"Is Logan-"

I touched my finger to his lips before quickly replacing it with mine. Rawn didn't need further encouragement. He pushed me back against the pillows, my phone getting lost in a tangle of limbs and scattered clothing as we quickly moved together, making love with an intensity I'd only ever known with Rawn. Funny how easy it was for me to give myself over to him without the restraints and the blindfolds. How easy it was to trust when I had a clearer measure of control. It was a redefinition, subtle, but clear, of our relationship. If only I believed it was enough to satisfy the need for control in Rawn.

Chapter 6.

Annie We were falling into a routine now. It was only the second day hanging out with Logan at the studio and I was like an old pro. I knew who was supposed to be in his trailer and who wasn't, who was supposed to be around him on set and who wasn't. It had even gotten to the point where I felt confident enough to send away rogue assistants and barely concealed reporters.

"I don't know what I did before you," Logan teased as we ate lunch together. "You're better than a bodyguard."

"It comes from years of beating off the boys so that Madison could concentrate on her studies."

"Hmm, so you were her bodyguard first. Do I have to worry that you'll go running back to her when she needs you?"

I shrugged. "You never know."

He smiled as I tucked into my potato salad. You would think it would get easier to sit under the bright light of that smile, but it just got harder. I wanted to touch him, to run my finger tip over the bottom edge of his lip, to slip my thumb into the dimple that popped up each time his smile was genuine, like it was now. It took every bit of self-control I had not to and-Madison could attest to this-I have very little self-control.

"Have you heard from them lately?"

"Madison texted this morning, said something about Rawn looking for the water bottle lady, but that's about it."

Logan sat back, a fresh water bottle, one that was completely sealed when he picked it up, his face a mask of deep thought.

"I'd like to get ahold of her myself."

"Have you heard from the hospital? Do you know what drug it was?"

Logan shook his head. "I left before they could do anything. If they drew blood, it likely was to test for drugs."

"It would be helpful to know what it was."

"I have no doubt it was oxycodone, like Conrad's reporters were suggesting. It would make sense."

"How?"

He looked at me for a second. "Surely you've heard the stories, about how I was admitted to rehab a couple of times last year for addiction to prescription medications."

"I heard rumors. I didn't think it was true."

"Most people assume if it appears on the internet, it is true."

"Not me."

His expression changed a little, as though he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. He was about to say something when the door opened and the assistant director stuck his head in the trailer.

"Need you in five, Logan."

"Okay."

Logan stood, but he didn't go anywhere. The door closed, and I busied myself, gathering our paper plates to toss into the big trashcan out by the catering tables. Logan settled back down on the edge of his chair before I could stand.

"Listen," he said softly, "there's a charity thing tomorrow night that I'm supposed to attend. I was going to have my publicist make up some excuse, but I think I should probably go-for appearance sake, you know?"

I nodded. "You probably should."

"It's going to wildly boring, just a bunch of blowhards walking around talking about themselves. But, I was thinking it might not be so bad if we went together."

"You want me to go?" My heart soared...

Logan shrugged. "They already think you're my girlfriend. It would be strange for me to show up alone."

"So, it's for show?" ...and then my heart fell.

Logan tilted his head slightly. "I wouldn't say that. Not entirely." He reached across the narrow table and took my hand. "I like hanging out with you, Annie. I'd really like to have you there with me, just so I have someone else to commiserate with."

My heart began to pick itself up and dust itself off. That was better than nothing.

"Okay."

He squeezed my hand before he let go and stood again, lifting the plates I was about to take out, carrying them to the trash for me.

He was something of a gentleman after all.

Mellissa I sat behind Conrad's desk, staring at the couch and thinking how nice it would be to curl up there and take a nap. I dragged my fingers through my hair and pulled my eyes away, focusing on the document displayed on the computer in front of me.

Conrad must have felt sorry for me, sitting alone on the couch day in and day out, waiting for him to get done making whatever phone calls he swore would only take a few minutes and ended up taking the majority of the afternoon. We were supposed to go pick out some decorations for a party his firm was throwing for a client, but he wanted to check in at the office first. That was over four hours ago. So he gave me this document to proofread for him before he sent it out to the press.

