Page 36 of My Girl to Take

“When?” I cut in sharply. “Wednesday? Because I asked you on Wednesday. I stood in my own doorway, and I asked you what was wrong and you told me you’d missed me.”

Her expression falters. “I know. I—”

“Four days, Kiera.”

“That’s not—” Her voice breaks and steadies. “It isn’t what you think.”

“Then what is it?”

She stops, with her mouth open, and I watch her hunt for a sentence and not find one, because the true answer is complicated. It takes about four minutes and involves things she hasn’t said out loud to herself yet.

I don’t give her four minutes. I give her about two seconds.

“Right,” I mutter.

“Logan—”

“There’s a chain from eighteen months ago.” I hold up the file. “Your query about the fees. Philip forwarded it to your mother inside a week.” I watch it hit her. “You want to tell me how to read that?”

Her face empties.

“I flagged those fees,” she says. “I’m the reason you were looking.”

“I know,” I say. “That’s the part I can’t get past.”

I laugh. Short. Humorless. “I can’t believe I almost thought you were different,” I say, hurt and angry, shaking my head once as I take a step back. The distance is suddenly necessary, the tension in my chest tightening to the point where it feels hard to breathe.

“Logan, listen to me…” she starts, stepping toward me.

I don’t let her reach me. “I’ve seen enough.”

Her face falls. For a second, something inside me hesitates.

But then I remember the emails. The lies. The history. And it hardens again.

“Stay out of my way,” I add, my gaze flicking briefly to Ivy before returning to her. “Both of you.”

I turn before she can say anything else. Because if I stay, I might say something I can’t take back.

Behind me, in the doorway, I hear Ivy say something to her daughter in a low, sympathetic voice.

I don’t catch the words.

By the time I get to the house, my anger has settled into something colder.

Garth is in his room when I walk in. The nurse steps aside the moment she sees my expression, sensing the tension without needing to ask.

I don’t waste time, I don’t soften it, I don’t ease into it.

I lay everything out. The accounts. The money. Philip. Ivy. Every piece.

Garth listens in silence, his expression shifting slowly from confusion to disbelief to something heavier. It looks dangerously close to betrayal. By the time I’m done, the room feels thick with it.

“I don’t believe this,” he says finally, his voice rough.

“It’s all there,” I reply firmly. “Every bit of it.”

A knock sounds at the door before he can respond. Then it opens.