“Downtown at the Shillhire.”
The Shillhire was an upscale hotel about a mile down from my place.
Fucker.
He wanted to play dirty?
Fine.
I was ready to get filthy.
“That’s all I needed to know. Thank you for your help, Haille. I appreciate it.”
“Always.”
Then his smile shifted as I started to stand. “I think the more intriguing question is what happened with you and the girl after you left?”
I rebuttoned my coat. “I took her home. Where she belongs.”
Then I turned and walked out.
SIXTEEN
ASTER
I lieon my stomach on the bed with a blank journal I’d taken from that drawer that I’d slammed closed when I’d first found them.
Part of me wondered if Logan had stashed them there for a day like this, the way they sat there unused, waiting for a brand-new story to fill their pages.
For me to rip them out and fold them into a newfound hope.
Litter them between us so he could find his way back to me.
My hand flowed across the page, my concentration set on trying to decipher a feeling. To capture a memory. To walk into a better future.
Logan promised he would find proof, but in the end, this was my fight.
Something I had to do.
A reckoning between my father, Jarek, and I.
I’d drawn Logan into the middle of it, right into the most dangerous place he could be.
I didn’t know if it made me selfish or weak.
Greedy in my own, demoralized way.
Or maybe my heart wouldn’t allow me to believe anything else than he’d found me and I’d found him.
A crash course.
A collision.
One destination.
The words poured over the page as they sought to find new meaning.
New purpose.