The Billionaire's Kiss(58)

Once they were on the dock, Callie broke her silence. “I need to call back to DC. Go ahead without me. I’ll meet you in the guesthouse.”

Logan looked at her for a second and smiled. She hated the way he was looking at her with trust and confidence. She felt a gnawing dread in the pit of her stomach. He added, “You’re sexy when you’re in crisis mode. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” she said. Why couldn’t things have stayed simple for just a little bit longer?

“I have half a mind to lean in and kiss you right now.”

“And I have a whole mind to push you off of this dock if you try. If you’re at the center of a sex scandal, do you really think photos of you kissing another woman would help things?” But you could try your luck and kiss me anyway, she thought.

“Yeah, I do. A few photos of me with you, and we could show that nothing happened with Veronica.”

“You realize that you have a reputation for and history of breaking up relationships, right? And more specifically, you have a history of doing so with the woman who is supposedly in your father’s mansion right now. You really had no idea that she was coming here?”

Logan wrapped his arms around her and pulled Callie tight against his chest. Callie couldn’t deny how reassuring it felt to be in his arms, even if she wondered what he was up to. Slowly, and softly, he said, “I know what it looks like, but you’ve been with me almost every day for the past two weeks. When the hell would I have done anything with her? If we just present a united front to the press, maybe they’ll realize this is all some kind of publicity stunt.”

“It won’t matter, and I can’t be seen kissing you. It would ruin me, Logan.” Maybe that was a bit harsh. It would seriously damage her credibility within her company getting caught up in the middle of a scandal instead of staying safely on the sidelines. Besides, it was hard enough being young and blonde and getting clients to respect her. If it ever got out that she had a fling with Logan, she might as well quit Haven Communications and go back to corporate law. It might not matter either way. Callie had a feeling that all hell was about to break loose.





***

Logan pulled back from the embrace and stared at Callie. There was no way she was being serious. His ex, well a woman he had been with so briefly that she barely qualified as a fling, had shown up out of the blue, and now Callie was pissed at him? What did she care about his personal life? It would have been one thing if Callie were going to be around for more than a few weeks, but she wasn’t. He didn’t think that was fair, but he understood that that’s just how things were. As much as Callie had said about their time together meaning something, the moment something went wrong, she totally shut down on him. The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. “Ruin you? Are you serious? After everything you said last night about us and it meaning something?”

Callie held her arms up defensively. “I don’t mean it like that. I just, look, this could be a disaster for me professionally. It’s my job to prevent and resolve situations like this, and I can’t get caught in the middle of it.”

“You’re not in the middle of it, Callie. A grand total of three people in the world know you’re here. Even if there were some picture of me with you, no one would ever tie you to Nikki. What’s the problem here. What’s so bad about people knowing that we’re spending time together?”

“Nikki?”

“Veronica goes by Nikki with her friends. Can we please just go deal with this together?” Logan asked.

“Did you not hear anything I just said?” Callie asked.

Logan turned away in frustration. “Yeah, I heard it loud and clear. You want to manage the situation. So go ahead, manage it. That’s what you do, right?”

“Look, I just need to make a few phone calls.”

“I’ll be in the guesthouse. Join me when you have a plan that works for you.” He looked at Callie, hoping to see some glimmer of the affection she had shown over the past few weeks, but she just stared back at him. At best she looked indifferent. At worst she looked angry. Logan headed to the house, his head swirled. Only a few minutes earlier, life had been perfect, and then boom, Veronica Jones had swung back into his life like a wrecking ball. She was lucky that she wasn’t in his presence at the moment, because he was furious. After everything she had done, how could she ever think she could just show up unannounced at his family’s home? He could feel his blood throbbing in his temples. He would get to the guesthouse, stay out of sight and then figure out a way to solve this mess before it got any further out of hand. Then he’d be able to figure out where he stood with Callie.