Chapter 12
So it was a little unfortunate—for Adam Waterston, not Logan—that the other man was the first person Logan recognized when he entered the Jervis Gallery half an hour later. The blond-haired man was in conversation with a much older and plumper man with short iron-gray hair and warm blue eyes. Logan could only assume he was Edward Jervis, August’s boss and the owner of the gallery.
Impossible not to recognize Adam Waterston; his boyishly handsome face had been all over the front page of the newspapers and social media for years as he attended one social event or another, usually with some beautiful woman on his arm. The other man was almost as tall as Logan, but there the similarity ended. The other man was dressed in a dark tailored suit with a white silk shirt and perfectly knotted silver tie, his blond hair casually but expertly styled.
August had said she wasn’t attracted to Adam Waterston, but Logan found that hard to believe now that he was actually looking at the other man. Didn’t every woman want some suave and sophisticated millionaire pursuing her?
The thought of Adam Waterston with August made Logan want to punch his fist into the other man’s face, or possibly one of the pristine white-painted walls of the gallery. At which point, Waterston would probably sue him for grievous bodily harm or, as the walls of the gallery looked to be of solid brick, Logan would no doubt be able to add a broken hand to the other list of injuries he’d already logged up over the years.
“Can I help you?” the older man enquired politely when Logan approached the pair.
Logan thrust out his hand. “I’m one of Jenna Riley’s brothers, the woman August shares an apartment with.”
“Edward Jervis.” The other man confirmed his identity, his expression having turned to one of concern as he shook Logan’s hand. “I was so sorry to hear about your sister, Mr. Riley. She’s visited August here at the gallery several times in the past.”
“My name’s Steele,” Logan corrected but offered no further explanation as to why his surname was different from Jenna’s. His family’s business wasn’t the concern of either one of these men. “Mr. Waterston.” He nodded acknowledgment of the other man but made no effort to offer him his hand.
Adam Waterston either didn’t notice or chose to give no sign that he had. “I was just asking Edward where August was today. I’m so sorry to hear that your sister has been attacked.” He gave a shake of his head. “The streets of London are becoming unsafe for everyone.”
Logan studied the other man through narrowed lids. Atticus was right, Logan’s intimacy with August was making it difficult for him to gauge whether this man’s disgust at the attack on Jenna was genuine or merely paying lip service to what he thought should be his reaction.
Although why Adam Waterston would want to steal his own paintings was difficult to guess. The insurance money, perhaps?
Despite Waterston’s appearance, perhaps Daddy hadn’t left him as much of a fortune as everyone assumed that he had?
Considering the names of the artists whose paintings were to be part of the exhibition this weekend, even one of them being stolen and sold to a private collector would bring back a hefty return in insurance money. Distancing the theft from Waterston’s estate, where the paintings were usually kept, would also lessen the suspicion of his involvement.
So maybe it wasn’t just Waterston’s personal interest in August that had biased his choice of the gallery in which to show those paintings?
Admittedly, it was a very upmarket gallery, with perfectly lit paintings hanging on those bright white walls. It also comprised three floors, making it much larger inside that it looked from the outside.
Erring on the side of caution, Logan took out his cell phone and shot off a brief email to Haydn before hitting Send. He wanted to know more about Waterston, much more.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Steele?” Edward Jervis prompted lightly.
Logan put his cell phone away and pasted a polite smile on his lips. “If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to take a look at the gallery where Mr. Waterston’s paintings are going to be exhibited this weekend.”
The gallery owner blinked. “Might I ask why?”
Logan took a business card from the inside pocket of his leather jacket and handed it to the older man. “I just want to check that the security you have here is sufficient and that the attack on my sister had nothing to do with this gallery.”
Jervis looked taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”
Logan decided going with the truth was the best option. “Apparently, the attack on Jenna was meant for August, and the only reason we can come up with for that is she has information about the exhibition you’re having here on Saturday.” He studied the reaction of both men to this announcement.
Jervis looked shocked, the ruddiness of his rounded cheeks paling. “Oh my goodness!” His hands fluttered to his chest. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure, yeah,” Logan confirmed.
