Chapter 28
Jasmine
On Monday morning, I'm at my desk at seven-forty-five. I slept three hours. My eyes are swollen, and I've layered concealer under them until they look almost normal. The only person who will see through it is Clara.
The weekend was long. On Saturday, I cleaned my apartment from top to bottom. I scrubbed the bathroom, organized my closet, and changed the sheets that still smelled like Logan. On Sunday, I worked. I sat at my dining table and reviewed contracts for nine hours straight and didn't look at my phone.
He texted once on Sunday. I'm here when you're ready.
I didn't reply.
Clara appears in my doorway at eight-fifteen with two coffees. She hands me one and sits in the chair across from my desk. “Talk.”
“About what?”
“About why you look like you've been crying all weekend.”
I take the coffee. “I told Logan I needed space.”
Clara puts her cup down. “Why?”
“His parents haven't spoken to him since the dinner. His mother won't return his calls, and his father is giving him the silent treatment. He's lost three games in a row, and he's not sleeping. And all of it started when he stood up for me.”
“So you pushed him away to protect him from the consequences of choosing you.”
When she says it like that, it sounds ridiculous. “I pushed him away because I can't be the reason his family falls apart.”
“Jasmine, his family was falling apart long before you showed up. His mother dismisses his brother's fiancée. His father runs his career like a corporation. You didn't cause those cracks.”
“I made them wider.”
“Logan made them wider by standing up for the woman he loves. Which is what you asked him to do.”
I stare at my coffee. She's right. I asked Logan to choose me when it counts, and he chose me in the most public, permanent way possible — at his mother's dinner table in front of his entire family. And then I punished him for it by walking away.
“You’re running away from the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to you,” Clara says. “You told me so yourself.”
I try to recall that memory. “When did I tell you that?”
“Saturday night at midnight, when you'd had several glasses of wine and couldn't stop crying. You don't remember?”
I don't remember. Saturday night is a blur of wine, tears, and my mother's voice replaying in my head.
“What else did I say?”
“You said Logan is the best man you've ever known, and you're terrified that loving him will cost you everything. And then you said you were going to bed and hung up.”
I press my fingers against my eyes. “I'm a mess.”
“You're not a mess. You're a woman who is scared because love is asking her to do the one thing she's never been able to do.”
“Which is?”
“Stay and fight.”
When we hang up, I see that Harper had tried to call me. I push calling her back until after lunch. I’m tired and emotionally drained.
When I finally do call her back, she sounds worried, and guilt comes over me.
“How bad is it?” she asks.
“Bad. I told him I needed space.”
“Jasmine, why?” Her voice is careful. “He did what you wanted him to. Why would you punish him for that?”
I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. All I know is that I felt overwhelmed and confused.
“And you're pulling away because it worked?”
“I'm pulling away because it costs too much.”
“I know this is about Cat. Jasmine, she’s a grown woman who is choosing to punish her son for loving someone she doesn't approve of. That's Cat's choice. Not yours or Logan's.”
I lean back in my office chair and look at the ceiling. “You’re so lucky that you get along with Cole’s family.”
“Cole's family is normal. Logan’s is a Greek tragedy. But that doesn't mean you walk away from the best thing that's happened to you because the in-laws are difficult.”
“They're not my in-laws.”
“Yet.”
I grimace. I can’t imagine Cat being my mother-in-law.
“Don't let Cat Shaw win,” Harper says. “That's what she wants. She wants you to leave so she can have her son back under her control. If you walk away, she gets exactly what she got ten years ago.”
On Saturday morning, I drive to Long Island. I need to see my mother. When my life feels like it’s going out of control, she’s the one who manages to remind me of what matters.
The boutique is already open. Since the first time she opened the boutique, she’s opened those doors every single day and on time. I love her consistency. It makes me feel safe.
Through the window, I watch her moving between the racks, adjusting a display near the fitting rooms. She's in one of her own dresses — a deep plum wrap, and her reading glasses are perched on the end of her nose. She built this place from nothing.
Every dress on those racks, every customer who walks through that door, every dollar in that register is hers. She didn't need a man or a family name or anyone's permission. She just needed someone to believe in her. I was happy to be that someone.
I get out of the car and push through the door.
Mom takes one look at my face and opens her arms. I walk right into them.
She holds me tight against her chest, and I press my face into her shoulder and breathe her in. In my mother's arms, I don't have to be strong. I can just be her daughter.
The weight I've been carrying all week shifts just enough for me to breathe properly for the first time in days.
“Sit down,” she finally says, leading me to the settee.
I take a deep breath and update her on what’s been happening with Logan and me. The dinner, Logan standing up for me, Cat's silence, George's silence, the losing streak, and then asking Logan for space.
Mom listens without interrupting. When I finish, she's quiet for a long time.“You're doing my thing,” she says.
“What thing?”
“The thing I do. The thing I've been doing your whole life. When it hurts, you leave. When a man gets too close, you find a reason to push him away. I taught you that.” She takes my hand. “I taught you that because I thought I was protecting you. But I was wrong, Jasmine.”
“Oh, Mom, it’s not that.”
“Let me finish. I've been thinking about this since you told me about Logan. I've been watching you these past weeks. You've been happier than I've seen you in years. You laugh more, and you even stand differently. You’ve been glowing.”
She squeezes my hand. “I don't trust that family, but I trust you. And I trust what I see when you talk about Logan. Don't throw this away because of what I taught you. My mistakes don't have to be yours.”
I lean into my mother, and she wraps her arms around me and holds me the way she's held me my whole life — fiercely, completely, with every ounce of strength in her body.
