by Elise Faber
“I—” Logan broke off on a wince as the volume rose.
And even though they were around the corner, Char could barely hear herself think, let alone focus on what Logan was trying to tell her, and it seemed as though the noise was making something hard for him to verbalize even more difficult.
Instinct took over.
“Come on,” she said, tugging him through a row of trees and away from the cacophony. The yard wasn’t fenced, and they were able to slip out the side of the property and onto the long driveway that led down to the main road. Her car was parked just a little ways down. “Did you drive?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m parked almost near the bottom.”
A nod, the plan forming in her head. “I’ll drop you at your car,” she said. “Then you can meet me at my place.”
“Char,” he said, expression tentative. “I’m not trying to manipulate you or—”
“I know.”
“And you still want me to go back to your place—” He halted, free hand coming up to cup her cheek. “As friends?”
She hesitated then admitted what should have been the truth in her heart from the beginning. Being just friends was impossible. She could be his boss—and only his boss—or she could be . . . more.
“No.”
It was the barest whisper, but she knew that he’d heard because his fingers convulsed around hers, his breath hitched, and his body came very close.
She’d had his mouth on hers less than forty-eight hours before.
Recently enough that she knew exactly what she was missing, so much so that she nearly turned around and claimed it for herself, because he was a fucking incredible kisser.
But . . . passion wasn’t their problem.
She owed herself the opportunity for closure, and maybe she also owed him the chance to explain himself.
Reaching forward, she grabbed onto the handle and tugged open the driver’s side door, the locks automatically disengaging as she did so. Fancy—or at least that was what her mom had deemed the system when she’d come to visit a few months ago, and Char couldn’t exactly blame her. There had been plenty of food on the table growing up. They’d had power and electricity and a place to live. But there hadn’t been brand new cars or expensive vacations or electronics for Christmas.
So, locks opening at the touch of her hand was fancy.
She sat down, started to close the door, but Logan caught it. “Wh—”
He reached over her and buckled her belt, tracing his thumb lightly over her cheekbone as he began to straighten. Her breath caught, her pulse thundered. His mouth . . . God, it was right there.
He backed up, softly closed her door, and rounded the hood, eyes on hers the entire way.
It would have been an impressive display of peripheral vision if she hadn’t seen him carry the puck up the ice hundreds of times without ever looking down, and anyway, her thoughts weren’t much on hockey, not when he was opening the door and sliding into the passenger’s seat.
His spiced scent filled the interior of her car, washing over her in waves.
Or maybe that was her attraction to him. Or maybe it was the waves of his scent and her attraction to him, and also her yearning . . . for an explanation, for a family like the one inside Rebecca’s house, for one person to love her more than anything else in the world.
He pressed the button to start the ignition, and because she’d instinctively rested her foot on the brake, the engine fired up.
More fancy.
More—
“Less thinking, Starlight,” he whispered, those emerald depths unfathomable. “More driving.”
Her breath shuddered out. She moved her gaze to the windshield.
There was a part of her that wanted to continue to delay, that worried this big explanation and long story of Logan’s wouldn’t be enough. That she wouldn’t be able to forgive him. Ever.
And she liked this respite.
This cautious bond between a man who knew her in a way no one else in the world did.
She liked how he looked at her—like she’d hung the moon and stars they’d so often loved to stare at while bundled up in the back of his pickup. She loved how he touched her, made her feel desirable and vulnerable and strong, all at the same time. And she really loved how he listened to everything she said, that he didn’t discount or dismiss, that he listened, but that he didn’t just give in. Maybe sometimes he pushed back, and even though that could sometimes irritate her, she respected that he challenged her.
He paid attention. He wasn’t scared off by walls.
He’d . . . brought her slippers and groceries and cooked for her and—
She didn’t want to lose that.
She’d had it all for one day, and she didn’t want it to disappear.
Her pulse pounded, her hands tightened on the steering wheel. Fear sat heavy in her gut, and yearning for a family like the team’s inside had a thick thread forming in her heart. She longed for Logan. Knew deep down that his explanation made sense. If she was able to forgive him—and she couldn’t deny that a part of her already wanted to—then this thing with Logan, whatever the thing would become, might have the potential to destroy. It could devastate her career, ruin her reputation, and . . . have her serving her heart up to him on a golden platter.
With fresh herbs.
Or maybe herb butter. Heart with herb butter. Now that was a disgusting thought. Char bit back a shudder.
Thankfully, it was disgusting enough that she was able to get out of her head, to check for other cars, and to pull out on the driveway.
Part of her expected Logan to say something.
Instead, they rode in silence for the twenty seconds it took to get down to his car. Probably, she should have had him walk, but Char didn’t calculate distance or time into her plan. It was a series of steps.
Get to car.
Get Logan to car.
Get to house.
Get explanation.
