Chapter 14
Hope didn't have much time for social media, other than to post video clips of her music online. But she hoped it would provide fruitful when she researched Logan Holmes. Something major had gone down with his dad for him to act so out of character yesterday. The fun, flirtatious charmer had been nowhere in sight; instead, he'd turned into a brooding, glowering shadow of his former self.
It had unnerved her, the need to comfort when they weren't emotionally invested so she'd responded in kind, feigning interest in the game while casting surreptitious glances at him every few minutes. It had been one hundred and twenty minutes of sheer torture. To make matters worse, he'd asked her out to dinner from obligation rather than any real desire to spend more time with her and it had been the last straw.
So she'd called him on it. Told him to get his shit together. But would he?
Guys weren't so great at facing feelings and it looked like he had a whole carousel of baggage regarding his father.
She knew all about the burdens of family. Even now, five years after she'd left England, her parents alternated between patronising and interfering, condescending and threatening. They would say anything to get their own way and she'd learned that way too young. Her parents lied without compunction and ultimately, that's what had driven a wedge between them.
If she'd known the truth about her grandmother's trust fund she would've cut ties earlier and followed her heart into a music career. Instead, they'd lied and said she'd be penniless when they cut her off if she persisted in her ‘frivolous nonsense.'
So she'd done what was expected of her, a stupidly na?ve, frightened eighteen-year-old following the path set by her parents.
Ironically, it had been after another person she'd trusted betrayed her that she'd learned the truth. Willem had done his research well in order to ingratiate himself and in alerting her to the fact she had a small fortune waiting for her courtesy of a long-dead grandmother after she discovered the truth about him, he ultimately set her free.
She knew her parents loved her in their own way but their lack of compassion for what she wanted out of life and the lengths they'd gone to in order to control her never failed to grate.
It had taken her a long while to get to where she was mentally, being able to have some kind of relationship with them no matter how fraught, and her music had helped.
She hoped Logan would find peace with his father too. While it had nothing to do with her—getting emotionally involved with the rugged CEO wasn't on her agenda—she had to know what was bugging him so she wouldn't inadvertently tread on any virtual landmines again.
She'd resisted the urge to pry into his life last night but after minimal sleep she had no such compunction this morning. Firing up her laptop, she sipped at her favourite breakfast tea. A few seconds later, she put her cup down and typed in Logan Holmes in the search engine. A stack of hits popped up but most in association with his business. He had no social media accounts. Bummer.
Feeling like a snoop, she typed in another name, Stephen Holmes, and bingo. Stephen had a bio on a major entertainment website, considering he was a stand-up comedian. She clicked on the link and perused the scoop on Stephen, gleaning more from a few paragraphs than Logan had divulged.
Stephen toured the country, performing in small venues for the comedy club scene. Considering his extensive CV he must've started before Logan was born. He'd won a few awards in the early days for his routines and had performed in Vegas twice. There was mention of a son, but no name, and a snippet on a recent health scare. It also mentioned that Stephen currently resided in Melbourne.
She checked out a few more links but didn't learn anything new. If Stephen lived in Melbourne and had a recent health scare, maybe that call had been him reaching out to Logan? But what was so dire in their past that Logan couldn't forgive his father and a mere phone call rattled him to the point of withdrawing like he had yesterday?
She shouldn't interfere. She wouldn't. But she knew what it was like to resent a parent and sometimes it helped to share. Harry had been her sounding board; who did Logan have? For whatever time they screwed, maybe she could be his?
Picking up her pho e before she could second-guess her decision, she fired off a text.
Are you free?
The answering ping surprised her with its speed, as she'd expected him to leave her hanging.
Depends.
On?
What you're wearing.
She smiled and responded.
Come over and find out.
His response came swiftly.
I'll be there in 30.
Okay, so the text flirting was good. He'd moved on from yesterday. But as she quickly showered and dressed, she couldn't help feeling guilty for luring him here under false pretences. He thought this would be a booty call.
She had something else in mind first.
"Tell me again why you're dragging me through the back streets of Melbourne?"
Logan sounded like a whiny kid, deliberately baiting Hope because he knew she loved their sparring. This was the fifth alley she'd shown him and despite his fake indifference, she saw the gleam of interest in his eyes.
