Chapter 17
Penelope
Iwake the next morning in a pair of silk pajama shorts and a matching top, carefully tucked into the sheets of my king-sized bed.
An excruciating headache pounds through my skull, and I moan, unbearably nauseated.
“Good morning, Penelope.” A woman dressed in pink scrubs with lavender-colored hair removes a blood pressure cuff from my arm.
The scent of antiseptic twists my stomach, but her green eyes are soft and kind when she smiles. “How are you feeling?”
“Nauseous.” I hiss when a sharp pain lances the side of my skull. “Can I have some water, please?”
“Sure thing. I brought you some pain meds, too.”
I move to sit up on my elbows, and she supports me by stuffing pillows behind my back as I get my bearings.
“Here you go.” She hands me two white pills before helping me take a sip from the glass on the bedside table. “Sorry I couldn’t get anything stronger, but luckily, you didn’t sustain any life-threatening injuries. You’re going to be pretty sore for the next few days, though. I’ve given Logan and your sister instructions for you to take it easy.”
“I’m sorry. Who are you?”
“Lidia.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear before removing the sheets covering my legs. “I’m a certified nurse, and a friend of Declan. I was asked to keep an eye on you.”
She adjusts the icepacks on my knees, but her hesitation around ‘friend’ makes me wonder if there’s more between them than she’s letting on.
“Thank you.”
She reminds me of a pixie with her purple hair, small stature, and a cheeky smile. “Of course.”
I stare at the cuts and bruises marking my arms and legs as last night’s events unfold in my memory. Being trapped by Koa, those hot, fetid breaths while he kissed me, and his hands, reaching inside my shorts, producing tendrils of terror.
All at once, I feel… dirty.
My sister raps on the bedroom door before prying it open and peering inside. “Can we come in?”
Lidia swiftly replaces the covers. “Sure. I just gave her some medicine, and her vitals are looking great.”
Carrie heads straight for my side of the bed before kneeling beside me, but my pulse turns erratic when Logan enters the room. Unlike my sister, who’s dressed in a pantsuit and heels, he’s casual in a pair of gray pants and a pastel-blue shirt with rolled sleeves.
“Playing hooky?” I tease Logan. “Imagine that.”
His expression softens from a deep scowl to utter relief, and a dull ache conjures the memory of him peeling me off the sidewalk after puking my guts up, then holding me like a child the entire way home.
Does he know I heard his vow before I slipped into the darkness? Can he sense what it’s done to my rapidly beating heart?
“Declan’s covering for me,” he says.
I duck my chin to shield my reaction to him skipping work for me. But dammit, that’s unexpectedly thoughtful.
“The scrapes and bruises should heal in a week,” Lidia says. “I don’t think we need to be concerned about a concussion, though it is my job as a nurse to advise you to get her checked by a physician.”
“You’re taking care of one of the most stubborn women I’ve ever known.” My toes scrunch at his relaxed amusement. “She’s not exactly the best listener.”
“I’m not stubborn,” I grumble. “I’m just efficient at resisting your commands.”
Carrie takes my hand and squeezes it lightly as Lidia heads for the door. “Thank you for taking care of her.”
“No problem. Let me know if you reconsider, and I’ll put in a word with the doc.”
“She’ll see the doctor first thing tomorrow morning,” Logan assures her. “Thank you, Lidia.”
I gawk at my sister’s sudden silence. “Aren’t you going to tell him to mind his business?”
“For once, I agree with him,” she mutters.
My eyes shift between them. “Wow. Never thought I’d see the day you two formed an alliance.”
Logan braces his shoulder against the wall, arms crossed and lips tipping up. “Told you she’d come around.”
But the humor in his joke doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and my brow furrows when Carrie clears her throat.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“I’ve got a work meeting with Dad in Tauntuma, so I don’t have long. But there’s something I want to say before I go.” Carrie traces a tiny circle on the webbing of my hand. Her gaze fills with remorse when she speaks. “I take full responsibility for what happened to you last night.”
Stunned, my eyes widen. “What? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m serious, sis. I left you by yourself not once, but twice, and that was incredibly selfish of me.”
I squeeze her hand, giving a halfhearted laugh. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
Her lips thin into a grim line, and something tells me I won’t like what she says next. “I was planning to finish out my vacation with Mom and Dad next week, but I think it’s best if we move our things out there together so you can recover at home.”
I scoff, completely taken aback. “Absolutely not.”
