Redemption Hills: The Complete Collection

16. Aster

SIXTEEN

ASTER

I lie on my stomach on the bed with a blank journal I’d taken from that drawer that I’d slammed closed when I’d first found them.

Part of me wondered if Logan had stashed them there for a day like this, the way they sat there unused, waiting for a brand-new story to fill their pages.

For me to rip them out and fold them into a newfound hope.

Litter them between us so he could find his way back to me.

My hand flowed across the page, my concentration set on trying to decipher a feeling. To capture a memory. To walk into a better future.

Logan promised he would find proof, but in the end, this was my fight.

Something I had to do.

A reckoning between my father, Jarek, and I.

I’d drawn Logan into the middle of it, right into the most dangerous place he could be.

I didn’t know if it made me selfish or weak.

Greedy in my own, demoralized way.

Or maybe my heart wouldn’t allow me to believe anything else than he’d found me and I’d found him.

A crash course.

A collision.

One destination.

The words poured over the page as they sought to find new meaning.

New purpose.

As a new strength built from the reservoir where it had always lived.

I jolted when my phone rang out from the nightstand, my heart thrashing with a bid of nerves before I smiled when I saw the name on the screen. Reaching over, I tugged it free.

“Hi.”

“Oh my god, Aster Rose, what the hell is going on?”

My sister Taylor hissed it beneath her breath from the other end of the line. It might as well be the opposite side of the Earth with how out of touch I felt.

I pressed the phone tighter to my ear, glancing around as if I were doing something salacious, when that honor usually landed on Taylor. There was no shucking the instinct to check my back, to make sure no one was listening, that I could actually have a private conversation with my baby sister without someone running back to report to my father or Jarek.

The sound of a vacuum running from the other side of the apartment echoed through the door, the same as it’d basically been for the last three hours.

Gretchen was a machine.

“Give me all the details,” she pressed. “I’m literally dying.”

“I hope that’s not true,” I said, my voice wry.

Taylor harrumphed at me. “So literal.”

“That is what it means.”

“You’re so no fun.” I could almost see her pouting through the phone. It made me smile.

“What are you talking about? I’m a blast.”

“You’d better be having a blast.” There was the innuendo I was waiting for.

“Uh, let’s see, my worthless, piece-of-crap husband bet me in a poker game, and I was won by my ex…”

The one who still owned my heart, the one who I’d first believed hated my guts and was only in it to torture me, but now…

“The really freaking hot one?” It was a high-pitched whisper.

“That’s the one.” I saw no point in denying it.

She squealed. “Oh my god. I cannot believe you’re with him. This is the best thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Is it?” I deadpanned.

Because it was exhilarating and terrifying and possibly the most reckless thing I’d ever done.

“Well, it is if you’ve gotten up in the good dick because we know Jarek isn’t giving you any of that.”

“Taylor,” I hissed as I sat up. “What is wrong with you?”

“Well, have you? You can’t keep the good stuff from me.”

A heavy sigh filtered out. “Believe me, none of this is good.”

Except there was a glimmer of something good that hadn’t been there before.

A chance.

A way out of a life I hated leading. One my sister was most likely heading toward. Nineteen and ripe for my father to find her a good husband that would make him a good ally.

Half the time I thought he chose to be blind, and he allowed himself to believe he was doing us a favor, saving us from heartache when the only thing he was doing was bartering those hearts.

“Oh, I bet it’s good.” She giggled.

“You don’t even know him.”

“Um, you realize you whisper his name at night in your sleep, don’t you? Last summer when we were on vacation in the Mediterranean on that boat? I had to listen to it all night long. Oh, Logan. Ohhh, Logan. ” She moaned his name.

Embarrassment flushed my skin. “I do not.”

“Um, yes, you so do. Thank God your actual husband wasn’t there because it probably would have incited a murder spree.”

Worry filled my chest.

I could only imagine the type of anger that would incite in Jarek if he’d heard me calling for the one I belonged to in my dreams.

