Текст книги "Moonlight on Nightingale Way"

Автор книги: Samantha Young

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

His lips curled up at the corners and his eyes slid to his daughter. “Then we can watch a movie.”

“You too, Grace. Dad bought a new armchair and it’s awesome, but I’ll let you have it.”

I chuckled at her generosity.

“No chick flicks, please,” Logan added. “Don’t need the two of you ganging up on me.”

“We’ll vote,” Maia said. “And I promise not to vote for a chick flick. They’re crap anyway. It’s always about two idiots who apparently don’t understand the art of communication.”

“There is nothing wrong with a good chick flick,” I argued, but I did it laughing at her assessment of the chick flick. “But unfortunately, I can’t vote because I can’t come over tonight.”

“Why?” Maia looked disappointed.

“I have plans.”

“Oh. Well, change them.”

I laughed, but Logan said her name with warning and shook his head at her. “Perhaps Grace is spending time with her other friends, Maia. Remember she has those.”

Maia snorted. “Oh yeah. I forgot she had a life before we took it over.”

The two of them smiled mischievously at each other.

“You two are so funny,” I said dryly. “And wrong.”

“About?”

“My plans. I’m not seeing my friends.” I felt a fluttering in my belly and I knew it was part nerves for the date tonight and part excitement that tonight might mean the end of my infatuation with Logan.

“I have a date.”

My announcement was met with utter silence.

Maia was looking at me horrified, and Logan’s face had gone blank.

“A date?” Maia spat out as if it were a dirty word.

I gave a huff of laughter. “Yes, a date. I do go on those sometimes. I have to hide my horns and cloven feet to do it, but somehow I manage.”

“With who?” Logan practically barked from across the counter, his expression no longer blank.

He was glowering. Hard.

I blinked rapidly in surprise at the bark. What was this? Was Logan daring to play protective big brother?

Oh God, could my life get any more pathetic? I’d been relegated to “familial” in his book.

“A colleague of Chloe. She set us up. She said he’s wonderful.”

Apparently, he was a divorced father of two, and he was looking for something serious again after a year in the dating pool. As soon as Chloe heard that she said she knew she had to set us up. She said he was just what I needed.

I felt another burst of butterflies at the thought of meeting him.

“A blind date?” Logan was still scowling.

“Yes.”

“Because you’ve had such great luck with those in the past.”

I made a face at his reminder that he’d saved me from the last one. “Witness one bad one and you think you know everything.”

Maia suddenly marched across the room toward the door. “I’m going to pick a film,” she threw over her shoulder before disappearing.

“Maia?” I called out, concerned by her reaction. In response I heard nothing but the slamming of my front door. I shot a confused look at Logan.

He shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I’m still trying to figure out half of her moods.”

I chewed on my lip and slid onto a stool. “Maybe she feels like I’m abandoning her by not staying to watch the movie with you.”

“Maybe.”

“I hate disappointing her, but she has to appreciate that I have friendships outside of you two and that when I see other people it doesn’t mean I’m abandoning her.”

Logan nodded. “I’ll talk to her about it.”

“Thank you.”

He sighed and got up off his stool. “It’s like another language and there’s no one to teach it to me.”

“Teenage girl?” I smiled sympathetically.

“No. Women in general.”

“Well, that’s because we’re far more intelligent than men. It’s hard for you simple creatures to keep up.” I smiled beatifically.

He narrowed his eyes on me. “Very droll, Grace.” He turned to go and then seemed to think better of it. “So who is this guy you’re seeing tonight?”

“His name is Colin. He works at the estate agency with Chloe.”

“He sounds like a dick.”

I snorted. “How did you get that from those two pieces of information?”

“The only Colins I’ve ever met have turned out to be dicks, and estate agents are no better than smarmy salesmen.”

“He has a good job, he’s divorced, and he has children. He’s not a dick.”

“That makes him sound like even more of a dick.” Logan turned fully around now to argue.

“He sounds like he’s responsible and willing to commit!” I felt my temper genuinely start to rise at his overprotectiveness.

“Really? Responsible? So who is looking after his bloody children while he’s out on a date with you?”

“I imagine his ex-wife is. He divorced her, Logan. He didn’t kill her.”

“No, of course not. Why kill her when he can keep her around as a glorified nanny while he fucks beautiful, impressionable women.” He gestured to me in irritation.

I was stunned silent for a moment.

There was an undercurrent of true anger under his ridiculousness, and I felt stifled by the way he saw me. I might as well have been Shannon for the proprietary way he was treating me and talking down to me.