She has the nerve to look dejected. “I think this is what’s best for you, and Logan agrees that you should be with your family right now. Don’t you want to be comfortable? Cared for?”
My gaze flies to where he’s standing, waiting for an explanation, but he’s staring a hole through the tip of his crossed feet.
It’s funny how the people we love use that phrase as a crutch. But wanting what’s best for someone doesn’t mean they can dictate, guilt, or intimidate them into compliance.
“So what, you two spent all night making decisions for me? Choosing who I’ll be living with like I’m part of a divorce decree?”
“No.” Her eyes narrow. “We spent all night worried sick because you refused to go to the hospital.”
Our gazes touch briefly. That’s right… I had begged Logan not to let them take me, and while I’m surprised he followed through, I’m oddly moved, too.
“I’ll be fine in a matter of days. Lidia said it herself. Besides, Logan and I have an event to plan. I’m not just going to crawl into a hole and let this get the best of me.”
“You can’t work in this condition, and Dad can give you whatever money you need—”
My neck burns with anger and betrayal.
“I said no, Carrie,” I grit before she reveals too much.
Who will help Dorthea and Ricardo if we go? She knows how important that home is to me. She’s seen firsthand what I’m trying to do for them, and I’d rather die a slow, agonizing death than ever abandon those kids.
Plus, if I go home now, I’ll be forced to expose my lies to our parents, relive the shame of last night–all while staring into faces full of disappointment–and continue living in her perfectly constructed shadow for the rest of my miserable life.
No thanks.
She pinches the bridge of her nose. “I knew you’d be difficult about this.”
“I’m not being difficult. You think you know what I need when what I really need is for you to stop being so overbearing.”
“Pen,” Logan starts, but I cut him off.
“And you. Agreement or not, this is one decision you will not make for me.” My chest tightens as angry tears threaten. “I can take care of myself.”
Carrie releases me to stand. “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you have to.”
“I’ve gotten along the last thirty years just fine. I think I’ll manage.” Her lips quiver, but for once, there’s no apology trying to force its way from my mouth, and it feels empowering.
“If you say anything to Dad, I’ll never forgive you.”
“Penelope.”
“Ever.” I hold her stare, refusing to back down. The silence in the room is deafening.
“All right. Have it your way.” She nods before turning for the door, and when she reaches the threshold, she murmurs to Logan, “I’ll be back later.”
Logan pushes off the wall, crossing the room with purposeful strides.
“I can’t believe you’d agree with her,” I say, staring in disbelief as he takes a seat on the edge of the bed. “Where’s the loyalty?”
Resting his elbows on his knees, he steeples his fingers in front of his lips and inhales deeply.
“Last night was one of the most terrifying nights of my life.” His tone is even, his face unyielding to any emotion, aside from near palpable rage. “When I saw you on the ground… When I saw what he’d done to you, Penelope… I thought I was too late—and I wasn’t the only one.”
He swings his tormented gaze to mine, and I swallow, nostrils flaring as tears burn the back of my throat. I hate that he sees right through me. Hate even more that he’s the only one who ever has.
“Carrie was beside herself all night. And yeah, after listening to you moan and cry in your sleep, I thought maybe she was right. Because I didn’t protect you when I knew something was off. You were hurt because I let my ego cloud my judgment, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to forgive myself for that.”
That painful knot thickening my throat continues to grow. “But you guys are trying to take the blame for something that’s entirely my fault.”
“You were attacked.”
“No, I know. It’s just—” I look toward the ceiling, at a loss. “If I hadn’t been so trusting. Maybe if I’d read his body language better, things would have been different.”
His shoulders droop when my voice cracks. “And your clothing, right? All that revealing leather, showing off your beautiful body. Will you blame that next?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah…” He nods at the floor in thought. “And the way you danced, too. Flaunting those tempting curves of yours the way you had.”
My lips tremble, and there’s nowhere for me to run, nowhere to hide when one damning tear finally escapes.
“No, Penelope,” he murmurs, tenderly sweeping his thumb across my cheek. “None of those things give a person the right to access your body without permission.”
“I should’ve fought harder. I gave him so many chances to stop.” I roll the sheets between my fingers, shaking my head. “Am I so afraid of inconveniencing others that I’d rather risk being hurt than stand up for myself?”
A slow shake of his head. “He was someone you trusted. It’s difficult to believe he was capable of doing that to you.” Sliding a little closer, he adds, “What happened last night was not your fault. Koa made his choice, and he acted on it. You’re giving yourself too much credit to have any control over that.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, and from the bottom of my heart, I mean it.
