Before You Go (YA Romance) (4 page)

She floated back into the room. She’d get a shower once her bags arrived, and then she’d decide what to do about this place.
And how to apologize to Logan Greer.

4

Logan slammed the thick steel door behind him, heart drumming like
Bonzo
Bohnam
. He took two steps into the wide, dark room and collapsed at the nearest desk.

Fuckity
fuck
fuck
. Margo Zhu. No,
Ford
, but she was still Cindy Zhu’s daughter.

I’m so fucked.

He had almost crashed the Zhu Observatory’s plane, with the Zhu heiress inside. Worse than that, he had hit on her.
Promised to take her
riding
.
Was he an f-
ing
moron?

He rubbed a hand over his face and looked across the room, inspecting the rows of cubicles. He was in the data tracking room, the place where they crunched numbers, ran
sims
, and made charts. Each of the low, felt-covered walls enclosed desks with specially rigged monitors and CPUs. There was a massive printer to his left, calibrated to spit out pictures wider than Logan was long.

He had just found another wobble, so it should’ve been easy, here in this room, to think about work. But all he could think about was her.
Which was a problem—for so many reasons.

He wiggled his prepaid phone out of his pocket. His left hand dropped it on the countertop and swirled it in a circle, while his right hovered over the crotch of his jeans. He shut his eyes and inhaled deeply. Then he moved his hand up to the table.

He kept his eyes shut, wondering what Margo would say about the plane ride. He’d lied to her about the initial turbulence because he didn’t want to freak her out, but of all the dumb luck, they had to hit a flock of f-
ing
gulls. Now she thought he’d almost killed them showboating. She’d been so rattled she’d slapped him. It had to take some intense fear to make a blue-blooded heiress lose it like that.

Hell, the whole thing was probably for the best. Maybe she’d do him the favor of avoiding him.

Spreading his legs and moving stiffly, so his boxers wouldn’t make the situation in his jeans any worse than it already was, he leaned up in his chair and grabbed his phone.

He gritted his teeth, punched the number.
Get a grip
.

He had sworn off relationships, and sex in general, after his last one had ended badly. Valerie had basically stalked him, going so far as to trash his dorm room and steal his laptop. He’d almost had to get the police involved, which would have really screwed things up for him. Even worse, her family was connected, and those connections included Cindy—his benefactor.

He remembered the day he’d found her sitting in his room.

We haven’t lost focus, have we?

No ma’am, we haven’t.

Logan pushed Margo Ford out of his head with a growl. He was going to Mars.
Fucking going.
The truth of it had made celibacy a lot easier. While every other guy in Cambridge had been chasing trim, Logan was putting even more time into his studies. Making
himself
even better. He had never imagined he’d face more temptation on Isis than he had around thousands of college girls.

The phone rang nine times before he punched a code to end his pirate program. He’d written it himself in the aerospace lab back at school. It was the only way he could afford a prepaid phone without buying a million minutes. It wasn’t exactly legal, using his own coding to tap into the cellular phone networks, but nobody policed it.

He checked the clock.
Eight oh-six.
He’d missed her normal after-dinner call—the only place his phone got service was right here in the data room—and right now she was probably at that party for the cheer squad—so it was on to the answering machine.

Her message was the first and only, and Logan’s gut clenched as he pressed play. There was a little intake of breath, the moment where his body always tightened.

“Hey bro,
it’s
Maggie, giving you your update for today. Cheerleading practice was pretty good. I think I’m
gonna
be a base next year, ’cause a lot of the other girls are shorter than me. I miss you. Um…as far as everything else…well, dad took the car away. Mama got mad because some stuff she needed for the students was in it. She called the bank, and Mrs. Porter said they hadn’t taken it. Maybe he lost it in a bet. I didn’t think he was gambling anymore…but I don’t know
,
he could have needed money.

“You asked last time how many he’s taking. I think twelve yesterday. Yeah, that’s three more than the day before, in case you forgot. But it’s been pretty much okay. He’s drinking a lot, too, so he’s mostly just been sleeping.
So.”
She clucked. “There
ya
go. Nothing to be worried
about,
and I mean that. He’s being better these days. Probably ’cause it’s so hot here.

“Okay, well, I love you, Logan. Have fun on your island. Catch a star for me.” She giggled. “That was cheesy. Okay.
Buh
-bye.”

Logan listened to the message one more time with an ear for the inflections in his sister’s voice. He could never catch every detail the first time because he was always too worried the news would be bad.
Mama got banged up again, we went to the ER.
Or worse: something with Maggie. She’d turned thirteen just a few weeks ago, and Logan would cut out his heart to keep her safe.

