Logan Whitman is standing in the doorway, a laptop bag over one shoulder, looking like he’s seen a ghost.
Because he has. I’m the ghost. The woman who fled the country to escape him.
For a moment, neither of us moves. The room is silent—the kind of silence that has weight, that presses against your eardrums.
And in that instant, I know. Three months away did nothing. The humiliation I’ve been desperately trying to hide from is still right there.
I’m definitely not over it.
Worse, part of me is cataloguing him. The tired eyes. The rumpled shirt. The way he’s gripping his laptop bag like it’s a shield. Part of me wants to ask if he’s OK. Wants to close the distance. Wants to pretend that night never happened and go back to the way we used to be—finishing each other’s sentences, orbiting each other in the lab like binary stars.
I crush that part. Bury it. Lock it in a box and throw away the key.
“Audrey.” The way he says my name sounds like it was lodged in his throat. He hides it by pushing his glasses back up his nose.
He looks the same. Maybe a little thinner, but definitely just as broad and tall as I remember. His hair is doing that thing where it sticks up at odd angles because he’s been running his hands through it. He’s wearing a button-down that’s slightly wrinkled, like he grabbed it off the floor this morning.
He looks like Logan. My Logan.
No. Not mine. Never mine.
“Logan.” Flat. Neutral. Professional. “We were just discussing… er…” Shit. What were we discussing?
“You, actually.” Layla jumps in. “Bennett was just telling us you’re heading up the security overhaul. That you’d be back on site full-time.”
He nods. “Correct. I’ll be reporting directly to you.” He sits two seats over from mine, carefully stacking his laptop and notebook. He doesn’t look up.
I want to die. Or at least dissolve cleanly into my chair.
“Excellent.” Robert smooths things over with a brisk nod. “Audrey, you and Dr. Whitman go back, yes?”
Layla’s eyes flick toward me in horror, but what does it matter? “Yes,” I say, voice crisp as a bandage. “We’ve collaborated before.”
“Good.” Robert’s already moving on. “We’ll need that synergy.”
A flush creeps up Logan’s neck. I know this look—a million presentations, every time a question doesn’t match his mental script. He hates surprises. I can almost feel how badly he wishes he were invisible.
Join the club, buddy.
Robert continues the meeting like he hasn’t just detonated a bomb in the middle of the conference room. He walks through timelines, resource allocation, reporting structures. I take notes because it gives me something to do with my hands. Something to look at that isn’t Logan.
But I’m aware of him, anyway. The sound of his pen against his notebook. The way he shifts in his chair every few minutes. At one point, his knee bumps the table leg, and the vibration travels through the wood to where my elbow rests. I jerk my arm back like I’ve been burned.
No one notices. Except maybe him.
He’s looking at me—quick glances when he thinks I won’t notice. I notice everything. I always have, when it comes to him.
That’s the problem.
Forty minutes later, Robert wraps up with a brisk summary of action items and next steps. Handshakes all around. Landon pauses to welcome me back, his grip warm and steady. Robert is already on his phone before he’s out the door.
Logan gathers his things slowly, as if he’s waiting for something. Waiting for me to look at him, maybe. I don’t.
“Audrey.” Bennett appears at my elbow, voice low. “Walk with me?”
Figuring I don’t really have a choice in the matter, I follow him out of the conference room, leaving Logan behind with Layla.
Bennett leads me down the hall toward the windows, away from the foot traffic. When he turns to face me, his expression is careful. Concerned.