When he spots the visible bruises on my forearms, his throat bobs. “Did he…”
“He tried, but I-I kneed him in the balls.”
Logan huffs a sharp laugh when I give him the details of how I escaped. “Thatta girl.”
His praise has me fidgeting. That proud smile making me feel prudish.
“I’m a mess,” I say, absently picking little pieces of dirt off the sheets, my skin still crawling with the phantom presence of Koa’s mouth.
“Lidia gave the ‘unofficial doctor’ stamp of approval if you’d like to take a bath.”
The soft smile that finds my lips is an exact match to his. “That sounds amazing, actually.”
After pulling the covers back, he helps me to my unsteady feet, and it’s then I notice several bloody gashes between his knuckles, adhered with some sort of clear glue.
Visions of Logan hitting Koa repeatedly, without mercy, flash behind my eyes.
“Is… is he…?”
“Dead?” He scoffs while gently ushering me toward the bathroom. “He fucking should be.”
Knowing he went after Koa in my honor shifts something foreign inside me. Something like that spark I’ve been searching for.
When we stop short of the tub inside the luxury bathroom, I trace the outer edges of the wounds on his right hand. “Someone could’ve easily taken a video of you.”
“They could’ve,” he agrees, knowing how fast the media would run with it if it were discovered.
“You risked your business’s reputation and Silas’s wrath… for me.”
“And I’d do it again.” He glares at the gashes on my knees before cupping his hand partly along my jaw, partly at the base of my skull. His voice rumbles dangerously. “I savored every strike of my knuckles breaking skin and his blood coating my fingers. It brought me joy to hurt him for you, Penelope. Do you understand that?”
His eyes scour my face as I slowly nod, and my heart pumps wildly when he leans in and presses his lips to my forehead. That single gesture cleanses me of Koa’s touch, allowing me to take an easy breath for the first time since I woke.
“I’ll run the bath for you,” he says before bending to plug the bottom of the claw-foot tub.
He twists the gold-plated handle to fill it with hot water and adds several pumps of lavender bubbles. He tests the temperature, switching to cold once it’s nearly full, and then turns back to me.
Logan hesitates, his very presence making me feel exposed, raw, and confused. But he dismisses the thought with a subtle shake of his head. “I’ll wait in your room in case you need anything.”
Part of me wants to ask him to stay, but I nod, watching him go with longing building in my chest.
I gingerly cross to the sink to remove my clothes but stop when I come face to face with my reflection. One shaky, scraped hand rises to my tangled hair, then to the black mascara stains running down my cheeks.
A sob catches in my throat as the full weight of what happened last night settles around me. How many women have been in my position and weren’t able to get away? Logan served as my reckoning, but what about them? Who was there for them?
Taking several calming breaths, I reach for the hem of my top. “Ah.”
I bite my lip as the muscles between my neck and shoulder blades scream in protest. Grunting in pain, I struggle through one more attempt before giving up altogether.
Dammit.
I glare at the closed door, then at my reflection in the foggy mirror, and breathe a defeated sigh.
“Logan?”
The door opens immediately. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m, um, having some trouble.”
Concern pinches his brows when he steps inside the room, hands poised and ready, and I nearly laugh. It’s incredible how much he’s changed, like I’m meeting an entirely new person–and even more incredible is how much I’m starting to like this version of him.
“I need you to take my clothes off.”
Yup. Just throw it out there, why don’t you?
“Unless you’re uncomfortable or something. Totally understand if you don’t want to see my skiddly-doos.”
With a smirk on his lips, he positions himself at my back. “Just what are you hiding beneath those pajamas, Pen?”
I face the mirror fully, thankful it’s thinly fogged enough to hide my answering smile.
“Can you lift your arms for me?”
The question whispers through the hair at the base of my neck where my ponytail has become a balled up, tangled mess.
“I tried before, but I’m really sore.”
When I move to show him, he carefully holds my biceps, keeping me still. “That’s okay. I don’t mind helping you.”
His mouth is close enough to brush my ear when he places a finger beneath the strap of my tank top. Gradually, he tugs the silk material down my arm. “I need to get it over your elbow. This may hurt a little.”
He waits for my subtle nod, but I cry out when I’m forced to bend it through the stretched loop. “Satan’s ass crack. You weren’t kidding.”
“Sorry,” Logan mutters, but it’s wrapped in a silky soft laugh that butters my insides.