It was an announcement of an expansion one of his corporate clients was launching-hence the party. But the language of the first draft was surprisingly dry. I'd already rewritten the first two paragraphs, and it looked like I'd have to do the third, as well.

It was interesting, getting to know how a PR firm worked. I had always thought it was mostly just a lot of manipulation, but there was a lot more that went into it. They weren't just publicists, they were party planners, advertising agents, investigators, reporters, match makers, and decorators. There was no telling who Conrad would be talking to one minute to the next, or who might walk into his office during the course of a single day. It was a mystery, what each day would bring.

I thought it might be more fun to work this sort of job than to go back to being a receptionist at Cepheus. As much as I loved the people at Cepheus, the work had always been sort of boring.

Not that I thought working with Conrad was a good idea.

I hadn't even been able to nail him down to a night to have a quiet dinner together. I had wanted to do it last night, but we spent the whole day trying to help Rawn track down the water bottle lady-Lena. But it didn't go well. The few leads we had turned out to be nothing but wisps of smoke. The woman had simply disappeared.

And that wasn't good for Rawn.

I could see that it was tearing Conrad up, not being able to find a way to help Rawn. Even though Rawn had him arrested just three weeks ago, they were good friends. There was an understanding between them, and Conrad would do just about anything to keep his end. But there was very little that could be done unless we figured out who had the blueprints stolen from Rawn's house-and that hadn't happened just yet.

None of it really made sense to me. All of this-Madison's kidnapping, Peggy coming after me, the attempt to drug Rawn, the break-in at Rawn's house-it had looked like an attack on Cepheus, but now it seemed personal. When they kidnapped Madison, they had meant to take me. And kidnapping me wouldn't have hurt Rawn personally, but if they had managed to get any secrets about Cepheus out of me-like the fact that Aurora was having memory problems or that Rawn was dating Aurora's assistant-it would have blown up on him before it hurt Cepheus.

That had to have been the motive, right? I mean, we found out later that Peggy was related to the guy my uncle testified against and put in jail, but maybe whoever told her where I was, whoever hired her to take me-because she clearly couldn't have done it on her own, Richard's review of her economic situation made that pretty clear-had a different agenda that no one was able to figure out because Peggy wasn't talking.

Maybe it was time for Peggy to talk.

Conrad breezed into the room and came up behind me, scanning the document I was supposed to be proofreading.

"Wow, babe, that's much better."

"What would you think if I went to talk to Peggy?"

Conrad stepped back like I had touched him with a burning rod. "Excuse me?"

I turned in my chair so we were facing each other. "I was just thinking that no one really knows why she came after me in the first place, except for the whole family vendetta thing. But there had to have been a bigger reason, right? There had to have been someone else involved, or the second they realized they had Madison instead of me they would have let her go."

Conrad held up his hands, as though warding off an attack. "I thought we'd put that behind us, all that craziness-"

"Not really. She didn't plead guilty. We'll have to face her in court at some point."

"But you going to see her..."

"I'm sure Richard would arrange it."

"That's not my point, Mellissa. I don't care what your US Marshal agent can do for you," Conrad said, placing his hands on each of the arm rests and leaning down over me. "The woman wanted you dead. What makes you think she'd be willing to help you now?"

"Maybe she's one of those people who needs to brag about what she did, how she nearly got the better of me." I shrugged. "She's the only one we have access to who knows who was behind the kidnappings-and might be behind this reign of terror on Rawn. It's an option. And we only have two more days."

"An option I don't like."

"That's sweet," I said, reaching up to run my thumb over his bottom lip. "But I'm a big girl."

"No. You're a petite, wisp of a girl who is stronger than anyone I have ever known." He kissed me gently. "You never fail to amaze me."

"Is that a yes?"

"Yes."

