Chapter 16
FRANKIE
“I’m not your wife,” I say, my voice shaking. This conversation has gone completely off the rails.
The best night of his life?
What the fuck?
Logan shrugs off his suit jacket, making himself more comfortable in our kitchen, hanging it on the back of a chair. “Yes, you are my wife. There’s paperwork to prove it. And I have the ring you left behind.”
“We were drunk.”
He winces and rubs his beard. I don’t miss the glint of gold on his left hand. He’s still wearing the wedding band I put there three days ago. “That’s true. But I think the champagne—”
“And the gin, and—”
“That only lowered our inhibitions. Everything we shared was still real.”
Of all the things I thought he might say, that’s…not it.
I stare at him.
“You weren’t expecting that.” He unbuttons the cuffs on his shirt and starts to roll up his sleeves.“Okay. Do you not feel the same way?”
Hysterical laughter burbles up from deep in my belly. I can’t. We can’t.
“No,” I manage to say.
His eyes narrow. “Because I play for your dad?”
“That’s a big part of it, yes. We definitely made a mistake by not talking about…” I gesture between us. “Jobs or parents or anything.”
“Okay.” He frowns. “But you could have woken me up when you realized who I was?”
My cheeks flush.
He swings his arms close and hunches his shoulders up toward his ears. “Unless you didn’t want to talk about it when you found out.”
A nervous jolt of shock ripples through me, an echo of what I felt as I stood in his room and stared at him in his bed.
“When was that?” he asks quietly, his gaze hard to read. “Early that morning?”
“Late that night,” I admit. “As I was coming to bed.”
“What happened? I don’t remember that.” He looks vaguely embarrassed. “Some parts are still hazy.”
“You were mostly asleep already. I asked if you had a meeting that I needed to set an alarm for.”
Understanding dawns. “And I told you I had a morning skate.”
“Yes.”
“Jesus. And you just…” He tilts his head to the side, his gaze sharpening. “I remember you curling up against me.”
I nod, jerkily.
“You let me hold you all night. You could have taken off right then and there, but you stuck around.”
Waves of hot embarrassment roll over me as I remember how pathetic I felt, wanting to soak up the last few hours of a fantasy. “I thought I would get up early, but then I slept in through the alarm, and—”
I close my eyes as I cut myself off, not wanting to admit the rest.
I feel him shift, the air in the too-small room suddenly disturbed as he crosses to me and takes my hands. “Let’s sit down.”
“No, I can’t.” I pull away from him and open my eyes.
I have to look up, way up, when he’s this close.
And it’s very hard to focus on anything other than the bright, piercing blue of his eyes.
“You’re taller when I’m not wearing heels,” I say inanely.
“You’re pretty short.” He smiles ruefully. “Short but speedy. You got out of my room pretty fast that morning.”
“Because I had to,” I say miserably. “I wouldn’t have even had a drink with you if I’d known who you were.”
He lifts his eyebrows, and his smile fades to a grim acknowledgement. “Fuck.”
I whisper a quiet apology, because I am sorry, very sorry, on so many levels.
After a long beat, he says, “I’m glad you didn’t know who I was, then. Because it hurts to think of missing out on knowing you.”
“That’s…” I puff my cheeks out. “You have to know that you knowing me is a disaster waiting to happen.”
He seems unbothered by the warning. “You captivated me, you know that? You’re everything I’d ever want in a woman. You’re smart, and funny, and kind. And so sexy, I—”
He cuts himself off.
But it’s too late. I heard that way his voice changed.
And I feel that part of the regret, too.
My stomach squeezes at the thought of missing that night together, of never knowing what it feels like to pull his body on top of mine.
I’m going to replay that moment for the rest of my life as a treasured memory.
But that’s all it can be, the sweetest, most achingly sad memory.
He tips his head to the side, scanning my face carefully as he looks down at me. “Francesca—or Frankie? Which would you prefer?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me. I know we’re two ships passing in the night here, but I’m in LA for the next two nights, and I want to get to know you.”
I stare up at him. “You cannot know me. It’s bad enough that you fucked your coach’s daughter. You cannot get entangled with me beyond one night.”
“I didn’t just fuck you. I married you first. And your relationship to Wilson is irrelevant. All I care about is our relationship.” He glares down at me.
