Page 70 of Whenever You Call

“I had plenty of choice, Hannah.”

“But you’re too kind to say no even if you didn’t want me there.”

“And what if I did? What if I did want you there?”

“Did you?”

“More than I realized I would, yeah.”

Her fingers twitched around her clutched cup, and I wasn’t sure if she meant for me to see the surprise in her eyes before she forced it away.

I wanted to say more. To tell her how fucking good it felt to hold her delicate body and brush against her silky soft skin. I wanted to tell her how I’d listened to her steady heartbeats, counting them like some lovesick, fucked-up, whipped guy from one of those overly romantic movies everyone at the station moaned about their wives watching. I wanted to tell her all the things I enjoyed, but I couldn’t because I had so much other shit going on in my head instead.

Twisting my dry hands together, I looked down at them, trying to put my thoughts in order, not knowing how the hell to finish this once and for all and get it out there. Not knowing how to even start.

“Listen, Hannah. What you do and don’t do around me is up to you. I’ve made it pretty clear since we met that I’m here for you, no matter what you need, and I mean it.” My hands stilled, and I finally raised my chin, looking up into her cautious eyes. “But before we carry on with this…friendshipof ours. Before we continue to spend time together, calling and texting each other, and ingraining ourselves in each other’s lives the way we’ve been doing this last couple of months, I think it’s only right that you know everything you need to know about me… to make this fair.”

Her eyes searched mine, the dread she’d been so used to rising to the surface. “What don’t I know about you, Logan?”

“Too much.”

“Like…?”

I closed my eyes, let my chin fall to my chest again, and I took a moment to blow out a breath, remembering her husband’s face just moments before he took his last breath.

It was there.

Right there on the tip of my tongue.

And now was the time.

I was there with him the night he died. We didn’t meet by accident. Our friendship wasn’t written in the stars and left to fate. I made it happen, Hannah.

I was the guy who failed him.

And ever since then, I’ve failed you by lying to you, too.

But when I lifted my head to take her in, and I opened my mouth to speak, Hannah’s attention drifted over my shoulder as something else caught her eyes, and a scowl furrowed her brow.

I followed her gaze, only to see a wrung-out, panting Livia there, with her brown bag slung over her shoulder, and her hand pushing her dark hair away from her face as she looked at Hannah and gasped, “Thank God you’re here.”

“Livia? What’s wrong? What are you doing here so early?” Hannah asked.

“Oh, Hannah,” she whimpered. “Have you… have you seen it?”

“Seen what?”

Livia’s face paled. “I’m so sorry. It’s everywhere this morning. I thought you’d already have heard.”

“Heard what? What’s going on?” I asked, the hairs on the back of my neck standing to attention as I glimpsed between the two of them.

But when I focused back on Hannah, she held herself poised before taking a long, deep breath. She uncurled her legs from beneath her, carefully dropping her cup to the coffee table and laying her hands on her knees. A quiet storm brewed inside her eyes as every ounce of lightness drifted away, only to be replaced by tension and darkness that actually fucking frightened me.

“Go on, Livia. Tell me,” she said calmly. “Who else has Cole slept with now?”

Chapter28

LOGAN

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