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Stacy tilted her head in confusion, uncertain that she’d heard the older woman correctly. They had never been close—at her aunt’s choosing. She was hardly going to share any secrets with the woman now. “Why do you care?”
“I’m just curious...”
The woman was too self-absorbed to be curious about anyone but herself. She only wanted to know about things that might affect her. Why did she think Stacy’s father’s last words might concern her?
Stacy had no intention of satisfying the woman’s morbid curiosity, so she turned away from her. But Aunt Marta grasped her arm in her talonlike fingers and asked again, “What did he say to you?”
The woman was persistent, or as Uncle Iwan would admit when he had too much to drink, a nag. She wasn’t going to give up until Stacy gave her an answer. Any answer might do...
So she shook her head. “I couldn’t understand him...”
Aunt Marta expelled a little breath—as if she were relieved. Had her brother-in-law taken one of her secrets to his grave?
Stacy had actually misled her aunt. She’d understood what her father had said, she just hadn’t understood why he’d said it. When he’d spoken them, Stacy had put no credence in her father’s last words. She’d blamed the strange statement on the painkillers they’d given him to make him comfortable because they hadn’t been able to do anything else to treat his injury.
She still didn’t understand why he’d said what he had...
“Son of a—!” Garek said as he turned toward the entrance to the pub’s back room.
Logan Payne walked in as if he’d been invited. But Garek had been right to stop himself from finishing his curse. Mrs. Payne was the sweetest woman Stacy had ever met—the most forgiving and generous woman—and probably one of the smartest, as well.
“I thought you got shot,” Milek drunkenly murmured. Had he thought that because of what Stacy had said or because he’d thought he’d hit him?
Logan probably wondered the same thing, because his eyes narrowed with suspicion. He gestured toward the tear in the shoulder of the tuxedo he still wore. It was even more rumpled and smudged with dirt and blood now. “The bullet barely grazed me,” he replied. Then, with a sneer that was somehow both infuriating and sexy as hell, he added, “Somebody’s a lousy shot.”
Garek chuckled. “Then it can’t be any one of us who’s shooting at you. We would have hit you by now.”
Despite her brother’s bravado, neither he nor Milek were expert marksmen. They weren’t killers, either, even though they had actually killed before. And if Logan kept goading them, they might kill again—right here.
Stacy had to do something to diffuse the potentially dangerous situation. It wouldn’t be just dangerous for Logan, who was outnumbered, it would be dangerous for her brothers, too, because if they hurt him—or worse—they would go back to prison.
“Why the hell do you keep showing up where you’re not wanted?” Aunt Marta demanded to know. This time her disdain was for the intruder. She usually considered her brother-in-law’s children intruders, too, even though they were blood.
“He’s wanted,” Stacy said suddenly. She’d realized what she had to do back at the cemetery, maybe even before the gunshots had rang out. But in this moment, she made the quick decision that she was actually going to go through with it. “I want him here...”
Curving her lips into a big smile, she crossed the room to where he stood. His long body was tense. His face tight, he looked stunned, as if he’d been shot again—and that was just from what she’d said. She had no idea how he would react to what she was about to do. Maybe he would stop her before she could even act, like he had when she’d tried to slap him. But he just stood there when she wrapped her arms around his neck.
Why hadn’t he stopped her? Why hadn’t he caught her arms and pushed her away? He stared down at her, his blue eyes intense and watchful as he waited for her next move.
Could she...?
Bracing herself for what she had to do, she drew in a deep breath. Then she rose up on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to his hard-looking lips. But they weren’t hard. They were surprisingly pliant and sensual and fuller than they looked in the tight line of disapproval into which they were usually drawn.
Now she was the one who was stunned—because he kissed her back. He clamped one arm, probably his uninjured one, around her back and pulled her tightly against him. Then he parted her lips and deepened the kiss.
Noise erupted in the room. Gasps. Shouts. Even a scream. But she could barely hear them for the blood rushing through her head, roaring in her ears. Her pulse pounded madly with adrenaline and attraction. Had it been so long since she’d been kissed that any man could affect her like this? It couldn’t be just because it was Logan. She couldn’t want a man that she hated as much as this one.
But no man had ever kissed her like he was kissing her—with so much passion and desire that her knees weakened and her head swam and she completely forgot why she’d kissed him in the first place.