“Go get your man,” she says.
“I don't know if he'll still want me.”
“Baby, that man waited ten years for you. He'll wait ten more if he has to. But don't make him.” She pulls back and holds my face in her hands. “Call him. Fix it.”
I hug her again. “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too. Now go. I've got a shop to run.”
I walk to my car and fish out my phone from my purse.
I think about the words I want to say to Logan, and just as I’m about to hit call, it dawns on me that this is not a conversation to be had over the phone.
I start the car and drive back to the city.
Forty-five minutes later, I pull up outside his apartment. I walk to the building entrance and buzz his apartment.
His voice comes through the intercom. “Hello?”
“It's me.”
“Jasmine,” Logan says, breathless. “Come on up.”
The door clicks open.
I take the elevator up. When it comes to a stop, the doors slide open, and I step out. Logan’s door is open, and he’s standing in the doorway in sweats and a wrinkled t-shirt.
He looks rough. His eyes are tired and red, and he looks like a man who hasn't slept since I told him to leave my apartment.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi.”
“I’m sorry. I was so wrong.” The words come out before I can organize them. “I was wrong to push you away and to tell you I needed space. But I don't want space, Logan. I want you.”
He doesn't move from the doorway.
My heart is slamming against my ribs. He's not speaking, and the silence is filling the hallway like water rising. What if I'm too late? What if the week I spent pushing him away was the week he realized I'm not worth the trouble?
What if he looked at the wreckage and decided that the cost of loving me is higher than the cost of letting me go? I can survive a lot of things, but if Logan looks at me right now and tells me he's done, I will not survive that. I won't come back from it. Not this time.
I force myself to continue speaking. “Your parents might never accept me, and the team might keep losing. None of that changes how I feel about you. I love you. I should have said that instead of asking you to leave. I should have held onto you instead of pushing you out the door.”
He still doesn't move. His jaw is tight, and his hands are at his sides. His blue eyes are searching my face.
“Say something,” I say.
“I've been sleeping on the couch because my bed smells like your perfume,” he says in a rough voice. “Don't ever do that again.”
Relief surges through me. My eyes flood with tears. “I won't.”
“I mean it, Jasmine. Don't ever push me away because you think you're protecting me. I don't need protecting. I need you.”
He steps forward and pulls me into his arms. His arms wrap around me so tight my feet leave the floor. He buries his face in my hair, and his body shakes, and I realize he's crying. Logan, who doesn't show emotion, who locks everything down, who processes the world in silence, is crying.
I hold him tighter.
We stand there for a long time. When he pulls back, he takes my face in his hands. “Come inside. We have a lot to talk about.”
We head to the kitchen, and Logan makes coffee. When he’s done, he pours it into two mugs and hands me one.
“I have an idea,” he says.
“Okay.”
“The problem isn't us. The problem is that our families exist in separate worlds, and the tension between them is poisoning everything. My parents think you're a threat, and your mother thinks my family is the enemy. Nobody has ever been in the same room.”
“Your mother was in the same room as me two weeks ago, and it didn't go well.”
“That was her territory. Her house, her table, her rules. What if we put everyone on neutral ground?”
“What do you mean?”
“Lunch. Saturday. A restaurant in Long Island. My parents, your mom, you, and me. Everyone at the same table.”
I stare at him. “You want to put Cat Shaw and Lorraine Bennett at the same table in a restaurant.”
“Yes.”
Is he insane? “Logan, they will kill each other.”
“They might. Or they might actually see each other as people instead of villains in each other's stories.”
“This is either the bravest or the most insane idea you've ever had.”
“Probably both. But I'm done letting our families be the reason we can't be together. I'm putting everyone in the same room, and we're going to deal with it.”
Unease has my stomach twisting. “My mother will never agree to this.”
“She loves you and wants you to be happy. I think she'll agree.”
I think it’s a bad idea, but I don’t have a better one. “Okay. Set it up.”
“Yeah?”
“If you can get your mother and my mother to agree to sit at the same table, I'll be there.”
“I'll make the calls tomorrow.”
“Logan.”
“Yeah?”
“If this goes wrong, I'm blaming you.”
He lets out a breathy laugh. “Fair enough.”
He pulls me up from the barstool to stand between his legs. “Enough about our families. Do you know how much I’ve missed you?”
“I’ve missed you too. So much,” I say as his hands move to my hips.
He pulls me closer and kisses me. His mouth is hot and demanding. His fingers dig into my hips, and I grab the front of his t-shirt and kiss him back with a week's worth of missing him behind it.
“You know what the only good thing about fighting is?” he murmurs against my mouth.
“What?”
“The makeup sex.”
“We didn't fight. We merely disagreed,” I say.
“Close enough.” He stands up from the stool and lifts me. I wrap my legs around his waist. “Bedroom. Now.”
“Yes, sir.”
He carries me down the hallway, kicks his bedroom door open with his foot, and drops me onto the bed. He pulls his t-shirt over his head and climbs over me, and then his mouth finds the spot below my ear.
“A whole week without you,” he says against my skin. “That's never happening again.”
“Agreed.”
“I'm serious, Jasmine. If you ever try to push me away again, I'm showing up at your apartment with a sleeping bag, and I'm not leaving.”
I can’t help but smile, picturing it. “That’s dramatic.”
“I'm a dramatic man.”
“You're the least dramatic person I've ever met.”
“You bring it out of me.” He pulls my sweater over my head, and his eyes move over my body. “God, I missed you.”
He lowers his mouth to my collarbone, and I close my eyes and thread my fingers through his hair and let the last week dissolve under his hands.