Waterston was slower to react but looked no less concerned when he did. “Are you saying August is in danger?”
“Not anymore,” Logan stated in a hard and challenging voice.
“Perhaps I should go and see her—”
“We’re keeping her somewhere safe for the time being,” Logan grated. This fucker wasn’t getting anywhere near August if he had his way. And he would.
“But—”
“I said no.” Logan’s gaze was challenging as it met the other man’s.
Waterston narrowed his eyes. “August and I are friends.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you think you are to August,” Logan snapped.
Waterston’s brows rose. “You seem very…territorial where she’s concerned.”
Logan nodded. “I noticed that too.” He kept his gaze leveled on the other man until Waterston was the one to look away.
Yeah, it was childish, a case of “my dick’s bigger than your dick,” but Logan didn’t care. There was something about Waterston that rang alarm bells inside his head. And it wasn’t just that territorial thing he had in regard to August. Something was off about Waterston, and Logan wanted to know what it was.
“This is absolutely terrible.” Jervis was becoming more flustered the more Logan’s words sank in. He seemed totally oblivious to the battle of wills going on between Logan and Waterston. “Your poor sister.” He gave a shake of his head. “And you think it’s all somehow connected to August and this gallery? My gallery.” His voice quavered.
“Might be connected,” Logan corrected.
“Even so…” Jervis’s face was becoming mottled with unhealthy color.
“Maybe you should go and sit down in your office with nice cup of tea,” Logan suggested dryly. “I’ll take a look round the gallery, if that’s okay with you? Speak to the guys you have working security?”
“Of course, of course.” The older man nodded. “Just let me know if you can see there is anything else we need to do to make sure Mr. Waterston’s paintings are going to be safe here at the weekend.”
“Perhaps it might be a good idea if Mr. Steele checked the security at my apartment too?” Waterston frowned. “The paintings are there,” he explained as Logan gave him a frowning glance. “I accompanied them here in a security vehicle from my estate in Wiltshire two days ago, ready for their transportation to the gallery on Saturday.”
Did Logan really want to spend any more time with this fucker?
Hell, yeah, if it gave him an insight into the other man and why those alarm bells were ringing inside his head.
“There really is no need for you to continue to stay here with me.” August glanced across to where Haydn sat at the breakfast bar in Logan’s kitchen working on something on his laptop. “I doubt anyone could get in and hurt me with all the security there is in this building,” she added dryly. “Your work?”
Haydn glanced up at her, just as handsome as the rest of his brothers, but more given to brooding silences and less…less the chest-thumping caveman of Atticus and Logan. “Logan employed the men who work down on the desk in reception, but I did the technical stuff, yes. And I’m not leaving here until Logan’s back and can take over from me.”
“Any idea when that will be?” she prompted lightly.
It was almost eight o’clock in the evening so where was Logan now?
“Nope.” Haydn answered her before his gaze wandered back to whatever was on the screen of his laptop.
August moved to stand beside him. “What are you— Is that Adam Waterston’s bank account?” she gasped after reading the familiar name printed at the top of the statement.
“One of them,” Haydn confirmed with his usual distraction.
“Is that even legal?”
“Nope,” he confirmed again. “But it does tell us that Adam Waterston has a few secrets going on in his life.”
“What do you mean?” August couldn’t make heads nor tails of the rows of numbers on the screen, although the ones at the bottom of the page were large enough to make her gasp.
“Yes, do tell, Haydn,” Logan drawled as he walked into the kitchen.
August hoped her relief at seeing him again wasn’t apparent on her face. “Did you visit Jenna?”
“And a good evening to you too, August,” he mocked.
“Is it?” she challenged, her heart pounding merely at seeing Logan again.
Logan gave a noncommittal shrug. “Depends how you look at it, I suppose.”
“I asked about Jenna,” she reminded stubbornly.
“The other three brothers have all arrived,” he reported lightly. “Atticus is no doubt assigning them to their protective duty even as we speak. And Jenna,” he continued firmly as August would have spoken, “is being discharged tomorrow morning, as she hoped she would be.”
August frowned. “Does that mean I can go home then too?”
