Page 162 of The Rom-Commers

“If I were in love with her, I would.”

I blinked. “He’s not in love with me,” I said. “He told me he wasn’t.”

But as we pulled up to the Biltmore valet, Logan just said, “I can’t believe you fell for that, either.”

I THOUGHT LOGANwas just dropping me off at the Biltmore, but as I got out—still a little dazed—he handed his keys to the valet.

“You’re—coming in?” I asked.

Logan nodded. “I’m headed to the ballroom.”

I frowned. “What’s in the ballroom?”

Logan met my eyes. “Charlie.”

“Oh,” I said. “This is where the awards ceremony is?”

Logan nodded.

“Did you know Charlie would be here tonight when you booked a room for me in this hotel?”

Logan nodded again.

“Are you tricking me into going to the ceremony?” I asked.

“Not unless you want me to,” Logan said.

“I don’t want you to,” I said.

“Even after finding out about the VIP upgrade?”

“I didn’t ask him to do that,” I said. “I asked him to leave me alone.”

“You should come with me,” Logan said, gesturing at the ballroom. “It would mean a lot to Charlie.”

I flared my nostrils. “Charlie doesn’t care about me—or awards. Don’t you know he keeps them all in a drawer?”

“Yeah. But that’s only because he smashed the glass-front antique he used to keep them in.”

“What do you mean,smashedit?”

“He pushed it over, and it shattered,” Logan said. “On the night his wife left him.”

I took that in.

“He does care about those awards,” Logan said. “And he cares about you, too, by the way.”

But it all felt like too much. “I’m going to pass.”

Logan nodded, likeFair enough. Then he said, “I’m going to send you a three-minute video now, and I want you to watch it right away.”

Logan had a checkered past with sending videos. “What kind of video?”

“A video that I wanted to send sooner.”

“That’s not really an answer.”

“I don’t actually have permission to send it even now,” Logan said.

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