He’d likely not mention it, though. Admitting it would be a blow to his ego.

“I mean, who could blame you because Jarek,” Taylor continued. “Ew and gross and I literally just threw up in my mouth. And besides, I found your keepsake box when I was fourteen. There were letters and pictures in there. I know exactly what he looks like and Oh. My. God. He is delicious.” She rambled all of it so fast I almost missed the middle.

“Wait, you did what?”

My letters.

I’d hidden them in the floorboards in my bedroom at my father’s house, as if I’d buried my heart and my hope and my dreams with them.

My love and our secrets.

Because it had no space to flourish with the confines of the walls that had been built around me.

I could feel everything about her soften.

“It’s okay, Aster. I know you love him.”

My spirit trembled. “I don’t.”

I couldn’t admit it to her. Tried to deny it to myself.

Because I couldn’t allow it to sink in and take hold.

Those words were dangerous.

They desolated and destroyed.

“Then why are you there, with him? One call to Papa, and you’d be on the first flight home.”

I hesitated, warred, wasn’t sure if I should be honest with my sister or just lay it straight. I scooted over so I could sit on the edge of the bed. “I can’t stay with Jarek anymore, Taylor.”

Silence fluttered through the line.

Worry from her side.

Agony on mine.

She lowered her voice even farther. “You mean, like you’re getting an apartment across town, or you intend to leave him , leave him?”

Women in our family didn’t do that. When it came down to it, we didn’t make any real choices of our own. The fact my father had granted me this time was a miracle.

Defiance lined the words, old pain and disgust and hatred bleeding into the claim. “It means he won’t ever touch me again.”

“This isn’t going to end pretty, Aster.” Her voice went timid, and the mischief drained away when she pressed, “That’s why I’ve been trying to find a good time to call you in private. I heard Jarek freaking out in Papa’s office yesterday morning, talking about a pact that had been broken. Papa said something I couldn’t hear, then Jarek stormed out. I overheard Camden telling Lorenzo that he took off…I think he went back to wherever you are.”

Bile lifted in my throat.

Jarek would do anything to protect his unstable position. He was also a narcissist who would never admit he was the one who’d gotten himself there.

He’d pin the blame on me.

Pin the blame on Logan.

I pushed to standing. Every part of me was at war as I paced. Finally, I let out the plea, “I think I need your help, Taylor.”

“Anything.”

I hesitated, then whispered, “Are you still seeing Dominic?”

“If you mean getting some of those yummy O’s on the sly? Then why yes, yes I am.”

It was always, always on the sly because our father would kill her if he knew.

Dominic literally , and not in the way she used it.

“Before he does anything, he needs to get confirmation that Jarek is out of the city and there is no one guarding the house. If it’s clear, then I need him to get something for me out of Jarek’s office. There’s a large safe at the back of the closet.”

Taylor actually squealed. “Like…a covert, ninja mission in the middle of the night?”

She clearly hadn’t fully grasped the severity of what our family did.

“Kind of like that.”

“How do we get into the safe?”

“I think I might be able to figure out the combination.”

Jarek was almost superstitious in the way he used numbers. I prayed it would come out in my favor. I gave her the options of what I thought it might be.

“He’ll have to shut off the alarms to get inside,” I continued, “and no one can know he went in there.”

“What do you need?” Her voice dropped with the scandal, so on board.

It was wrong dragging her into this, but I didn’t have a lot of options. If I was going to do this, I needed evidence, and I was pretty sure I knew where to find it.

“There’s a fake bottom in the safe, and there’s a leather case in there that has a lock.”

I’d seen Jarek bring it in and out of his office many times over the years.

“What’s in it?” she whispered.

I hesitated, then said, “I don’t know exactly, but I’m certain it’s my freedom.”

Taylor sobered, her voice sincere, “We’ll get it. I promise. It’s not right, what Papa does. The way these men treat us. Like we’re objects to be sold. I won’t do it, and I’ll stand beside you when you walk away. It’s time we make a stand. Fuck ’em.”