"Because this is culture," she said, pointing at a giant ebony mouth in a scary crimson face plastered across a laneway entrance. "You showed me yours yesterday, today I'm showing you mine."
She waggled her eyebrows and he chuckled. "I'm talking about the essence of Melbourne, in case you were wondering."
He ducked down, his lips grazing her ear and sending a shiver of longing through her. "I'd much rather see something else of yours," he murmured, nipping her ear lobe before soothing it with a flick of his tongue that sent a jolt through her.
"Later." Her grip on his hand tightened as a silent promise of things to come. But for now, she had to come up with a smart way of broaching the sensitive topic of his dad without alienating him. "Did you do anything last night after you dropped me off?"
He stiffened but didn't pull away. "Went back to my place and emptied the minibar, which I keep stocked for my occasional trips to Melbourne. Easier than having a regular fridge."
She didn't know if that jibe about him being transient was directed at her, a pointed declaration that he wouldn't be around for long so she should shut the hell up. It didn't stop her but she didn't want to sound judgemental. "It's always more fun drinking from those teeny tiny bottles."
"It's what's inside that counts." He sounded resigned rather than bitter and she hesitated, searching for the right words to ask what was bugging him. "It's not like a hotel minibar. I stock regular sized beer cans in there. Much more effective for kicking back and forgetting everything."
Before she could say anything, he continued. "I'm not an alcoholic, I've just had a rough few days and I apologise for my shitty behaviour yesterday." He huffed out a deep breath. "I'm not some dickhead trying to jerk you around, so maybe if I give you a little insight you might actually forgive me."
"Hey, there's nothing to forgive." She lifted his hand to her mouth and pressed a kiss on the back of it, trying to clamp down on her curiosity and failing. Thankfully, she hadn't had to pry much at all and he seemed ready to divulge snippets of his past.
The tension bracketing his mouth lessened but the haunted shadows flitting across his eyes didn't. "My dad wasn't around much when I was growing up. He tried to make it as a comedian so was on the road all the time. Mum and I missed him a lot, particularly Mum."
His eyes turned flinty as he hesitated, as if struggling to find the right words. "She was a different person when Dad was around. She'd light up and then when he left again, she'd clam up. I thought that maybe she had depression but she wasn't on any meds and didn't display many of the symptoms when I looked it up."
Hope clung to his hand, wishing she could infuse him with strength. She understood more than he knew. Having a physically present but emotionally absent parent could be just as hard as not having a parent at all. She'd often felt invisible around her parents; or worse, like they'd never wanted a child and didn't want her around. They tolerated her, doing their utmost to bend her to their will, to make her their clone.
When she hadn't acquiesced, they'd lied to force her into it and while she may have forgiven them, she'd never forget.
"What happened?"
His brows pulled in as he cleared his throat. "Dad started to make some serious money when I was in my teens so he rarely came home. Mum got worse to the point she pretty much ignored me most days, preferring to spend wasted hours looking up Dad's gigs online."
He stiffened, his expression contorting with pain. "Then she died."
Sadness tightened Hope's throat as she leaned in and rested her head against his shoulder. "That must've been heartbreaking."
"It was."
Two short, sharp words that hinted at sorrow and pain and devastation. Her parents may be narcissistic liars and she would mourn them out of obligation whenever they passed, but the audible anguish in Logan's gruff voice told her exactly how much he'd loved his mum.
He remained silent for a long while and she waited out his pause, surprised by his candour, relieved she didn't have to pry it from him but regretting causing him pain by recounting his past
"I blamed Dad for her death. At the funeral, he stood up in front of everyone and waxed lyrical about how much he loved his family, how everything he did was for me."
His upper lip curled in a sneer and his eyes hardened to a steely blue. "Bullshit. He happily abandoned us because it suited him. It was always about him. His career, his opportunities," he spat out, bitterness lacing every word as his face reddened. "He tried to reach out to me after the funeral. About how we should catch up more often now that I was moving to Melbourne for my apprenticeship. About how the men of the Holmes family had to stick together, how we had to look forward to the future together. I told him to shove it up his ass."
He stood rigid, his nostrils flared, a vein pulsing at his temple, and Hope slipped her arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest, trying to convey silent comfort. He held her but his arms were unyielding, his back stiff beneath her hands.
