Chapter 26
Serena
“Was that him?”
Rue shrugs and hands me the phone. “No caller ID. You don’t have to speak to him if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t know what I want.” Sighing, I sit up in bed, feeling much better than I did a few hours ago. Whatever hangover cure Rue made me seems to have worked. “Sorry that my clothes are too big.”
“Fuck off. I’d give anything for your tits.” She giggles.
“You don’t have to stay. You can go home if you want. Not that I’m trying to get rid of you, but you don’t have to stay.”
“I want to stay, and it’s not that I’m worried you’ll do this again. I believe you when you say you weren’t trying to end it. But like I said, I feel a real friendship here, almost like a sister thing, I guess.”
“Only child too?”
“Yeah, how did you guess? But this is as good for my soul as I think it is for yours.” She pauses. I know what’s coming, and I brace myself. “About what you told me…you need to speak to someone, a therapist or something. You’ve buried it deep, but these things don’t work themselves out.”
“I’m not ready.”
“Okay, but think about it? And please, next time you feel like the walls are closing in, speak to me. I will stop whatever it is I’m doing to listen and be there. I won’t let you get to the point where you need to hurt yourself again.”
“Thanks.”
It’s all I have to say. There is no need for anything else. She gets it and isn’t pushing me.
“So, are you going to speak to Logan? I think he’s going to be calling back any second now.”
“What am I supposed to say?”
“Nothing. Hear what he has to say first.”
“And if we both expect that?”
“Then it will be a fucking awkward phone call.”
I snicker into my hand. “Gee, thanks.”
“Seriously, though. I obviously can’t be one hundred percent accurate, but I feel that your uncle might’ve bent the truth about Logan. I don’t think he ever thought you were a conquest. Not the way he looked when he asked me to check on you.”
“Yeah, well.”
“There’s only one way to find out.” She holds up the ringing phone.
Shaking my head. “He’ll just lie to me.”
“Why? What has he possibly got to gain from lying to you? If it was all a game, he already got his dick in you, so game over, right? Besides, he’s a man.
A mature man who doesn’t need to play games to get women.
Hell, even if this was about a conquest, there will be virgins lining up around the block willing to give it up to him with a few smiles in their direction. ”
“I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but that only makes me feel worse,” I groan and flop back to the pillows.
“Jealous?” she jibes.
“Like you have no idea.”
“Then speak to him. Find out what the fuck is going on. The suspense is killing me.”
“You’re an asshole. Go in the other room, and don’t eavesdrop.” Picking up the phone, I shoo her out.
Laughing, she goes, dressed in one of my tees that is way too big for her skinny frame. She closes the door, and I inhale slowly before sliding the bar across to answer the incoming call.
“Hello?”
“Serena.”
His deep, gruff voice sends my blood spiking.
“You sound like shit,” I murmur.
“I look like shit.”
“What happened?”
“You first.”
“A lot. Not all of it to do with you.”
Silence.
“How much of it was because of what I did?”
“None of it. It’s what Quentin decided to tell me on my way home from work yesterday.”
Clenching my jaw, I wait.
“What did he say?”
Okay, no immediate denial, which would’ve smacked of guilt.
“He said that I was just a conquest for you. That you were looking into my life to find things to worm your way in, use me, and discard me. His exact words, so I didn’t misconstrue any of it.
” I accuse him of this charge before he’s even taken a breath.
“Ouch,” he murmurs. “That is not what I’m doing.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“I’ve fallen hard for you, Serena, and that never happens to me.
I’m apathetic toward people. I fuck to give myself a release, but there is nothing in it.
No emotions, no need for intimacy. But with you…
fuck, when I slid my cock into you, I know all of that changed.
You are in my soul, Serena, and there is nothing that will loosen that hold on me.
You are forbidden, but I can’t stay away. ”
“Forbidden?” I croak, my heart leaping and skipping beats at the rest of his words.
“Your uncle hasn’t taken too kindly to my interest in you. It’s why he tried to warn you off and why he tried to convince me to let you go.”
“What did he say?”
“He didn’t use words.”
Eyes wide, I gulp. “What does that mean?” I whisper.
“Don’t worry about it, angel. Just tell me one thing. Are you okay?”
“I’m all right.”
“That doesn’t sound convincing.”
“There’s a lot going on. I was fragile before all of this.
My past…it’s resurfaced, and I’m not dealing with it very well.
After being talked to by Quen yesterday, things…
got too much. I’m not strong enough, I guess.
I’m sorry, I’m a disappointment.” I bring my knees up so I can rest my forehead on them, tears welling in my eyes.
“Please stop saying things like that. You are not and have never been a disappointment. There is nothing you could do or say that would make me think that, and believe me, that is a revelation to me.”
“This is too much, Logan. I’m not ready for anything.”
“Then I’ll wait.”
“Don’t. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow or the day after that, or next month. I’m jobless and have to go back to being a temp after I’d gotten used to the idea of settling down somewhere. Everything has been ripped away from me.”
“Quentin doesn’t dictate to you or me.”
“There was something about the way he said it. He forbade me from contacting you or seeing you. I mean, who does that unless they have the means to back it up?” I’m saying too much, but my runaway mouth won’t close.
I know something deeper, darker, and fucking scary is going on with my uncle.
He showed me a side to him that I have never seen before, and now that I have time to think about it, now that I'm being forced to think about it because of what he did and said, I realize that I look a little bit too much like him and not enough like my parents. What does that mean? Fuck knows. I don’t know anything anymore, except that he scared me, and I don’t want to go against him for fear of what he might do.
If Logan says Quen hurt him over this, I can’t put him in that position again.
“I should go.”
“Serena, wait, there are things…dammit. I know what you’re looking for, Serena. I am the man you’re looking for. The savior, the hero of your story. That’s me.”
My heart aches, but I can’t do this. “Bye, Logan.”
I hang up before he can try to convince me not to be afraid.
I want to be afraid because it gives me an excuse not to pursue something that is terrifying in its intensity.
Logan Carter knows how to use his words.
It’s what he does for a living. His ability to convince me to crawl over broken glass for him is what scares me the most.
Scratch that.
What scares me the most is that I would do it, no questions asked.