Page 43 of Winter's End

“Nothing.” I strode into the condo like I owned the place and shucked off my jacket, hanging it off of a bar stool at the kitchen island. “Just a little nervous.”

My honesty surprised me, but that was what I was here for, right? Time to face facts and beat my brain at its own game. It was going to require some vulnerability on my part; an emotion I was probably as used to showing as Logan was, but it was time to put away the games.

For today, at least.

Logan’s genuine smile gave me seriousTwilight Zonevibes.

“I’m nervous, too,” he admitted, spinning the bar stool around and plunking himself down on it, gesturing for me to do the same in the one beside him. “I’ve never had to teach somebody to do this before.” He ran a hand through his hair and cleared his throat. “It’s not something I’ve shared with anyone before.”

Vulnerability overload. This man was seriously attractive when he shut his mouth and opened up his heart.

After a moment of silence, since I had no idea what to say to that, I broke it.

“So, what do I do? Do we listen to Zen music and meditate or something?”

His amused chuckle sounded wrong, as it lacked any sort of bite or irony. “Something, sure. Let’s sit in the living room.”

He clicked a button on a remote on the counter and the space filled with soft classical music. I cocked my head at him as if to say ‘really?’ but he ignored my gaze.

I moved to the buttery-soft white leather sectional I once had the luxury of sleeping on—ironically, post-panic attack. Logan sat beside me, turning his body to face mine.

“One of the first considerations when working through panic attacks is understanding what triggers you.” His liquid honey-brown eyes stared right into my soul as he said the words; I was transfixed by the subtle flecks of milk chocolate around the irises. “Do you know what those are?”

“Umm, I think so.” I scrunched my nose as I considered the most recent ones I’d had. “At first, they resulted from the bullying, but if I look deeper, it’s not so much a lack of control, but when I’m fully blindsided by something.”

I’d had a panic attack when I’d seen Dad at the fighting ring, when I’d been shopping with Hillary, when I was taken at the wedding—all instances of feeling overwhelmingly vulnerable. My men had been showing me vulnerability wasn’t as scary as I’d always thought, but that didn’t mean I’d had a lobotomy in the time we’d started dating.

Nope, my brain was still as damaged as ever. Winning?

Logan nodded slowly, his gaze contemplative. “Okay, I can work with that.”

“What’s your trigger?” I blurted out the words before considering them, as if I needed us to play a game of vulnerability Tic Tac Toe. My X for his O.

To his credit, he didn’t hesitate. “Feeling trapped.”

A memory niggled at the back of my mind. “You said you hated tight spaces. Is that a part of it?”

Another nod and a rough swallow. The overconfident businessman suddenly didn’t look so confident.

“Stanley used to lock me in a closet as punishment.”

I just blinked at him, surprised and saddened all at once. Despite all of my own parents’ failings, I’d never once felt unsafe in their presence.

I reached for his hand and gently stroked the smooth skin across his knuckles. I softened my expression, giving him permission to go on. After a tense moment, he did.

“Mom died when I was five. Something Hillary and I have in common. Hers died in childbirth, mine died from cancer. Stanley had all the money in the world, but he couldn’t save her, and he liked to take it out on me.”

We wouldn’t be able to go back from this conversation; I was hearing his truths, the reality and rawness of his life, and I was surprised to know that Iwantedto. I wanted to know the enigma that was Logan Eccles. Maybe I’d always had.

“Stanley is an alcoholic; he hides it well, though. He’d get drunk every night and scream a lot, but the actual beatings didn’t start until I was around ten; he established fear through confinement, mostly. On the nights he was feeling generous, he’d lock me in my bedroom. When he was feeling evil, he’d lock me in the laundry closet. I once spent two days in there after saying the wrong thing at a cocktail party and making him look bad.”

His tone turned murderous at that admission, a sinister promise of retribution lacing the words.

Ice crystallized in my bloodstream as I envisioned a lonely little boy locked in a closet for days because of his father’s fragile ego.

Logan lifted the hand I was holding and brought it to his lower back, hovering just above the outline of the belt-shaped scar I shouldn’t have seen in the cellar all those months ago.

“I got that one after our date.” His words were as soft as a prayer.

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