Page 14 of Perfect Persuasion (Love’s Second Chance #2)

For a moment, Logan’s mask slipped and Claire saw an expression of stark relief cross his features.

It made her heart squeeze for him. He was so vulnerable beneath his veneer of impenetrability.

She wanted to take him in her arms and hold him, to make love with him again, this time out of caring and need rather than pure lust. He was like a stray animal she wanted to rescue and tame with tenderness and love.

Love?

No, not love. That was an emotion that had no place for Logan. The two words didn’t belong in the same sentence. These tender feelings she was developing for him were byproducts of the pregnancy. She couldn’t be expected to maintain complete detachment for the father of her child.

Claire couldn’t help herself. She reached out, caressed his face, enjoying the texture of his beard stubble beneath her fingers. “You didn’t shave this morning,” she murmured, her eyes trapped by his.

Before he could reply, she pulled his head down to hers and kissed him as she’d been longing to, deeply and open-mouthed. It was a hot, carnal kiss, and it left her wanting more when it was over.

Logan cupped her face in his hands and studied her. “I want to start over with you.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he paused and kissed her again, lingeringly, “that I want us to forget about the past. Let’s start over from this moment, just you, me, and the baby.”

It was her turn to search his gaze. “Why?”

“I want something more than just a forced parental relationship with you.” He lightly caressed the lines of her cheekbones with his thumbs. “I want more.”

“More?”

He sighed. “I can’t define it yet. I want us to explore a relationship.”

Explore a relationship? Claire felt as if the world had shifted, leaving her standing on uneven ground. Where on earth was this coming from, this sudden, gentler Logan?

She opened her mouth to formulate an answer, but he placed a finger over her lips.

“Don’t say anything now. Think about it.” He kissed her again. “Meet me back here at five-thirty and we’ll go to dinner.”

Claire barely managed to acquiesce before Mindy’s voice rang from the intercom, announcing the arrival of Logan’s nine a.m. appointment. Logan straightened her shirt and she re-buttoned his to the collar. It was a peculiar, almost domestic moment that made a lump rise in Claire’s throat.

Feeling acutely uncomfortable with the knowledge of her growing weakness for him, Claire hastily ducked out of his office.

So what did Logan mean when he said he wanted more?

The question tortured Claire for the remainder of the workday.

She zoned out in a morning meeting with her creative teams. A trip to the restroom had her mistakenly entering the men’s room around lunchtime.

Luckily, no men were actually inside, making use of the glaring white urinals that met her shocked gaze, and she was able to flee to the proper facilities without public humiliation.

At lunch, she was turning over Logan’s words in her mind when she accidentally took a sip of Jamie’s Diet Coke.

On the return trip, she almost walked into the wrong office.

Jamie was convinced Claire had developed a case of pregnancy-induced Alzheimer’s, and told Claire as much when she was packing up to leave for the day.

Claire looked at her assistant’s lacy leopard-print pants, noticing them for the first time as Jamie stood in the doorway to her office. It was vaguely amusing, she decided, to be viewed as if she were a lunatic by someone with such questionable taste in clothing.

“I’m leaving,” her assistant announced. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Wait a second. Tell me your pants aren’t lace and leopard at the same time,” Claire responded, convinced her eyes were deceiving her.

Why hadn’t she noticed them earlier? “You can have leopard and you can have lace, but you can’t have them both in one outfit or you run the risk of looking like Peg Bundy in a bridal shop. ”

Jamie gave her a trademark roll of the eyes. “That’s all you can think about, my pants? Are you sure you don’t want to walk down to the parking garage with me? You seem like you’re not quite yourself.”

Claire’s attention turned back to her computer and she reread the email Logan had sent her earlier for what could have been the tenth time. Or the sixteenth, but who was counting?

Don’t forget dinner, it said, five-thirty. That was it. Nothing more, not even a signature, the arrogant man. He just assumed she would obey him the same way he assumed that if he decided they were going to be in a relationship, they would.

Arrogant, arrogant, arrogant.

“Claire?”

Jamie’s expectant voice tore Claire’s attention away from the provoking email and back to her assistant. Damn. Jamie had asked her a question, hadn’t she? Claire felt guilty about her absentmindedness, so she tried to answer the question without asking what it had been.

“I’ll have to make a decision about that later,” Claire told her with a forced bright smile. There. Delaying tactics usually tended to subvert all unknown questions.

