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Somehow Trinity hinged her jaw back into place, but not because of the camera. The whole point of her being here was to put this madness behind her once and for all, and she had to actually talk in order to get this argument started.
No matter how much it hurt.
“Win some, lose some?” she repeated incredulously. “Who are you and what have you done with Logan McLaughlin?”
Because the guy she’d known would never say that. Maybe that was part of the point. She hadn’t ever really known him.
His brow arched. “I told you, the scoreboard is not the most beautiful thing in my world. You are.”
Something was off here. They were supposed to be staging a public breakup, not rehashing stupid things they’d said to each other. Hands jammed down on her hips, she scowled. “You hate my clothes.”
“I do like you better naked,” he agreed readily. “But I don’t hate your clothes. I just like the ones I pick out above the ones you pick out. But we can compromise.”
“Compromise?” Now she felt like a parrot. “Can you even spell that? You’re dictatorial, inflexible and frankly, I have no idea how you walk around under the weight of all the rules you’ve got slung over your shoulder.”
Now they’d get into the knock-down, drag-out part of the agenda. He hated it when she made fun of the stick up his butt.
But instead, he nodded. “That does sound like me. That’s why I need a woman like you in my life to shake things up and point out when I’m being too narrow-minded. I lost the best thing that ever happened to me when I walked away. So this is your public apology. I’m sorry.”
The stadium lights swirled into a big blob as her vision tunneled and the roar of the crowd’s approval swelled up and over the sudden pounding of her pulse. This wasn’t an argument. He’d lured her here under false pretenses so he could apologize?
“What are you doing?” she whispered. “We’re supposed to be breaking up.”
“But that’s not what I want.” Logan inched forward on the grass, capturing her hand in his and bringing it to his lips like he’d done so many times. “Forgive me. I didn’t handle our last discussion well and I’m asking you for another chance. Publicly. I’m also giving you the opportunity to humiliate me, because I deserve that far more than I deserve you.”
Her throat clogged with unshed tears that shouldn’t be there. None of this could be real. “Why will this time be any different?”
Which was not at all what she should have said.
There was an angle here that she wasn’t getting.
That’s when he smiled and the tenderness in his expression washed over her. “Because this time, I’m admitting right up front that I’m in love with you.”
Blood rushed from her head so fast that she nearly passed out. When she wobbled, Logan’s expression shifted instantly to concern and he waved the camera off, scooping her up in his arms.
This time, she wholeheartedly agreed with his tactics, because holy hell. “Did you just tell me that you’re in love with me?”
“It’s okay,” he murmured as he carried her through the warren of halls. They passed people getting ready for the eighth inning now that the team owner’s theatrics were over, but no one stopped them and finally he found a private, unlocked room. “I’m not totally used to it yet, either.”
He settled her into a chair and knelt by her feet, caressing her face with questing fingers, likely to verify whether she was about to face-plant on the floor. His heat faded from her body far too fast. All she could do was drink in his precious face, hair falling into it and all. God, she’d missed him, missed the feel of him under her fingers, missed the rush of him through her blood.
“Why would you say something like that?” she burst out. Now that they were alone, all her emotional consternation over the last few days squished her chest. Which wasn’t going to work. She needed to be calm and rational instead of a hairbreadth from flinging herself back into his arms, where she felt safe and beautiful and loved. “None of what we had was real.”
“Because I’m trying to make it crystal clear that what we had before might have been fake, but what I want to have going forward isn’t.” Quietly, he surveyed her. “We’re starting off with no misunderstandings. The way I feel about you is real. I should have told you before now.”
“But I don’t understand.” Her voice gained a little strength as some of what he was saying filtered through the ache in her heart. “You didn’t want anything to do with me or the baby. What changed?”
