“I didn’t run,” Brontë gritted out. “And this is none of your business.”
“Bad in bed,” Sharon pronounced triumphantly, sauntering off to a table waving her down.
Brontë tucked a pencil and pad in her apron with extra care, determined to ignore Sharon. She was just trying to bug her, Brontë reasoned. And what exactly could she come back with? Actually, Logan was very sexy, and great in bed. Why did I run? Because he was loaded and he didn’t tell me. I felt like he lied to me.
Sharon wouldn’t understand that. She’d hear the word “loaded,” and her brain would stop functioning. And she’d insist on Brontë either hooking up with Logan again, or giving Sharon his number. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to do either.
She’d had a weekend to stew on her strategic retreat. All the way to the airport, then on the flight home, she’d half expected to turn the corner and see Logan waiting for her. The fact that he hadn’t bothered to come after her made her feel . . . well, she wasn’t sure. Part of her was disappointed that he’d let her walk away and part of her was relieved.
Brontë had searched for him on the Internet when she’d gotten home. He wasn’t just the owner of the resort, she’d found out. He owned that and an airline. And another hotel in Vegas. And a castle in England. And a private island in Fiji. And a dozen other companies that she didn’t even know what they did.
Logan Hawkings was not just rich. He was obscenely rich. Billionaire rich.
And that scared the hell out of her. It was just as well that he’d lied to her, or she would’ve run away. Guys like that had the ability to ruin someone’s life. That was a little too much power, in her opinion.
And sure, he’d been handsome and flirty . . . on the island. Then, it had been just the two of them. As soon as they’d gotten to Jonathan’s swanky house (which apparently was small compared to Logan’s sixteen residences), everything had changed. He’d gone from being the manager to being some foreign creature with tons of money, and she hadn’t known how to handle that.
So she’d run away.
It was for the best, she told herself. People like Logan moved in entirely different circles from people like Brontë. Besides, he wasn’t really interested in her. She could just imagine how he’d sneered to himself when he’d found out what her job was. A waitress was good for a fling, but that was about it. And he’d told her that he didn’t want a long-term relationship. Fair enough.
Someone raised an empty glass of water, and Brontë grabbed a pitcher, heading over to the table.
She was a waitress, and she had a small, simple life. Someone like her had no business being in someone like Logan Hawkings’s life.
***
As soon as Logan returned to New York, he contacted his private detective to get an update on Brontë.
“Found her,” the detective said into the phone. “I’m sending the information over to your personal e-mail address. Let me know if you have any questions.”
“Excellent work,” Logan told him, and hung up. He hit refresh on his e-mail and waited, staring out the window at the New York skyline. Gorgeous night. Gorgeous weather.
But he was restless as hell.
He blamed Brontë and the island. He’d woken up from a dream about her the night before and had found himself alone in bed with an aching erection. When he rode the elevator to his office, he automatically thought of Brontë curled up on the floor in the darkness in her bra and panties, and the way she’d slid her ass into his face as she’d escaped. When someone laughed, he thought of Brontë’s nervous giggle.
He . . . missed her.
It was pointless and a bit stupid, of course. He’d only known her for a few days. He’d spent more time with other women. But there had been something so easy and likable about Brontë. She hadn’t required anything of him but his attention. She hadn’t asked not-so-innocent questions about investments or properties. She’d been relaxing. Adorable. Charming. Sexy.
And she’d run away from him.
The e-mail dinged, and Logan swiveled in his chair. He ignored the meeting invite that popped up on his calendar and opened the e-mail attachments instead, pleased to see the info he’d requested.
His private investigator was thorough, he’d give him that. Enclosed were several scans of Brontë’s personal documents. Her driver’s license showed a woman with smooth, silky brown hair, but the wide face and beaming smile were his Brontë. Brontë Dawson, it read, and it had her home address. Age twenty-four. Kansas City, Missouri. He studied the picture of her, then moved on to the credit report. Some credit card debt, a few late payments, but nothing egregious. Very normal middle-class American. He moved to her employment history next. She currently worked at Josie’s Diner. The private detective had even taken a few photos from afar and attached them to the e-mail, and Logan’s breath caught at a picture of Brontë in a short pink waitress costume with a frilly apron. Her head was tilted, and she looked like she was laughing at something someone had said. A man? His gut churned with jealousy.
The next item was a brief history of the diner and financials on it. The place was months away from going out of business. There was a list of prior addresses that Brontë had lived at, along with roommates. Female names. Good. She didn’t have a live-in boyfriend. Not that he thought she would. She didn’t strike him as the type to lie about her relationship status when she’d been so very offended by his lie about his financial status.
His gaze fell on her phone number. He called and listened to it ring.
“Hello?”
