Lisa Childs - Explosive Engagement

“Even if I agreed to it, my mother’s plan would never work,” Logan warned her.

She was afraid of that, too, because she would have to convince her family that she loved a man she really couldn’t stand. And she was no actress—she’d never even been very good at lying.

“And really, all you have to do to stop them from trying to kill me is to tell them to stop,” he said, “because they’ll do what you tell them to.”

If only that were true...then she wouldn’t have to fake an engagement, or heaven forbid, a marriage, if it actually came to that. And it might take marriage to convince her family that she was committed to Logan Payne.

“I’m not so sure about that,” she reluctantly admitted.

“Then even you realize they’re dangerously out of control,” Logan said.

“I never said that!” she exclaimed, horrified that she might have inadvertently implicated her brothers. And, like Logan, she had no proof they were behind the attempts on his life. But thanks to Logan and the threats they’d previously made, she now had doubts.

“They’ve already tried to kill me. More than once,” he insisted. “They need to be brought to justice.”

“You have no evidence,” she reminded him.

“I’ll find it,” he warned her.

“I buried my father today,” she said, her voice cracking with the emotion that overwhelmed her. “Isn’t that enough justice for you?”

Cujo whined and nudged her with his head, as if trying to comfort her. Surprisingly, he wasn’t the only one because Logan’s hand covered hers on the dog’s fur.

“I’m sorry you’re hurting,” he said.

But he wasn’t sorry that her father was dead and he was determined to arrest her brothers. He wasn’t sorry about any of that...

She pulled her hand out from beneath his. If she couldn’t stand his touch, how was she going to convince her family that she loved him? But then she’d had no problem with his touch earlier when he’d kissed her. Her lips still tingled from the electricity of that contact with his.

“We’re here,” she said with a sigh of relief as she just realized that he’d stopped the SUV outside her building. The street side of the ground floor held the storefront for her jewelry business, her workshop was in the back, and her apartment was above it. It wasn’t the greatest neighborhood; that was why she needed Cujo. Even now a car alarm blared and police sirens whined in the distance.

Logan peered through the window and murmured, “This is really where you live?”

She’d never taken Logan Payne for a snob. “You mean because I’m the daughter of a jewelry thief and I live above a jewelry store?”

“I’m surprised you admit he was a thief,” he said.

“He was a thief,” she said. He’d always been honest about that. “But he wasn’t a killer...”

Logan rubbed his temple and groaned as if sick of hearing it. But maybe if he heard it enough he would come to believe it. “I was actually referring to the dangerous neighborhood,” he said as he continued to look around like a cop assessing the potential dangers of his beat. “Now I understand why you have the dog.”

“Your mother is actually the one who brought me Cujo,” she said. After the older woman had heard about her store being robbed, she’d talked an old friend of her deceased husband into giving the German shepherd to Stacy. “He was a K-9 cop.”

“He doesn’t look old enough to have been retired,” Logan said as he scratched behind the dog’s ear, which Cujo loved.

“He was shot,” she said. “In the shoulder...” Like Logan had been shot. No wonder the two alpha males had come so quickly to an understanding. They were actually quite alike. Cujo wasn’t always that nice or polite, either. That was why her friend hadn’t wanted the dog staying with her, too—especially since he might have thought her Pomeranian was a squirrel. Cujo really hated squirrels.

Logan leaned his head against the dog and imitated the way Cujo nuzzled the few people he actually liked. “You’re a hero,” he praised the canine cop.

“He saved his partner,” she said.

“That’s what a partner is supposed to do,” Logan murmured.

Somehow she suspected he wasn’t talking about the partnership of their proposed marriage. “You’re not going to do it, are you?”

“Marry you?” He shook his head. “It’s a bad idea. And as I already pointed out, it would never work.”

He was probably right. But she couldn’t agree with him without a fight. She’d been fighting with Logan Payne too long to concede defeat. “That’s your fault,” she accused him.

His mouth curved into a sexy grin. “Are you saying that kiss wasn’t convincing?”

If she said it wasn’t, he might kiss her again—might try to prove how convincing he could be. She was tempted to lie because she was tempted...to kiss him again. But instead she shook her head and clarified, “It’s your fault for being such a jerk all these years that they would never believe I could actually fall for you.”

“And so they’ll keep trying to kill me.”

“Is that why you didn’t give me up as a liar back at the pub?” she asked. “You were afraid you weren’t going to get out of there alive?”

“I’m not afraid of your brothers,” he said with a snort of disgust.

She was afraid of what they might do, of what they might have already done. They would do anything for her, and even though she hadn’t asked them, she’d given them every reason to think she wanted Logan Payne dead. She needed to give them a reason to leave him alive—like their fake engagement.

She glanced around as Logan had, but she was looking for her brothers. They might have followed them from the pub. “You need to walk me to my door,” she said.

“I thought you had the dog to keep you safe,” he said. “Not that you’re the one in danger...”

“I don’t want you to keep me safe,” she said. She wanted to keep him safe. Actually, she wanted to keep her brothers safe from themselves. “I want my fiancé to walk me to my door.”

He uttered an exasperated-sounding sigh. “Stacy, I’m not playing along with my mother’s plan.”

“Do you want me to tell her—?”

“You can tell her—”

“—that her son is not enough of a gentleman to walk a lady to her door,” she continued as if he hadn’t interrupted her.

He groaned. But he opened his door and walked around to open hers.

Cujo jumped down with her and led the way to the back stairwell. She fumbled in her purse before unlocking the door. Cujo’s ears perked up, and a low growl emanated from his throat.

“He smells something,” Logan said, and he was already pulling his gun from beneath his jacket, wincing only slightly at the strain on his wound. “Someone may have broken into your place.”

“And locked the door behind himself?” she scoffed. “I doubt that.”

The dog hurried ahead—with Logan in hot pursuit. “Stay outside,” he ordered her.

But she didn’t take orders from Logan Payne. He wasn’t her boss. He had even refused to be her fake fiancé. So she followed. And then saw what Cujo had found: a pipe bomb sat on her kitchen table, red numbers blinking as the timer quickly counted down.

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