“I am not impressionable!” I snapped, and hurried from the room. “You can see yourself out! I have a date to get ready for.”

If in the back of my mind I thought it strange that Colin had asked me out for drinks rather than dinner, I was determined to shove it aside and think he was just trying to make the whole first date thing more relaxing.

I should have listened to the back of my mind.

When I first saw him I thought him handsome, with his tall, dark, clean-cut good looks. Charming as well, as he stood up from the bar to shake my hand and press a kiss to my cheek. He smelled good too. He also couldn’t tear his eyes away from my cleavage.

And he did not look old enough to be a divorced father of two.

As I settled into a booth across from him with my glass of wine, I immediately said, “So Chloe tells me you have two children.”

He practically choked on a sip of his pint. “Excuse me?” He coughed into his hand, eyes bright with mirth.

Chloe was going to die as soon as I got my hands on her.

I gave Colin a strained smile. “Not divorced either, then?”

He shook his head, grinning. “What the hell kind of nonsense did Chloe tell you?”

“Please tell me your name is Colin.”

“My name is Colin and I work with Chloe, but I’ve never been married and I don’t have kids.”

What kind of game was my friend playing here?

“Your name is Grace, right?” he teased.

I stared into his warm brown eyes and found myself nodding. I didn’t know what Chloe was up to, but Colin seemed congenial enough. “I don’t know why she said those things.”

“Chloe has a weird sense of humor. She does tell me I’m the second work colleague of hers you’ve been on a date with though.”

I thought I detected something suggestive in his eyes and tone, but I shrugged it off, deciding I was paranoid. “It’s a large estate agency,” I joked.

He chuckled and nodded before leaning across the table. “This place is a bit pretentious. Why don’t we just cut to the chase and go back to my flat?”

I blinked at the suggestion. There was no denying the heat in his eyes. Apparently I wasn’t paranoid. “Pardon?”

“I mean I can buy you another drink if you want, but I just thought why waste some of the night, right?”

A few months ago I probably would have quelled my inner outrage, stuttered and blushed and somehow got myself out of the situation, apologizing like it was all my fault. Anything to avoid confronting the truth of it.

Therefore I could only blame Logan’s influence for forging past my fear of confrontation and asking straight out, “Are you telling me you’re only here on this date to get laid?”

Colin shrugged and nodded, like it was obvious. “Chloe knows I just like fun. Nothing serious.

I’m sure she told you that… no?”

I grimaced. Yes, I was definitely going to kill her. “No. She did not.”

“So… this isn’t a hookup? You don’t want to go back to my place, then?”

Somehow I managed to refrain from throwing my drink in his face. He hadn’t even given me five minutes of conversation before deciding he wanted nothing more from me than a quick bang in the sack. As far as I was concerned, his way of doing things was just a glorified form of masturbation.

I gathered my purse and jacket and gave him a tight smile. “No. I’m afraid it would only be a disappointing experience for the two of us.” I stood up and stared down at him with a gleam in my eye. “I only enjoy the really dirty stuff, and I have to be able to know and trust a man before I’ll let him do absolutely anything he wants to me in bed.”

I sashayed out of the bar, leaving him staring after me with his mouth hanging open, and I laughed as I stepped out into the night air. I glanced back over my shoulder at the bar and shook my head, still grinning. I didn’t know what came over me in there, but I liked it.

Not enough to stop me from killing Chloe, however.

That momentary triumph of making Colin feel like he’d just missed out on something exciting dissipated as I walked home.

I was back at square one.

Chloe, in her infinite wisdom (not!) had put me there. Thinking about it, I realized exactly what she was up to. She had made it perfectly clear she thought Logan was the best candidate for me (as usual, not listening to a word I said) and had set about attempting to prove this by setting me up on another bad date.

All Chloe had done was proven that I could no longer trust her to help find me a decent date.

I’d barely put a step onto my landing when Logan’s door flew open. Staring at him wide-eyed, I waited for him to say something. Instead he just glowered at me. Still in a mood, I see.

“All right, then,” I said, and walked sedately over to my door. My heels made a helluva noise, echoing around the stairwell. It must have been what alerted Logan to my return.

“You’re early,” he grunted as I put my key in the lock.

“I am.”

“Why?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of his voice at my ear. I glanced over my shoulder, and sure enough he was almost pressed against my back. “Just because. Dad.” Angry, I pushed open my door and stepped in, hoping he would take the hint and piss off.

I was to be disappointed.

