Logan (Carolina Reapers 4)

Where it had taken me five minutes to convince myself to get out of the car, and now I’d been standing here for ten minutes. Standing here wasn’t going to get her back, so I twisted the handle and walked in.

The smell of books and lemon hit me with the first breath I took.

No matter what happened here, I knew I’d always associate that scent with Delaney.

I tucked my thumbs into the back pockets of my jeans to keep from fidgeting as I hit the main corridor.

Delaney was at the circulation desk, helping a woman and two kids. Her hair was up in a knot, and she’d traded the long-sleeved cardigans for a short-sleeved version. The sight of her was part sandpaper and part balm, both soothing my soul and cutting it open a thousand times.

She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes as she handed a stack of books to the mother and waved goodbye to the kids.

She was mid-wave when she saw me. Her hand froze, but that smile slid away until her expression was blank.

I walked up to the desk, my eyes scanning her face and picking up the signs of heartbreak. A slight smudge in her mascara, a blotch of pink in her cheek, and circles under dim green eyes. It should have given me a modicum of relief, knowing that she was miserable, too, but I didn’t want her to be.

I wanted her happy.

“Can we talk?” I asked quietly, bracing my hands on the desk.

“No,” she answered, spinning away from me in a twirl of black skirt and heading for the stacks.

“Delaney,” I begged, following her as she walked through the rows toward the back of the library.

She slipped two books into their place and then stood there silently, staring at the shelves.

“Please,” I whispered.

She turned, facing me with her arms crossed. Her armor was up. Noted.

“What could you possibly want?” she asked, looking at me like I was worse than a stranger...like I was inconsequential.

“Did you listen to my messages?” At least we had a line of communication open. That had to be good, right?

“Nope.” She lifted a shoulder in a dismissive shrug.

Fuck.

“Okay, did you read the letter?”

“Nope.” Another dismissive shrug. “Is that all you came to ask? Because I have work to do.”

I blinked, searching for the words.

“Right.” She walked by, but I caught her hand.

“Stop.”

She did, but she pulled her fingers from mine as we stood there, shoulder to shoulder, facing opposite directions.

“I love you,” I told her.

“Bullshit. Love doesn’t lie like that. And it was a lie, Logan. An omission that big, when you knew what it would do to me? That’s a lie, and you know it.” She hissed, but she didn’t leave, either.

“I know,” I admitted. “And I’m so sorry. Every explanation I could give you sounds like an excuse.”

“Because it is,” she snapped, turning her face slightly toward me, but when she found me already looking, she jerked it back.

“Ssh!” an older man admonished from the end of the row.

“Let me explain anyway,” I asked.

“Why?”

“Because you love me,” I whispered.

Her lips pursed, and her head dipped slightly. “I loved the man I thought you were. I don’t know the real you well enough to even say that I like you.”

“Shh!” the guy hissed louder.

“Oh, for the love of God. Follow me.” She walked, and I followed until we stood in the parking lot with only the emerging stars for company.

“I never expected to fall in love with you,” I started, unwilling to wait for the permission she was never going to give. “When I met you, I was so fucked up from Blaire—”

“That you took it out on me?” she snapped, leaning against one side of the steel railing of the small staircase as I took the other.

“The same way you took your ex’s sins out on me?” I countered.

She stiffened.

“Damn it.” I raked my hands over my face. “I didn’t tell you because I wanted someone to want me for just...me, and at first we were just friends.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that. But once I told you that I loved you? Once I gave everything I had to you and trusted you with…” She shook her head and bit her lower lip.

“I should have told you. I just never expected to fall in love with this perfect, brilliant, incredible woman who loathes everything about my career—my passion.” I locked my hands around the rails like they could hold us both here long enough to work this out.

“I don’t loathe everything!” she argued.

“Are you serious? Every time I thought I’d worked up the nerve to come clean to you. To tell you that I knew you wouldn’t give a fuck how much money I made or how many people like to see pictures of my damned breakfast on social media, you made it perfectly clear how you felt about people like me. What was it? People revered as gods?”