“Stop what?” I ask, having a hard time focusing on anything except the curve of his mouth and how desperate I am to feel it on mine again.
“Trying to reinvent yourself. What made you stop trying?”
“That’s easy. I realized I liked who I was and decided I didn’t need to reinvent myself. I just needed my family to see me how I wanted to be seen. Not sure they ever really did or ever really will. But once I accepted that I liked myself the way I was, everything else felt different.” It was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders and my entire life was reframed. The lens I’d been seeing it through suddenly wiped clean, and everything came into new focus. “So if that’s why you call me Olivia, how come you switch to Liv? You don’t do it often, but you have done it a few times.”
Those beautiful blue eyes of his sparkle against the dark night’s sky, and I swear it’s as if my soul is smiling back at him. I’d find it unnerving if I wasn’t enjoying it so much. Enjoying this moment with this man.
“I’ve always thought of you as Olivia St. James, the woman who controls her entire universe. But seeing you with your family. With mine. With Maggie. I’ve watched the people you love call you Liv or Livvy. The people you drop your guard with. The ones you let in. You don’t do it often, but when you do, I see the woman they see. And she’s different from the woman I met back then. Two sides of the same coin. And honestly, I wasn’t sure if I had earned the right to call you Liv yet.”
This man . . .
“I see you, Olive. I’d like to say I see all of you, but I’m not sure I deserve that yet.” He leans down and presses his forehead to mine, his warm breath fanning my face. “But I’d really like to try.”
Oh my . . .
My heart races in my chest as I try to reconcile this man with the one who hurt me more than he had a right to, and the realization comes crashing down over me so hard, I’m surprised my knees don’t buckle from the weight of it. “Logan... I don’t hate you.”
LOGAN
My dear boy, marry a woman who makes you laugh
or marry someone who makes you fear for your life.
Either way, there will never be a dull day.
—Advice from Pops to Logan
I’ve played in front of thirty-thousand screaming hockey fans. Scored game-winning goals. Dropped gloves and thrown fists with guys bigger and stronger, even if they were never better than me, and none of that has ever made me nervous. Not like I am right fucking now. Because this tiny waif of a woman just forgave me. And I’m not sure anyone else’s forgiveness has ever mattered before. I’ve never asked for it and never cared to be given it until now. Until Olivia.
String lights draped across the dance floor glow against the dark sky, and even though we’re surrounded by people and music and laughter, and too many eyes are on us, all I see is her. She’s all I need and all I want. Her gorgeous face and smallsmile as she tells me she forgives me. And that smile... it’s not the polite one she gives to the people she tolerates. I’m all too familiar with that one.No. This smile is real. It’s hesitant but genuine, and it’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.
“Would you mind repeating that, Olive?” My heart beats like a bass drum, desperate to make sure I didn’t hear her wrong, and she laughs. Fucking laughs. It’s sweet and soft and everything. That sound wraps around me like it feels my desperation and fills the cracks in my soul left over from a lifetime of refusing to need anyone. A lifetime spent letting few people in.
“Excuse me, son,” Cade St. James interrupts us. “Any chance I could dance with my daughter?”
I look at Olivia, not wanting this moment to pass, and squeeze her hand beneath mine before letting go. “Of course. I’ll go get us drinks.”
She mouths a silentsorrybefore I walk away, and I can’t even be pissed—because this woman just accepted my apology. She admitted she doesn’t hate me. And for the first time in a long damn time, I wonder if maybe this wasn’t a mistake.
A few minutes later, I’m standing off to the side, a glass of bourbon in hand, watching my wife dance with her father when Rafe moves next to me. Perfect fucking timing as usual. “You’re staring, brother.”
“And you’re an asshole, brother,” I grunt, and swallow the rest of my drink. “Sorry. Thought we were stating the obvious.”
“So it’s like that already?” he taunts as if he’s surprised.He’s not.Rafe knows me better than anyone. “Took you long enough.”
“Yeah. I know,” I groan. “Where’s your date?”
He shrugs and I look around for the strawberry-blonde bombshell that is Serena Kingston.
“Is this thing between you guys serious?”
“Nah, man. I’m her shield tonight. I knew that going in. She needed a friend, not some ass trying to screw her.” He takes a pull of his beer and looks around the vineyard. “What about you? You and your wife still doing the wholeI hate you—no, you don’t dance?”
Dumb shit.
I blow out a breath and watch Olivia laugh when the bride and groom move next to her and her father. She tells them something, and Ryker Beneventi kisses her cheek before moving away.
She’s so fucking beautiful, it hurts.