Logan caught the door and ushered me inside. “Did he do something to you?”

“Where is Maia?” I said, as he shut my door behind him.

“She’s sleeping. I’ve locked her in.”

“Oh good,” I said, walking away from him. “If there’s a fire, at least her chances of escape are narrower.”

“She can unlock it from the inside,” he said through gritted teeth as he followed me into my kitchen.

“Logan, I am not in the mood for whatever this is.” I reached into my fridge for a bottle of wine.

The wine was promptly pulled out of my hands, and I grunted in annoyance as Logan set about opening the bottle and pouring me a glass. He slid the glass along the counter toward me with so much aggression I was lucky there was any wine left in it. “Speak,” he demanded.

I grabbed the glass and moved away from him so I could take a somewhat calming sip.

“Grace,” he warned.

My answer was a filthy look before I put the glass on the counter and started to unbutton my jacket. This was my house after all. I could make myself at home. “I don’t know if you realize this, Logan,” I snapped as I jerked open my buttons. “But I don’t actually have to tell you anything about my life.” I threw my coat at a stool that sat in the corner of the room and turned back for my glass.

The silence from Logan made me look at him.

His gaze was on my body, and I couldn’t quite work out what the sudden darkness in his eyes meant.

“Logan?”

“Is that what you wore?” he choked out. “For him.”

I glanced down at my dress. It symbolized all the hope I had been feeling about tonight and Colin, because it was the sexiest thing I had in my wardrobe, and I didn’t wear it for just anyone. It was a black satin calf-length dress that fitted me like a second skin. It had thin straps and a sweetheart neckline that revealed more cleavage than any of my other dresses. I was wearing a sexy push-up bra that did wonderful things to my modest cleavage.

I’d pinned my hair up to show the dress off at its best.

Although it was far less revealing than the clothes I’d seen Logan’s women wearing, I suddenly felt quite exposed with him looking at me like that.

I blushed and took a swig of wine.

“Was he worth it?” He gestured to my dress with a look of angry distaste in his eyes.

My own temper rose in answer. “There’s nothing wrong with this dress.”

“Well, he could be in no doubt what you were offering when you turned up in it. So what the hell happened? Or was it the true definition of a quickie?”

I sucked in my breath, hurt. “Get out of my kitchen.”

He marched around the counter toward me. “Not before you tell me what that bastard did to you.”

“It’s none of your business. For the fifteen hundredth time.”

“I beg to fucking differ.” He stopped inches from me, towering over me, deliberately trying to intimidate me into answering.

I looked up at him, trying to shoot sparks at him with my eyes. “You’re being ridiculous. I am not your sister!”

Logan jerked back as if I’d hit him, surprise rounding his eyes. After a minute he said hoarsely,

“Believe me, I know you are not my sister.”

What did that mean? I shivered under the heat of his regard and felt gooseflesh rise on the upper curves of my breasts. My nipples tightened against my bra. Trembling a little now, I skirted around him, putting some distance between us.

“I just want to know if he hurt you,” Logan said, no longer sounding angry.

“No, he didn’t.” I finished off my wine and turned, but I braced myself against the wall, unable to hold myself up against the confusion I felt.

The tension in the room was unbelievably thick, and I was starting to wonder if the sexual part of it on my side wasn’t just on my side. In fact, I was starting to wonder if the tension wasn’t entirely made up of sexual frustration, period.

I looked up at Logan from under my lashes. He’d turned to face me, but every muscle in his body seemed to be stretched taut. “No, he didn’t,” I repeated quietly. “But he was only after one thing.”

The muscle in his jaw ticked. “What did you do?”

“I told him I didn’t do one-night stands because when I went to bed with a man I wanted him to do whatever he wanted to me, and for that I needed to know and trust him.”

Logan’s face went blank. “You said what?” he asked flatly.

“I was being funny.” I shrugged, suddenly not feeling so funny anymore.

“Aye, well, I’d expect a phone call from him tomorrow. Saying shit like that to him, wearing that fucking dress…” He was angry again.

And like always, his anger ignited mine. “Why are you acting like a complete sod to me tonight?”

“Are you really that fucking clueless?” Logan shouted, wearing a look of disbelief.

“Apparently so!” I shouted back.

“Well, here’s a damn hint!”

I barely had time to blink at his yell before his body was pressing mine hard into the wall. He captured my wrists in his hands and pinned them, holding me completely captive. Breathing heavy, his face but an inch from mine, he stared down into my eyes and said hoarsely, “Tell me to get out, Grace.”