“We don’t have a relationship!”
“Not with that attitude.”
“We can’t. And we won’t.”
He curves over me, drawing me into an argument he cannot win. “Name one reason why.”
“One?” My spine snaps straight with outrage. “I could name five!”
“Shoot.”
I tap my index finger on his hard chest. “One. You’re a hockey player.”
“Crime of the century,” he says mildly. “But I might be benched for the rest of the season, so if I’m not actually playing is that—”
“No jokes, this is serious. Two, I’m your coach’s daughter, and—”
“That feels like the same reason.”
“No, it’s not. One is a problem for me, because I’ve been hurt before and I have no interest in repeating foolish mistakes. The other is a huge problem for you, as soon as he finds out. And I refuse to let it be a problem for me again.”
“It’s not a problem for me.”
“Yes, it is,” I insist, because his cocky confidence is no match for my personal experience. “So we have two strikes against us already.” I add a third finger. “Three, you don’t take no for an answer.”
“You’re still processing your feelings, and—”
I splay four fingers out now and tap them harder against his smooth cotton shirt, annoyed that he’s not listening to me. Annoyed at how good his chest feels beneath my hand, too. “Four…”
“Four?”
I focus on the white thread around his button hole, because I don’t want to look up at him. “You spit champagne into women’s mouths.”
“You liked that.” He murmurs the correction, and his voice wraps around me like silk on my skin.
I will not be swayed by a nice voice or a hard chest. I will not be afraid to look at him, either. I lift my chin and glare. “This isn’t a debate! I’m listing my reasons.”
He zips his mouth shut and nods.
“And five…”
He waits.
And waits.
I growl in frustration.
He smirks. And that’s good enough.
“You’re smirking right now.” I wave a full hand of reasons why we won’t work out in his handsome face. “Which is exactly the cocky hockey player reaction I was expecting.”
“Are you done?”
“Yes.”
He takes my hand in his, sending a wave of warmth radiating up my arm as he taps my thumb. “Let’s work backwards from five, which is that you don’t have a good fifth reason.”
I yelp in protest, and he presses his index finger to my mouth.
“Shh. I’m talking now. As for why I was smirking, it’s because you’re fucking cute when you get a good head of steam on you.
I like it when you’re feisty. That’s better than scared.
I don’t want you to be worried, Francesca.
” He folds my thumb in to my palm, then taps my index finger.
“Four, you did like it when I spit champagne in your mouth, and I don’t do it to women in general, that was a special thing between you and me. Don’t besmirch the memory—”
“Besmirch?”
He smirks again. “Did I use that the right way?”
“Shut up. Five is actually that I don’t like men who pretend to be dumb.”
“Noted. Three…Yeah, I don’t take no for an answer when the no would be a lie.
That night was fucking special for both of us.
I feel pretty confident about that. Two, I don’t care that you’re my coach’s daughter.
I want to know more about how estranged you are, because I care about you.
But Wilson and I aren’t close. At all. I don’t feel conflicted there.
If you think it’s a good idea to keep this private, that’s fine.
He doesn’t need to know how special you made my birthday.
His job is to manage my on-ice performance.
The rest of my life is none of his fucking business. ”
He turns my hand around, curling all my reasons into a little fist, and kisses my knuckles. “And one, I think there could be some advantages to the fact that I’m a hockey player. I’m not like that asshole you fell for when you were a teenager.”
Oh shit. He remembers that.
I may have underestimated—or completely misunderstood—Logan’s perspective about what we did on New Year’s Eve, and his mission in coming to find me tonight.
He holds my gaze, and the way his eyes go soft, I can tell he knows that’s a direct hit.
“I’m not going to run scared when you’re ready to tell your father that we’re in a relationship.
I’m never going to run scared, ever. I’m a grown man, and I’ve met the woman of my dreams. I’m going to stand by her side and be fucking proud of what we build between us. ”
As he talks, his handsome but hard face transforms into something more boyish, more charming, and infinitely more dangerous than the man who stepped out of the car in front of my house. This is the Logan from New Year’s Eve, and he’s irresistible.
“If you had woken me up that night, or stayed to talk to me the next morning, I’d have told you that I want this marriage. I want you. I know we’re strangers and you don’t have any reason to trust me, but I want a chance to show you that I’m husband material.”