Logan shook his head, looking like he was coming to realize the words himself even as he was saying them. “I didn’t know it at the time, I would never have believed it if you would have told me...but I was looking for you. Not some variation of you. Not a beautiful, hypothetical idea of you. But you.” With a look of extreme hesitation, he reached across the table to take her hands. “Lacy Larson...I’ve been waiting my whole life for this. This life. This love. For you.”
By now, the entire diner had fallen eerily quiet. Whenever someone asked loudly for an autograph, people looked around to see what it was all about. But although they didn’t recognize the people sitting at the table, they couldn’t fail to see the expressions on their faces. They couldn’t fail to overhear the impossible words. Several had whipped out their phones to snap a secret picture. Some had frozen with their forks raised halfway to their mouths.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?” Lacy pushed to her feet before Logan could stop her, ripping her hands away from his. “I’m serious—Logan—what the fuck do you possibly expect me to say?! You played some stupid game. And you did a damn good job. Maybe you could fill in for your
brother at his next job interview. I bet you’d soar right through it.”
“I don’t...” He pushed to his feet as well, completely immune to the spellbound audience as he stared deep into her eyes. “I don’t expect you to say anything. I just had to—”
“You lied to me,” she hissed, jabbing a finger into his chest. “Every day, since the very moment we met. You lied to me. How could you do that?! And now I know why I saw all those flashing cameras. I thought that maybe somebody might be stalking me. But it was your photographers, the tabloids, the press. All trying to sneak a picture of your new girlfriend.”
“I didn’t know they were following you.”
“Looking for a scoop. Now it all makes sense.”
“I’m sorry if they’ve been stalking you.”
“It must take getting used to. I’m sure you’re used to it.”
“But you’re not. And I’m sorry if they frightened you.”
“They never approached me. Just took pictures in the shadow.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should’ve told me all of this.”
He flinched back like she’d hit him, his eyes tightening in despair. “I didn’t want you to leave,” he answered quietly, so quiet it was almost impossible to hear. “I hated myself for it, every day, I hated myself. But I didn’t want you to leave.”
“So this?” She gestured to the two of them. “Everything that’s happened between us, that was all a lie? Some sort of twisted game you were playing with your damn twin brother?!”
“No!” he cried, reaching instinctively again for her hands, before remembering himself and pulling back. “It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t a game. He’s over there, and I’m over here—that’s the only deception there is. Everything that’s happened since I got to Cleveland...” He trailed off, staring down at her with huge, entreating eyes. “Lacy, I...I fell in love with you.”
She stared back. Unable to speak. Unable to move. Willing to give up everything she had if they could just turn back the clocks. Go back to a time before they’d come to the damn diner. Back to a time when he was still Dylan, and she was still Lacy, and everything was fine.
Except there was no going back. For either of them.
“And you knew all I ever wanted was the truth.”
Chapter 13
Lacy went straight to the office from the diner. Ignoring the hordes of bustling pedestrians crowding her way. Pushing through Cleveland’s early morning foot-traffic, only to get into work a full hour before the office was supposed to open.
She shoved her key into the lock with enough force to chip the metal, and body-slammed open the door—secretly relieved she hadn’t cracked the glass in the process. The lights flipped on, she turned on the heat, and she stomped straight to the breakroom to turn on the coffee maker.
Cursing all the while.
“No, I didn’t fall for the notorious philanderer...I fell for his SECRET FUCKING TWIN BROTHER INSTEAD!” A cloud of coffee misted up into the air, as she slammed the container onto the table. “But not to worry, LOGAN CHASE is apparently IN LOVE WITH ME, and as for the whole secret identity thing, I’m sure that will just work itself out in time.”
She tore through six coffee filters, before finally fitting one into the machine. Then she punched the button so hard, the entire thing made an ominous groan.
“What the hell are you doing?!” Lacy whirled around as her assistant Quin came rushing inside. She took one look at the tortured coffee maker, before scooping it into her arms like a child. “Are you crazy?! You could have killed him!”
Lacy abandoned her quest altogether and slumped back against the counter with a quiet sigh. “Tell me again why you decided not only to personify our coffee maker, but why you also determined it was male...”
“I don’t care what issues you’ve got going on this morning,” Quin fired back, cradling the machine protectively in her arms, “but keep them away from Nester. He’s only ever helped.”
Of course his name is Nester. Remind me to fire Quin Leshay as soon as possible.