Chapter 12
Nuala
The elevator doors slide open with a soft chime.
Logan’s hand is still wrapped around mine as he pulls me into a hallway that smells like expensive carpet cleaner and money.
The walls are painted a crisp white, with abstract art hanging at precise intervals.
It’s a world away from my flat with its peeling wallpaper and radiators that rattle and gurgle when I can afford to put the heating on.
“This way,” Logan says, leading me to the only door at the end of the corridor.
He unlocks it with a keycard and ushers me inside. I step into the penthouse, and my jaw drops.
The space is massive—open plan with a kitchen that looks like it belongs in a magazine, a living area with leather furniture that probably costs more than I make in a year, and a dining table that could seat twelve.
The wealth on display makes my stomach twist with something that isn’t quite envy but isn’t far from it.
This is Logan’s world—money, power, luxury.
And I’m standing here in my stained work uniform like a street urchin who’s wandered into a palace.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city make me feel exposed standing here, like a target in a shooting gallery.
“You live here,” I say. It’s not a question. It’s an accusation.
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
The corner of his mouth lifts in that way that makes my breath catch, and my pulse skip.
God, that smile should come with a warning label.
It’s dangerous—the kind of smile that makes sensible women do stupid things.
Like kiss him on his sexy mouth. The urge is so strong I have to dig my nails into my palms to stop myself from reaching for him.
“Don’t stand near the windows.” He drops my hand and moves deeper into the apartment, checking rooms with the same methodical precision he showed at the bungalow.
I hover near the entrance, clutching my bag. The space is too clean, too pristine. It doesn’t feel lived in. There’s a black leather sofa, a glass coffee table with nothing on it, and a kitchen that looks like it’s never been used.
“You actually live here?” I ask when he returns.
“Ever since… for about six months.” He shrugs off his jacket and tosses it over the sofa. The gun is visible now, tucked into his waistband with the notebook.
“Ever since?”
His gaze pins mine. I think for one second he might tell me, but then he shrugs. “Nothing.”
I don’t push. It was a significant nothing, but none of my business. I kick off my shoes with a sigh of relief and drop my bag on the side table.
“Do you have anyone you need to call?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No.” It’s pathetic. Sad.
The truth. I’m an only child from a single mother who would rather tend her garden than wonder where I am and what I’m up to.
It’s fair. She spent her youth dragging me up, working two, sometimes three jobs.
Now I’m an adult and no longer her responsibility, she doesn’t want to look at me.
Feeling’s mutual. But the less said about that, the better.
Logan draws his gaze away, having the grace not to ask, and moves to the windows to pull the blinds closed. It plunges the apartment into a slight gloom, so he flicks on a table lamp that looks like it’s made from marble and silk.
“Food,” he says briskly, moving to the kitchen, and my stomach growls.
“How long until your uncle comes knocking?” I ask, following him and sitting on one of the white leather barstools.
He snickers. “Connor won’t grace us with his presence.”
I bite the inside of my lip as Logan opens the refrigerator and starts pulling out bacon and eggs. “I don’t want to go,” I blurt out.
He pauses and looks over at me. “Go where?”
“To his house.”
“You don’t have to.”
“He wants me there, doesn’t he? He sounds like a man you don’t say no to.”
“I say no to him all the time, and I’m still here. You aren’t going anywhere you don’t want to,” he says carefully and pulls out a frying pan. It’s brand new. Fancy. Unlike my old, battered one, which is held together with burnt grease and rust.
I rise and start pacing. I’m too nervous to sit still after our conversation in the Mini.
Did Stacey kill that woman and plant dangerous evidence in my bag?
If so, she is not the person I thought she was.
I stop pacing when I reach the far side of the apartment and see a rosary draped around a simple wooden cross on a shelf.
It dangles down, and I reach out to touch it.
“Didn’t peg you as the religious type,” I murmur.
“You don’t know me,” he says right from behind me, making me jump. I didn’t even know he’d moved from the kitchen.
I spin around, and he’s so close I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. His chest is inches from mine, and I can feel the heat radiating off him.
“You’re right,” I whisper. “I don’t.”
He reaches past me, his arm brushing mine, and picks up the rosary. The beads slide through his fingers like water. “I was a priest,” he says. His voice is flat, emotionless. “Up until six months ago.”