She was right.

Fuck them.

My phone buzzed, and I pulled it away to look at the text that had come in.

Logan

Be ready in an hour. Wear the red dress I bought you.

I didn’t know how he’d gotten my number, or when he’d added his contact information to my phone, but a tremor of anticipation rolled down my spine.

A need that glowed like a beacon from the abyss where I’d tumbled.

I should tell him, no . That all of this was a bad idea, and I would leave and do it on my own.

But rather than climbing out of this pit, rather than letting him go and setting him free, I was only dragging him deeper.

I stood in front of the full-length mirror looking at my reflection. I’d donned the red dress. It had the deepest, plunging neckline I’d ever seen, halfway down my midriff where it nearly touched my belly button. It exposed the inside curve of my breasts that were covered by the thin, silky fabric.

A slit ran up the side to the top of my thigh, ending only a second before it became obscene.

I’d paired it with the black strappy stilettos that had arrived with the rest. My hair was down, done in fat, full curls that bounced around my shoulders and landed in the middle of my back.

I felt beautiful.

Sexy.

At least I shivered at the thought that Logan might see me that way. That maybe it was what he’d envisioned when he’d picked it out.

I blew out a sigh as I glanced at the huge round clock that hung on the far wall of the room.

Two minutes.

They passed like stagnant honey, sweet and deploring, like as the seconds dragged, they begged me to come to my senses.

But as I waited for Logan to arrive back home to whisk me away to wherever we were going, I felt the faint vestiges of who I’d once been skim through my consciousness.

For a moment, I remembered what it’d felt like to hope. When I’d woken each morning with a blaze of excitement in my belly. When I’d loved to be touched by a man who’d touched me in a way no one else but he could do. Before I’d realized the true meaning of what losing something you loved meant.

I drew in a deep breath to contain it, to hold it back before it busted free.

Then that control was slipping when I heard the two slight knocks on the door before it drifted open.

Logan stood there.

The master of my universe.

The one who made me question it all.

He wore the same suit he’d been wearing this morning when he’d left.

He didn’t need to change.

He was the most striking man I’d ever seen.

Then.

Now.

Forever.

Black hair effortlessly mussed, his jaw shadowed by his short, trimmed beard. Everything about him was potent.

Provocative.

A temptation that felt impossible to resist.

A lure that called and pleaded and tempted from the doorway.

He leaned against the doorjamb and let his eyes rake over me as if that was what they were made to do, as if looking at me supplied him with the necessities he needed to breathe.

His nostrils flared. “I imagined you in that dress, and my imagination didn’t come close to doing you justice.”

Redness flushed, and I spread my palm down the bodice as if it could smooth out my emotions that were racing wild. “Do you like it?”

Foolish girl, inviting the pain.

I didn’t know how to stop.

Logan straightened to his full height and took one step forward. Overpowering. Mind bending. Every single thing I’d once thought right.

“Do I like it?” His voice was close to a growl. “I’d forgotten what beauty really was until I found you standing in that basement.”

Heat flashed.

“Logan…we need to be careful.”

“Fuck being careful.”

He prowled my way. Every step he took sent a reverberation across the floor.

His hand landed on my hip, and he angled down to get in my face. “And for the record, there is nothing careful about the way you look.”

I stared up at him. “What if I asked you to be?”

Careful with me?

Careful with us?

Careful with this whole situation?

His mouth tipped into a wicked smirk. “You asked your father to stay with me, Aster. You didn’t just throw caution into the wind, you kicked it out the fucking door. And if he gave you thirty days?”

He spread his hand out over my cheek. “Then we’re going to use it.”

My insides trembled.

A landslide.

A toppling of stones.

Then he stepped back and stretched out his hand. “Do you trust me?”

Reservations clashed with the faith I’d once had in him. Faith that he would always stand up for me. That above the money, the greed, the desires, he would always hold me highest.

I wanted to believe he would hold me there again.

I accepted his hand without giving him an answer.