“God, I’m so pathetic. Pathetic Penelope.”
“Not true.” I hear the grin in his voice when he says, “You’re loud, maybe a little obnoxious when you want to be, stubborn as hell, of course—”
“Do you have a point?” I grumble.
His fingertips trace beneath the scratches on my back before moving to the opposite strap. He patiently waits for me to give the okay before lowering it, and a deep chuckle warms the top of my shoulder. “You’re far from pathetic.”
“Maybe I’d believe you if you really knew me.”
It’s a weightless jab, but these walls don’t give too easily, no matter how much he’s weakened them.
“Guess you’ve been so busy pretending that you’ve forgotten I know the real you. And you know what? I like the real you.”
An endless stream of flutters free fall in my stomach as the parts of me that crave acceptance, the parts that want to please and be pleased, preen for him.
I bite my lip as he stretches the fabric far enough to accommodate my lower forearm, helping me adjust as he goes. Thick, steamy air glides across my bare breasts when my top slips down my waist and settles at my hips.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
My heart slams against my sternum.
Logan’s a tall man. There’s not much a fogged mirror can do to shield me from that, and it definitely can’t hide the quickening cadence of his breaths behind me, or the way his hands suddenly freeze.
His fingertips tease the edges of my naked ribs, and a lightning bolt of arousal spears the center of my thighs, so intense, I groan.
“Are you all right?” he asks deeply, headily, as if struggling for self-control.
“Yeah,” I rasp. “I-I don’t think I can get my shorts, though.”
Between several thundering heartbeats, he offers a throaty, “Okay.”
Carefully, his thumbs hook beneath the top of my shorts, grabbing my rolled top and my panties with them. His long arms form a cage around my sides, but I don’t feel trapped like I did with Koa. I feel protected, comforted, safe.
He hesitates, hardly moving an inch before I stop him.
“Wait. Could you, maybe, close your eyes for this part?”
My cheeks heat unbearably. Logan hasn’t seen me naked as a grown woman, and I can’t explain why, but it makes all of this oddly intimate.
“All right. They’re closed.”
The best I’m able, I brace myself against the sink, curling my fingers against the granite. The silk fabric rolls down my thighs, accompanied by teasing, feathery strokes from his fingers all the way to my ankles.
I’m hardly breathing by the time he helps me lift each foot, leaving me completely—alarmingly—bare.
“Now what?” he asks.
“Oh, I—” When I turn, Logan kneels before me.
He’s so breathtakingly handsome at my feet, eyes closed, waiting for instruction. Awareness slams against my senses, demanding I acknowledge his effect on me.
My fingers twitch to grasp his hair and guide his mouth a few inches forward toward my center. Let him lazily lap at me while I absorb his vibrating moans.
He wets his lips as if he can sense the direction of my thoughts, increasing the heat blooming between my legs.
He left you. Turned his back on you.
But what’s the truth? Because the more time I spend with him, the more uncertain I am that any version of Logan would abandon me.
That sexy, lazy smirk of his is out to play. “I can feel you staring, Pen.”
The blood steadily warming my cheeks spreads to my chest, peaking my aching nipples.
“Stand up, but k-keep your eyes closed,” I say in a breathless rush. “Please.”
I follow every movement, every visible flexing muscle as he rises.
“I-I’m going to get in the tub now.”
“I’ll help you.” He raises his pinky finger between us. “No peeking.”
“You’re a saint,” I remark with apathy, but I curl my finger around his, walking with him to the edge of the tub. “Just help me get in, and I’ll handle the rest.”
He hooks an arm behind my back, gingerly scooping my bruised legs over the other before I can so much as grunt from the pain. “I used to crave those commands of yours when we were younger.”
My breath catches with the heat of his arm at the backs of my legs. I can barely hear above the pitter-pattering racket my silly heart is making. “Must have lost my touch. You don’t listen nearly as well as you used to.”
The best I can, I cling to him when he hovers my body over the bath. “Don’t you dare drop me.”
“Have a little faith, sunshine.” He smiles, eyes closed as he slowly lowers me.
A hiss slides through my teeth when the hot water stings the scrapes and cuts on my skin, followed by a moan as it relaxes my too-tight muscles.
Thick bubbles tickle my chin, and I breathe the scent deep into my chest with a swirl of warm steam. But to my surprise, Logan doesn’t leave. Instead, he blindly reaches for the low hanging shelf above the tub.
