Homecoming: The Billionaire Brothers by Lily Everett

“A football reference. You like football? You grew up with older brothers, or maybe you were close to your father…”
    Before he could spin one of his elaborate imaginary histories for her, Jessica cut him off. “It’s only an expression. I could just as easily have said ‘hit it out of the park’ or ‘ride the wave.’”
    Logan scowled. “Doesn’t it ever bother you that you know every intimate detail of my life, while I know nothing but your basics?”
    “No.” In fact, that was the way Jessica liked it.
    “Anyway, that’s not the point,” Logan grumped, setting his clenched fists on the table. “Project Reactor might be done, but there’s always more. If I’m not there to direct the lab, who will—”
    “The work will still be there when we get back, after you rest. It’s time for a break.” Jessica kept her voice firm. Logan would attack any sign of weakness. “This island is perfect for that. Look at it rationally. If you run yourself into the ground, the quality of your work will suffer. You need to refill the well.”
    “I don’t buy into those studies,” Logan snapped. “And I certainly don’t need to refill some mythical, metaphorical well. You’re my assistant. You take orders from me, and I’m ordering you to get on the phone and call the company plane to come pick us up. Now.”
    Pushing back from the table with a screech of wooden chair legs on linoleum, Logan made to stand up, but Jessica stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Logan, be reasonable. There’s no place to land a plane on an island as small as Sanctuary.”
    “The chopper, then.” Impatience crackled around Logan like a force field.
    “I’m not calling the helicopter!”
    “That’s it,” Logan snarled. “You’re fired.”
    Jessica gritted her teeth. “For the millionth time, you can’t fire me. I work for your brother—I take my orders from him. It’s my job to take care of you. Let me do my job.”
    “Your job is supposed to be making my life easier, not dragging me off to some backwater island with no decent Internet access or cell service,” he complained.
    His shoulder was rock hard with tension under her light touch. Blowing out a breath, Jessica played her trump card. “Logan. You collapsed in the middle of a presentation to the entire board of Harrington International. You are going to take the time you need to get healthy. Period. If I have to sit on you to make you slow down for a while, I will.”
    A glimmer of interest lit Logan’s intense blue eyes. “I could be into that.”
    She ignored him and continued, “I don’t ask for much from you. But I’m asking now. Please, give Sanctuary Island a chance.”
    He glanced aside, jaw working, and Jessica’s heart quickened. He was close to giving in, she could feel it.
    But when he met her eyes once more, head canted to one side in sudden calculating consideration, her blood froze. She knew that look.
    Logan Harrington had one of his genius ideas.
    “How much is it worth to you?” he asked. “Me here on this island, soaking in all the mind-numbing serenity and wasting days of my life when I could be working. What would you be willing to give me in return for my time?”
    The rush of heat to her core was as shocking and confusing as it was unwanted. Jessica dropped her hand from Logan’s shoulder and backed up a step.
    Anger mixed with disappointment curdled in her stomach. As much as Logan flirted, as many times as he’d come on to her, she never thought he would stoop to emotional blackmail.
    “I’m not going to sleep with you to get you to do what’s right for your own health,” she snapped.
    Genuine surprise flashed across his expressive face. “What? No, Tink, that’s not what I meant.”
    Jessica stared into his wide eyes and felt her anger dissolve. She believed him. And that nickname—Tink, a play on her last name, Bell, and the fact that Logan considered her fine-boned features pixie-like—gave her the usual,