"Stay with him," Rawn said to me as he walked by. "Keep him quiet and call if he has any medical issues."

"What if he seizes again?" I asked, the memory of him falling to the floor still too fresh in my mind.

"Keep him safe, talk to him, and then call us when it's over," Madison said.

"Shouldn't I call an ambulance?"

"No," Rawn said. "We can't risk this getting any bigger than it already is."

"Besides," Madison added, "I don't think he will. Once the medication-whatever it was-is out of his system, he'll be fine."

I nodded, but I was suddenly overwhelmed with the idea of being alone with Logan. I wasn't sure I could handle anything medical...I was a physics student, not a doctor. Madison offered a quick hug, followed by Mellissa. I watched them walk away, my stomach tightening as a wave of nausea rushed through it. When they were gone, disappearing behind the closing elevator doors, I shut the door and leaned my forehead against it.

"I hope you didn't have other plans today."

I turned, suddenly feeling guilty. "No, of course not."

"If you did...I could probably take care of myself."

"We just snuck you out of the hospital. I wouldn't leave you alone if I had plans to spend the day with Obama."

"You're a democrat?" I blushed and he laughed. "Just joking."

I went into the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator door, pleased to see Conrad had thought to stop by the market on his way over. There was a big selection of fresh vegetable and fruits, a loaf of bread, milk, meat, and cheese.

"Are you hungry?"

"I could eat."

I gathered a bunch of things, deciding to make sandwiches. I had to search for a knife, but finally found one in a drawer by the refrigerator, the first place I should have looked, but was actually the last.

"Do you want ham or turkey?"

"Turkey."

His voice was so close it seemed like it was right behind my ear. I turned, and he had come into the room and was standing against the counter just a few feet behind me.

"You should be sitting."

"I've been sitting all day. I want to move around a little."

I understood that, but I wasn't sure I could help him up from the floor if he fell. It made me nervous...or maybe it was just standing this close to him.

I turned away, grabbing a couple of pieces of bread and slapping a little mayo and mustard on them.

"I like lots of mustard," he said moving closer behind me. "And lots of meat."

"Anything else?"

"Do you want me to do it? I think I can handle throwing a sandwich together."

"No, I've got it."

"I'm not dying, Annie," he said, the sound of my name on his lips like the perfect musical note. "I've been taking care of myself for a long time. I don't imagine one little seizure will change that."

I stepped back and gestured for him to take my place. He snatched up the knife and slathered mustard over one piece of bread before dropping several thick slices of cheese over it, then the meat. By the time he was done, the sandwich probably weighed a pound. Then, he deftly cut it into triangles and dropped it all on a plate.

"See?" he said, holding it up where I could see it. "One perfect sandwich and I'm still breathing."

Something about the way he said it irritated me. It felt like he was accusing me of something that wasn't my fault.

I brushed past him, gathered the food and tossed it all back into the refrigerator.

"Aren't you going to eat?"

I shook my head, charging into the living room and grabbing a magazine off the coffee table before I flopped down into a club chair set back in one corner. I thumbed through the pages, not really looking at the pictures or articles. I wasn't even sure what magazine it was.

Logan returned to the couch, sighing as he sank his teeth into one wedge of the sandwich. I could feel him looking at me. This morning, I would have done anything to get his attention. But now? I wanted to be anywhere but here.

Silence settled over the room; the only sound was that of Logan's sighs as he ate his sandwich. I glanced at him, struck by the fact that he managed to continue to look intensely sexy even as he chewed with relish at bite of his sandwich. Again, I felt this pull...from the first time I saw his image on my television screen, I knew there was something about him. And at the launch party for Cepheus' Alessa 3D X100, when I caught him staring at me from across the room, there was something there. It was...momentous. I have been convinced from that moment that we were meant to be together. I even told Madison as much the day she was kidnapped.

Was it possible to love and hate the same person so passionately all at once?

"You don't have to babysit me."

I set the magazine down in my lap. "I'm not."

"You are."

"I'm only doing what Rawn and Madison asked me to do."

"Do you always do what they tell you to do?"

"You're not a nice guy, are you?" I tossed the magazine onto the coffee table and stood up, not sure what to do with myself once I did. "Everyone talks about how different you are from the typical movie star, but you aren't, are you?"

"You've read about me?"

"Who hasn't? Your name's been on everything since that space movie came out."

He inclined his head slightly. "The movie's promotional firm was quite thorough," he said, his tone a little dark, clearly not pleased with his own press.

I walked over to the window and watched a few people braving the sharp wind to walk the paths that ran beside the river.

"I'm not trying to be difficult," he said. "I just don't think you need to stick around if you don't want to."

"I can't leave you alone."

"Why not?"

I shrugged, my eyes still on the river below. "Because I would never forgive myself if I left and something bad happened to you."

"You don't even know me."

"Yeah, well, it's not every day I see a guy I've..." I stopped, embarrassed by what I almost said.

"A guy you've what?"

I shook my head. "I was just going to say that it's not every day I see someone have a seizure, that's all."

"You don't strike me as the kind of girl who lies." He was behind me again, but I didn't turn around this time. "Why don't you finish what you were saying?"

"Because it doesn't matter."

