Page 23 of When He Plays

Logan chatted with his guards—briefly—and they made sure that Ares and Pierre headed to sign their proper paperwork, and when they all departed, it was finally just…

Logan and Charlotte.

A Charlotte who stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “He attacked you,” Charlotte recapped. “And you’re letting him go?”

He shut the door. Not like he wanted any witnesses for this conversation. And, speaking of witnesses…

He scooped up her broken glasses. She’d left them on the table. He lifted those glasses, studying them ever-so-carefully.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

Logan let the glasses fall. Deliberately. Then, just as deliberately, he smashed the glasses with his gleaming, thousand-dollar pair of shoes. Over and over again.

“Logan! Are you crazy?”

“Quite possibly.” He smiled at her. “I’m also not in the mood for your CIA friends to overhear this conversation.”

Her eyes widened.

“You thought I didn’t know?” Was that cute or insulting? Both? “Sweetheart, the new glasses were a dead giveaway. So was the manner in which you swept the room over and over again.” Gritted words as he closed in on her. She still gripped her knife.

Like he cared.

His hands circled around her waist as he lifted her up.

She gave a fast yelp.

He carried her back to the big poker table. Sat her on top of that table and deliberately stepped between her legs.

“What is happening right now?” she asked, shaking her head and sending her hair flying over her cheeks.

“I’m fucking pissed. That’s what is happening.”

Her hands flew up. She pressed the knife to his throat.

Logan stilled. His hands were tight on her waist. His body positioned between her spread legs. The skirt of her black dress had hiked way up. “Gonna use that on me?” he asked. “If so, do it now. Slice my throat wide open if you think I am a physical threat to you.”

“You bet me! You risked me in a game of cards!”

“I won you. I would have always won you. I knew my hand. I put it face down on the table long before the bet for you was ever placed.”

“You—you⁠—”

“If I’m a threat, slice my throat open right now.”

Instead of slicing him, she tossed the knife. It flew, end over end, and he heard the thang when it embedded in the wall behind him.

“Glad that’s out of the way,” Logan noted. “Really sucks when your personal assistant puts a blade to your throat.”

“I protected you!”

“Just as I protected you.” His grip tightened on her waist. “I warned you that coming into this back room would be a mistake. Lines would be crossed. You don’t get to toy with the people who were at my table. You don’t get to just film and record and make me out to be a rat in a world I poured blood and pain into creating.” Each word was bitten off from between clenched teeth. “You think you get to control me because of some CIA blackmail? Well, screw the blackmail from here on out. I don’t dance to anyone’s tune but my own.”

“You’re ending the arrangement?” Worry flashed on her pretty face. “No! You can’t!”

“The deal has changed.” He was changing it. “Either I get every detail on the mission or it’s over. And I don’t care what big, bad threats the CIA makes.”

“I…I have to check with my boss.”