Remorseless (Fractured Farrells: A Damaged Billionaire Series Book 3) (2 page)

Logan didn’t kiss her. Instead, he just leaned in close and...
smelled her?
Before she could question it too much, he leaned back and headed around to the passenger’s side.

Julie stood there for a moment, trying to regroup.
Okay.
She’d only been around Logan for two minutes and already she was messing things up.
Damn it.
She needed to get a hold of herself. After she’d cleared her head, she climbed into the driver’s seat as Logan adjusted his seat by setting it as far back as possible to accommodate his long legs. She’d known he was going to be tall, but she was still rather surprised by how wide he was. And not a fat wide. His shoulders took up well over the width of the seat.

Apparently he had spent more than his fair share of time in the prison gym. It was funny that she’d spent so much time with Logan’s family but he seemed so...alien from them. As if there was a feral quality that made everything about him a tad unpredictable.

Which was a pain in the ass since she kind of needed things to be predictable. “You should buckle up. It’s against the law for the front seat passenger to be unbuckled in the state of California.”

Logan grimaced, but he did pull the belt over and down, clipping it into place. “From a cell to tied down.”

“You can roll down the window if it will make you feel more like a free man.”

He looked over and scowled at her. “Was that a joke?”

She shrugged. “I’m not laughing.”

He rested his head back on the seat and closed his eyes. “Can we just leave?”

“Of course.” With that, she started the car. The drive from the prison was secluded. She supposed not a lot of housing developments would be interested in the land so close to the barbed wire fences. The car was awkwardly silent as they continued down the road and onto the freeway. It was a fifteen-minute drive from where they were to the burger place, and Julie hadn’t expected Logan to be a chatterbox.

For one, he was a guy; and secondly, he was a Farrell. Neither good signs for his ability to open up about his feelings.

In all honesty, she enjoyed the quiet. Even though she’d done her fair share of listening to client problems, she wasn’t a therapist. If Logan had opened up about how happy or scared he was to be out of prison, she wouldn’t know where to start. But she could locate the best burgers in the state and she was more than happy to take Logan there.

“The car has satellite radio. Feel free to flip through the stations. I’m not really sure if you have a favorite genre...”

Logan looked skeptically at the touch screen controls. Probably the first time he’d seen such an advanced control monitor in a car. “Satellite radio? What the hell is that?”

Good question.
“I think it has less commercials than normal. More diverse content or something. I don’t know. All I know is that it’s free with the rental.”

He glanced around the leather interior of the SUV, opened the glove box and started to flip through the manual. “Why the rental?”

Julie shrugged. “I figured you’d want to be picked up in something nice.”

“You wanted to keep the ex-con out of your own car?”

“Are you really an ex-con if you were innocent?”

“Yes,” he said simply.

Whelp. There was no fighting that.
“I rented a car because I don’t own one. I live in New York City, and I can’t afford to store one anywhere.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“My name is Julie Anne. I’m a PR specialist and I’m here to work with your re-entrance into society to make sure everything goes smoothly.”

“You’re my babysitter.”

Her hands tightened on the wheel as she tried to think of the best way to phrase this. “Not a babysitter. More like a gatekeeper. I’ll allow you to do anything you want to do. I am just here to make sure you do it the right way.”

“Anything I want?”

“Anything.”

“What if it’s against the law?”

“Then I’ll make sure you’re smart about it.”

“What if it’s you I want?”

“Then I’ll find a great hooker who looks just like me.”

Just then was their exit and she pulled off the freeway. The small burger place was right off the exit, and Julie didn’t have time to catch Logan’s reaction. She just had to hope that he would play by her rules. Really, everything she was doing was for his own good and, by extension, his family’s own good.

She parked the car and grabbed her small, over-the-shoulder crossbody bag. Logan was already out of the car and inside the restaurant, probably lured in by the overwhelming smell of grease. Julie ate hardly any meat and even she couldn’t deny how great the place smelled. This had to be getting her some goodwill with Logan.

By the time she made it inside, he was already ordering. And by ordering, she meant buying up the entire inventory of beef: six of the burgers—loaded with everything—fries, onion rings, cheese sticks, and fried mushrooms. And then, to her shock, he looked at her once he was done. “Did you want anything?”

Julie’s jaw dropped. “Umm...just an order of mushrooms,” she said hesitantly as she took out her credit card and handed it over. She didn’t question his order, though. If he wanted to clog his arteries as his first act as a free man, she was more than happy to let him.

After she got her receipt, the clerk behind the counter said they’d call her name once the order was ready. Even though it was similar to a fast food place, the burgers were all made to order, so Julie knew it would take a few minutes. “Where do you want to sit?”

Logan led the way to the table in the corner with windows on each side. It was only once they sat down that Julie remembered that they didn’t have their cups for drinks. “Damn,” she muttered. “I’ll go get the drinks. What kind of soda did you want?”

Logan glanced over to the fountain machine and his brows drew together. “I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember what you like?”

“I don’t remember what they taste like.”

Oh.
Well, she didn’t know how she could help with that one. “Why don’t you get your cup and then you can sample them?”

He nodded as he followed her back to the counter. Once she filled her cup with the diet soda, she made her way back to the table. Out of the corner of her eye, she studied Logan as he filled his cup with a tiny amount of the carbonated stuff and sampled before dumping what was left and repeating the process with the next soda.

