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 he walked 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 Argyros 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 and for 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, Bronson. 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.
* * *
Swearing, Rowan dove to catch Logan before she crashed to the ballroom floor, but he was too far away and couldn’t break her fall. Her head slammed on the edge on the stage as she went down.
He was there to scoop her up and he swore again, this time at himself, for not reaching her more quickly, and then at useless Joe, for not catching her, either.
She was still out cold as he settled her into his arms, her slender body ridiculously light. He shifted her so that her head fell back against his biceps, and his narrowed gaze raked her pale face, noting the blood pooling at the cut on her temple, and beginning to trickle into her thick honey-colored hair. She was going to have a nasty bruise, and probably one hell of a headache, later.
She was also still impossibly beautiful. High cheekbones, full lips, the elegant brow and nose of a Greek goddess.
But beauty had never been her issue. If she’d just been a pretty face, he could forgive himself for their night together, but she wasn’t just a beautiful girl, she was Logan Copeland, one of the scandalous Copelands, and as amoral
