“We can. We will. First, I need to get some sleep because I’ve been flying all day to try to get to you.”
“Logan, I’m serious. We can’t get married.”
“Why not?”
“We don’t know each other anymore.”
“We could never be strangers, Aoife. You have always been here.” He tapped the spot overtop of his heart. “There are some things we need to catch up on, but nothing you could say could change the way I feel about you. The way I’ve always felt about you.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not fucking lying to you.”
“If you loved me so much, Grace never would have come between us.”
“I made a mistake, Aoife. One that I never plan to make again.”
I wasn’t sure if that was something I could put my faith in. Judging by the way my heart ticked up several beats per minute, my doubts didn’t matter. I would test the theory. It was impossible not to. Logan had been my person since we were six years old and if it hadn’t been for the threat of my dad’s plans hanging over my head, I’d have stuck around twelve years agoand Logan and I would have worked things out. Whether we stayed friends or became something more is beside the point. Our lives would have remained intertwined.
THIRTEEN
Trigger
LOGAN
I yawnedand Aoife quickly followed suit. “Come on.” I stood from the sofa and held my hand out for hers. She placed it in mine and followed behind me as I led us to my office, through the back door to my own private stairs that led to my apartment one floor above. Then we kept going without stopping for her to take anything in until we made it to my bedroom. She didn’t ask any questions until we were inside and the door was shut behind us.
“What are we doing here?” It was cute the way she bit down on her lip, a nervous gesture that hadn’t been broken during our time apart.
“I just got you back and I can’t let you out of my sight right now, but I’m fucking dead on my feet.” Aoife’s eyes darted around the room and kept returning to the bed as if the damn thing was going to jump up and bite her. “I promise, nothing has to happen beyond me holding onto you through the night. I won’t be able to stop myself from anchoring you to me.”
“I…” She took a deep breath and then slowly let it out again. “I won’t argue with that.”
“Do you feel the same, though?”
“I do. I’ve missed you, Lo. Leaving you behind was like cutting a piece of my soul from my body and walking away from it.”
“Let’s try to remember that feeling and never do it again, yeah?”
She nodded and turned so we were facing one another before she wrapped her arms around my waist and laid her head on my chest. “This is like a dream.” I don’t know if she meant for me to hear that or not, but it was as if she gave voice to my own thoughts. I pulled her in tight to me and locked my arms behind her. I wasn’t sure if there was a single force on earth that could pull me away.
“Where did Lucian and Miles go?” Aoife asked out of the blue after we stood there rocking back and forth while holding one another for a few minutes.
“They’re smart men, sweetheart.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“There was nothing they could say that would tear me away from you right now, so they left us to it for now.”
“For now?”
“Eventually, what there will need to be a bigger conversation with all my brothers and Miles about how we’re going to handle Andrew-fucking-Connolly and your father.”
“Are you going to kill them?”
“Andrew - without a doubt. Your father - probably not.”
“Why would you spare the man who caused all this?”
