“Jesus,” he muttered as he pulled me up into a sitting position so he could wrap his arms around me. “What’s this?” he asked, tucking my head under his chin.
I shook my head, trying to control the tears. I didn’t want to tell him. The whole nightmare screamed of my insecurities, and I still wasn’t sure enough of our relationship to know that it wouldn’t send him running for the door.
“Hey,” he said, his voice low and soothing but also firm. “I talked to you about my nightmare. I trusted you. Trust me, Grace. Please. I can’t stand to see you cry.” His arms tightened around me, and he whispered hoarsely, “I don’t want to lose you.”
I turned my face from where it was pressed against his chest so I could speak. “It will freak you out.”
“You didn’t run from me, and what I had to say wasn’t easy.”
When he put it like that, there was actually really no comparison between what bothered us in our dreams. Mine was a distasteful, hurtful family drama. His had been death and guilt.
I suddenly felt very small and foolish. “Now you’re really going to think I’m an idiot.”
“Just tell me.”
I sucked in a huge breath, my stomach fluttering with butterflies. “I had this dream about you before anything happened between us. Before we were even friends.”
“Okay.”
My cheeks flushed. “It was a sex dream.”
“Really?” He sounded extremely pleased with himself.
“If you must know, it disturbed the hell out of me at the time.” I sniffed haughtily.
He grunted. “I’m sure it did. I’m surprised you could look me in the eye afterward.”
“It wasn’t easy.”
I felt him shake with laughter. “Okay… so tonight’s dream?”
I tensed again, and he felt it, his arms tightening around me. “It was the same dream to begin with… but just as you’re about to…”
“About to?”
“Come inside me,” I muttered, still not quite sexually forthright enough to say the words without a little bit of modest embarrassment. “Suddenly I was across the room, watching on. I thought at first I was having some sort of out-of-body experience, but then the woman cried out and… I saw who it was.”
Logan was tense now. “Who was it?”
I shook my head, feeling sick all over again with the memory. “My mother.”
“Jesus Christ,” Logan bit out immediately.
I pulled away from him so I could look him in the eyes. “I know you wouldn’t betray me like that. That’s not why I’m crying.”
He cupped my face in his hands, his eyes dark with worry. “Why are you crying?”
“Because I finally feel like there is a chance I could be really happy… and I thought I had let go of them long ago, but these past few months…” The tears spilled down my cheeks. “She has cancer, Logan. She hasn’t asked for me. My father hasn’t. And it was his pattern, you know… Whenever she hurt me, I’d do something rebellious. I’d decide I was dropping out of high school and he’d suddenly fly home from a business trip to tell me how proud he’d be if I graduated top of the class. And it worked. He manipulated me. Made me believe that he actually cared. And then she’d hurt me again and I decided I wasn’t going to a top university. Community college would do me. Dad would come home, give me presents, sweet-talk me, and suddenly I was going to Oxford. Then she hurt me again and I changed my mind and accepted University of Edinburgh. Dad didn’t mind too much since it was still a good school, but he came back to try to change my mind.
“When she slept with my boyfriend, Dad tried to manipulate me then too. But I was too hurt and disgusted by them this time. It didn’t work. I left. And he gave up.” I stared up at Logan, pleading with him. “How could he do that? He just gave up. He never came for me. He has never sought me out. And now my mother has cancer and they just… they don’t want me there.”
“Do you want to be there?”
“I want them to want me to be there,” I admitted, ashamed they still had that hold over me. “I thought I was over it, Logan. I’m so mad at them and mad at myself. I’m not a child anymore. I shouldn’t feel like this.”
“It doesn’t matter what age you are. Parents have more power over us than anyone.” He drew me closer. “They don’t deserve you, Grace.” He pressed a soft, comforting kiss to my lips. “Perhaps you should talk to someone again?”
I stared up at this beautiful, caring man and gave him a small, watery smile. “I’m talking to you.” I mirrored his words to me from not that long ago.
“And you always can.” The words were heavy and deep with promise.
CHAPTER 22
S
ix pairs of pretty eyes stared at me, together conveying a mixture of curiosity, teasing, delight, and expectation. Chloe, Shannon, Joss, Jo, Hannah, Ellie, and Olivia sat in a semicircle in my sitting room.
It was two days after my decision to give Logan a chance, and I’d called them all for a reason. Probably not the reason they were hoping for.
I wasn’t much of a gossip.