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“Right, right.” He nods but cocks a brow. “And the part where you almost broke your neck?”
I shrug, wondering where the hell my sister is and why she hasn’t swooped in to bite his head off yet. “A minor mishap.”
It’s too dim to make out the brilliance of his eyes, but that doesn’t make them less enchanting. I kind of like the way he’s trimmed his beard along his defined jawline, highlighting his dimpling cheeks when he flashes a full-blown smile.
“You’ve been rather busy since moving to Keerah,” he drawls. “Yoga instructor, substitute teacher, barista… Seems someone’s having trouble finding themself.”
I gape at the audacity of him intruding on my life. “Stalker is not a good look for you.”
“It was all right there in your resume.” Logan smirks in a way that conveys, ‘Silly, Penelope,’ while raising a glass with clear, bubbling liquid to his lips.
I narrow my gaze as he takes a long sip. “Okay, fair. But hey, here’s a novel idea. Why don’t you mind your own business?”
“And what, pray tell, do you think I’m doing?”
My heart batters against my ribcage with each fluttering beat. Surely, he’s not implying that I’m his business? Because I’m not. I’m not Logan’s anything, except a distant teenage memory.
“Come work for me,” he says.
For a moment, I allow myself to remember him the way he once was. Soft lips, sun-bleached hair, and muscles that rippled when my fingers trailed across his skin. His eyes weren’t quite as haunted, and all these razor-sharp edges were completely retracted.
“Mmm, hard pass.”
Slowly, his free hand glides into the front pocket of his pants. The curious way he’s watching me is unnerving. All at once, I feel as though we’re sparring, swords drawn, only neither of us moves to strike.
“You’ve changed.”
“If by that, you mean I’ve been loving my life while you were busy being absent from it, then I guess you’re right.”
I cram my fingers into the thin pockets of my jeans and grab several of my favorite candies. His gaze follows my hand to my mouth, where I drop three of them on my tongue.
Then he’s leaning in so close that, for several heartbeats, he consumes my every breath. His nostrils flare when I exhale cinnamon, and his pupils explode with a deep, suppressed desire that I wish my body didn’t respond to.
“You really want to do this here?” he asks.
“I don’t see why not. Now’s as good a time as any to tell me why you turned your back on me, you filthy traitor.”
Logan, at eighteen, was hot—like, unbelievably hot—with defined abs and lanky limbs. But Logan, at thirty, is something else entirely, and hot doesn’t scratch the surface. Now, his tall, powerful body moves with grace, and I’d bet good money he could probably carry me over his shoulder without breaking a sweat.
“Me? Filthy?” He chuckles, except it rumbles from his chest like a jaguar’s purr. I’m suddenly vibrating with a warped sense of lust and fury all over again, helpless as he plucks the chords of my heartstrings. “You must have us confused, sunshine.”
Whatever he’s angling at isn’t going to work on me. No matter how hot my neck burns with that innuendo.
I want to scream that he’s the one at fault. He’s the one who chose to ‘move on’ as his father so eloquently put it. But I snap my fingers as if struck silly by the memory, instead of gutted by it. “You know, you never told me how Rachel was doing.”
Logan’s genuine confusion is unexpected, but then, he never was a master at sheltering his thoughts. “I told you at the office that I’m not with anyone. What reason would I have to lie to you?”
There’s a lot less anger in his rebuttal than there is guilt, and I don’t like that anymore than his overbearing presence. Because guilt is worse. Guilt means regret, and that’s a paper ball I don’t care to unravel.
Before I can conjure a feisty reply, I’m jolted forward by an enormous Topican man who collides into me from behind.
“Sorry,” I say, giving the man some space.
Logan grabs my arm to steady me, dropping his touch to the small of my back once I’m stable, and my spine straightens instantly. Like trillions of tiny, static-like prickles, I’m aware of the exact percentage of his palm on my heated skin.
The answer is approximately one thousand percent.
Logan’s stare turns deadly as he says, loud enough for the man to hear, “He’s the one who should be sorry, not you.”
