Page 52 of Anything but Mine

A bottle of ice wine and Johnny Walker Blue.

Aimee’s favorites.

Every ounce of pleasure in the day drained out of him. His shoulders tightened as he slowly lifted the envelope that lay discarded on the counter. Inside, a simple white piece of card stock with two words: love, me.

Logan picked up the bottle of ice wine, calmly uncorked it, and poured it down the drain before dropping the empty bottle into the recycle bin.

“What are you doing?”

Logan didn’t answer. The only thing he could focus on was ridding his house of her. He picked up the bottle of Blue and handed it to Zeke. “Make sure this is gone by morning. I don’t care if you drink it or you pour it down the sink.”

Zeke frowned. “You didn’t send this over?”

“No.”

“So, it was Charlie. You know how excited he was about the press for this shindig. He’s been drooling about this show since you called him Tuesday.”

“It wasn’t Charlie.”

Logan swiped the envelope off the counter, took out the card, and handed it to Zeke.

His face went gray under his perpetual tan. “Jesus. I didn’t—I wouldn’t have…”

“It’s fine.” Logan raked his fingers through his hair. “Just make sure it’s gone. I don’t want to take it away from the guys.”

He should have known. Things were going too smoothly, and he’d all but forgotten about Aimee for a few hours. His head had been full of jasmine and laughter and that ridiculously hot moan Izzy made when he touched her.

It took everything inside of him not to swipe his arm across the display of colorful bottles and destroy them all. She’d gotten in his house. The one place that she’d never managed to touch.

Was she here in Winchester Falls? Had this just been a delivery?

“Were you here when it came in?”

Zeke shrugged. “No, man. It was here when we got back from practice. I didn’t even notice the card.”

“You saw exactly what she wanted you to see. That’s how she works.”

“It’s just alcohol—”

“It’s never just alcohol, never just a gift.” Logan crossed to the liquor cabinet. He reached onto the top shelf and pulled his bottle of Dalmore down along with a tumbler and went out the back.

The spotlights glowed in the deep end of his pool, leaving everything a shimmering turquoise. He picked an Adirondack chair at the back of the property, dumped his glass on the matching table, uncapped the bottle, and filled it an inch from the top. He set the bottle down with a shaking hand.

She wasn’t going to get him riled up before another damn show. Not this one. Not here. He wasn’t going to ruin the first good thing he’d had in too many years to count. Between Izzy and this charity show, he was actually happy.

He clenched his fingers into a fist and waited out the panic. When his hand was steady, he lifted the glass and knocked back half of it. The high end whisky didn’t burn like the cheap kind. It bloomed with heat and the backlash of the smoky barrel it had been aged in.

He collapsed into the chair and stared up at the stars.

Not this fucking time.

Fifteen

“Hey Boss, I need—”

“No.”

Nic stopped in her tracks. “What do you mean no?”

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