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“I haven’t got the willpower to continue kissing you without thinking of other things,” he murmured in her ear as his hand stroked her hair. “I love you, Abby. I’ve loved you from the first time I asked you out.” His breathing seemed less controlled than it had been a moment before.
“Oh Logan.” Fresh tears sprang to her eyes. She started to tell him how much she cared for him, but he went on, cutting off her words.
“As soon as I saw Tate I knew there was no way I could compete with him. He’s everything I’ll never be. Tall. Movie-star looks.” He shook his head. “I don’t blame you for being attracted to him.”
Abby straightened so she could look at this man she loved. Her hands framed his face. “You’re a million things Tate could never be.”
“I know this has been hard on you.”
“But I was so stupid,” Abby inserted.
He kissed her lightly, his lips lingering over hers. “I can’t help feeling grateful that you won’t be seeing him again.”
Abby lowered her eyes. She would be seeing Tate, but not in the way Logan meant.
A stillness filled the room. “Abby?”
She gave him a feeble smile.
“You aren’t seeing Tate, are you?”
She couldn’t reveal Tate’s problem to anyone. She’d promised. And not for the world would she embarrass him, especially when admitting he couldn’t read had been so difficult. No matter how much she wanted to tell Logan, she couldn’t.
“I’d like to explain,” Abby replied, her voice trembling.
Logan stiffened and lightly pushed her from his lap. “I don’t want explanations. All I want is the truth. Will you or will you not be seeing Tate?”
“Not romantically,” she answered, as tactfully and truthfully as possible.
Logan’s eyes hardened. “What other explanation could there be?”
“I can’t tell you that,” she said forcefully, and stood up.
“Of course you can.” A muscle worked in his jaw. “We’re right back where we started, aren’t we, Abby?”
“No.” She felt like screaming at him for being so unreasonable. Surely he recognized how hard it had been for her to call him and admit she was wrong?
“Will you stop seeing Tate, then?” he challenged.
“I can’t.” Her voice cracked in a desperate appeal for him to understand. “We live in the same neighborhood…” she said, stalling for time as her mind raced for an excuse. “I’ll probably run into him…I mean, it’d be only natural, since he’s so close and all.”
“Abby.” Logan groaned impatiently. “That’s not what I mean and you know it. Will you or will you not be seeing Tate?”
She hesitated. Knowing what her promise was doing to her relationship with Logan, Tate would want him to know. But she couldn’t say anything without clearing it with him first.
“Abby?”
“I’ll be seeing him, but please understand that it’s not the way you assume.”
For an instant, Abby saw pain in Logan’s eyes. The pain she witnessed was the same torment she was experiencing herself.
They stood with only a few feet separating them, and yet Abby felt they’d never been farther apart. Whole worlds seemed to loom between them. Logan’s ego was at stake, his honor, and he didn’t want her to continue seeing Tate, no matter what the reason.
“You won’t stop seeing him,” Logan challenged furiously.
“I can’t,” Abby cried, just as angry.
“Then there’s nothing left to say.”
