him to stay away from her. But she didn’t.

“But if you don’t tell me your story, how will you frighten me away?”

A cold smile curved his lips upward. “I’m sure I’ll find a way,” he said, bending over and picking up a T-shirt from the floor, tugging it over his head. She held the sound of disappointment in as he concealed all that gorgeous skin.

What was wrong with her? She didn’t do this. She didn’t…ogle men. Most especially men who seemed to have something essential missing from their makeup. Hadn’t she had enough of men with no conscience?

He has a conscience. He’s not like Jason.

She was not going to listen to her inner voice. Her inner voice had proven to be a very poor judge of character.

Even knowing that, it didn’t change the fact that looking at Logan made her feel slightly breathless and a little light-headed. The simple fact was, she had no experience with men like him. She had no experience with men at all.

All the boys at school were just that—boys. A category Eddie most certainly fell into.

Logan Black was not a boy. Not even close. Logan Black was a man. In every sense of the word.