My eyes widen, but I don’t say anything.
I wasn’t expecting that, and anything I say will sound gauche or insulting.
A priest. This man, who touched me in the car, who looks at me like he wants to devour me, who carries violence in his hands like a second nature, was a priest. I should be horrified by how easily he exists in both worlds—the sacred and the savage.
Instead, it explains everything and nothing all at once.
I search his face for any sign of humor. There’s none. Just that hard, unyielding expression that tells me he’s deadly serious. “Why did you leave?”
His jaw clenches. “God and I had a disagreement.”
“About what?”
“About whether prayers mean fuck all when the people you love are dying.” He drops the rosary back onto the cross. It swings gently, the crucifix catching the lamplight. “Turns out they don’t.”
The pain in his voice is raw, barely concealed beneath the anger. I recognize it because I’ve felt it myself—that bone-deep fury at a world that doesn’t give a shit about your suffering.
“Who is dying?” I ask quietly before I can stop myself.
“She is already dead.” He turns away to see to the frying bacon.
She. Someone he loved.
I gulp and press my lips together, sweating all of a sudden. This got deep, and I feel an insane amount of guilt over lusting after an ex-priest whose love died.
“She was my best friend. Not my lover.” I can hear the smile in his voice, and my cheeks go warm.
“Oh,” I say, some of the guilt easing up.
He chuckles. “She’d have approved of you.”
“I’m not sure if I should be pleased by that or not.”
“Why wouldn’t you be?” He keeps his back turned away as he cooks, and I move closer.
“I’m not sure why I would be seeking approval.”
“Because you are fighting this attraction,” he states as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
I freeze, my hand halfway to touching the smooth marble countertop.
“I’m not fighting anything.” My heart starts hammering so hard I’m sure he can hear it.
The lie tastes bitter on my tongue. Of course I’m fighting it.
I’m fighting the urge to cross this kitchen and kiss him senseless.
Fighting the way my body responds to his voice, his touch, his presence.
Fighting the dangerous need that’s been building between us like a storm.
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
I can’t. Because he’s not. I open my mouth anyway, ready to deny it, but the words die in my throat under the weight of his stare.
“That’s what I thought,” he says, a hint of satisfaction in his tone.
“You’re an arsehole,” I mutter, moving past him to put distance between us. My legs feel shaky.
I sink onto the barstool again, needing something solid beneath me. “How in the hell did a man from a mafia family get to be a priest?” I ask, diverting the conversation back to him.
“Someone had to atone for their sins.”
“And you thought that someone was you?”
He plates up and slides one in front of me. I grab the knife and fork he hands me and tuck in.
“It was me. Then it wasn’t.”
“And you just decided to go from being a man of god to a man who carries an illegal weapon and rescues women from mass shootings in private clubs.”
“Heavily regulated, not illegal,” he points out, but I don’t fucking know what difference it makes.
“Pretty much,” he says. “Turns out I’m better at this than I ever was at saving souls.”
“That’s depressing.”
“That’s reality.” He picks up his own plate and sits on the stool next to me. Our thighs nearly touch in the confined space, and I’m hyperaware of every inch between us. “Eat.”
I focus on my food instead. The bacon is perfectly crispy, the eggs cooked just right. My stomach growls its approval as I shovel it in. I don’t realize how hungry I am until I’m halfway through the plate.
“When did you last eat a proper meal?” Logan asks.
I pause, fork halfway to my mouth. “Not counting the sandwiches. Night before last.”
His expression darkens. “Two days ago?”
I nod, keeping my eyes on my food. “Not all of us live in fancy apartments with family money. Some of us choose between heating and eating.”
“Jesus, Nuala,” he mutters.
“You say that like I’ve done something stupid.
To me, it’s life.” I’m trying to remain calm and not burst out crying.
What would he know about it? He will give me platitudes and shit I’m not interested in.
I finish up in silence while he watches me take every bite.
Then he pushes his plate toward me without a word, the gesture so casual it takes me a moment to process what he’s doing.
I stare at the food, then at him. I’m not sure if I should be insulted or grateful.
Is this pity? Charity? Or something else entirely—something that makes my throat tight and my eyes burn?
Hunger wins out.
It always wins out unless it’s sub-zero temperatures, and my entire body is stiff with cold.