‘What’s he like, Cara?’ The journalist clicked an app on her phone then shoved it in Cara’s face, her eyes glowing with excitement. ‘Is his home as stunning as they say? Is he? You know he hasn’t been seen in public since he was a boy of ten? And he witnessed his parents’ brutal murder.’

  ‘Get away with you,’ Kieran announced, trying to shield Cara from the woman’s aggressive questioning, just as the policeman took her other arm.

  ‘Miss Doyle, let us take you to a more private place,’ he said, but as he led her away she knew it was already too late. The reporter was dictating the exclusive story into her phone—throwing out words like ‘billionaire recluse’ and ‘kidnap victim’ and making Cara want to fold in on herself and disappear.

  The exhaustion and sadness clamped down on her heart, making her feel even more alone, and far away from Logan. As if she’d travelled a million miles today, instead of under a hundred.

  She would never be able to go back to him now.

  Why hadn’t she tried harder to win his trust? Before she had betrayed it so comprehensively?

  * * *

  The story broke in the Finnish press the next morning, and had been splashed all over the Internet by lunchtime. By nightfall, the hotel in Saariselkä had been besieged by photographers and reporters and celebrity journalists from all over the globe, trying to get an interview or even a glimpse of the woman who had been ‘trapped in Colton’s love nest’ or ‘kidnapped by a reclusive billionaire’ or ‘the first clue in decades to a billionaire enigma’ depending on your news source of choice.

  The whole thing felt unreal to Cara. Only twenty-four hours ago she’d been in Logan’s arms. And now it felt as if her life had become disconnected from reality, because she was sleepwalking through a nightmare she couldn’t escape.

  Knowing that she was the focus of a media storm—that she couldn’t even leave the hotel—was only one aspect of the nightmare though. Because her appearance from nowhere, after two weeks in the wilderness, had triggered a hunt for the location of Logan’s home.

  He’d managed to stay safe from scrutiny by keeping under the radar. There had been whispers that he was living in Finland, but nothing concrete, and she knew what lengths he’d gone to, to keep it that way. Now she had effectively outed him by default, she knew he would not be able to stay hidden for much longer—without hiring an army to protect himself, and that would defeat the purpose because he would no longer have his solitude.

  She felt sick to her stomach, had been unable to eat or sleep for twenty-four hours. But even so, she had refused to talk to the police. Logan had done nothing wrong, and neither had she, so she owed them no more of an explanation than she owed the press.

  Eventually the police had left.

  Her brother Kieran, however, had been far more persistent.

  ‘Why won’t you talk to me, Car?’ he said, stalking across the suite she had been given by the hotel for her own protection.

  ‘If he didn’t hurt you,’ Kieran added, raking his hair with impatient fingers, ‘if he didn’t kidnap you, why won’t you tell me what happened while you were with him?’

  She’d told him nothing, she hadn’t even mentioned Logan’s name, but that hadn’t stopped Kieran from jumping to all sorts of ludicrous notions.

  ‘I’m not talking about it, Kieran, because it’s none of your business. Nor is it anyone else’s. It’s private.’

  ‘He’s one of the richest men in the US. ColtonCorp has been a Fortune 500 company for two generations. If he exploited you, we should demand compensation. Damages.’

  She jumped up from her seat by the window, where she had been watching the press horde amassing all day. ‘We’ll demand nothing from him. He owes me nothing. He saved my life, so I’ll not be paying him back by suing him,’ she cried out.

  ‘So you were with him. The reporter had the right of it.’ Kieran’s eyes narrowed.

  Her bastard brother had tricked her into admitting the truth.

  She slumped back in the armchair. Defeated. ‘If you say his name to anyone, Kieran, I’ll murder you,’ she hissed, but she could hear the weary resignation in her own voice.

  Enough to know it was an empty threat. She was too tired, too devastated to do anything.

  He knelt down beside her armchair, rested his hands on the arms of the chair. ‘Just tell me, Cara, did he hurt you?’

  She shook her head, wiped away a tear. A pointless, self-pitying tear. ‘No. He saved me, I told you.’

  ‘Then why are you crying?’ he asked, his voice gentle now, coaxing and full of the concern that made her feel like a little girl again, after being called names by their da.

  Kieran had always been the one to come and tell her it meant nothing. To hold her and keep her safe. But as she turned to him, wanting to be held, to be reassured, she knew the only person who could do that now was Logan.

  And he would never want to see her again. Not when the swarms of reporters and photographers found his home—which was surely only a matter of time.

  ‘Because I love him, and I’ve destroyed his life,’ she said simply.

  She would have to leave Finland. The longer she stayed here, the more the story would grow. She’d had a lot of lucrative offers to buy her photographs, but she knew every one of them had nothing to do with the quality of her work and everything to do with her new-found celebrity—which meant she couldn’t and wouldn’t accept any of them.

  By leaving Logan, she had destroyed the career she had been so determined to save. It would be ironic, if it weren’t so pathetic.

  ‘Hey, sis,’ Kieran murmured, pulling her into his arms and holding her as the sobs began to rack her body. The sobs she’d held in ever since the long drive back to Saariselkä. ‘Don’t take on so. None of this is your fault.’