My skin was flushed. In fact, my whole body felt like flames were licking at every inch of it. I could feel my breasts swell up against the tight confines of my dress, and the tingling between my legs had increased to an insistent throb. I breathed Logan in, my breath hitching as I felt his erection.

There was a pleasant flip in my lower belly, and I squeezed my legs tighter together at the rush of slickness between them.

“Grace.” His head dipped toward mine. “Tell me to leave.”

“No,” I whispered back, relaxing into the wall, and he melted into me with a groan. “I want you to stay.”

He looked into my eyes as if searching for the answer to something. “If I stay I’m going to fuck you.”

I trembled in reaction to his bluntness and licked my lips before I moved my feet, widening my legs so he could fit just right between them. His eyes flared at the movement, and I reached up so our lips brushed as I whispered, “I’m counting on it.”

CHAP TER 13

L ogan MacLeod could kiss.

His lips were hot against my lips as his tongue slid against mine. Stubble from his beard scratched my skin as he deepened the kiss and ground his lower body against me. My nipples instantly hardened. I’d never been kissed like this before. With such voraciousness. Like he couldn’t get enough of me.

I let out a little gasp of excitement as he released my lips to trail his down my throat, traveling lower to the rise of my breasts. He squeezed my wrists as I arched against his mouth. In answer he released his hold on my hands and pulled back to stare into my flushed face. My skin felt inflamed and much too tight.

My lower belly flipped at the hunger in his heated gaze.

I’d never felt so wanted in my life.

And to be wanted by him…

“Logan,” I pleaded.

His eyes flared at my plea, and he slipped his fingers under the straps of my dress. With a deliberate slowness that had me panting, he lowered the straps of my dress, tugging on them until the front of it was bunched under my bra. He followed this by tugging my bra down to expose me.

Cupping my breasts in his large hands, he stared into my eyes and gave me that sexy little smirk of his. His head descended, and I cried out as his mouth wrapped around my nipple. I reached for him, my arms curling around his neck, drawing him closer. I moaned, my head falling back against the kitchen wall as he licked and sucked and tormented before moving on to my other nipple. My senses were overwhelmed. His scent, his heat, his hardness, and strength. I was surrounded. I’d never felt this way before. Like I might burst out of my skin if he didn’t come inside of me.

I writhed against him, and Logan groaned against my breast, the sound reverberating through me deliciously. In answer he pressed his body deeper into mine and lifted his head to kiss me again. This kiss was harder, wetter, much more out of control. I instantly wrapped myself around him, and my fingers curled in the hair at the back of his neck as I licked and sucked and flicked my tongue against his, our kiss so deep I wasn’t aware of anything but him.

All I knew was that I wanted more and I wanted it now.

My hand slipped under his T-shirt, and I traced his hard stomach before sliding down inside his jeans.

He broke the kiss on a hiss, pressing into my hand as I tried to curl it around his erection against the constraining confinement of his jeans.

I pulled my hand out and began unzipping him. “I want you inside me,” I whispered hurriedly. “I need you.”

He gently brushed my hands away from his erection and slipped his own hand under my dress. As his fingertips trailed along my inner thigh, he asked against my mouth, “Are you ready for me, Grace?”

I nipped at his lower lip and sighed. “I’m so ready for you.”

“Fuck,” he groaned again, his fingers pushing under my knickers. “You are full of surprises.”

“Huh-uh?” I said on a whimper as he slid two fingers inside of me.

I pushed onto them.

He pulled back to stare into my eyes as he fucked me with his fingers. “I never thought you’d light up for the likes of me.”

I gasped, barely cognizant of what he was saying, as I clutched his arm, afraid he’d stop what he was doing to me.

“Jesus, you’re killing me.” His lips skimmed my jaw until his mouth stopped at my ear. “I’m going to fuck you until you see stars.”

I came around his fingers, my cries of release swallowed in his kiss.

As I shuddered against him, I kissed him and sucked on his tongue. His answering growl spurred me on until it descended into the dirtiest kiss I’d ever experienced.

I felt his warm, rough hands on my outer thighs as they brushed my skin, pushing my dress up to my waist. Logan gripped the fabric of my knickers and tugged, and they slid down my legs. I kicked them away, not daring to break the kiss, and the sudden air between my legs increased the tingling need he was building in me again.

We both reached for his jeans, and we shoved them and his boxers down to his ankles, freeing him. Logan pulled back from the kiss, and I glanced down to check him out.

He was big.

Bigger than I’d had inside me before.

“Oh God,” I breathed.

