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She smiled. “Exactly. I love my work, but I know I’m missing out on things at home. I have a friend who left one of the best law firms in the country to work for a nonprofit. I thought she was crazy, but sometimes I wonder if she had the right idea.”
“Is that something you’d want to do?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure.” She shook her head. “I just need to get clear of this trial. Then I can think about the future.”
“In the meantime, you can’t be everywhere,” Logan said. “Leo is obviously loved, and no one who sees the way he looks at you could ever doubt how much he loves you.”
“You’re right. Late nights make me morose.” She looked around the kitchen. “It’s a beautiful house. It’s very… grand.”
“Like you,” he said.
She laughed and shook her head, then walked to the kettle when it started to whistle. “I am not grand.”
“Don’t be modest. You’ve always been grand,” he said.
She raised her eyebrows at him. “You’re crazy. I was as poor as you and Hawk.”
“Yeah, but you wore it different,” he said, watching her pour the water into mugs.
She looked perplexed. “What do you mean?”
“I hate to admit this now, all these years later, but the truth is, if I’d had an ounce of sense I would have seen the writing on the wall back in high school. You weren’t meant for the old neighborhood.”
You weren’t meant for me.
The last words stuck in his throat but he forced them down before they could escape. He and Ella were finally on friendly terms. It was nice. Nicer than he’d expected. He didn’t need her to stroke his ego or tell him anything that wasn’t true.
“That neighborhood made me who I am.” She pushed one of the steaming mugs toward him and met his eyes. “You and Hawk made me who I am.”
“I don't know… I think you were born knowing who you were.”
“Maybe.” She straightened and took a drink of tea. “Sometimes I’m not so sure. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Tell me what you’ve been up to. Tell me about your life now,” she said.
“Not much to tell.” He hated to admit it, but he’d never been a good liar, and he’d never lied to Ella. He wasn’t going to start now. “I’m busy. Like everyone. Isn’t that what we all say now? We’re so busy?”
She smiled and nodded. “Do you enjoy running Imperium? Enjoy what you do?”
“I do,” he said. “I like to think we help people. Sometimes it feels like the world’s gone mad. Maintaining some kind of order, some kind of calm, is worth something.”
“You’ve always been good at calm,” she said.
“Have I?” He wasn’t sure it was a compliment. He’d always envied Hawk’s passion, the way it showed on his face. The way he couldn’t contain it, even when it got him into trouble.
Sometimes Logan wondered if calm had cost him something more valuable. If Ella would have been less likely to leave him behind if he’d fought harder for her.
“You have, and I mean that as a compliment,” she said softly, as if she could read his mind.
Maybe she could.
“It’s a good foil for Hawk,” Logan admitted.
“No.” Her voice was firm. “It’s more than that.” She spun the mug in her hands on the island’s granite countertop. “Back when we were kids, things were so… chaotic. You know?”
“I know.” He looked in her eyes, then wished he hadn’t. A lot had changed in twenty years, but Ella’s eyes still had the power to unmoor him, a dark tempest that left no room for anything else, like being caught in a warm summer thunderstorm he had no desire to escape.