A thunderbolt raced my flesh.

Every touch.

Every time.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Dinner.” He said it simply, but there was an undercurrent in his tone that lifted chills on the nape of my neck.

Nerves that warned I was slipping into the unknown. When Logan told me he had a plan, it meant there would be action.

He wasn’t going to stand idle.

He was all in.

I worried that might be the greatest risk of all.

I whispered, “Okay.”

“Good girl.” He leaned in and pressed his lips to my forehead when he said it.

A soft sigh.

A humming of need.

The faintest smirk when he stepped back.

“We should go before we’re late.”

He led me out into the main room, helped me into my coat, and pressed his nose to the back of my ear. Inhaling, he murmured, “I think you have me hypnotized, Aster Rose.”

Without question, that was reversed because I walked along beside him to the elevator, leaned into his side as we rode it down, and relished in the feel of his arm linked around my waist like a leash.

Tension bound and built and blinded in the confined space.

A silence that screamed a million things.

Need and regret and far from pure intentions.

When the doors swept open, he guided me to his car and helped me into the passenger seat. He leaned in and reached over to buckle me.

It stole my breath all over again.

He slowly eased back, and his gaze tangled with mine as he went.

If he kept this up, I was going to succumb right then.

He rounded the front and slipped into the driver’s side, and he pulled out of the lot and onto the road. It took all of three minutes for him to be pulling into the valet in front of an upscale steakhouse attached to a hotel.

He was out and to my side in a flash. Opening the door, he extended his hand. I took it, felt the flames that licked up my arm and set fire to my insides.

I sucked in a stealing breath.

I was in trouble. So much trouble.

Leaning closer as he led me inside, his voice was a rough scrape at my ear, “Trust me, Aster.”

I wanted to. God, I wanted to.

But how did we make it past all that had been tainted? Past the ugliness?

Would there be anything left beyond it?

“Lawson,” he told the hostess.

“Right this way.”

She led us to a small table in the middle of the restaurant. It was covered in a black, draping tablecloth and adorned with a large white bouquet of fresh flowers with candles in the middle.

“Aster.” He said my name like a secret as he pulled out my chair, and his hands caressed my bare shoulders as he slipped off my coat.

“Thank you.” It barely made it to a whisper when he helped tuck me into the table.

He situated himself across from me. Severity played in his green, hypnotic gaze.

The dangerous kind. The kind that promised I wasn’t going to make it out of this unscathed.

He was up to something.

“Wine?” he asked.

“Please.”

A bottle or three.

When the server showed and introduced himself, Logan ordered us a bottle of Malbec.

“You look nervous.”

“And you look suspicious.” I said it with a bough of anxious curiosity.

That smirk danced around his delicious mouth. “Is that so? Suspicious? Surely not me?”

It would be a whole lot easier if he didn’t affect me this way.

“Nothing but a common criminal.” I didn’t know if it was a tease or a plea.

A deep roll of laughter punted from his mouth before his eyes narrowed. “I should hope you could recognize one.”

It was almost a taunt.

Almost pain.

All except for the truth of it.

“I suppose I should be able to.”

I sat back when the server presented our wine, and I managed a weak, “Thank you,” when he poured me a glass.

“I’ll be right back to take your orders.”

I took a shaky sip, and I let the dark, fruity flavor coat my tongue and throat as I swallowed and contemplated what to say.

“How deep does it go?” I finally hedged.

Logan was angled back in his chair, so casual the way he was, though there was no missing the ferocity that rolled through his body. “What are you implying, Aster? I’m as straightlaced as they come.”

A grin cracked his gorgeous face.

All faked easiness.

I leaned forward. “If you want me to trust you, you need to be honest with me.”

He blew out a sigh, chewed at the inside of his cheek, tapped his fingertips on the table as he studied me. “The gambling and some not so on the up and up investments. When we left LA, we left the rest behind.”

Then he shocked me when he leaned over the table. His palms were planted on the top, and his tone shifted from mild to lethal. “But I have a feeling that is about to change.”