Logan’s eyes darkened. “All for you, babe,” he said as he gripped my legs, spread them, and thrust up into me.

“Logan!” I cried out in pleasured pain, his throbbing heat overwhelming me. All of my focus was on the sensation of his thickness inside me, and I struggled for breath as my body tried to adjust and relax. Logan held still against me, breathing heavily, as though he was attempting to gain a little control.

I didn’t want control.

I wanted more. I pushed my hips against him and he eased me up against the wall so I could wrap my legs around him. It shifted him deeper inside me, and my fingers bit into his shoulders. “Logan!” I arched my head back, and Logan took it as an invitation.

His mouth tugged on my nipple, and my inner muscles clamped around his cock and snapped whatever control he was holding on to. He pounded us into the wall, thrusting into me hard, gliding in and out of me with increasing frenzy.

He lifted his head, and our eyes met as he kept his promise to fuck me hard. As he watched me, his eyes blackened. “Grace.” His voice was guttural. “I’m… close…” he panted.

At that I felt his thumb press down on my clit, and the combination of his cock inside of me and him rubbing my clit blew me apart. My release triggered his as my inner muscles rippled around his dick. Logan gritted his teeth, his eyes on me, his muscles strained, and he let out a deep belly grunt as his hips jerked against me in climax.

The world slowly came back to me as the euphoria of my orgasm faded. Suddenly I was painfully aware of Logan’s chest rising against mine as we struggled to get our breaths back, of his heavy weight against me, of his lips touching my neck.

I breathed him in, afraid to let go.

When he pulled back from me, I could only stare into his eyes, hoping I would be able to read in them what he was thinking. But I couldn’t. Instead I held perfectly still, wrapped around him, as he pressed the softest, sweetest kiss to my mouth. My lips tingled as he gently pulled out of me and lowered my legs to the floor.

“Are you on the pill?” he said softly.

I froze at the unexpected question.

And then it hit me.

I’d let him inside me without a condom.

How could I have been so stupid? “I’m on the pill,” I whispered, because I was, but that wasn’t the point!

Some of the tension he’d been carrying melted out of him as he bent down to pull on his underwear and jeans. I stared at him as he zipped himself back up and then took a step toward me.

What was he going to do next?

I had no idea what was going on here.

To my surprise he took hold of the hem of my dress and slowly lowered it back down into place.

And then he grasped the straps of both my dress and bra and gently tugged the upper half of my clothing up until I was covered.

Legs trembling, I could only stand there in my state of shock as he trailed his fingertips across my cheek. “Did I hurt you?”

I shook my head.

In answer Logan took my hand in his and led me through the flat to the bathroom. “I’ll let you get cleaned up and then we need to talk.”

Locking myself in the bathroom, I did as he suggested, my skin burning as flashbacks from the sex hit me again and again. I leaned against the sink and stared into the mirror at my flushed cheeks, my too-bright eyes, and my hair, which was tumbling out of the grips that pinned it in place. What was going on with Logan? He was acting affectionately, but strangely for someone who had just had mind-blowing sex.

And he couldn’t deny it was mind-blowing. I felt how hard he’d come. Just as hard as I had.

I flushed again.

What did “we need to talk” mean?

There was only one way to find out. Butterflies alive and well in my belly, I kicked off my shoes in the hallway and tried to walk calmly into the kitchen, where Logan was sitting on a stool at the counter.

I slid onto the stool next to him.

He turned his head to meet my gaze, and the look in his eyes told me everything I needed to know.

Everything I didn’t want to know.

And the rejection, the pain, was awful.

It was this burning ache in my chest… quite unlike anything I’d ever felt before.

Logan lowered his gaze, appearing so solemn, that the ache intensified and began to crawl up my chest toward my throat until it felt like a hand choking me.

“This can’t happen again, Grace,” he said, confirming all that I’d seen in his eyes.

And I’d never felt loss like it. It was different from the pain of walking away from my family. I’d deliberately lost them.

I didn’t want to lose Logan.

It hurt, and that hurt was only magnified by the loss of something else. Hope.

Before this I hadn’t even realized that underneath my claims of logic and rationality I’d clung to the fantasy of Logan and me, but I had. That fantasy had sustained me in a way that I knew probably wasn’t good for me in the long run, but it had made each day a little brighter and filled with anticipation.

I couldn’t respond past the constriction in my throat.

