Chapter 46

CHAPTER 46

MIRA

I woke up slowly, and the first thing I became aware of was the intense pounding in my head. As I came to a little bit more, I realized that it wasn't just my head. My mouth was dry as bone and my eyes hurt. I pried them open, searching my memory for any clues about where this monstrous hangover had come from but coming up dry.

As it turned out, that was the least of my worries. When I finally managed to focus on my surroundings, I also realized that I wasn't in my own bed. I was in a strange room, in a strange house, and in a stranger's bed.

What the fuck? No. No, no, no, no, no. The last thing I remembered was being at home. Speaking to Anya.

But then I remembered cracking open that bottle of wine.

Taking the whole thing to the living room with me.

Drinking it all up.

Calling a cab to take me somewhere.

I shot up in bed, suddenly knowing exactly where I was.

Logan's.

I wasn't in his bed, though. This room was smaller than his and it lacked personal touches, which told me it was probably a spare bedroom. It was nice, though, with blackout drapes hanging in front of the windows and a mattress as soft as a cloud.

As I looked around, I spotted a full glass of water and a couple tablets on the nightstand and I took them gratefully, but I also wondered what the hell had happened between us last night. I had almost no memory of the ride over and even less of what had happened once I'd arrived.

I did a quick body check, not finding any telltale evidence of having had sex, but nerves still sped through me at the thought of all the things we might've done that wouldn't have left any signs. Just thinking about the possibilities made my heart race and my body fill with anticipation at the remembered pleasure of the last time he'd had his fingers in me. His tongue.

Stop it! You broke things off with him. It's over, Mira.

An audible huff of air raced out of me at the realization. As much as I didn't like that it was true, it was, and it was also still for the best. The reasons why I had done it hadn't changed. Logan was still off limits and uninterested in more, so I had to stay away.

With my body and heart protesting my brain's decision, I climbed out of bed, noticing that I was naked under the thick robe. Heat flushed to my cheeks, but since I had a faint memory of putting it on by myself in the bathroom, I didn't think he'd had anything to do with my nakedness.

Still, a thrill ran through me at the thought that I'd slept naked in his house. Just because I didn't have him didn't mean I didn't want him—or want him to want me. We would never be able to be together, I knew that, but I missed him so much.

I so badly wanted things to be different.

Sighing as I strode to the adjoining bathroom, I saw some clothes in a neat, folded pile on the dresser. It looked like lounge wear, a pair of soft black sweats and a black V-neck. When I picked them up to change, the scent of fresh laundry wafted to my nostrils and I frowned. Leaving some clean clothes for me was an awfully considerate thing for a playboy to do.

On the other hand, Logan had never treated me the way players treated their conquests. He'd been a friend when I'd needed one, he respected me, supported me, and made me feel like I meant something to him. I didn't know of any womanizer who treated his girls like that.

The clothes fit me quite well, not hanging off me thanks to my curves. After I changed, I went to track him down. I checked the kitchen first, but there was no sign of him there. As I kept drifting from one room to the next, I finally heard bass thudding from somewhere below. Following the sound of the loud rock music, I eventually found him in his home gym in the basement.

I stood in the doorway for a moment, watching as his muscles flexed and tightened while he was on his rowing machine. Sweat glistened on his shirtless skin, making it look like he'd been at it for a while.

Once I'd ogled him for a few minutes, I cleared my throat to announce myself. "Good morning."

He twisted on the seat of the sleek machine to face me. Smiling, he reached for his water. "Good morning, sunshine. How are you feeling?"

He got up, grabbed his phone, and turned down the music.

"Like death warmed over," I said honestly, my voice strangely husky. I cleared my throat. "I, uh, I'm sorry about last night. I have no idea what I was thinking, but I'm deeply embarrassed and I'm really sorry."

"No need to apologize," he said easily, unhooking the band around his arm that had some kind of monitor attached to it. He squirted some water into his mouth and swallowed while his eyes remained firmly on mine. "Can I make you something to eat? I'm pretty sure I've got bacon in the freezer. Some grease might make you feel better."