Richard was able to arrange it fairly quickly, getting me in with Peggy within a couple of hours. Conrad went to the jail with me. She was being held in the county jail while she awaited trial, so the process to visit an inmate was different than it had been at the federal penitentiary where my uncle was being held. It was simpler, really, something I found amusing since Peggy had been intent on killing me-where my uncle never hurt a fly, he just took money on illegal gambling debts. One of those strange ironies of life.

Conrad kissed my forehead lightly before letting go of my hand and allowing me to follow the correction officer through the locked gates. I was led into a large room with many tables, kind of like the lunch room at my high school, with the exception of the metal rings in the center of the tables and on the floor.

Peggy sat at a table in the center of the room, her hands shackled to the table. Her eyes widened as I walked toward her, but she showed no other emotion. No reaction.

"Hello," I said as I took a seat across from her.

Peggy just continued to stare at me.

"Thank you for agreeing to see me. I wasn't sure you would."

"It's not like I get a lot of visitors in here."

I bit my lip, trying not to feel sorry for this woman who tazered me and shoved me into the back of a bright red Toyota Camry for reasons I still didn't want to consider. But I couldn't help just the smallest amount of compassion.

She'd lost her brother. I knew how that felt.

"I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me."

Peggy's eyebrows rose. "Me? What could I possibly tell you that your cop friends haven't already figured out?"

"Who hired you?"

She laughed. "You mean, you're just now starting to figure it out?"

"I know that you couldn't have found me on your own, let alone funded a kidnapping that required the assistance of what, four or five other people? Madison heard five distinct voices while you were holding her in that house."

Peggy tilted her head slightly, as though she couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. "And you think I was behind that? That I would mistake that tall bitch for you?"

"You might not have. But the people working with you might have."

She shook her head. "You really don't understand what's going on here, do you?" And then a soft smile reshaped her mouth, making her harsh features almost attractive. "He's still at it, isn't he? He's still after him?"

"Who?"

She laughed again, the sound almost maniacal. "I thought my arrest had spooked him, but it obviously hasn't. What did he do? Did he go after those blueprints? He was always talking about how stupid it was that he would keep the evidence when it would have been simple just to destroy them. He said he would be the designer of his own downfall."

I leaned forward. "Who? Who hired you? What did he want from me? What does he want from Rawn?"

Her laughter abruptly stopped. "You are a stupid bitch," she said softly. "Haven't you put it together yet? It wasn't about you for anyone but me. You were my reward for helping him take down that arrogant executive. And Madison...that wasn't no mistake. He knew that she was fucking that guy. Knew that her kidnapping would set him off, make him show his hand to the whole company. He just didn't bother to tell anyone what he was doin' but me and this other guy, this nerd from Cepheus who pretended to recognize her.

"But it didn't go the way he thought it would. The CEO didn't react the way he thought she would, so he decided to go at that exec from the inside. That's why he risked bringing me into the company as that kid's assistant. Put me in the asshole's department where I could keep an eye on him, find ways to hurt him. He wanted to torture him before he brought him down, wanted to make him look over his shoulder, make him so paranoid he wouldn't know which way to turn."

Peggy sat back and laughed again. She sobered quickly as her eyes fell on me. "But I couldn't work that close to you and not do anything. It made me sick, watching you walk around that place like nothing had happened, like your uncle hadn't destroyed my brother's life. You arrogant, arrogant bitch! If those damn cops hadn't found us..." She smiled a sickening grin. "We would have had some serious fun together."

Nausea roiled in my stomach, but I knew I was close. I leaned forward, setting my hands so close to hers that I could see the itch in her fingers to grab them and hurt me in the only way she could. But her chains were too tight to allow that much movement.

"Tell me who he was. Who is after Rawn?"

Peggy shook her head. "Don't know. I only talked to him over text messages and emails. Never saw his face."

"Do you remember his phone number? His email address?"

"The phone was a burner, one of those prepaid things you can get at Wal-Mart. He was always changing them, texting with a new number practically every day. Paranoid little person."

"What about the email?"