And Logan realised he didn’t want her to go. He wondered if it was just his imagination—or wishful thinking—that her smile looked slightly fixed.
He scanned his brain for something, anything, to say, but it came up with nothing. Probably for the best. There were a million reasons why her coming back to his apartment was a bad idea. Not least to avoid a repeat of what had happened last time she’d been.
‘Okay, well, thanks for joining us tonight.’ The words felt thick in his mouth.
‘I had fun.’
Another over-bright smile that Logan abruptly decided he hated on sight. His mind whirred for excuses even as he pretended it didn’t.
‘Didn’t you say you lived close to me?’
She blinked, then looked sheepish.
‘Yeah. I do. I pretty much walk past your door to get to my apartment.’
There was no reason whatsoever for him to feel quite so elated.
‘Come to mine. I’ll get Jamie down for the night and we’ll call a cab for you.’
She hesitated, and he knew he had her. Victory coursed through him, though he couldn’t have said why.
And he ignored the voice that said he just didn’t want to admit it.
* * *
‘The place looks like amazing,’ she marvelled, as Logan handed her the key to open the front door and he carried a sleeping Jamie inside.
He’d fallen asleep mid-shoulder ride and Logan had been forced to give Kat a couple of the bags after all so that he could carry his son in his arms.
‘It’s like a grotto,’ she continued, stepping a little further inside.
‘Yeah, I know, I might have gone a little overboard, but in a way it’s our first real Christmas together. I was always travelling such a lot.’
‘As a bodyguard?’ she asked wryly.
‘Fine, as a bodyguard, yes.’
‘For who?’
‘You know I can’t divulge that,’ he replied. ‘Feel free to head to the lounge. Or grab some wine from the kitchen. I’m just going to put this little man to bed.’
‘Okay.’ She kept her back firmly to Logan as she headed through to his lounge.
It felt as though she was walking on the softest, fluffiest clouds. He might not have confirmed who his VIP was, but he’d admitted that he’d been working as a bodyguard, which was more than he’d told anyone all day. And she knew that because she’d heard them.
She tried to caution herself that it probably meant nothing. But it didn’t work. She felt special. Trusted by Logan Connors. It was an inexplicably heady sensation.
Wandering through to the kitchen, she stopped and surveyed the scene. A half-mutilated gingerbread man lay next to a knife on a kid’s plate. Like a culinary crime scene. A pile of washed baking equipment sat, clean and dry, on a draining tray.
‘That’s one exceptionally tired little boy,’ Logan announced, stepping into the kitchen through the far door and making Kat jump. ‘Ah. I meant to clear up that horror story before I went out but everything was such a rush, and, well, time got away from me.’
‘No need to explain, I understand,’ she assured him, before realising that she’d almost begun talking about Carrie. Again. ‘And it isn’t too bad. It’s just that poor gingerbread blob. What happened?’
‘No idea.’ Logan grinned. ‘I’ve never baked in my life. I now realise it’s an essential skill that I need to know.’
‘Well, at least learn how to make gingerbread men look like they aren’t gingerbread cacti.’
‘Their undefined forms are the least of their problems. You didn’t have to taste one.’ He hung his head in feigned shame. ‘Jamie was wholly unimpressed.’