Chapter 20
Logan
Finally, he would get to spend time with Bellini.
“Self-torture,” he muttered in his loft that night.
His eyes went to the Roxy Belle books on his shelf.
He’d bought and read all of them. It was a little pathetic, he knew that.
But it was like having a little piece of Bellini with him.
He could see into her life, through the life of Roxy Belle.
If he had read these books when he was a kid, they would have brought him a lot of laughter, which he’d desperately needed while living with his father.
He knew it would hurt to be with Bellini again, to dance with her, hold her, laugh with her.
But he wanted to dance with Bellini again, just like they had tonight near the snowman.
It was as if they’d never stopped dancing.
Their beat, their rhythm, it was all still there.
He knew what step she’d take; she knew what step he would take.
It was like they were one dancer. He had even let her twirl him like a ballerina, and then he’d twirled her.
He wanted to see her, hold her, be close to her.
He wanted to be with her. He had been lonely for years.
What was the word? He longed to be with her.
He longed for the friendship and laughter and passion and conversation.
He wanted to be around her sarcastic and funny humor, her honesty and quirkiness, her anxieties and worries, and her sharp insightfulness about life and people.
He wanted to go to dinner with her and watch romance movies—because that’s what she liked to watch. He wanted to hold her hand and then go to bed at night and know that the person he most wanted to be with was right there beside him.
He had hoped that she had changed, that she was no longer the girl he’d fallen in love with, and he could put her out of his mind and his heart, but that hadn’t happened.
He corrected himself. Of course, she’d changed.
She’d been through a terrible time with her ex-husband, a divorce, and, worse, a miscarriage.
He stopped on that and sighed. He knew her.
He knew how losing a baby would have broken her.
It would have broken him had it been his baby with Bellini.
The grief would have been overwhelming for both of them.
His eyes filled, then he blinked the tears away.
He would spend time with her, go to dance lessons, be in the T and A Christmas show…and then she would leave and go back to Oregon, and he would stay here in Montana. Crushed.
Why was he doing this to himself? Why was he willingly walking himself into a brick wall of pain?
He knew how they would end. Bellini had pushed him away years ago.
He still didn’t understand why. He wanted to know, and maybe they would get to the point where he could ask her and get an honest answer, but she’d left him before, and she was clearly going to leave again, breaking him wide open.
His shoulders slumped, and he ran both hands up and down his face.
Bellini was the most interesting, engaging, sexy woman he had ever met.
She always would be.
But he was in for another whirlwind of pain, and he knew it.
Why was he setting himself up for this? He groaned.
He knew the answer: He would take whatever time he could get with Bellini, whatever memories he could make, whatever laughter they would share, for however long he could, to hell with the consequences.
Weeks of joy in exchange for more pain, but he simply couldn’t resist her.
He loved her. With everything he had, he loved her.
“Damn,” he muttered.