"What if it matters to me?"

His voice had softened. And he seemed closer. In fact, I imagined I could feel the heat of his breath brushing against the hair on the back of my head. I wanted to turn, wanted to see where he was and the expression on his face. But I was afraid I wouldn't see what I so desperately wanted to.

And then he took the option away. He laid his hand on my shoulder and encouraged me to turn with a little pressure, a little tug.

"Annie," he breathed, the sound of my name on his lips raising goose bumps once again. I looked up at him, my breath catching in my throat. He brushed the back of his fingers against my cheek, a friendly caress that turned to something else as his fingers slid slowly down the side of my throat. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I'm an asshole."

I nodded and that made him smile. And that broke the tension that had grown between us.

He tucked a piece of hair behind my ear.

"Let's try this again. I'm Logan."

I laughed. "Annie."

"It's nice to meet you, Annie. Would you like to share my sandwich with me?"

"Yeah. I'd like that."

He took my hand and led me to the couch, tugging me down so that we were sitting very close together. Then, he handed me a wedge of his sandwich and started to talk about the merits of mustard. He had me laughing so hard I never managed to take more than one bite of the sandwich.

Madison I stood by the bar in Rawn's office, sipping a glass of water absently. I couldn't stop running the conversation Logan and I had in the hospital through my mind, over and over again. I wasn't good with secrets. I understood why he told me, but I didn't like that he had asked that I not share it with anyone else, especially Annie.

Poor Annie.

I knew how much she liked Logan. She even told me once that she believed they were meant to be together-not necessarily forever, but for a while. I tried to discourage her then, but now? If she knew what I knew...

"You okay?"

Rawn slid up behind me and ran his hand over my hip. I leaned back into him, resting my head on his shoulder.

"When is all this craziness going to stop?"

"I don't know, babe." He kissed my neck lightly. "The CEO is not thrilled. She's probably on the phone with Conrad right now, instructing him to squash the rumors spinning around town as quickly as possible."

"Do you think it was someone at the hospital who leaked it?"

"Don't know. Conrad said the reporters who have left messages for him seemed to know he was at a photoshoot for Cepheus. That can only mean one of two things: someone from Cepheus leaked the information, or Logan told someone what he was doing this morning and that person leaked the information."

"Maybe he told one of the nurses at the hospital."

"Maybe." Rawn sighed, his breath washing over me like a troubled wind. "It always seems to come back to Cepheus. That can't be a coincidence."

"But why would someone want to hurt Logan? He doesn't work here; he was just doing me a favor."

"Because he's a name." Rawn squeezed my arms before stepping around me and pouring himself a drink. "News of this type could spread like wildfire because of his celebrity status. It has the potential to be national news, maybe even international. This could hurt Cepheus' bottom line for a while to come."

"Why?"

He took a healthy swig of his drink before turning to me. "Cepheus is a publicly owned company. Bad publicity like this could not only affect sales, it could cause the stocks to plummet. And Cepheus has been on a rocky foundation for more than a year, anyway, because of a frivolous lawsuit last year that accused us of stealing the blueprints for a product and passing them off as our own."

"Really?" I hadn't heard about that, and I did a lot of research into Cepheus before I applied to work here. "Did it go to court?"

"No. But we spent a lot of money fighting to keep it out of court. After we settled, someone released a copy of the settlement to a scientific journal who, in turn, contacted a bunch of our private clients, informing them of what had happened. Some of them dropped us as their suppliers of the product, cutting into our bottom line."

"I didn't realize..."

I thought about the tension in Rawn every time we talked about his work, but I had always assumed it was rooted in his distaste for the job in general. Now, I realized that it had just as much to do with the possibility that Cepheus might go under and he could find himself without a job.

Rawn had never gone to college. He got this job because he impressed the engineers when he pointed out problems with the blueprints his father worked on in Cepheus' labs. And he couldn't take a comparable job with another company because he signed a non-compete clause when he joined the company. He had few options...

There was a lot on the line for Rawn.

I moved close to him, sliding my hand slowly up the front of his heavily starched shirt. "I'm sure Conrad will work his PR magic and sweep all this under the appropriate rug."

"If not?"

I shrugged. "Then, we'll survive. We'll start our own company if we have to."

"I love your optimism," he said, as he pressed his lips to my forehead. "Let's just hope we don't have to do that."

I smiled, but some of what he had just said made me wonder. Was it possible that what happened this morning was connected to my kidnapping last month? Could this mean that whoever had been behind that wasn't just Peggy Duprey and Aurora, but someone totally different? And if that was the case, who?

I still couldn't shake the memory of that man...the man who came into the house where I was being held. His voice, when he spoke my name, was a purposeful whisper. But I recognized it. And the other man-I know there was someone else involved, not just the lackeys the police said they were searching for, but I suspected they had decided weren't big enough fish to waste their time on. I just didn't know why. I didn't know what the end game was.

But I knew we needed to stop it.

It made me uncomfortable, almost as uncomfortable as Logan dropping his secrets on me. I didn't like the thought of someone coming after the people I love...Mellissa, Annie, Rawn...and I really didn't like not knowing what to do about it.

Rawn ran his hand slowly over the side of my face. "You want me to take you home?"

"No."