"The other day when he called and I was with you? He told me he'd had cancer." His voice cracked a little and he cleared his throat before continuing. "He's okay but he laid a heavy guilt trip on me and I've been mulling it ever since."
Helpless, she wished she could do something. She'd wanted to know what was behind Logan's funk and she'd got more than she bargained for. She had no idea whether Logan wanted comforting or to be left alone. His body language screamed hands-off but the torment in his eyes gutted her.
"What are you going to do?"
"Fucked if I know." His mouth twisted with resentment as he eased away and she had her answer. He didn't want comforting, which was probably a good thing because anything she could offer would be lame and ineffectual in the face of his dilemma. "The thing is, I can't see how seeing him face to face is going to change anything. He'll always be a selfish asshole to me. But then I think about how shitty I'd feel if he died before I got to say a bunch of stuff…"
"Then I think you've just figured out what you need to do." She rested her palm against his cheek. A simple gesture she hoped would convey that she understood and wished she could do more. "Make time to see him. You might purge the past and move forward. At the very least you'll get to voice your opinion. And who knows, you might even find yourself reconnecting—"
"Not going to happen," he said, through gritted teeth, his lips flattening. "But yeah, I think it's time."
"Do you want to do it now?"
"Hell no." He pulled her into his arms again and squished so hard she could barely breathe. "Thanks for listening. I'm not a sharer but it felt good to get all that off my chest."
Hope hugged him and they stood that way for a long time. She'd never been into overt displays of affection as a kid—no great surprise considering her folks considered an air kiss on birthdays more than enough—but conveying her support by wrapping Logan in her arms felt good. They may not be indulging in anything more than a fling but she hoped he derived some comfort from confiding in her and knowing she'd happily be his sounding board if needed.
When he released her, he stared at her with a tenderness that made her ache and want to hug him all over again.
"You sure you don't want to call your dad now?"
"No. I want to do something else."
She couldn't fathom the determined spark in his eyes but it was better than the pain of the last few minutes. "What?"
He lowered his head to whisper in her ear. "I want to do what I should've done last night with you."
His tongue traced the whorl of her ear in a slow, deliberate swipe. "And it doesn't involve watching a footy replay."
Hope almost felt guilty as relief seeped through her. This, she could do. She understood their intense physical connection. The riotous confusion of emotions his confiding in her elicited, not so much.
"Oh?" She arched an eyebrow and struck a provocative pose with her hand on her hip, responding in kind to his switch to playful.
His wicked laugh rippled over her, loaded with intent. "Ever checked into a hotel for a quickie?"
A wave of heat swamped her at the thought, pooling in her cheeks that had to be a beacon for the ripple of excitement making her skin pebble. "No."
His fingertip grazed her blazing cheek before trailing along her jaw, her chin, eventually tracing her bottom lip with deliberate lightness. "Well, we're in the heart of the city, surrounded by a billion hotels, so why don't we save the laneways tour for another time?"
The old Hope would've been appalled by such a suggestion. But the new Hope she'd become through releasing her old insecurities one layer at a time leapt at the raunchy thought of ducking into a hotel with the sole intention of having sex.
"These laneways aren't going anywhere," she said, glancing at him coyly from beneath lowered lashes. "We should definitely do our bit for inner city tourism and check into a hotel."
"I love how spontaneous you are," he said, grabbing her hand and tugging her close for a quick kiss that did little to assuage the sudden burning of her body. "Let's go find the nearest one."
She didn't have to be asked twice and they almost stumbled from the dark laneway in their quest to find the nearest hotel. Thankfully, it wasn't far; they spotted the sign on the corner of the next block at the same time.
"Fortuitous," she said, at the same time he said, "Fate."
They laughed and picked up the pace, almost bounding up the three concrete steps and pushing through a heavy glass door into a cool interior. The lobby had a shabby, understated elegance to it, like an old lady who'd seen better days. Faded chintz sofas strategically bracketed mahogany coffee tables, with fringed lamps casting a warm glow. The polished parquetry floor had seen better days, as had the brass check-in desk, but Hope didn't care.
All she cared about was getting naked with Logan as fast as humanly possible.
"Be right back," he said, squeezing her hand before releasing it.
As Hope watched him check in, her impatience growing as the receptionist dropped his credit card twice, she wondered what had gotten into her but not caring because soon it would be him.