Unease stirred in my chest. “The last thing I want is to cause you trouble, Logan.”

He roughed out a disbelieving sound, though there was something soft about it. “Oh, sweet Aster, you have been a lifetime of trouble, haven’t you?”

Hurt underlined his words, and I fidgeted, took another sip of my wine, and fiddled with a piece of my hair when the server returned.

We ordered our dinners, and when the server walked away, Logan lifted his glass in my direction. “To a new beginning.”

My teeth clamped down on my bottom lip. “And which new beginning is that?”

His smile was too dry. Too casual, though it radiated with an intonation of hate and power. “The one where Jarek Urso never touches you again.”

“I can drink to that.” The words wobbled free on an outpouring of my own determination.

Logan sat forward. There was something furious in his demeanor. “Drink to it? I can promise it.”

My throat thickened. “Logan…”

“I promise you,” he said again, words a growl. “He needs to be reminded of his place. Trust me, Aster.”

It was underlined with implication.

Worry burned through my being as I watched Logan from across the table as the server placed our salads in front of us.

“Is there anything else I can get for you while we await your entrees?”

“We’re fine.” Logan didn’t look away from me as he dismissed him.

Under his stare, I felt the ground tremble.

The whirring of the air.

I took a bite of my salad to distract myself from the magnitude of it.

As if the entire world was focused on me. My skin flushed.

That was right when a tacky, clammy awareness crawled over my skin. I looked up, over Logan’s shoulder, toward the bar on the far side of the restaurant, compelled by the tension that bound the air.

Black eyes stared back at me.

Jarek.

I gulped as fear crashed through my being, and my body heaved forward in shock.

Revulsion.

Loathing.

A sickness I couldn’t escape.

The fact that no matter where I went, Jarek would be right there.

My attention snapped back to Logan who looked as if he were about to go on a rampage. As if he were barely keeping it together.

“Did you know he was here?” It was a rattle of terror.

He gave me a tight nod. Did he have any idea the danger he was putting us in?

“So you brought me here?” The accusation was fueled by fear.

“I told you to trust me, Aster.”

My face pinched. “How can I trust you when you’re parading me around like bait?”

“Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re not already the end-goal, Aster. You are the cup and the crown and every jewel that has ever existed.”

The blood thudded heavily in my veins.

“If you want me to help you, you have to trust me.”

Every line in his face was hard.

Every cell bated.

A tremble of foreboding in the air.

From across the room, I could feel Jarek tremoring, too.

It felt like I was being ripped between the two of them.

Logan pushed back his chair a fraction and patted his leg. “Come, sit on my lap, let me feed you.”

I gripped the edges of the table. “Are you insane? What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m simply reminding him of what he can no longer have.”

“You are trying to start a war.”

“What I’m doing is trying to set you free. And if a war is what it takes, then so be it.” The words were clipped, his expression fierce, the inevitability set deep in the wells of those green eyes. The browns and golds swirled from their depths.

Entrancing.

Enticing.

He patted his leg again. “Come here, Aster. My rules, remember?”

I’d almost forgotten the power I’d left him with.

I guzzled the entire glass of wine in search of courage, and I pushed from the chair.

Jarek never averted his caustic stare, and I could feel the lances of anger blistering through the room. It clashed with the stupid need that suddenly welled up in me as Logan sat there watching me like I was his.

Possession seared through his gaze as I slowly moved his way, but it was different than the way Jarek viewed me.

Logan looked at me like I was the treasure.

The reason.

The destination.

My breaths were jagged as I eased around to his side, and I settled down onto his lap, angled across him so both my legs draped off to one side.

Warmth spread fast, goosebumps a flash that sizzled along my arms and skated to my nape. Logan curled an arm around my waist, and I curled both of mine around his neck.

I was inundated with his aura.

Clove and cinnamon and corruption.

I knew that’s what he was set on.

He would see to it that even if I walked away, I would never be the same.

“Good girl,” he whispered in my ear.

