CHAPTER 24

I felt sick.

Logan wanted one thing from me, one thing, and I’d already mucked it up.

I spent the next few hours trying to push past my emotions and think rationally. I needed to come up with some way of making this situation work out for everyone.

I just didn’t know how.

“Are you going to speak ever again?” Cole said.

He sat across from me at Rae’s kitchen table. Rae was out. After having heard the commotion at work, she’d decided we probably wouldn’t be great company that night. Why she couldn’t just say she was giving us some space, I didn’t know, but that was Rae’s way. You would think being thoughtful was something to be ashamed of the way she tried so hard to hide her considerate side.

“I’m sorry.” I pushed my plate of egg noodles and red Thai chicken away. “I just keep thinking things over and over and I still don’t know what to do.” I bit my lip and then suggested softly, “Perhaps we should take a step back.”

Cole froze for a second before his fork clattered to his plate. “Excuse me?”

I continued thinking out loud. “Just until I breach the distance with my parents. You know . . . ease myself back into the fold, show them I’m trying, and then when they see that, you and I can pick up speed again and they’ll see for themselves what a good guy you are.”

The air in the room turned arctic. I knew immediately I’d made a huge error in judgment by thinking out loud. Anger, incredulity . . . and hurt blazed in Cole’s eyes as he shoved back from the table to tower over it and me. His voice was almost a whisper, it was so choked with emotion. “After everything, after the way they’ve treated you, neglected you, you want to put us on hold to appease them?”

I slid back from my chair, desperately trying to think of a way to calm the situation, to articulate this correctly, because clearly I was messing it up. “No! I mean, just temporarily.”

Wrong thing to say! My eyes widened as his whole being seemed to expand with anger. “You cannot be serious?” he said.

“Cole, please. Try to see it from my perspective. This is my family. And yes, they’re not a great one, but they’re still my family. They’re hurt and scared and I’ve been running from them, it all, for too long. It’s time to fix things. It’s what Logan wants and what I think I need.” I took a step toward him, placation in my eyes. He flinched back from me. I was royally screwing this explanation up. “Cole . . . you of all people have to understand. Your mum was a crap mum, but you never abandoned her. Not completely.”

A muscle flexed in his jaw as he nodded with teeth gritted. Finally he expelled his breath in a hoarse voice. “But I would never have chosen her over you.”

“I’m not choosing anyone over—”

“I can’t do this right now.” He held up a hand to interrupt me. “I need to walk out of here before I say shit I’ll regret.”

Wondering how the conversation could have taken such a bad turn, I pleaded with him. “Don’t. I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m just trying to think of—”

“Not trying to hurt me?” He pushed the chair he’d been sitting in hard against the table. It was my turn to flinch back. “You’re asking me to fucking prove myself. If anyone has to prove themselves it’s them!”

I pressed my lips closed, realizing with a heaviness in my gut that that was exactly what I’d just asked him to do. After telling my family that I would never do that to him, I’d done it without thinking. “I didn’t mean that,” I promised. “I really didn’t. I just don’t know what else to do.”

But my apology didn’t even penetrate his anger. He leaned forward, eyes narrowed, and hissed, “Here’s a hint: You should never have said you wanted to take a break. You should never have asked me to prove myself after all the shit you’ve put me through.” He cut me another disgusted look and strode out of the room while I recovered from his furious attack.

Hearing the front door open, I snapped out of my stupor and raced down the hallway. “Cole!”

He spun around. “And to think I was going to ask you to move in with me. What a huge fucking mistake that would have been.”

Oh heck, this was not happening. “Cole, please—”

The door slammed shut on my face.

I stumbled forward, about to chase after him, when his words started ringing in my ears. He was furious. My continued attempts to rectify the situation weren’t going to change how he felt at the moment.

I leaned my forehead against the door. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” I whimpered.

*   *   *

My suitcase lay open on my bed, my clothes scattered all over my bedroom, and I was staring at my artwork wondering how I was going to pack it up when the front door slammed.

“Shannon fucking MacLeod, you and I need to have a word!” Rae shouted through the flat. “I’ve just been consoling your very pissed-off and hurt man and I’ve got to say . . .” Her voice trailed off as she entered my bedroom. I watched as she took in the suitcase and the clothes that were in the progress of being packed into it. “Okay.” She swallowed hard. “You should know that Cole is really hotheaded. He doesn’t seem it because he’s so laid-back all the time, but when something pisses him off, I mean, he just lets fly without thinking.” She was rambling now. “Did you know that when he found out Marco was the guy that knocked Hannah up when she was seventeen, he didn’t even give her a chance to explain shit? He just flew off the handle and went after Marco. He tried to beat the crap out of him on a construction site. Got a few good punches in too.”