Get heart unbroken. Hopefully. Shit. Shit. Was she really hoping that? Did she want all of those things? The heart? The spice? The potential of something big with this man?
The logical part of her brain screamed at her, No. No! No fucking way.
But her heart said something else.
War. Down to the very marrow of her bones. It was terrifying. A huge swathe of emotions and memories that threatened to bear down on her. Maybe a few days ago she would have bunkered down into her proverbial cellar, would have braced herself until the tornado passed her by, would have rebuilt the walls, cleaned up the devastation.
Then she would have moved on.
Today, she had seen something wonderful, something she wanted enough to not wish to hide in the basement and lock herself away. She wanted . . . more.
More than what she had in her life currently.
She wanted love and emotions and those fucking tornados, even if they might break her. So, while the thought of swinging that cellar door open was absolutely terrifying, Charlotte Harris had never, ever been a coward.
She pushed and battled and never gave up.
Today would not be the day she stopped being brave.
Nineteen
Logan
He tried to get his head on straight as he drove, attempted to put his thoughts together in an orderly manner, but Logan didn’t make much headway.
His heart was pounding.
His gut was tied into knots.
His will was resolute.
He needed to stop the buildup, to lay out the facts, to get it over with.
“Would have been better if you’d started the conversation in a private place so you wouldn’t get interrupted, dipshit,” he muttered.
Yeah, well there was that. Which highlighted his whole problem with patience and taking things slow. But . . . Char hadn’t turned away from him, even though he’d been traveling forward solely by left and right turns, hardly making sense as he’d taken her down a tangent.
Not a tangent so much
as an aside. A necessary aside in order to give her context.
She turned into her driveway, waiting as the garage door slid open. Logan pulled up to the curb, throwing his car into park and getting out. He made it to her as she was just getting out, his jacket still around her shoulders, her purse in her hand.
He held the door for her, closed it after she’d slipped out.
“This way,” she told him, hitting the button to close the garage door then leading him into her kitchen and setting her purse on the counter. It was only a quick pitstop because she turned for the slider she’d left unlocked yesterday—and he was glad to see this time it was locked as she flicked open the bolt—and walked onto the back porch.
He followed her out, watched as she completed a ritual he thought she must have done a hundred times before—moving toward the outdoor heater and turning it on, grabbing a thick blanket from a box tucked next to a planter, draping it over the back of one of her loungers.
She’d just started to sit down when her eyes flicked to his, and his heart swelled when she moved back to the chest and snagged another blanket, draping it over the other chair.
Then she settled in, her frame almost dwarfed by his jacket, and doubly so by the thick fleece covering that she pulled up to her chin.
Considering that Logan was almost sweating from the heater itself, he simply snagged the blanket off the lounger and held it close. The fabric was soft, though not as soft as her skin, but it smelled like Char, sweet with the barest hint of spice—as though she’d been bathing in rosewater and then decided to eat something with chilis.
And he was making no sense in his head, pontificating mentally about roses and chilis and still not explaining.
Enough.
“Four months isn’t enough time to know a person,” he said.
She sucked in a breath. “You’re right,” she whispered. “Of course, you’re right.” Soft words, pained words. Fuck, he’d hurt her again without even meaning to.
Logan set the blanket aside and moved toward Char, settling next to her. “I was so absolutely in love with you that I didn’t want to bring in any of the bad stuff, and I deliberately hid it.”
Her chin came up. “I didn’t need you to do that.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” he admitted. “I did it for me because your family is so great that I didn’t want to pollute that with the drama of mine.”
“I’ve met your family—”
“I know,” he said. “You met my parents when they were on their best behavior—you as an employee of the organization paying my salary—but that was just it, they were on their best behavior.”
“Your sister—”
“My siblings aren’t like my parents. We all survived that tension, the always present underlying resentment, and we’re closer for it.” He shook his head. “But, while my parents are lovely people in many ways, how they treated each other made it really hard going growing up.”
“What did they do to each other?”
Logan shoved a hand through his hair and gave her the quick and dirty version. “My mom quit her job and always resented it. My dad didn’t understand how hard it was for her to give up her career, to live only for her kids and husband. He wanted his needs met and made sure they were. She was content with playing martyr as hers weren’t.” He sighed. “Add in a dash of shitty communication skills and plenty of silent treatment on both sides, and you have a lovely thirty-year marriage that is still going strong.”
Silence.
Then she shifted on the chair, her shoulder coming to rest against his. “And you saw me as your mom?”
Logan’s eyes slid closed. “Yes. No. Yes,” he admitted. “Partly, but more I saw me as my dad. I had the demanding career with the potential moves that would uproot everything. I had a wonderful woman, who was willing to give it all up and not look back.” He peeled open his eyes, turned so he could rest his palm on Char’s cheek. “I didn’t want you to give up your dreams for me. I had to let you go so you could achieve them for yourself.”
