“See you tomorrow, boss!”
She laughed. “Sleep badly.”
Chapter 19
Alone at last, Lacy turned back to the road and raised her hand once more. A taxi saw her almost immediately and started weaving its way over through traffic, battling slowly to the curb. If only it had gotten there in time. If only it had seen her a little sooner.
“Samantha, huh?”
Lacy turned around to see Logan walking slowly towards her. His hands were tucked deep in his pockets, and there was a little twinkle in his eyes.
“Have I started a new false-name craze I’m currently unaware of?”
“You’re going to make jokes?” Lacy asked in surprise. “Really?”
His face fell at once, as his head bowed with a sigh. “No. No jokes.” The clouds opened and a light misting of rain fell down onto his shoulders, soaking its way slowly through his golden hair. “Lacy I...I don’t know how to get us past this. I don’t know how to even begin to apologize, to convince you that everything I said back at the diner is true—”
“It doesn’t matter,” she replied hotly. “Don’t you get that? The one thing I required from you was the truth, and you lied to me the entire time. It doesn’t matter if you’re sorry—this is who you are, Logan. You can’t change that—”
“Is that really what you think?” he interrupted, raising his voice to be heard over the growing howl of the wind. “Do you really want to know who I am?”
The storm was picking up around them, flashing lightning over the trees.
“I’m a twenty-six-year-old workaholic who’s allergic to mushrooms, and once got lost in his own house.” The wind whipped his hair against his face, trickling down the sides of his neck as his clothes began to cling to the sides of his body. “I lost both my parents when I was seventeen. I work way too hard. And I don’t enjoy life. I never felt real happiness until I met you. And I don’t lie, and had we met under normal circumstances, I would have never, ever lied to you.”
She froze on the sidewalk as he took a step closer, reaching tentatively for her hands.
“You told me to go home, but Miami isn’t a home to me. It’s just a house. A big, empty house that’s starting to feel more and more like a cage. I was so desperate for something in my life to change, that I literally switched places with a virtual stranger just so I could step into residential Cleveland and pretend I was someone else. Anyone else. Living any other life. I did that with no real expectation of things to get better.” He pulled in a sharp breath, staring down at her in the rain. “...until I met you.”
Their eyes met, and for a moment, the world around them seemed to stop.
“Lacy...I love you. I can’t explain it. I don’t understand it. And I know it’s too fast. If you had told me a month ago this was going to happen, I would have never believed you.” His fingers wrapped tentatively around hers, bringing her a step closer. “But it has. And there’s no going back. Not for me. Not ever. This is it, Lacy. This is what I’ve been looking for. This is what I’ve been waiting for even before I knew I was waiting.”
He stared down tenderly at her face, pausing to brush a lock of wet hair from her eyes.
“I want you. I want us. Lacy and...Logan.” His eyes flashed up, suddenly shy as he used his real name. “I’m prepared to do or say anything you want to make that happen.”
Lightning flashed again, and the world was suddenly silent. He was staring at her with bated breath. Not daring to move. Not daring to blink. Every bit of desperate focus he had locked on the beautiful girl standing before him.
A girl who had no idea what to say.
For a moment, she simply stared. Her body had gone ice-cold, but she was too distracted to notice. Her fingers had been shaking a moment ago, but they were steady in his hands. Every single instinct in her entire body was telling her to run, and yet, something was making her stay.
Something she didn’t yet understand. Something she couldn’t possibly ignore.
Finally, as the wind died down, she gazed into his eyes and managed a single question.
“Why would a rich man ever move into Dylan’s place?”
Chapter 20
By the time Logan and Lacy got back to his brother’s house that night, the storm was in full swing. They burst through the door, panting desperately having just run in from the rain, and started peeling off layers of soaking wet clothing before coming to a sudden stop.
It lasted only a moment. A moment was all they could stand.
Then they were attacking each other.
It was impossible to see what was going on. Clothes were ripping off, wet hair was whipping back and forth, hands were groping everywhere. Spartacus ran out to meet them, then dove for cover as a discarded shoe went flying his way.