It made my heart ache that most days the assumptions they were making right then didn’t feel that far off.
But I couldn’t allow that to cause me concern.
Under Logan’s pain and venom last night, beneath the wrath that blazed in his eyes, the menacing recklessness that promised he would do anything to see it through, I’d come to the swift, heartbreaking conclusion that I had to return to Jarek.
My taking off last night had only landed Logan and me in a bed we couldn’t sleep in.
A trouble he wouldn’t survive, and that was an outcome I wouldn’t survive, either.
My only option was getting to the airport so I could climb back onto that private jet we’d arrived on yesterday and pray we could pretend none of this happened. Pray Jarek wouldn’t rage and hunger for revenge.
Pray Logan wouldn’t be so foolish to set out to do what he’d promised was his intention last night.
To destroy Jarek.
Sorrow spread over me like an oil slick when I thought of the gunshot that I’d heard when I’d been fleeing. How it’d been Logan I’d been concerned for and not Jarek. How I’d had to press that lie from my mouth when Logan had demanded to know how I’d feel if Jarek were gone.
I guessed I’d become the perfector of lies, though I had to remember that sometimes a lie was a gesture of compassion.
The powerful engine of the flashy car that roared into the hotel drive might have turned heads, but I figured I still would have felt the shift in the air even if he hadn’t made a sound. The way my chest tightened and my heartbeats flew.
It was the same way I’d felt like I was falling into a fathomless sea of torment when I’d begun to descend those stairs last night.
As if the ground no longer existed below me.
From the moment I’d met Logan Lawson, he’d made it difficult to stand on my own two feet. The ground quaking below, the shockwaves that swept through my body a flood, knocking me from sense and safety.
Steeling myself to the impact of the man, I pasted on that façade as I strode out the door and into the glacial cold of the snowy mountain morning. Vapor streamed from the tailpipes of Logan’s car, and I nearly stumbled a step when he pushed to standing from the driver’s side.
He was so intimidatingly beautiful he made me fumble.
Heart and soul.
My stomach a fist of old, old want.
Malachite eyes found me through the icy air, unreadable, hardened stones that glinted cold. He wore a fitted suit and a smirk on his face.
“Good morning, darling.” It was pure condescension as he rounded the front of his car.
The ground shifted again, cracks that raced out ahead of him.
The man a tornado that had torn up my world.
“I pray you slept well.” His gaze raked me like razors. I wondered if he’d still relish in my torment if he’d borne witness to every distressed sob that’d left my throat last night.
“I’ve had better nights.” I attempted to keep my voice even.
“I’m sure you have.” His mouth was near my ear when he murmured the innuendo, a carrot dangled to drag me back into the past.
Too bad my heart still remained there.
He set his hand on the small of my back to guide me to his car. Even though I wore the thick coat, I might as well have been bare.
Flesh to flesh.
I tried to suppress the shiver and sank down into the warmth of the heated leather seats. I was slapped in the face by his aura, the cab a dangerous concoction of corruption and clove.
There was no turning away from his shape as he moved back around the front of the car and slipped into the seat next to me.