“What are you doing?” With the bottom of his shirt sleeves soaked with water, he swipes a washrag and a bottle of soap without missing a beat.
“I’m going to wash you.”
I gawk at him. “The hell you are.”
But grabbing for the cloth in his hands spikes excruciating pain up my arm.
To his credit, he keeps his eyes closed, but that doesn’t save me from a lecture.
“You give so much of that light of yours to everyone else without nurturing its source. But eventually, it’s going to burn out.” The water ripples as I squirm. The urge to bite my nails is so intense, I curl my fists. “Lie back. Let me show you what it’s like to be taken care of unconditionally and without expectation.”
His steely expression eases when I concede, doing as he’s asked.
“I’ll be gentle,” Logan promises, and despite it all, I know I don’t have to question him.
Keeping his injured hand on the edge of the tub, he dips the washcloth below the surface, searching for my leg.
With the bubbles shielding me from view, I sigh. “You can open your eyes if you want to.”
The cloth stills, tickling the outside of my calf. “If you’re sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
Those blue eyes blink open, and I don’t miss the subtle part of his lips as he strains to keep his gaze on his task.
He works the rag between my toes, scrubbing my feet, then up each leg, and it’s increasingly hard to fight how arousing this is.
His thumb massages tiny circles all the way toward my knee, where he pauses when I involuntarily jerk. Shaking his head, he grunts. “Should’ve killed him.”
“So serious,” I tease, dragging his gaze back to mine.
The bathroom falls eerily quiet while his eyes blaze a trail down my neck to my breasts bobbing at the surface, masked by a thin layer of suds.
Time slows when the tip of the rag flutters between my thighs. I snag my lower lip with my teeth as his breaths grow labored, watching my reaction as he drags it up my center.
It whispers over my clit, and instinctually, my legs part.
God, I know I shouldn’t—not after last night, and not with all our unpacked baggage—but I desperately want him to touch me there.
I want him to take care of me, as he said. Not just in the form of blissful release, but to let him nurture all the unloved pieces of me that I keep hidden.
The heat from the bath warms his skin, enhancing his natural scent enough to make me drunk with it, and it’d be so easy to give in to him. To spread my shaking legs a little wider and let his fingers slip inside me.
If I was worried about him seeing my reaction to him earlier, there’s no disguising it now.
“Pen,” he grits, flattening his palm at the thickest, tenderest point of my upper thigh. Just an inch or two closer, and those fingers would undo me.
It’s a temptation I almost can’t resist, and he watches me battle logic and desire with a thousand questions lying in his scorching stare. But if I’m going to give myself to him, it’ll be when I finally know the truth. And no question is more important than the one I’ve been clinging to for the last twelve years.
“What you said last night about Stanford… Is it true?”
Gradually, he shutters away his desire and removes his palm. He steels his expression and gestures for my hand. “Figured you forgot about that.”
“Not a chance,” I say, lifting it as much as I can for him.
He softly scrubs my fingers and up my arm, his eyes steadily avoiding my chest, which is dangerously close to being exposed.
“Yes, it’s true.”
But if they denied him, does that mean he didn’t intentionally vanish? And if that’s the case, then why don’t I feel better?
The devastation of waking up to find him gone rears up from the past.
“You didn’t call,” I say weakly.
“You didn’t, either.”
“But why?” I ask, needing answers for us both.
“I’ve been wondering the same thing about you for over a decade now.” I flinch at the intensity of his stare and the solemn way he reaches for my other arm. “Hell, you could’ve texted that you’d moved on. Let me down easy instead of leaving me guessing.”
At first, I think he’s messing with me—he must be—and it makes me instantly defensive.
“Fuck you, Logan.”
“Fuck me? You disappeared on me, too. You can’t be the only one holding a grudge, and you damn sure don’t get to gatekeep the truth just because you’re afraid of mine.”
I huff, and he finishes washing me in stoic silence before tossing the rag at the foot of the bath.
Lifting my chin, we glare at each other—him with his shirt almost entirely soaked, and me naked, vulnerable, and not fucking liking it.
It’s the flicker of a challenge dancing over his features that eventually does me in.
“Come here, you stubborn woman.” He diffuses me easily by guiding me to sit so he can wash my hair.
With my muscles relaxed, I drag my knees to my chest to hide my breasts while Logan reaches for a small metal bowl beside the faucet. When he gently tips my head back, pouring water over my scalp and massaging the shampoo through the soaked tresses, my entire body turns to Jell-O.