Her voice was soft and pleasant, just like he remembered. “It’s me, Brontë.”
He heard her suck in a breath. “Don’t call me. Please.”
“I wanted—”
“You’re a liar.” She hung up.
He stared down at the phone. He wasn’t going to call and beg her to see him. That wasn’t his style. But he wanted to talk to her. To see if they could connect like they had on the island. He needed to find a way that she’d be unable to avoid seeing him.
Logan picked through the information the private investigator had sent him and paused on the diner’s financial info. And he smiled.
***
“Hello?” Brontë picked up her phone, yawning and glancing at the clock next to the bed. It was seven thirty in the morning on her day off. This call had better be an emergency.
“Hey, Bron, it’s me.” Sharon’s voice. “You’re not going to believe this.”
She rubbed her eyes, trying to wake up. “What is it?”
“The diner was sold.”
“Sold?” Brontë sat upright, her heart pounding. “Do we still have our jobs?”
“As far as I know. But the new management has called a meeting this morning at nine, and they want everyone to attend.”
“Gotcha. I’ll be there.”
Brontë dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and drove down to the diner. The diner sold? She knew that being a waitress wasn’t a permanent sort of job, but she didn’t have the savings to make a career transition at the moment. Plus, if your résumé showed nothing but waiting tables, people wouldn’t hire you for much else. Turned out that a philosophy degree didn’t really get you places in Kansas City. She hadn’t planned on being a waitress for so long, but now that she was in danger of losing her job, her stomach was tied in knots. She needed a paycheck.
When she got to the diner, the sign was flipped to CLOSED, unusual given that it was breakfast rush hour, but maybe the new boss didn’t care about that. She slipped inside, noticing a cluster of employees seated at booths at the far end of the diner.
“Hi,” she said, casting a worried look at Sharon, Angie, and Marj, fellow waitresses. The cooks sat at another table, and the old manager was nowhere to be seen. “Did I miss anything?”
“Not yet,” Angie said, pushing a piece of gum into her mouth and chewing nervously. “You think the new boss is going to shut us down?”
“Surely not,” Brontë said.
“Then why call us all in here?” Marj asked, worried.
Brontë didn’t know. “Maybe he just wanted to meet us all personally?”
Sharon smacked her lips. “I caught a good look at him. I’d like to meet him up close and personal. Rowr. He’s sexy.”
“He’s your new boss,” Marj snapped. “Keep your hormones under wraps.”
“You saw him?” Brontë asked. “Does he seem nice?”
“I don’t care if he’s nice,” Sharon said, grinning. She smoothed a hand down her ruffled apron. “I told you he was cute, didn’t I? I think he likes me. He keeps looking over here.”
Brontë turned around, glancing back at the kitchen, only to have Sharon tug on her bushy ponytail.
“Don’t look!” Sharon hissed. “You’re being too obvious.”
She pulled her hair free from Sharon’s grasp. “Is he in the kitchen?”
“Yep. Oh, here he comes now.”
A pair of men in suits emerged from the kitchen. One was an older man wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. The younger one was tall and chiseled, his hair effortlessly perfect. At the sight of him, all the blood drained from Brontë’s face.
Logan.
Her eyes narrowed as she studied the two men. She leaned over to Sharon. “Which one did you say was the new owner?”
Sharon snorted. “It’s not the old geezer. The hot one. He bought the place. Seems he’s an investor of some kind. Likes to buy businesses and turn them over for a profit.”
Just like he had with the hotel. But this silly little diner seemed too tiny to be on the radar of someone as important as Logan Hawkings. There could only be one reason he was here personally. Brontë’s jaw clenched. He’d bought her place of work because she’d hung up on him.
And now she was trapped.
That jerk.
Chapter Seven
She didn’t look pleased to see him.
Logan had expected that. He’d guessed when Brontë had hung up on him that she was holding a grudge of some kind. That was his reason for buying this hole in the wall diner. He wanted to find out what the problem was so he could fix it.
And then he wanted her back in his arms and in his bed, laughing as he kissed her skin and quoting Plato when he undressed her.
But she was seated with the other waitresses, arms crossed over her chest, and she looked furious. Even furious, though, she was lovely. Her smooth brown hair was twisted into a messy knot at her neck, and she wore a slick of lip gloss that made him wonder what she tasted like with it on. She wore a plain blue T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, but even in the casual clothing, she appealed to him more than the last model he’d dated.
“Mr. Hawkings is the new owner of Josie’s Diner,” the consultant he’d hired began. “Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be looking carefully at every aspect of the business to determine where the most profit can be made. This means an inspection of purchasing, cooking, hours clocked in, and anything else you can think of. Mr. Hawkings is simply here to show you his commitment to the business.”