When he pulled back, she was panting for breath. Against her lips, he murmured, “What the hell are you up to?”
For a moment she couldn’t remember. Then it came back to her—the plan, his mother’s outrageous plan.
She whispered back, “I’m saving your life.” She turned toward her stunned family and announced, “Logan Payne is my fiancé. We’re getting married.”
Chapter Four
Logan’s heart pounded so hard that it was the only sound in the sudden silence that had fallen after Stacy’s insane announcement. He knew his mother had initially proposed this crazy engagement, but he hadn’t expected that Stacy would ever agree to it. She hated him.
But he hadn’t tasted that hatred on her lips when she’d kissed him so convincingly that even he had forgotten it wasn’t real. He knew that she didn’t really want him; she just didn’t want her brothers going to prison for killing him. She was protecting Milek and Garek—not Logan.
So then she couldn’t be behind the attempts on his life. Or maybe she had been, but his mother’s idea had convinced Stacy to change her plan for revenge to one for marriage. But then marrying him might be more vengeful than killing him.
Not that he was going to fall in with his mother’s crazy plan. He wasn’t about to get coerced into marriage with a woman he couldn’t...
Stand? More like resist. Why had he kissed her back? To punish her for the game she was playing? He’d like to think that but he had enjoyed it too damn much. Her mouth was so sweet and so damn sexy when it moved over his.
“What the hell is going on?” one of her brothers, his face flushed either with alcohol or temper, demanded to know. “Just a couple of hours ago you were mad at him for crashing Dad’s funeral and now you’re engaged?”
Her other brother’s eyes narrowed, he glared at Logan. “He must be threatening her.”
“He saved my life at the cemetery,” she said. “He took a bullet for me.”
He was pretty sure that bullet had been meant for him and that one of her brothers had fired it. And that was the only reason he was refraining from calling her on her lie. As her fake fiancé, he had access to her family—hopefully enough access to gather evidence. Like the damn gun they kept firing at him...
She continued, “It was all very sudden.”
“It’s all B.S.,” he whispered back at her.
She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. Hard. And he was surprised again that she had calluses on her small hands. What did she do for a living or for fun that had produced such calluses?
They were engaged and yet he hardly knew Stacy Kozminski.
“I’m surprised myself at the feelings I have for—” her throat moved, as if she were choking on his name or maybe just on her lie “—Logan.”
Despite that kiss, he doubted her feelings had changed. She still hated him.
One of her brothers—Garek—voiced his sentiment. “You hate his guts, Stace.”
She shook her head. “That’s not true.”
“You’ve said over and over that you hate his guts,” Garek persisted. “Why are you lying about it now? What’s he got on you?”
What did he think Logan could have on her? Proof that she and her brothers were responsible for the shootings? He hoped like hell he had it, then he could call her on her lie and end this nonsense. Then he could call the police...
“My gratitude,” she said. “He saved my life.” She turned toward him and glanced up. Maybe her gaze was supposed to be adoring, but she just looked miserable. “He’s my hero.”
Garek snorted. “And that just erases everything else he’s done to our father?”
Her snotty aunt added, “To our family? You’re betraying your father. Your uncle. Your brothers...”
Ignoring her aunt, she replied to her brother only, “I understand why he’s done what he has.”
“I don’t understand what you think you’re doing,” Logan murmured. Her family was never going to buy that she’d had such a drastic change of heart over him.
“If the situation was reversed,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “we would have done the same. Or more...”
“He killed our father,” Milek said, his words slurred. He had definitely been drinking. “And you’re rewarding him for it.”
“Logan did not kill Dad,” Stacy defended him. “Some gang member did.”
“He wouldn’t have had the chance if your boyfriend—”
“Fiancé,” she corrected her brother. “And stop. Just stop...all of it.” She turned toward Logan. “It’s been a long day. Please, take me home.”
Did she mean his home? He wasn’t about to bring her there. She would probably set it on fire. And he had no idea where she lived. But instead of asking any questions in front of her resentful family, he escorted her out of the pub.
“Have you been drinking with your brother?” he asked as he opened the passenger door for her.
“I’m not drunk,” she said. Her gray eyes were clear as she glared at him.
“Then why on earth—”
“We can’t talk about it here,” she said. “There are cameras in the lot.”