This job was definitely different from anything she’d ever done before. While she waited, she pulled out her phone and opened her banking app. The balance in her checking account immediately soothed her nerves. That was why she was here. Security. And this was hers, no matter what. There was no contingency she’d have to return if Logan went off the rails. The big deposit that had cleared the night before was purely a “thanks for trying” sum. And every month for the next two years that Logan stayed out of trouble, she’d get similar deposits into her accounts.

That was why she was doing this.

Logan came back to the table and his cup was filled with some yellow-green looking soda. “Are you talking to Robert?” He motioned to her phone.

“Nope.” She hit the power button to darken the screen. “Checking something at my bank.”

“Oh yeah. Phones are computers now, aren’t they?”

“You have no idea. We’ll get you a state-of-the-art smartphone this week and get you on Facebook. Your life will never be the same.”

He grimaced. “I think I’d rather be in prison.”

“A whole new world.” Right then, her name was called. Logan started to stand, but she held up a hand. “I got this.”

She grabbed the overflowing tray of greasy and fried food and brought it back to the table.

Logan immediately pulled the burgers toward him. “Are you being paid to wait on me too?”

“No. That was just me trying to be nice.”

He shook his head, but before she could ask why that annoyed him, he was digging into the food. She hadn’t expected him to possibly be able to eat all that food in front of him, but sure enough, he made his way through all six burgers before he pulled the onion rings over.

Julie slowly picked at her own fried mushrooms, waiting for the insides to cool down. “So we have a lot we need to get done, but there’s no real time limit. Phone is one thing. A car at some point. We need to get you some clothes. I’m not sure where you want to stay. We can get a hotel for the night or if you had somewhere in mind, Robert gave me a list of open properties around the country. You’re not on parole or anything, so you can even leave the country if you wanted to. So what were you thinking?”

Logan scarfed down the last onion ring and wiped his fingers with a napkin, apparently coming up for air from the massive feast. “Who are you?”

“I already told you. I’m Julie Anne and I’m a PR rep.”

He nodded. “I heard that. But what is it that you do, Julie?”

She didn’t really know the right way to phrase it... “I have the unique ability of getting people to do what I want.”

“You trying to tell me you’re psychic?”

“No.” She shook her head in disbelief he’d even go there. “I’m nice. And if that doesn’t work, then I’m mean. But I always end up getting what I want.”

“I hate to break it to you, lady, but I don’t do ‘nice.’”

She smiled, not the least bit intimidated. “That’s okay. I have plenty of mean stored up.”

––––––––

L
ogan’s stomach felt as if it was about to stage a revolt, but he didn’t care. Everything tasted so much better than he remembered, and he couldn’t stop himself from finishing every last bite.

By contrast, the woman across from him took her time with her mushrooms.
Who came to a place like this and only ordered fried mushrooms?
That was just one of many questions he had for her but kept himself from asking. So far she’d been relatively quiet, and he knew the second he started to ask her things, she’d return the favor, and he really didn’t feel like sitting through an interrogation.

So he continued his feast in silence, trying to ignore Julie even as he kept glancing in her direction, waiting for her to start telling him to call his brothers or convince him to run to the nearest suit store so he could look like a Farrell. Except once she was done with her mushrooms, she just pulled her phone out and started to scroll through the screens.

“What do you want?” he finally asked once the food in front of him was gone.

Julie looked up from her phone. “Oh, I’m full. Thanks, though.”

“Not for food. With me. You said you get what you want from people. What do you want from me?”

Julie smiled. “I just want to make sure your transition to freedom is as smooth as possible.”

“What wouldn’t be smooth about it?”

“For one, I convinced the press that you were getting released from Marcusa Prison. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get over five different publications to believe that lie?”

He frowned. Marcusa was hundreds of miles away in Northern California. No wonder there hadn’t been any cameras flashing in his face on his walk out of the prison. “Hard. How did you do it?”

She shrugged. “A few doctored photos of you in a transport van. A few fake articles online about it. Suddenly the biggest gossip websites in the world think it’s a fact.”

“Okay. So I’m successfully out into the world without mass media coverage. Does that mean your job is done?”

“Well, currently you don’t have a phone, driver’s license, a place to stay, or a valid ID to access any of your bank accounts. So do you really want me to abandon you at this burger joint on your own?”

“So you’re my babysitter then.”

“I’m just here to help you. Your wish, my command.”

“Unless it reflects badly on the family.”

She raised a brow. “What would you want to do that would reflect badly on the family?”

“Plenty of things.”

“Well, you just let me know and I’m sure we can work something out.”

“You’re really fucking annoying.”

For the first time, he seemed to see some honest shock on her face. “Excuse me?”

“I’d get further if I was talking to a fucking blow-up doll.”

She ran a hand up and through her hair. “I’m sorry I’ve been annoying you so much. Maybe we should leave.” She stood and gathered the trash, his included, and cleared off the whole table except for their drinks. “You want to get a refill before we leave?”

Once again he just stared at her in confusion before he got up and refilled his cup. “Give me the keys,” he said once they were outside.

Without hesitation, she handed them over. He went to the driver’s side and adjusted the seat until he could fit his full six-foot-five frame into the seat.

“So, where to?” she asked in a perfectly calm voice.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

This time there was no shock. Just that same blank smile. “I’m sorry. I’ll just sit here and be quiet.”

“Don’t sit there and be quiet! I haven’t driven anywhere in ten years. Aren’t you the slightest bit worried I’ll end up killing you?”

Her perfect smile faltered the tiniest bit and he knew she had her doubts. “I assumed you’d drive carefully.”