“I have to focus on Maia. Every day I’m reminded that I’ve lost out on fifteen years of being her father, and I still haven’t scraped the surface of the damage Maryanne did to her. I need to make up for it, Grace, and the only way I can do that is by giving her all of me right now. She deserves that. She deserves to be number one. I can’t be in a relationship at the moment.”

The sudden flashback of Logan moving inside of me no longer inflamed my skin. Instead I felt cold. I felt vulnerable.

Humiliated.

Stupid.

Oh, so bloody stupid.

Why did I give him that part of me when I knew all along what he wasn’t saying, what he was hiding behind his excuse of Maia – he couldn’t be in a relationship with me.

“Grace,” he said when I didn’t say anything, his beautiful eyes asking me to understand. “I should never have with you… I acted on impulse. I have to stop.” He ran a hand over his head, clearly frustrated with himself. “I have to take control of my life. Be a fucking man. Look where impulse has gotten me. It put me in jail, for Christ’s sake.”

Anger opened up my throat and vocal cords. “Are you comparing having sex with me to what you did to get yourself imprisoned?”

“Of course not.”

“Oh good,” I said, as I slid off the stool away from him. “I might have taken exception to that.”

“You’re pissed.” He sighed. “Shit, Grace, I never meant to —”

“Fuck me? Yeah, I got that memo.” I was suddenly desperate for him to leave before I was humiliated further by crying in front of him. “You can go now, Logan.”

He stood up, his features tightening. “Don’t be like that. Please. You’ve been so good to Maia and me – you have to know that you are the last person I’d ever want to hurt. I’m a dick, okay.” He held up his hands in surrender. “I shouldn’t have done it. I care about you, and I’m attracted to you – of course I’m fucking attracted to you; look at you – but I had no intention of crossing that line with you and spoiling what the three of us have. You know how Maia has been acting when she gets even the sniff of a woman in my life. I can’t do this. Please understand.”

I narrowed my eyes, too hurt to hear his explanation of why not. All I really wanted to know was why. “Why did you, then?” I said, unable to hold that hurt inside. At least my anger seemed to be stemming the tears. “I was content in the knowledge that you didn’t reciprocate my feelings for you, so why did you cross the line?”

Remorse blazed in his eyes. “I let jealousy get the better of me,” he admitted hoarsely.

I gave a huff of disbelief. “So you’re saying you got upset because another boy was playing with the toy you hadn’t had a chance to play with yet?”

“Don’t,” he warned. “Don’t make this worse. I had no idea how you felt about me.”

“Oh please, Logan. That may have been true when we first met, but we have been past the antagonistic-neighbor routine for a while now.”

The muscle in his jaw ticked. “I suspected you were attracted to me, but nothing deeper. I never imagined you could.”

“Because that’s me… the shallow hookup girl. You know me better than that.”

“Apparently, I don’t,” he snapped, eyes dark with anger. “But if you want me to take full responsibility for this, then I will. I’ve been an arsehole, I hurt you, and I hate that I’ve hurt you. I do. I am sorry,” he ended on a whisper.

I shook my head and wrapped my arms around my waist, turning away because I could feel the tears start to come now. “I’m the idiot that forgot you like your quick fucks to come hassle free, with an ever quicker good-bye.”

“Jesus —”

“Don’t. Just go. There’s no point to arguing. You were right before. I should have asked you to leave then. I’m asking you now.”

After a moment I heard him walk toward the kitchen doorway.

I batted at my tears and turned around. “Logan.”

He stopped, looking back at me almost hopefully.

“I don’t want you back here,” I said, squashing that hope. “Maia is always welcome and I will be civilized to you for her sake, but you and me… our friendship is officially over.”

He tensed, an incredulous look in his eyes. “You’re killing me here, babe.”

Tears blurred my vision. “Please.” I looked away, swiping at the drops as they fell down my cheeks.

“Okay,” he said softly, and I heard him walk away.

At the sound of my flat door closing, I burst into tears, tightening my arms around myself as if it could somehow keep the pain from spilling out all over.

CHAP TER 14

T here are moments in life that change us irreparably. Sometimes those moments are grand and dramatic, tragic or beautiful in their intensity. Sometimes those moments are quiet and small, like footsteps fading behind a closed door. The subtlety of those moments can sometimes camouflage their impact.

And sometimes the impact is felt profoundly, but the quietness of the moment is lost on everyone else around you, adding loneliness to the equation.

That’s how I felt the next morning as I sat staring at my computer.

I’d fallen in love for the first time.

And he didn’t love me back.

I no longer felt whole. I felt like I’d given a piece of myself away but there was no reciprocation to fill the emptiness it had left behind.