Her paranoia lifted his brows with surprise. “And you think your brothers would look at the footage?”
“I don’t know about them,” she said. “But I wouldn’t put it past my aunt.” She stepped on the running board of his SUV, but her heel slipped and she fell back against him. His arms closed around her, and he lifted her easily onto the seat. Maybe she was as exhausted as she’d claimed because she didn’t fight him. Or maybe she was just worried about what her aunt might see on the security cameras.
“Okay, I’ll drive you home,” he said.
She waited until he rounded the front bumper and slid behind the wheel before she replied, “It’s the least you can do since I’m saving your life.”
“So you admit my life is in danger because of you?” His suspicions had obviously not been unfounded. He pushed aside the guilt he’d been feeling for interrupting her father’s funeral to confront her. And it wasn’t just his mother who’d made him feel guilty but Stacy had, too—with all the pain he’d seen in her gray eyes.
She was mourning. He understood that; he’d spent the past fifteen years mourning the loss of his father. Hers was to blame for that, but she wasn’t. Maybe for the first time in fifteen years he realized that.
She emitted a soft, shaky sigh. “I’m not admitting anything, Detective Payne.”
“I haven’t been a detective for a few years.” Not since he’d started Payne Protection Agency.
“I think you’ll always be a detective,” she replied.
“If I was, I wouldn’t have to ask where you live,” he pointed out. “I would already know.”
She arched her brows in surprise. She must have assumed he knew. But Logan was just realizing how very little he actually knew about his fake fiancée. He had been so focused on what her father had done that he’d never paid attention to what she had done. Or what she was doing...
What was she doing? And not just with her life but with him? Why was she willing to pretend she was in love with him? What was her real agenda?
“I’ll tell you where I live,” she said. “But we have to stop somewhere else first.”
Maybe her agreeing to his mother’s plan was just a ruse for her to get him alone—somewhere that she would have no witnesses to her killing him.
* * *
WONDERING WHICH ONE would attack first, Stacy studied the two alpha males with which she shared the relatively small confines of the SUV. Cujo sat on the backseat, but the German shepherd’s black-and-tan body was so long that his head reached over the console. She scratched him behind his droopy ear, and he whined and licked her face.
“I missed you, too,” she murmured.
“Why’d you have him at the kennel?” Logan asked. He had obviously been surprised that was the place she’d had him stop before taking her home.
“Because I’ve been staying with a friend since my dad died,” she said.
“And that friend didn’t want Cujo staying, too?” he asked with a derisive snort.
The German shepherd whipped his big head toward Logan and nudged his shoulder with his nose. The SUV swerved a little before Logan gripped the wheel more tightly. “What he’d do that for?”
She chuckled. “That’s his name.”
“Cujo?”
The dog barked and then nudged him again. Logan held his hand between them, letting the canine sniff him before petting his head. If Cujo had been a cat, he might have purred.
“Traitor,” she teased him. The dog had apparently conceded which one of them was the true alpha male. She wasn’t surprised it was Logan. Since he was the boss of the family business, his brothers and sister must have conceded he was the alpha male, too.
“That’s probably what your family is saying about you now,” Logan said. “That you’re the traitor.”
Her stomach churned with nerves. They were the only thing in it. She hadn’t been able to eat since she’d seen her father in the prison infirmary. “Probably.”
“So why did you claim to be my fiancée?” he asked. “Because you know your brothers have been trying to kill me?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know any such thing.”
“Liar,” he softly accused her.
She should have been offended but liar was the least of his insults. He thought she was a killer, too. “You really think I put out a hit on you and hired my brothers to do it?”
“You wouldn’t need to hire them,” he replied. “They’ll do whatever you tell them to.”
That was what she was counting on—to keep them from killing Logan Payne. “If I wanted you dead, why would I tell them that I’m going to marry you?”
“You want to be able to collect my life insurance,” he suggested, “as my widow.”
“Hmm,” she mock-mused, “I hadn’t considered that.” She nodded as if committing to the idea like she was going to try to make everyone believe she was going to commit to him. “At least then I’ll get something out of this marriage.”
He glanced at her, his blue gaze hot and intense. “If we were actually going to get married, you’d definitely get something out of it.”
Her heart flipped. “Are you flirting with me, Logan Payne?”