Her chest rose and fell on a long, slow inhale and exhale, but she didn’t say anything. But because she also didn’t push him away, he kept going. “You’d said it in passing at first, mentioned that you would just move with me if I got traded, but then as the rumors swirled and the deadline approached, do you remember what you did?”
She leaned back, expression clearing. “I think it was something along the lines of not wanting the internship in the first place, so obviously, I would quit and become a WAG.” Her eyes flashed, but he couldn’t decipher if it was because she was mad at him or herself.
The woman he knew today wouldn’t give everything up for a man.
The girl she’d been back then might have.
And that had terrified him enough that he’d taken matters into his own hands.
“So, I went to Luc and asked him for that trade,” he said, remembering how the GM hadn’t wanted to let him go, that he’d pushed back hard until Logan had to admit what was going on with Char, and the only reason he’d been able to get the trade at all was because Luc loved her like a daughter and felt the same way as Logan.
Neither of them wanted any barriers between Char and her dreams.
The big dreams. The ones she’d whispered to him in the dark of night, the stars in the winter sky overhead their only illumination. To go back to school, to work her way up the ranks, to run an organization on her own.
How in the fuck could she have done that trailing around as he made his way through his own career?
The answer was that she wouldn’t have been able to.
So, he’d made the decision for them.
Break their hearts now—and do it in one forceful movement rather than the slow, incremental crack after crack he’d witnessed in his mom.
“Luc knew,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he said. “I told him.”
Her breath caught, even as clarity danced across her face.
Luc had been absolutely livid. The players weren’t supposed to fraternize with the staff, and most especially with the interns, but he’d been able to put that anger aside for Char’s own good.
She glared. “So, you two worked together to facilitate the trade, all without talking to me, totally presuming to know everything.”
“I did say I take after my dad,” he said, attempting a light joke. “Also, this just in, I was a fucking idiot at twenty-one.”
“Yeah, you were,” she said, gaze dropping to her hands, another breath sliding her shoulders up and down. Then it came back up, locked onto his. “I was an idiot, too.” He breathed out a sigh of relief, but then pain crowded back in. “I was immature. I wouldn’t have been content just following you around forever, even though I do want to have a family of my own someday.”
Logan’s heart skipped a beat at the thought of Char’s kids. They’d be smart as hell and gorgeous and—
“However,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. “You say you did this all for my own good, but what about the girl?”
Logan winced. “What girl?”
A shake of her head. “Nice try, but you know exactly what girl I’m talking about.”
He did.
Unfortunately.
“After we broke up, I heard you’d gone to Luc and said you were going to quit anyway,” he admitted quietly. The GM had called him, said he needed to find a way to end things permanently with Char so she didn’t come after Logan and so she could move on with her life because Luc wasn’t losing his best player and his best employee. “So, I did what I had to do.”
Her brows came up, those chocolate eyes flashed with sparks. “By doing someone else days after you’d been inside me?”
“No!” he said. “Absolutely fucking not. I didn’t sleep with her. I kissed her once, made sure it got caught on camera—by paparazzi she called herself, by the way,” he added when Char’s lips parted again. The woman was now a successful actress, but back then she’d been up and coming and
had seized any opportunity to make the press. “And, for all that the photographs looked passionate, there wasn’t anything pleasant about the kiss. It was acting on both our sides.”
“Was there tongue?”
He frowned. “What?”
She shot him a droll look. “You say it was acting, that it was a fake kiss. Well, movie kisses don’t have tongue.”
Having followed that, somehow, he tugged a strand of her hair. “No, there wasn’t any tongue,” he said. “From the little I remember of it—and it was about as pleasant as making out with my pillow—I think my dick actually curled up into my body.”
“Log!”
“Nor did I enjoy having her that close,” he said. “It was like trying to cuddle a garbage bag filled with hangers.” Hard when she should have been soft like Char. Add in that she smelled wrong and that he had been longing for a completely different woman. “And more importantly, she wasn’t you, Starlight. She wasn’t the woman who owned my heart, the one I wanted but had forced myself to let go because I couldn’t be the one to stifle her dreams.”
Her lips parted.
But he had one more thing to say.
“I regret every single day that I had to hurt you.” He cupped her jaw, held her gaze. “But I will never regret letting you go. What you’ve accomplished, the strength and skill you’ve shown over the years has made me so fucking proud of you.” He brushed his thumb over her cheek, capturing the single tear that dripped down her cheek. “And I’ve never stopped loving you, even though I had to do it from far away.
“Logan.” It was a shuddering sound, one that rattled her frame.
Then she was up on her feet, pushing away from him, pacing to the other side of the deck and staring up at the sky.
He’d just poured out his heart.
And she’d walked away.
The silence settled around them, heavy and stifling and . . . unbroken.