After a moment, I find the courage to say what I’ve wanted to say to him for years. Things I’ve written in letters I couldn’t send. What I’d prepared to tell him when I moved back to the island after college.
“I waited for you after class every day for two weeks, thinking maybe it just took longer for your transfer to be approved. But when every call or text I sent never went through, I assumed you blocked me.”
Logan listens intently, going through the motions of rinsing shampoo from my hair and then applying conditioner. He’s thorough, yet gentle, scratching his nails against my scalp before dragging his fingers through the ends.
“When I came back to the island and found out you had moved on, I don’t know. I guess at that point, I was convinced you didn’t care.”
“How did you know about Rachel?” he asks quietly.
“I went to your dad’s office in Tauntuma.” My stomach clenches, afraid to reveal the truth. “He told me you’d been seeing her for a while… that things were pretty serious between you two. That you were the happiest you’ve ever been.”
His body goes unnaturally rigid, face pinched with confusion before he says, “You were looking for me?”
“Yes.”
He finishes rinsing my hair, stewing over this revelation before breaking his silence. “I don’t understand… I tried to reach you for weeks, but all my calls and messages failed, just like you said. I thought you were mad at me for leaving the way we had. You couldn’t have known I didn’t have my phone, but by the time I got it back, it was too late.”
A tiny flicker of hope burns in my chest as he reaches for a towel from the rack. So he hadn’t forgotten me, had even tried to contact me.
“You didn’t have your phone?”
With help, I gradually rise to my feet. Rivulets of water sluice down my body, but Logan averts his gaze, holding the towel out to shield my nakedness, and the gesture corkscrews its way through my heart.
“He saw us in the barn the day before we left,” he says. “Took it shortly after you went upstairs.”
The last memory I have with him sucker punches me. He’d given me his grandmother’s ring that afternoon, promising me the world and then some.
That evening, Dad and Silas were engaged in a heated discussion that lasted for hours, and unable to get to him, we settled for watching each other from our bedroom windows.
I fought hard to stay awake, but when the sunrise woke me the very next morning, they’d already left without so much as a goodbye.
He helps tuck the towel around my body. “It wasn’t your fault, Pen.”
I scoff when he plucks the thought right out of my mind. I’m the reason we were in that barn to begin with. Because I couldn’t keep my hands, my body, my fucking heart away from him.
“Sure feels like it.”
Those strong, steady hands grip my shoulders gently. “It wasn’t.”
“Well, it’s obvious Silas didn’t want us speaking to each other. He could have blocked my number without your knowledge.”
Quick to his father’s defense, he shakes his head. “He wouldn’t do that.”
I pause, snorting sarcastically. “Of course he would. Your dad wanted better for you, and I obviously didn’t make the cut.”
Dread pools in the pit of my stomach when I reach for his hand, and he flinches. Shadows draw him away from me, even though he hasn’t moved.
“You don’t believe me?” I whisper in shock.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Do you need to? It’s written all over your face.”
Running a hand through his hair, he sighs. “It’s just… There’s got to be some explanation other than my father purposefully blocking you from my life.”
“After everything he’s put you through, you still defend him?” I shiver once he helps me step out of the tub, putting more space between us the second my feet are flat on the mat.
Carefully, calmly, Logan closes the faint few inches keeping us apart. I don’t even blink when his palms slide over my wet hair, gathering it away from my neck and wringing it out for me.
“Our fathers had a disagreement, and we suffered the fallout. That doesn’t mean he’s to blame.”
He’s right, there’s no proof, and yet, I can’t shake this feeling in my gut that it’s true. That Silas never approved of his son being associated with me, and probably never will.
“Then tell me how we loved each other as fiercely as we had and still gave up. What does that say about us? What does that say about what we’re doing here?” His eyes flash at the tremor in my voice. “Tell me how this ends.”
“In all this time, not a single moment passed when my thoughts weren’t with you.” Resolution ignites his gaze before he speaks again, and each word skates across my cheeks and mouth, his very essence an all-consuming force that burrows beneath my skin before striking my heart. “You’ve been irrevocably woven into my existence, and I’m not letting you go again.”
My resolve slips through my fingers like fine sand. He destroyed the girl who loved him so deeply once, and I’m terrified to allow him to do it again.
“You were mine then, and you’re mine now.” A kaleidoscope of anger, hurt, and longing swirls between our gazes when he lifts the tip of my chin. “There is no end for us, Penelope.”