Jamie looked nonplussed. “But I’m leaving now.”

“Right.” Claire bit her lower lip pensively. Clearly, her answer hadn’t achieved the desired subversive effects.

“You don’t know what I said, do you?” Her assistant’s gaze narrowed with suspicion. “What’s going on with you, Claire?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly, her voice an octave higher than normal. Jamie couldn’t find out about Logan and the baby. Not yet, anyway.

“Fine.” Jamie looked annoyed that Claire chose not to confide in her. “Last chance for an escort to the parking garage.”

“No thanks.” Claire flashed her a smile. “I’m meeting… I have plans. ’Night, Jamie.”

Jamie studied her, clearly sensing some choice gossip to be had, sizzling beneath the surface. Claire chastised herself for her pathetic attempts at a cover-up. She’d always been a dismal liar.

In the end, Jamie gave up and left Claire to pack up her laptop, a few files, and her purse, and make her way to the tenth floor. Mindy the mousey robot had already vacated her post, leaving Claire free to walk into Logan’s office unannounced.

She blinked twice to make sure her gaze wasn’t deceiving her when she walked through his ode-to-a-diner kitchen door and into the brightly lit confines of his office.

Logan was seated, his dark head bowed and resting on his desk, and he appeared to be sleeping.

Could it be possible for Logan Monroe to fall asleep at his own desk?

No, she decided, dropping her things to the floor and crossing the room in hasty strides.

“Logan.” She gently touched his shoulder. “Are you okay?” Worry laced through her, surprising her with its intensity. What was the matter with him?

He whispered something then and she bent close to him to catch it. “Bug green,” she repeated.

No, that couldn’t be right. Unless he was delirious.

She leaned closer, inhaling his familiar, heady scent. “Migraine,” came his hoarse whisper.

Ah. That made much more sense, but it still left Claire feeling quite helpless, staring down at an unmoving, debilitated Logan.

She searched her mind for ways to ease the pain that had him in its grip.

Crossing the office again, she flicked off the harsh overhead lights before returning to his desk once more.

Thin shafts of light streamed through the partially closed blinds at his big window, bathing Logan’s back in a soft, golden glow.

Acting on instinct, she laid her hands on the skin exposed at the back of his neck.

He flinched and tensed initially, but relaxed as she began massaging the taut muscles beneath her fingertips.

His skin felt hot and smooth against her hands and sent a wave of longing crashing over her body.

She’d been wanting to touch Logan, to initiate contact with him for so long now that doing so felt good, right.

But it still left her wanting that elusive more Logan had alluded to earlier.

She realized that massaging him hadn’t been an entirely altruistic act, much to her dismay.

She continued kneading the stress and tension from his neck and shoulders for an indeterminable length of time. Her fingers were beginning to get tired when Logan finally raised his head from the desk.

“Thank you.” He kept his tone low, cocking his head to look at her. His face looked haggard, depleted of some of its usual vitality. “It’s starting to fade.”

She pulled her hands back immediately, awkwardness descending. “I’m glad.”

His gaze scorched hers. “You don’t have to stop.”

“Yes I do.” For her sanity’s sake. She moved away from him, circling his desk to the opposite side, needing suddenly to put a physical distance between them. “How often do you have migraines?”

“Here and there,” he said lightly, wincing and pressing a hand to his temple.

“Have you seen a doctor?” Claire couldn’t keep the concern from her voice, no matter how much she wanted to. She told herself she cared for him only as the father of her child. But secretly, that oft-repeated mantra was beginning to lose its efficacy.

Logan noticed it too, the wicked man. “Worried about me, Claire?”

“A little,” she admitted. Okay, a lot, but she didn’t have to tell that to Mr. Pomposity.

“I’ve seen someone,” he told her, still rubbing his temple. “Everything’s fine. I just have occasional migraines.”

She frowned at him. “Are they always this bad?”

A crooked grin curved his lips. “Usually they’re worse.”

“Does anyone know?” Claire didn’t really have to ask. She already knew the answer.

His expression became more serious. “Only you.”

Naturally, being Logan, he would want to keep any weakness shielded from the rest of the world. She wished he had willingly entrusted her with the knowledge. But there was the problem. Logan didn’t trust anyone. Not really.

“You don’t have to worry about—” she began to reassure him, but he cut her off abruptly.

“I know. I trust you.”