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Love?
Oh, shit.
It was three in the afternoon when he reached Greenport. He parked in an enclosed lot and headed over to Bajinx, wearing the silver cuff he had bought last time he was here. He and Jinx had not discussed his reasons for buying it, but they both knew.
So many things had been left unsaid.
And as he glanced in the shop window of Bajinx, he was smacked in the face with the biggest unspoken issue of all. The elephant in the room that he’d been avoiding for so long he had forgotten it was there.
Victor. Her brother who hated him. Who had warned Logan never to go near his little sister.
Logan’s delusional bubble burst. How could he forget this huge obstacle between them? No wonder Jinx was skittish and avoiding him.
It was most likely a visit rather than Victor relocating back east, but still, the reality of what it meant was clear—if Logan took his relationship with Jinx any further, it would only lead to disaster.
What would it do to Jinx if she had to choose between Logan and her brother? Victor hated him, and Logan doubted he could ever convince him he was wrong. And after the way Vic had treated him, Logan no longer cared. Victor could go to hell.
Did the rest of her family hate him too? He had to admit it was very likely since they no doubt believed Victor’s story. Logan would never ask Jinx to give her whole family up for him. He would never put her through that.
Logan took one last look at Jinx, committing her sweet face to memory. Then he turned away and walked back to his car.
For all his money and success, he was a man accustomed to not getting what he wanted. He knew all too well what it was like to have your life turn into a shit storm and have to keep going when something you love is ripped from your hands.
Jinx realized she should have answered Logan’s message right away even if things were up in the air and she was dealing with the awkwardness of Victor staying with her family for the week. Her silence had probably offended Logan, because now he was not answering her. What a mess she had made.
It was not entirely her fault. Her brother was in town with his fiancée, Regan, and Victor was the star of the family who was worshipped by her parents. Which meant the sisters were expected to be on call to help their mother prepare for the king’s visit and dare not miss any of the family get-togethers planned.
Add to that Jinx’s determination to get to the bottom of the mystery of Logan’s supposed betrayal and resolve it before Victor left. She wanted so badly to prove her brother wrong and have her family apologize to Logan for the way they had ousted him. But Jinx had always been one to bite off more than she could chew. And after countless emails and phone calls, she came up with nothing more than a terse Facebook message from Darla (who now went by her third husband’s last name) telling Jinx to leave her alone.
Jinx finally decided her parents and brother had no right to expect her to stop the world for big bro’s visit. Some family scripts were hard to break, but she was going into Manhattan to see Logan today. Trouble was, when she texted him last night apologizing for the delay in getting back to him and asking when would be a good time to come in, he did not reply. This morning she texted him a couple more times and then left a voice mail that she hoped did not make her sound desperate. Still nothing.
Wednesday was usually her day off at Bajinx, and she had already made arrangements with Neela, the new woman they’d hired, to cover for her over the next few days, not only because she’d planned to spend a night with Logan but also because her family was having all kinds of gatherings for Victor and his fiancée while they were in from Chicago visiting.
Of course, Jinx’s father had invited his brother’s family to dinner tonight to meet Regan since Uncle Tony was Victor’s godfather, but Jinx had already met Regan at a dinner her parents had for them the night they’d arrived and had taken them to lunch in Greenport the next day. So after waiting most of the day for an answer from Logan and not getting one, Jinx told her mom she would not be coming to dinner tonight and took the Hampton Jitney into Manhattan.
It was a week with all kinds of Fourth of July celebrations, so there was no way she was going to deal with parking her car in the city. Plus the jitney had a restroom—a definite plus for a trip of almost three hours—meaning she would not need to stop at a gas station and use a bathroom that made her want to go home and bathe in Clorox.
The jitney bus was crowded, but the seats were pretty comfortable. Luckily, the person next to her took a nap, and that gave her the freedom for her mind to go racing all over the place undistracted. She could even check her phone a million times for the text that was not going to come in.
Part of her felt like a fool for doing this, knowing a man like Logan probably had plenty of women and may have decided to move on from her. But Jinx was not about to give up so easily. In her heart she knew they were meant to be together. She had sensed there was a lot more than just sex going on the last time she was with him.
There was love. An enormous love. The kind of love she wanted so badly.
In fact, Jinx felt certain that he was the great love of her life. He was exactly what she had been looking for year after year. So she was not going to let some stupid missed phone calls or her family’s son-worshipping priorities take that away from her.
And this was probably her last chance to grasp a hold of it. If she let Logan slip through her fingers now, she would likely never see him again, except maybe across the floor of a nightclub or accidentally in passing somewhere.
Logan was not the type to fight for what they could have. Not after what happened with Victor. Hadn’t he also told her it was the same kind of thing that had happened with his father?
There were so many things Jinx needed to ask him and this time she was not going to relent. She needed to know everything because she wanted Logan. Every bit of him—good, bad and whatever else there might be.
When she arrived in Manhattan, Jinx made her way to Logan’s building on West Sixtieth Street. It was almost dinnertime, and she had no idea if he would be home, since he made his own hours and sometimes worked late or on weekends or worked at home. Or he might have plans to go out to an early dinner meeting with a client—or with another woman.
She put that from her mind and kept going. The doorman had to at least give him her message, unlike at his office where she could not even be sure they would. But that was where she would head next if he was not home.
As Jinx approached the high rise where Logan lived, she glimpsed a man coming down the opposite end of the street. He’d caught her eye because of his graceful stride and tall sleek frame—and that same tingling, that burning his presence always gave her.
Yes, it was Logan.