“Absolutely not,” he replied without heat. “And whether Jenna likes it or not, and I guarantee she won’t, she’s going to be staying at Atticus’s apartment once she’s discharged.”
Considering the tension between Jenna and Atticus, August couldn’t see her friend being happy about that at all.
Any more than August was happy about the way the Steele brothers seemed to have invaded and then taken over her life. One brother in particular. “Did you ask Haydn to hack into Adam Waterston’s bank accounts?”
Logan moved to stand on Haydn’s other side so he could see the screen. “I did, yes.”
“Why?”
Logan’s eyes were a hard glitter. “Because I’m convinced your pretty Mr. Waterston isn’t all he appears to be.”
“He isn’t my anything,” August snapped.
Logan scowled. “I met him earlier. The man obviously wants inside your silk panties.”
August’s spine stiffened. “Well, he isn’t getting anywhere near them.”
“Too damned right he isn’t!” Logan snapped.
“You—”
“Much as the subject of August’s panties, silk or otherwise, is preferable to August and Jenna discussing Logan’s boxers,” Haydn drawled, “I would still rather not be present for this conversation.”
Logan grinned across at August. “You’ve been talking about my boxers?”
God, this man was so frustrating! “Jenna said you have them in a twist,” she corrected.
“I believe August was more interested in the arse beneath your boxers,” Haydn put in.
“Haydn!” August glared at him. The man hardly said a word for hours and then he came out with something like that!
He looked at her with too-innocent eyes. “Did I or did I not have to ask the two of you to change the subject earlier?”
The fact that he was right only made August blush even more. “Could we get back to the two of you having illegally hacked Adam’s bank accounts?”
Logan’s humor faded at hearing August once again call the other man by his first name.
Oh, he had found Waterston affable enough when Logan drove the two of them to the other man’s apartment after Waterston had explained that he didn’t drive in London. Logan couldn’t blame him for that, but he had been surprised the other man didn’t have a chauffeur-driven car waiting outside the gallery for him.
He was even more convinced there was something off about Waterston after going inside the other man’s apartment.
There was nothing wrong with the security of the apartment building, mainly because it was another building owned by the Steele brothers and Haydn was responsible for the security installed there. Logan wondered how Waterston would feel if he knew that!
No, what bothered Logan was that the other man’s personal appearance was impeccable, but his apartment didn’t reflect that same amount of care.
Logan had seen clothes discarded around the sitting room and bedroom as the other man led the way down the hallway to the spare bedroom, where the paintings were stored. As for the kitchen… There were dirty cups and plates piled into the steel sink and food boxes and milk cartons on every surface.
Waterston had laughed it off with the comment “it’s the maid’s day off,” but that somehow hadn’t rung true either. Logan wasn’t the tidiest of people himself, and God knows that most men living alone tended to be a bit lazy about housework. But it would have taken more than the couple of days Waterston said he’d been in London to make that amount of mess in his apartment.
The fact the other man was a slob was hardly front-page news.
Nevertheless, Logan couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling in his gut regarding Adam Waterston. Hopefully, Haydn’s investigation of the man’s bank accounts might give them a clue as to why that was.
Whatever they found, Logan now considered August as being his. They hadn’t actually discussed her having still been a virgin until their lovemaking earlier today, but Logan knew her well enough to know August wouldn’t have given that up lightly or to a man she didn’t have feelings for.
Once this situation was dealt with, he intended finding out what those feelings were. Namely, if they were the same as his own feelings for her.
His jaw firmed. “Tell us what you know, Haydn.”
His brother leaned back. “Bank statements first. Waterston takes out fifty thousand pounds in cash every month from his current account. A couple of times over the past year, it’s been twice a month, but usually, it’s as regular as clockwork on the first of each month.”
“Blackmail?”
“Could be,” Haydn answered slowly.
The slowness of that answer alerted Logan to his brother’s caution. “But you don’t think so?”
“Not sure,” Haydn acknowledged. “You said you’ve now met the man? What was your impression of him, besides the pretty remark?”