He deleted the message, satisfied that things were as well as they could be, and again noticed his…problem. Even after all that, it was still above half-mast, and when a few laps around the room only brought it to full attention, he decided to do something about it.

The door didn’t have a lock, but he didn’t figure he’d be getting any company. The Japanese team had the night off. They were stuffed into the guest house playing some game that involved a deck of cards and dice. The Australian team didn’t start for another two hours, and the Hawaii team wouldn’t be back till midnight. Still, he picked the most secluded desk to drop his jeans.

5

Margo sighed as she stepped out of the shower. The steamy air had cleared her mind, and she’d been able to improve her feelings about everything.
Especially Logan.
She would find him right away and make sure he was okay, and then she’d apologize profusely for the atrocious thing she’d done. There was no excuse for that kind of behavior—she still couldn’t believe she’d done it; every time she pictured it she felt sick—but maybe she could make it up to him somehow.

Wondering what, if anything, she could do to make him like her again—even just a little—she padded into the bedroom, where she found her trunks stacked against a wall. She picked out a pale green Dolce &
Gabanna
dress, and bent over to rummage though her underthings. She was pulling a thong up from her ankles when the door opened. She heard a sharp breath and spun around.

Logan.
His face was hazy, but his huge silhouette was unmistakable. She could see his wide eyes and his lolling jaw and
HOLY CRAP SHE WAS NAKED!

Margo’s feet moved before her brain could tell them where, and she fell backwards, slamming her head against the bottom bunk with the force of the
Obliviate
spell. It pushed everything right out of her head except the pain, and she held her hair, moaning. Through bleary eyes she saw that Logan had come halfway across the faded carpet. He had stopped with his face all stretched out, like he had never seen a naked girl before.

She hugged her legs. “Look away!”

He did, and she scrambled up into the bunk, jerking the old comforter over her throbbing head.

Cue the crickets.

Margo’s mortification intensified with every millisecond—and with it, her temper. “Have you ever heard of knocking?”

“How was I supposed to know you’d be
here!
”

“Maybe because it’s my room?”

There was a long pause, during which Margo wondered if Logan had left. Then, in a steely voice that surprised her, given how he’d acted earlier, he said: “This isn’t your room.”

He sounded so angry that she forgot her embarrassment and poked her head out of the covers.

He was standing in the same place he’d been before, and just the sight of him seemed to strike a match inside her chest. There was something marvelous about him, an instantaneous allure that blended shock and recognition, like she was meeting him again for the first time in a thousand years.

It was weird.

He looked at her trunks and her towel, and followed her footprints to the bathroom. His lovely mouth twisted, like he was looking at a child’s finger painting and finding it…messy.

“Well?” she demanded.

He took a deep breath, shoulders rising and falling. “This isn’t your room,” he said. “It’s my room. That’s my bed you’re in.”

Which explained why it was the only one with bedding.

Then it sank in—she was
naked
in his bed!—and Margo felt like dying. “Look, I’m really sorry. I would never have come in here if Jana hadn’t told me to.”

 
“Obviously you misunderstood,” he said dismissively.

Margo bristled. “Why obviously?”
 

“Obviously because this is your mother’s island and you’re an heiress. So you get to stay in a nice room.”

An heiress.
So that’s all he saw, even after what she’d told him on the plane. She remembered how nice she’d felt, settled in close to him. With his shoulder touching hers, his patient voice explaining how the plane worked. He’d really seemed to like her. And Margo had ruined it.

God, she was an idiot. And she was still being one, because Logan was staring at her like he expected her to say something. What had he said?

Nice room…
 

“All of the nice rooms are taken,” she said airily.
 

“What about your mother’s room?” She frowned, and he tilted his head behind him. “You know… fifth floor of the casa?”

Score! Margo could have hugged him for putting the X on her map, but his steely, frozen face stole her nerve.

 
“No to that?” he said.
“Fine.
There’s an empty room next door.”

Indignation burned her cheeks. How could he even think of sending her to one of those nasty rooms?

“Why don’t you stay next door if you like the idea so
much!
You can sleep on the floor with a chair for a pillow.”

“Why should I be the one to move?”

“Well…” She couldn’t think of a good reason. One she thought he’d accept, anyway.

“So?” he prodded.

“So you’re from the South. Aren’t you supposed to be a gentleman?”

“No more than you’re a lady.”

Margo’s mouth fell open. She couldn’t believe this…
asshole
. She took a deep, long breath, focused on her hand slapping his face. She still hadn’t apologized. No wonder he thought she wasn’t a lady. She sat up straighter and met his eyes. “I’m really very sorry about how I acted on the—”

“I don’t care about that.” His voice was a growl, his face a tight mask.

“Then what’s the problem?”