The moment hinged on expectancy.
He kept his hand hidden when he slowly edged toward me. He stopped six inches away, his panted breaths lifting chills on the flesh of my back as he gazed at me through the faded mirror.
“You asked me what this room is, Aster. This is the room where I buried all my secrets. Where I attempted to leave my pain and my spite and pretend like every part of me hadn’t remained in Los Angeles with you.” His breath whispered over my bare skin, illicit chills that crawled like possession.
“I gave myself over to the greed, thinking I could find contentment in excess and wealth. Find purpose in the commitment I’d made to one day make Jarek pay for what he’d stolen from me. But there was no satisfaction in any of it because the truth was all that greed came down to one thing—my love for you.”
He pulled what he had hidden from behind his back and draped a necklace around my neck.
A massive stone dangled between my breasts.
A gasp raked free of my lungs.
Shock.
Confusion.
Hurt and hope and abiding love.
The ground trembled beneath my feet.
“One half of the twin stones,” I whispered. “How? You said you sold them.”
My fingers trembled as I touched it, and Logan leaned closer, his voice a rasp of admission. “It’s the only piece I ever had, Aster. I know Jarek told your father that I was responsible, but we were attacked that night, and that man killed your uncle. Jarek stood like a pussy on the sidelines while I tried to stop it from happening. The man ran with the other stone, and before Jarek could get to the second, I took it. I shot him because he was going to shoot me. I told you I always believed that night was a setup. I still do. The night I came back for you, I was going to go to your father and return the stone and tell him everything.”
My mind spun with the details.
With the truth that Logan had never done any of the things he’d been accused of.
That it was Jarek.
Jarek.
Deep down, I’d always known it, but I guessed it’d been easier to live through the loss and loneliness placing more of the blame on Logan.
“Why didn’t you tell me? You said you sold them, but you had one the whole time? Why do you still have it?”
It was an appeal. Both for then and now.
These stones that had ruined everything.
Greed.
It was what I’d believed him to be all along, and even then, I’d forgiven him.
Logan’s dark brow twisted. “I was going to, Aster. When you broke my heart, I had every intention of leaving there, selling it, becoming more powerful than your father and Jarek combined. I was going to ruin them. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it. Not when I knew it was responsible for taking you from me.”
“You didn’t tell me? This whole time, you had it, and you didn’t tell me?” I wondered how the accusation held no anger.
Logan fiddled with the chain, severity coating his voice. “I didn’t trust you, Aster, that first night. You were still just the Costa princess to me.” His mouth pressed behind my ear. “My tormenter. My greatest regret. The one I hated myself for still loving.”
“And then?”
“And then I was terrified you were still going to leave me. That you were going to disappear. I needed an advantage. An asset to wield if I needed to. Even before you understood it, I promised myself I was never going to let you go.”
“And now?”
His hand slipped from my shoulder and down my arm, and he threaded our fingers together. “And now…we do this together, the way we always should have.”