“I won’t. I promise.” He rounded the sofa and put his hands on my hips, drawing me against him. “Tell your dad to go home, Grace, before he causes any more trouble.”
The slamming of my heart became a sledgehammer pounding. “I’m not sure I can.”
“What?” He stared down into my eyes, his filled with incredulity.
“Logan, you know I’ve been carrying this guilt, this weight, over my mum’s cancer. The fact that I feel like this means something. I need to work it out, and if that means talking to my dad again, then so be it.”
“You know what the guilt means, Grace? It means you’re not a soulless bitch like the woman who gave birth to you. It’s as simple as that. Don’t let him draw you back into that world.”
“I’m trying not to. I feel panicked just at the thought of it,” I confessed. “But, Logan, what kind of person does it make me if I don’t go to my possibly dying mother’s side?”
“What are you worried about? What the world thinks of you? What we think of you? Or what you think of you? Because at the end of the day, babe, the only opinions that matter are your own and those of the people you care about.”
There was a huge part of me that knew Logan was right and another huge part of me that hyperventilated at the mere thought of letting the Bentleys back into my life. Yet there was also this small voice inside of me that kept telling me Logan was biased. He couldn’t give me advice because he had a stake in the outcome.
Although I knew Aidan did too, I called him that night as Logan and Maia sat in my sitting room watching a movie after dinner. I closed myself in my bedroom with the phone and dialed my oldest friend’s number because he had been there with me through the trauma of my mother’s betrayal and my family’s apathy toward me.
He also had a far less hotheaded reaction to drama than Logan.
“Oh shit,” Aidan said once I’d finished telling him about my father’s visit.
“So what do I do?”
“I can’t tell you what to do.”
I stared at my phone in horror for a second and then put it back to my ear. “The whole point is for you to tell me what to do!” I hissed.
“No, it’s not. I can’t make this decision for you. No one can. It has to feel right for you. All I can tell you is that not one of us will judge you for whatever choice you make. Just do what you have to do.”
We talked for a little longer before I finally hung up, feeling no more and no less confused than I had when I’d called him. I was just getting up off my bed when the bedroom door opened and Logan stepped in.
“You okay?” he said, wary.
I nodded. “I was just talking to Aidan. Asking for his advice.”
Apparently it was the wrong thing to say. Logan’s expression darkened. “So you take his advice but not mine?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Oh? I’m to feel all right about you running to dear old Aidan whenever you have a problem? Is this something I should prepare myself for in the future?”
I gaped at him. “Logan, where is this coming from? You know Aidan is one of my closest friends.”
“Yeah, and while you’re pushing me away, you’re running to him.”
“I’m not pushing you away.” I jumped off the bed and hurried over to him, only just realizing how much the news of my father’s arrival had shaken him. “Logan, I went to Aidan because he can be rational about this. He can step outside of our friendship and give me advice without being biased.”
“He can do that because he’s not fucking fighting for you.” He dragged a hand over his face, looking suddenly exhausted. “That’s all I feel like I’m ever doing… fucking fighting for you.”
Tears stung my eyes at the sight of the hurt in his. “I’m only thinking this over. And you know going back to London would only be for a bit. It wouldn’t be the end of us.”
“No. It means the end of everything you’ve built since escaping their manipulative, sick, bloody world. They are toxic. They will hurt you again, Grace, and there will be nothing I can do to stop it. I can’t let that happen. I can’t let you do this.”
I grabbed his hand, hoping the gesture would soften what I was about to say. “Whatever I decide, it’s up to me, not you.”
He ripped his hand from mine. “See, that’s the difference between you and me. I thought that since I love you, when shit like this comes up, we discuss it… because it affects us both.”
Surprise, amazement, joy, panic, euphoria, fear, excitement, trepidation… It all flooded through me at the sound of those three words falling from his beautiful mouth.
In fact, I felt so much I couldn’t find the strength to reply.
And he was waiting for a reply.
And not just any reply.
“Nice, Grace,” he bit out, and disappeared before I could get my mouth to work.
CHAPTER 26
I
love you.
I love you.
I. Love. You.