Shame descended on me heavily as I shook my head. "Did we, uh, we didn't fool around, did we?"

Amusement sparked behind his eyes, but I saw something else there too. Something darker. Like maybe lust. Or maybe even regret. "No, we didn't. You were trashed, Mira. Nothing happened, I promise."

A tiny bit of relief sped through me. I trusted him. If he said we didn't do anything, then we hadn't done anything. Which was a good thing. Logan and I were finished. So why am I sort of wishing he hadn't been able to stay away from me anyway?

I sighed, my brain too foggy with the lingering effects of the alcohol to make sense of much right now. "Did I make a fool of myself? In any way other than showing up here, drunk and unannounced, that is."

Logan chuckled, his expression soft as he nodded toward the stairs. "Let's talk about it over some coffee, but no. You didn't make a fool of yourself. Do you want some bacon?"

"No, thank you. I feel like I've been enough of an imposition. I'll just call a cab and go. Again, I'm so sorry about last night. It won't happen again."

"It's okay, Mira," he said softly, staying where he was instead of moving to the stairs. "Really. I'm glad you came to me and you don't have to leave. I promise you that it wasn't a big deal. I made you some food, ran you a shower, and put you to bed. That's it. I'd have done the same for any of my friends."

"Friends," I repeated after him, but the word tasted bitter on my tongue. "Is that what we are?"

He didn't respond immediately, those eyes searching mine as if looking for answers I didn't have. "I don't know. We could be. Is that what you want?"

No .

I didn't say that, however. I'd broken things off with him and he'd respected my decision. He hadn't been calling, or texting, or randomly showing up where I was. He'd simply accepted it. On the other hand, I'd probably been the only one who'd gotten in over my head. To him, it was more likely to have been a matter of having to find a new fuckbuddy.

Even in my head though, something about that assumption didn't sound right. Maybe it was just the alcohol, but there was this nagging feeling deep down inside me that said it hadn't been like that for him either .

"Okay," I agreed eventually, finally bringing my gaze back to his. "Friends. I'll take that coffee if it's still on offer."

"Of course, it is." He smiled again, but it seemed subdued. Sad. "I'm sorry about the article, by the way. I had no idea people were even interested in what happens on the rigs. It sure as hell doesn't seem that way."

I shrugged, moving slowly backward to the stairs. Now that he'd mentioned coffee, that was all I wanted. I'd have this conversation with him, but I needed the caffeine before my brain would be worth anything.

"They're usually not, but I'm assuming that Andrew knew people were interested in you and that they'd be interested in knowing what you were doing on the rig."

Regret suddenly flashed in the depths of those eyes, his mouth twisting with the realization that I was right and the horror of the consequences. "Shit. I'm sorry, Mira. I?—"

"It's not your fault," I said firmly. "Let's go get that coffee, please?"

"Sure, yeah. Okay. It's the least I can do." Hanging his head a little, he strode up to me and gently pressed a hand to the small of my back, but he stopped and turned to look at me instead of heading to the kitchen. "If I'd known?—"

I cut him off again. "It's really not your fault, Logan. Neither of us knew that he'd run to the press and I'm the one who fired him, but it's not my fault either. It's his fault. He's the one with the stupidly fragile ego he needed to feed with revenge. Besides, there's nothing we can do about it now."

I practically saw the gears turning in his head, but he didn't tell me what he was thinking about doing to Andrew. Eventually, he just shrugged. "Either way, I'm still really sorry you got fired because of it. It's a mess. What did Slate say? Maybe he could talk to your client on your behalf?"

My heart started to pound, every word I'd ever known wiped out of my mind for a few seconds as I stared back at him. "Shit. I didn't even think about him. I don't even know if he's seen it yet. I mean, I don't need him to talk to that client. I'm not a child. I did what I did and I'll take responsibility for it, but fuck. He's going to be so mad."