Rage flooded the atmosphere.

My heart raced. Pounded and shook.

It was such a risky game.

Shaming Jarek.

Logan showing off his prize.

Needling a knife that just might end up in our backs.

A rustle moved through the restaurant, and eyes shifted our way, peeking, and others outright staring.

“They’re all looking at you,” Logan murmured in my ear. “The most gorgeous woman in the room. In the city. In my universe.”

Shivers tumbled down my spine.

“What they’re thinking is this is horribly inappropriate.” My response was barely a gasp.

The roughest chuckle scraped up his thick throat, coating me like a covetous caress, and his voice dropped even lower. “No, Aster, every man here wishes he were me right now. Including your husband.”

That was a growl, and he shifted me so that my legs were under the table, hidden by the cloth, though my body was still angled, my side pressed to his chest.

His chest that was big and warm and vibrated with bristling strength.

He reached into the basket and tore off a piece of bread, and he angled in so his lips were right next to mine when he balled it and slipped it into my mouth.

It was warm and soft, and I felt it like the soft lick of his tongue.

Then he slipped his hand under the table, his palm on my bare thigh where he slid his hand up under the slit, riding the bare flesh.

I gasped and curled deeper into his hold.

Logan ran his thumb along the top line of my inner thigh.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Shivers raced and greed rushed and desire pounded through my bloodstream.

It twisted me into a needy bow. Every cell rode a razor-sharp edge. Anticipation a slow burn that singed my skin.

“Logan.” The plea was out before I could stop it. “This is a bad idea.”

He leaned in to whisper in my ear, “No, Aster, men are the most reckless when they’re angry. When they’re pushed up against a wall. I’m merely showing Jarek where he stands. Most of all, he needs to know you no longer belong to him.”

I was the reckless one considering I could almost forget Jarek was even there.

I was losing all semblance of control.

Conceding to every brush of this man’s wicked, wicked hands.

Falling deeper into his darkness where I’d never find my way out.

And still, I let him continue, let him knead his fingers into my thigh, let him press his mouth to my neck as I peered over his shoulder at Jarek who was incensed.

A short fuse that was at its end.

His bastard jaw clenched, and his hand wrapped so tightly around a tumbler I was sure it would bust.

Logan shifted to send a smirk Jarek’s way.

Gauntlets and games.

This was so messed up. So wrong. And still, I remained on his lap like I was chained.

So foolish because I could run, but I couldn’t get away.

Jarek tossed back the rest of his whiskey before he shoved to his feet and tossed some cash onto the bar. His stare remained locked on us for one brutal beat before he stormed out and into the lobby of the hotel.

“This is wrong,” I whimpered, still holding onto Logan. I was worried if I let go, I would float away.

“Is it? Or is this exactly what you wanted?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing, Logan.”

“Men are motivated by three things, Aster. Money, women, and power. He’ll have none of them left when I’m finished with him, and you, Little Star, will be mine.”

My arms curled tighter, though the words climbed free of where I wanted to keep them locked. “Thirty days, Logan.”

It was all we had.

We were nothing but a time stamp.

One that might cost him everything.

Anger vibrated along the hard flesh beneath his suit.

My mangled, tattered heart flapped in the wind.

He let his arms fall to his sides. “You can get off my lap now.”

Shame burned through my body when I finally pulled away. Cheeks hot, I fumbled back to my side with a slick of humiliation burning me through.

I just couldn’t pinpoint what brought on the shame.

The server showed up with our meals just then, and I edged back, embarrassment tinging my cheeks.

What had I let him do?

Degrade me?

Is that what this was really about?

A show of hand?

A vendetta he would do anything to avenge?

Did he hate me that much?

I stared at my food.

“Eat, Little Star,” Logan said, no emotion in his voice other than the inflexibility of stone.

My head dipped, and I at least found the self-preservation to make one request. “Please, don’t call me that.”

Leaning forward over the table, he brushed the hair back from my face and set his palm on my cheek. “I wish I could stop.”