At Odds with the Heiress(21)

Scarlett shut the final cabinet door and carried her booty to an unmarked Bankers Box near the front of the unit. She thought it was empty until she lifted off the top, but it was a third full of files. From the look of them, these files must have been some of the last Tiberius was working on. She dropped the files on her family into the box and picked it up.

Logan stood outside, radiating impatience as she emerged. “What are those?”

“Files on my family.”

“Are you sure taking those is a good idea?”

“Have you met Harper’s and Violet’s mothers? I’m sure there’s nothing scandalous in their pasts besides our father. As for my mother...” She handed him the box and dug out a photo to show Logan. It was a full-color eight-by-ten photo. “Wasn’t she gorgeous?”

“You inherited her legs.”

Her pulse stuttered. “You’ve noticed my legs?”

“It’s hard not to.”

Unsure whether he meant the comment as praise or mere observation, Scarlett headed toward his SUV without replying. Logan was an enigma. Most of the time he acted as if every second in her company taxed his patience, then suddenly he’d behave as if he was actually worried about her. To further confuse her, he had developed a distracting fondness for kissing her whenever the mood struck him.

He didn’t like her. He certainly didn’t respect her as a businesswoman. On the other hand, she wasn’t his responsibility, so he didn’t have to worry about her safety as much as he did. And his kisses...his amazing, confusing, contrary kisses. They certainly weren’t the sort a man planted on a woman he was trying to seduce. What was his angle?

Scarlett studied him as he drove back to the hotel. He wasn’t classically handsome. More the rough-and-rugged type. Brawny. Take-charge. The guy everyone else in the room deferred to because he had all the answers.

Nor was he a good choice for a woman who only felt safe with men she could wrap around her finger. Was she attracted to the danger he represented? He would break her heart in a millisecond if she gave him the chance. Damn it. It would be so easy if only she didn’t like him so much.

Logan glanced her way and caught her staring at him. “What?”

“I was just thinking what a heartbreaker you are.”

He snorted. “I think you have us confused.”

“I flirt, but I never commit. No one’s heart actually gets engaged. You are completely sincere. You could make a woman fall in love with you without even trying.” She angled her body toward him. “Why haven’t you gotten married?”

“If this is another one of your games...”

“No game. I’m insatiably curious. I think that’s why Tiberius left his files to me.” “Knowledge is power,” he’d been fond of saying. “Did the right girl never come along?”

“I was engaged once.”

Rather than prompt him to continue, she let silence hang between them.

Logan scowled. “She broke it off.”

Scarlett shifted her gaze away from his stony expression, wishing she’d left well enough alone. No wonder he was such a hard man to get to know. He’d been hurt by the person who should have loved him best. That wasn’t something Logan would let go of easily. Scarlett pitied the women who tried to get close to him. They would find his defenses as impenetrable as the security systems his company was famous for.

“I’m sorry.”

“It was ten years ago.” He said it as though the pain was a distant memory, but she suspected his wound wasn’t all that well healed.

“That doesn’t mean it stops hurting.”

He greeted her attempt at sympathy with cold silence. At the hotel, per her request he stopped the SUV outside the employee entrance. When he tried to hand the key to her, she shook her head. “Find whatever it is you’re looking for.”

“Why do you think I’m after something?”

“You don’t really expect me to believe you came along tonight because you enjoy my company.” Managing a lighthearted smile despite the heaviness in her chest, Scarlett exited the vehicle and lifted the box containing her family’s files from the backseat.

“Scarlett...”

“Keep in touch, Logan.”

Then, before she could make the mistake of asking him up to her suite, she shut the car door and headed toward the hotel’s employee entrance.





Five



A week went by before Logan admitted defeat regarding Tiberius’s files. Scarlett had been right. Someone could spend decades going through the fragments of data. The hotel and casino owner had accumulated thousands of interesting tidbits throughout the years, some of it newspaper articles, some rumors, many firsthand accounts of events that had never become public knowledge.