AllFreeNovel
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I’d worked with several higher end clients, including billionaires and hoteliers. Those projects had been large scale, and very impersonal. The vision for a hotel lobby was different than what the club was doing with the apartment complex.
“Do I have to choose?” I asked.
“I guess not. But when you work for a firm, there’s a team involved, you know? Not having a huge staff to work with will limit what you can do—in the beginning, I mean.”
“Point taken,” I agreed. “Budgets will be different too.” I pondered for a moment. “But I like the idea of helping people turn a house into a home. You know?”
“Yeah. Just whatever you do, give yourself room to grow. The nice thing about working for yourself is that you can take your business in any direction that you want.”
“Huh. You mean I get to choose what I want? That’s new.”
She laughed. “It’s nice to have you back, Logan.”
“It’s nice to be back.”
“Thought I lost you there, for a while,” she said softly.
I leaned over and grabbed her hand. “Thanks for never abandoning me. Even though you probably wanted to shake some sense into me.”
“I just saw you slowly slipping away. And I didn’t know how to do anything to help you.”
“You were perfect.” Tears gathered in my eyes. “You could’ve lost your patience and left. Why didn’t you?”
“I guess I always held out hope that you’d see the light before it was too late. I’m sorry it took you getting hurt to walk away.”
I swallowed. “I—I haven’t been completely honest with you. About Knox.”
“Oh no…you’re not talking to him again, are you?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I’m done with him. Forever.”
“Good. Then what is it?”
“He was starting to get…physical.”
“Physical.” Her eyes widened. “You mean, abusive?”
I nodded, my eyes meeting hers. “He never hit me. But last year after his firm’s Christmas party, he thought I was flirting with one of his colleagues. When we got home, he grabbed my wrist hard enough to leave a mark.”
“Logan,” she whispered.
“And a few weeks ago, before I even knew he was cheating, he got jealous and when we were intimate, he—he—”
“What did he do?” she demanded.
“He branded me,” I blurted out. “He left bruises on my hips and back. Just from gripping me so hard. And it wasn’t like, in the throes of passion he got carried away. He did it on purpose. To prove a point. So that every time I put on clothes, I winced in pain.”
“That God damn motherfucker, son of a bitch. I’ll castrate him! I’ll—”
“Tavy,” I interrupted.
“What?”
“There’s more.”
“More? Seriously?”
I bit my lip. “I didn’t just change my number to avoid hearing from him. I did it because his texts were starting to become…terrifying.”