  Except it was her fault. She’d been a coward, scared to trust her love. Scared to give them a chance, scared to believe Logan could change, if she gave him time. And now he never would.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Three weeks later

  ‘CARA, HEY. HAVE YOU seen today’s headlines? Yer man is back in New York. It’s all over the news.’

  Cara lifted herself off the rocky ledge to see her middle brother, Connor, running up the bank towards her waving his mobile phone.

  Her heart jolted in her chest. Her eyes burned.

  Logan. He had to be talking about Logan.

  She’d been avoiding the news ever since the press had finally left her alone, convinced at last that she had no intention of giving any exclusive interviews. And once ‘Colton’s Secret Lair’ had been uncovered in Lapland, the press had switched their attention back to Finland.

  So, Logan had finally been forced to return to the US, the place where he had only bad memories. Probably for his own safety.

  Anger roiled in her gut, right alongside a wave of guilt. What gave those vultures the right to change his life? To force him out of his home? His sanctuary?

  ‘I’m not interested, Connor,’ she said, trying to convince herself it was true. ‘He’s not my man.’ And he never really had been.

  Connor let his phone drop, his breath heaving after the run up the hill from the farm.

  ‘Well, you should be,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Because that’s not all. Darragh has just phoned Mam,’ he said, mentioning her youngest older brother, who worked at a bank in Wexford. ‘The manager wanted him to inform you, there’s been a huge deposit in your account. He says you should come in to speak to their investment advisors—as it makes no sense to leave it there.’

  ‘What?’ She stared at him blankly, not sure she’d heard that right.

  ‘Darragh says it’s millions of euros. It has to be coming from him, for sure,’ he added as his lips tilted in a mischievous smile. ‘Unless you’ve been trapped in some other billionaire’s love nest we don’t know about.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Connor.’ She stalked past him, the nausea building under her breastbone.

  Why would Logan give her money? It made no sense.

  She dragged her phone out of her back pocket, switched it on. News notifications popped up, the headlines hitting her like bullets.

  Billionaire Recluse Goes Home to the US

  The Colton Orphan Returns from Lapland Exile

  ColtonCorp Heir Outed as Celebrated Wood Sculpture Artist LAC

  But the pictures were so much worse. Logan at JFK airport, his head covered, as he was rushed into a waiting limo with bodyguards either side of him surrounded by the press. All those people, so many people, how could he survive it after so long alone?

  She sucked in a breath, covered her trembling lips with her hand as she clicked on a photo taken through the car window and enlarged it.

  Her breath clogged in her lungs. The pain in her heart clawed at her throat.

  His eyes were all wrong, the fierce silvery blue now cold and empty and devoid of expression. Like a wounded wolf, defending what little territory it had left.

  The vultures had besieged him. Forced him to face the trauma he had spent years protecting himself against.

  Just as you tried to do, Cara, because of some foolish notion you could make him whole. When he was already whole.

  What Logan did now, what he was forced to do, was none of her business any more. She wiped away the errant tear that leaked down her cheek, like too many others in the past three weeks, and clicked on the home screen to her banking app.

  She gasped as the balance displayed.

  She’d been close to a thousand euros overdrawn yesterday. Now her account was in credit by... Her brain short-circuited as she tried to register the amount. How many zeros was that now?

  Connor whistled beside her. ‘Cara, that’s ten million euros.’ He grasped the phone, began clicking. ‘Comes from a numbered Swiss account,’ he said. ‘No name. But it has to be him, right? Where else could it have come from?’

  She took the phone back, feeling numb, the smell of the elderflowers starting to grow in the nearby hedgerow doing nothing to stem the nausea in her gut.

  What was the money for? Her silence? The sex?

  Why would he think he owed her anything at all?

  And why hadn’t he contacted her to tell her about the money? Did he hate her that much now? He couldn’t even speak to her?

  She’d received no messages from him, even though she’d been stupid enough to check the post and her emails every day, just in case. Stupid enough to hope, against all the odds, that he might reach out to her, might need her.

  If you change your mind, I will be waiting.

  The phrase echoed in her head, only making her heart hurt more. But it fuelled her anger too. Why did she have to be the one to make the move? Why did it have to be her decision to make, and not his?

  ‘It doesn’t matter where it comes from,’ she said, slowly, carefully. Her heart pulsed so hard in her chest she was surprised it didn’t burst through her ribs. ‘Because I’ll be sending it back.’

  She headed back across the fields she’d spent three solid weeks wandering in like a ghost, feeling guilty and compromised and heartbroken and alone, anesthetising herself against the vivid emotions Logan had awakened.

  But they weren’t anesthetised any more.

  Connor jogged alongside her. ‘Are you an eejit? That’s a fortune. You can pay off all your debts and work on your pictures again. Why would you be giving that back now?’

  She gathered pace, the purpose she’d lacked for the past three weeks, ever since he’d left her with that damn note, finally returning. He’d given her over ten million euros, a ridiculous amount, but hadn’t even bothered to contact her, to tell her what it was for. Was it a bribe? A payment for services rendered? Because whatever way she looked at it, it was insulting. To her and to what they’d had, what they’d built together over those two glorious weeks in Lapland.