Logan's eyes widened, and his nostrils flared. He did a slow double-take, looking at me as if he really hadn't been expecting me to say what I just had, and then he cleared his throat. "I hate to have to be the one to tell you this and I honestly thought you already knew, but Slate knows everything, Mira."

"Everything?" My own eyes widened in turn, the shock of his admission not hitting me all at once but rather like a slow trickle of awareness.

Slate knew about the article, but that wasn't such a surprise. Spiers Consulting had been mentioned and I should've known he'd see it, but if he knew everything?

That means he knows that it's true. He knows that Logan and I really were making out during the storm.

"How?" I breathed, blinking hard as my pulse quickened and my breathing sped up.

Pain crossed Logan features as he sucked in a deep, sharp breath. "Shit. I really thought he'd have broken the news to you already, but he came here when he saw the article. Confronted me about it. I tried to calm him down. Get him to hear me out, but it didn't work. He's too pissed."

I stumbled back and my hands flew up, my arms crossing over my chest as it kept tightening and tightening. So much that it felt like my lungs were being crushed as devastation set in. "Oh, God. What did he say?"

"Pretty much what you'd expect," Logan said quietly, his own pain still evident on his handsome features.

It was there in the slight downturn of his parted lips, the wrinkle of his nose, and the furrow of his brow. I felt for him, but I just didn't have the capacity to give comfort right now.

"What I expect is that he hates us right now," I said so softly that I might as well have whispered. "Am I right?"

"Well, yeah, but only half right. Slate doesn't hate you, Mira. Only me. He told me he was done with me. Done with our friendship. Done working with me. He said that I was only out for myself and that he wasn't going to put up with it anymore."

It was that revelation that made the devastation turn to anger. How Slate had come to the conclusion that Logan was only in it for himself, I didn't know. He'd kissed me. It wasn't like he'd stabbed Slate in the back professionally.

If anything, Logan had been a dream to work for. He trusted us completely, gave us free rein on the rig and a pretty much open wallet to do what had to be done. In all the time we'd worked for him, he hadn't given us any trouble at all.

On a personal level, Logan had always been good to me. He'd made me feel safe, protected, and desired. He hadn't done anything I hadn't wanted him to do. Everything he'd done, in fact, I'd done right along with him.

It was complete and utter bullshit that Slate or anyone else felt entitled to an opinion about who I slept with. I wasn't interested in other people's personal lives this way, and yet, a journalist I'd never even met before had made me out to be an unreliable hussy.

All of this new information Logan had told me only served to reignite the fire I'd had in my veins yesterday, but it had a new dimension to it now. Suddenly, a whole hell of a lot of things occurred to me. The most important of which was that Logan had made me feel things that no other man ever had—and I wasn't only talking about sex.

What I did for a living had never intimidated him or put him off. The fact that I didn't get dolled up for work every day and that my coworkers were almost exclusively men hadn't gotten his panties in a twist. His encouragement and support of me had been unwavering, and he'd made it pretty clear on multiple occasions that he trusted me and had total faith in me.

Why are any of those things bad? How is that not exactly what my brother should want for me?

Slate had also taken it several steps further now. In some misguided attempt to protect my virtue or some other bullshit, he'd upped and quit from a job he not only loved, but that was incredibly lucrative, and he'd broken off an old, valued friendship to boot.

Every instinct in me screamed, Enough!

As I looked into Logan's eyes from across the room, I made my decision. Fuck what everyone else thought. He was good for me. He wanted me. I wanted him. I was so very done trying to make it about what other people wanted or thought.

"Screw it." I marched forward, slid my arms around his neck, and kissed him.

I kissed him deeper and harder than I ever had before, and I didn't plan on stopping any time soon. Ultimately, we were the only two people whose opinions mattered when it came to this. As it was, we were already in it together.

His shock wore off and his firm, soft lips started moving with mine, his tongue delving into my mouth and his torso crushing itself against my own. I decided that I was done running. Hiding. Lying. Feeling guilty.

Slate had already accused Logan of being in it only for himself. From now on, I would be too. I was in this for myself, and I didn't give a damn what anyone thought of it anymore.