Logan gave the subject some thought. “The best I can come up with is that he isn’t as put together as he likes to appear in public. He took me to his apartment earlier to look at the paintings and check on security there.” He neatly avoided telling August where he had met the other man before going to his apartment. She was going to be pissed when she knew he had been at the gallery where she worked. “The place is a fucking mess.”
“He did lose his father very suddenly six months ago,” August reminded. “Something is bound to give after suffering a shock like that.”
“Do we even know if Waterston was close to his father?” Logan challenged. “Senior had been a recluse for years, and Junior’s lifestyle has been anything but.” There was usually a photograph or two a week of Adam Waterston out and about, either in the newspapers or social media. Usually in some night club or other or at a high-profile society party.
“The wording of his father’s will is interesting,” Haydn murmured.
August’s eyes widened. “You hacked into that too?”
He shrugged. “I can hack into anything.”
“He’s the best there is,” Logan assured.
“Thanks, bro.” Haydn smiled. “But it really wasn’t difficult to find out the name of the law firm Waterston senior used and hack into his account there.”
“And?” Logan prompted when, for once, August seemed at a loss for words.
“Waterston senior didn’t leave all his money to Junior,” Haydn revealed. “Oh, he left a substantial amount of it in trust for him, but there are provisos in place even for that, to be instigated by Senior’s lawyers. The rest of the money Senior donated to several charities. The art collection doesn’t belong to Junior either. He’s caretaker of it for his lifetime, but not the owner, and after he dies, the collection goes to the nation.”
“Not to his children?”
“No.”
“What sort of provisos?” Logan prompted.
“Mainly Junior, despite being thirty-two years old, is being paid an allowance of one hundred thousand pounds a month. The capital remains under the control of the trustees, again Senior’s lawyers.”
“And Junior takes half that amount out in cash every month?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t think he’s paying it over to a blackmailer?”
Haydn shrugged. “I’ve done a random check, and no account has flagged up with that amount of money having been paid in precisely every month in the time frame.”
“You can do that too?” August could only stare at the man who had quietly but efficiently taken Adam Waterston’s life apart. On paper—or the laptop screen—at least.
“I can, yes,” Haydn dismissed. “But don’t worry, I won’t check into any of your financial details,” he teased.
August snorted. “You wouldn’t find anything if you did. I’m usually broke at the end of each month.”
Haydn gave her a smile before sobering. “The thing I find most interesting is that Senior made those provisos in his will. A close second is that Junior takes the fifty thousand pounds out in cash every month. Cash that then mysteriously disappears.”
August had no idea what the look meant that Logan and Haydn exchanged. “That still leaves him fifty thousand pounds to live on each month. I think I could manage on an allowance that high!”
“Most people could,” Logan agreed. “But Adam Waterston has been brought up with a gold spoon in his mouth, not just a silver one, and he likes to live up to that lifestyle. But I agree with Haydn, it’s the reason why his father made that restrictive proviso in his will that’s of most interest, with the withdrawal of the cash being a close second.”
“Well?” August snapped when neither man added to that comment. “I’m sure the two of you have some theories as to why that is.”
“But they’re only theories,” Logan dismissed. “We’ll let you know if we’re right once we’ve checked into them further. Anyone else feel like ordering in Chinese food for dinner? I’m buying.”
August knew Logan had deliberately changed the subject, and it annoyed her intensely to be kept in the dark in this way. “Has anyone ever told the two of you that you’re extremely irritating?”
“All the time.” Haydn shut down his laptop and closed it before standing to put it in his computer bag. “I have some more stuff to do this evening, so I’ll take a rain check on the Chinese food. It’s been good to meet you at last, August.” He smiled warmly.
“After watching me for months on the security cameras,” she chided ruefully.
“All I know from watching those is that you work extremely long hours,” he assured.
“Speaking of which…” August turned challengingly to Logan once Haydn had left the apartment. “I’m going back to work tomorrow.”
He nodded. “Fine.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why does it make me uneasy that you agreed to that so easily?”
“I’m not sure.” He stepped closer to her. “Why does it?”
August’s uneasiness now was more due to Logan’s proximity and the memories it evoked of the two of them together in her bed earlier than anything else.