I couldn’t even find my voice. “Put up with?” I whispered. My feet came unstuck when he tugged on me again, and before it even registered, we were inside what looked to be a decked out ballroom. A chill ran up and down my spine as I remembered all the parties my father had dragged me to after my mom checked out of our lives after my sister died.
In the beginning, I’d been the cute little princess in beautiful dresses. I thought I was important, that my dad loved me, and that he doted on his little princess as he showed me off to his friends. As I grew older, some of the shine wore off and the tension involved in many of those parties bled through. I knew the business deals my father managed during those events was the focus, not his daughter.
That changed once more when I started to grow breasts. The looks from his friends and colleagues transformed into cringeworthy moments as the attention showered on me morphed as well. My father scrutinized those interactions in a way that should have worried me then. It did worry me, but my attendance at those parties was far and few between with me being shipped off to boarding school the majority of the year. Plus, I always had thoughts of Logan to keep me grounded.
My heart twisted as I thought of my former best friend, the only man I’d ever given my heart to. The way he let me down was almost worse than knowing my own father never loved me. I had been nothing more than an immensely powerful bargaining chip Bill Quinn could use. I often wondered what would have beendifferent if I’d been unattractive, fat, or had some other outward flaw that turned men off. Would he have loved his daughter then or only saw the liability and burden that wouldn’t pay off for him later?
I hated to think about it because it always sent me into a depressive spiral. Then again, the party I was just dragged into against my will brought it all back full force. My eyes roamed over the people who stared in our direction the minute Drew and I walked through the door. There was something familiar about some of the people. It wasn’t just the atmosphere.
It wasn’t until my father came into view that I realized why it all seemed so familiar. The men on the periphery were the same ones who were always there at these types of events when I was growing up. The only difference was that they were all a bit older, some had lost their shape and gained a new, rounder one over the years. Hair had thinned, wrinkles had set in, but the greedy, lustful glances were all the same ones that I remembered from the last party I attended.
“Hello, Aoife,” my father called out to me as if no time had passed since I last saw him. When I didn’t respond, he offered me what I once would have thought of as a fatherly, loving, kind smile. “I was happy to hear you had finally come to your senses and decided to marry Andrew”
“What?” I spun to face the man I reluctantly called my fiancé. That same knowing smirk, tipped a little higher with what looked a whole lot like victory, was aimed at me. “You…” I couldn’t find the words for the deception.
“I knew who you were all along. In fact, I had our inevitable meeting arranged by that vapid friend of yours.” He rolled his eyes because I was the one to call her vapid and he knew she wasn’t a friend of mine. She just happened to operate in the same circles I did. “Don’t be so surprised, babe. Did you think you could outrun your fate forever?” His dark chuckle sent mynervous system into fight or flight. “Don’t worry, the paperwork will have your legal name on it,” he announced.
“I doubt that very much,” I snapped, as I finally gained back my ability to speak. My agent helped me quietly get my name changed years ago. My legal name more accurately matched my pen name now, and no one ever knew what that was. The tips of my ears reddened as I thought about Logan ever finding out that my legal last name had been his for years. I wasn’t about to let any of the people in this room know about it either.
“It’s good to see you again,” my father said as he came forward with his arms held wide. I allowed the hug and even returned it, but then I took two solid steps back away from him and turned to my fiancé.
“I’m not sure what the two of you thought would happen here, but this is not going to go down the way you think it will. You know that I didn’t agree to marry you.”
“Your initial hesitation is of no consequence to me. Now that you know this is where you belong, there is no question of whether we’ll move forward with the wedding.”
“Actually, knowing this means there’s no way in hell I will agree,” I informed him.
“Aoife!” My father’s stern use of my name as an admonishment of my behavior triggered something in me.
“I once loved and respected you. You were my daddy and I would have done just about anything for you until I realized you expected to be able to sell me to the highest bidder. I owe you nothing. I owe Drew even less.”
“You always were stubborn. Your sister would have done her duty.”
“Then it is a damn shame she died and I lived.”
“Don’t ever say that,” my father snapped as Drew grabbed hold of my arm and pulled me off to the side where others couldn’t overhear our conversation.
“You will marry me. We will remain married for life. I will be the head of the family organization and I don’t give a fuck whether you like it or not.”
“Wrong!” The man’s voice that carried from over my shoulder was both torture and bliss. I hadn’t heard it in years. Even though there were changes, and it had deepened a bit, I knew who it belonged to immediately.
“What the hell are you doing here?” My father asked as I spun around, despite the pain it caused where Drew still held my arm tightly in his grasp.
“I’m here for Aoife,” Logan said. He looked the same, but also so different. The boy I had known had filled out into even more of a man. He wasn’t overly muscular, but it was very clear that he worked out and kept himself in shape. His hair was trimmed into short, dirty blond spikes on top and shaved close around the sides and back. The cut made his eyes stand out as the blue-green of them popped even under the dim lighting of the ballroom.
Logan held his hand out to me and I stepped forward without thought. Despite everything that had gone down between us the last time I saw him, I trusted him with my safety more than any other person in the building with us, including my own father. I made it two steps before the strong grip on my arm tightened and Drew yanked me back toward him. I turned in time to see the surprise register in my ex-fiancé’s eyes as a gun was placed against his head. My eyes slowly tracked from his shocked expression back to the person holding a gun on him until Lucian Maddox’s dead-eyed stare met my own.
He did not look anything like the businessman I’d seen here and there in the news. Instead, Lucian looked like he should be running his own gang. Who knows, maybe he was. It was very clear that he would not hesitate to pull the trigger. “Let go of her, now,” he demanded. Andrew’s grip loosened and then his handdropped away completely as I took my next breath. A second later, Logan’s arm wrapped around my waist as he pulled me close.
“Are you okay?” he whispered the question in my ear and I gave the tiniest of nods to let him know that I was. It was impossible to form words once again, and I didn’t think that would change even if my life depended on it. Truthfully, my life might depend on it anyway.
“You will not take my fiancé,” Drew ordered.
“Seems to me she was never yours,” Logan stated as he lifted my left hand to show my empty ring finger. Drew’s eyes tracked from Logan to my finger and back up to meet my own accusatory stare with a challenge. I shrugged in response. I had warned him that I wasn’t ready to marry anyone. I couldn’t, because as far as I knew, he didn’t even know my legal name.
“We’re leaving. Your men will not follow, they will not do anything to interfere, and if they so much as lift a finger and make my brother twitchy, there won’t be a single one of you left to seek revenge on anyone anyway.” Logan’s warning was taken very seriously as each of the men who had closed in stopped and took a few steps back. “There are worse fates than death and between my brothers and me, we’re fully capable of delivering them to each and every fucking one of you.”
I wondered what he meant by that, but didn’t get a chance to ask any questions as Logan backed me up to the front door that Andrew had escorted me through only a short time ago. Warmth seeped into my body from where he stayed glued to my back. I was so lost in the sensation, I almost missed the fact that he held a gun out in front of himself or that it was aimed directly at my father.