  ‘Because I don’t want his money,’ she said, feeling scared and raw still, but also fierce and increasingly furious. ‘I want him.’

  * * *

  Logan stared out at the rocky outcropping and the bay beyond from the roof terrace of the Colton Mansion in Rhode Island.

  Built in the Colonial style in the nineteen hundreds, as a summer residence for his robber baron great-grandfather, the house had sixteen bedrooms, ten bathrooms, indoor and outdoor pools, tennis courts, a golf course—now covered in a sprinkling of snow—and a stone guest house on the edge of the ten-acre property where he had been living since his return to the US three days ago.

  But he couldn’t sleep in the stone guest house, any more than he had been able to sleep in his home in Finland...

  Everything here was different from the steel and glass structure he had built in Lapland. The ornate furniture that had been covered in dust sheets for over twenty years, until a week ago. The dull, expensive pieces of art his father’s mother had packed the house with long before he was born. The carefully manicured lawns and gardens that had been cared for by a ground staff of forty people for twenty years while no one lived here.

  Even the light was different from the light in the Arctic Circle, not clean and bright but dull and grey. There were no Northern Lights here, no flashes of brilliant colour amid the startling starry night...

  He had run here, believing he could somehow escape the pain...

  But here as in Finland one crucial thing was exactly the same.

  There was no Cara.

  He turned away from the view as he heard ColtonCorp’s managing director, Grant Andrews, step out of the terrace doors.

  ‘Logan, how are you doing?’ the older man asked, his breath frosting in the winter air.

  ‘Good,’ he lied smoothly. He did not want any more sympathy. Or suggestions on therapists that could help him ‘adjust to his new role’.

  The truth was, he hadn’t made the decision to return to the US because the press had finally discovered his home. He had already made up his mind—less than a day after leaving Cara at the cabin—that he couldn’t live in Lapland any longer, because everything had changed.

  And she was the cause.

  What had once been his sanctuary, his fortress, had become a prison. Because he couldn’t hear her voice, couldn’t see or touch her, and yet her presence suffused every space, every room, every single scent and sound.

  At first, he’d resented her. And blamed her for his misery, the loneliness that had never been a problem before she had appeared in his life.

  Why hadn’t she taken what he had offered? If she loved him, why wasn’t she prepared to do anything to be with him?

  Memories of her and their time together had tortured him—so he’d taken the decision to leave Finland. To come back, to prove that it had always been a choice to live in isolation, that she had been wrong to suggest there was something about the way he lived that needed to be fixed.

  The only problem was, returning here hadn’t made the misery stop. Hadn’t filled the huge hole she’d left in his life. If anything, it had made it worse.

  He still wanted her. Too much. But it wasn’t just a physical yearning. It was far worse than that. She had somehow hijacked his mind, and his soul too.

  He thought about her constantly. So much so that he’d had ten million euros deposited in her account in Ireland... And he wasn’t even entirely sure why. Was it supposed to be a pay-off—because he’d had some vague notion of forcing her to sign an NDA, even though she hadn’t spoken a word to the press about their time together?

  Or was it even more pathetic than that. An attempt to force her hand, to get her to contact him, because he wanted her back, so much, but he had no idea how to reach out and ask her...beg her, even, to come back to him.

  How could he have become so dependent on one person, in such a short space of time, after being alone—and happy—for so long?

  Because you were never happy...you were hiding.

  The damning truth whispered through his brain, making him tense as he followed Andrews back into the study and closed the terrace door. The study where he was supposed to be pretending to take an interest in a seminar on ColtonCorp’s investment strategy for the next fiscal year—but which had begun to bore him in seconds.

  The Colton Corporation had been managed well for twenty years by a board of trustees, and, whatever the press said, he had no intention of taking the helm. But, unfortunately, his work as a sculptor held no pleasure for him any more either.

  His life was in flux. He had no purpose, and no interest in finding one any more.

  All of which was Cara’s fault too.

  ‘I’m glad you’re adapting,’ Andrews said, although Logan could see wary concern in the man’s eyes.

  Grant Andrews had clearly been chosen by the board several years ago to oversee ColtonCorp’s vast investment portfolio because he was not an imbecile, and he knew how much Logan hated the press intrusion now he was back in the US...

  What the man didn’t know was that everything Logan had once feared so much—the loss of freedom, the press attention, the constraints on his movements, the constant social interactions that would push all the memories from the night his parents had died back to the forefront of his consciousness again—didn’t scare him nearly as much now as the thought of spending the rest of his life alone. Without her.

  ‘I left a couple of messages on your cell this morning,’ Andrews said. ‘But you didn’t respond to them.’

  ‘What messages?’ Logan growled. ‘I do not use the phone.’

  Being constantly available and connected to other people by that thing was something he doubted he would ever get used to.

  ‘Messages about Miss Doyle,’ the man said.

  The mention of Cara’s name detonated in his chest like a nuclear bomb.

 

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