by Lily Harlem
The door slammed shut.
The frame rattled.
The apartment roared with silence.
My knees gave up the fight and I fell into a crumpled heap by the door, broken and wilted like my tipped roses. Naked and with a shattered heart, I pressed my pounding forehead onto the cold tiles and willed myself to wake up. This was the worst nightmare ever. With each second that passed, the hole in my heart was growing. My soul was being shredded like tender flesh over coral.
Where had my delicious glow of love and respect gone? The intense belief that I’d found the other half of my being, the positive to my negative. My life had been thrown into the air like Chinese sticks and they’d landed all wrong. Tangled and crossed, splintered and unreadable.
I gave in to gut-wrenching sobs. Let the well of hot, salty tears overflow my lower lids. I barely noticed the wetness on my cheeks as my time with Logan flashed before me. Walking on the beach hand in hand. Standing beneath the stars. Him touching me with caresses full of love, me touching his beautiful, powerful body. The way his mellow laugh rumbled through my bones and the sharp way my breath hitched when he settled his lust-filled eyes on me.
I couldn’t go on. This pain was just too real. Worse than any physical harm, worse than a million anemones. His voice—words of love and words of hate—echoed in my mind, chasing away sanity, replacing it with madness, anger and burning unjustness. How could he really, in his heart of hearts, think that of me? Where had the respect gone, the consideration, the bond that had sealed us together so intensely in bed only two nights ago? I couldn’t imagine us being apart as I’d fallen asleep in his arms. He’d held me as if I was the most precious thing on this earth.
And now.
Now he thought I was a whore and worse than that, he’d fucked me without any tenderness or consideration, as if I was a whore.
Chapter Twelve
I moved through the next few weeks a zombie, barely registering the passing of time. The cataclysmic event that had torn apart my life had left me worse than broken. I was empty and hollow. My insides were a gaping black hole, void of any kind of light.
The entrance exam came and went. I did okay. The questions were not as demanding as I’d thought they were going to be and I reached the interview stage. But I was at the mercy of the heavens. Whatever the stars wanted to dole out for me I’d just have to take it. If nursing wasn’t meant for me then there was nothing I could do to change that fact.
My relationship with Logan had felt as though it was meant to be. It had been so perfect, so right, yet it had all gone wrong. It had all been my fault. From the very moment I’d agreed to go to the villa I’d knocked my karma off course and now karmic retribution had bitten me on the ass, big-time.
I dragged my no doubt completely blotchy aura and myself to The Grill each day. The first thing I’d done was tear up the photo of Logan and me in the water. Max had it pinned to the notice board in his office alongside his ticket to an Orlando Vipers game signed by Ramrod. I didn’t need to say anything to him. He looked at my empty eyes, my pale face and my tight lips and patted my arm like a kindly uncle. It was enough to make my lower lids fill and my throat constrict, even though I didn’t think it was possible to shed any more tears over Logan.
Giselle cooked fancy dinners that I pushed around my plate each evening. My senses had dulled, even my taste buds. Nothing had flavor, it all tasted the same. She paid off my credit card bill as she’d promised she would if I didn’t get paid. My pride wanted to stop her, but I had little choice and she was too adamant for me to be bothered to put up a fight.
I lay in bed at night, work-weary from hours on my feet but unable to sleep. Logan’s face hovered before me every time I shut my lids. His crystal clear blue eyes and long lashes. His dark brows, one scarred not just from hockey but also from the fight he’d had with Brick. I visualized his wide mouth tipping in amusement, pressing kisses to my skin and telling me he loved me.
When eventually I did grab snatches of sleep, I dreamed of him. It was always the same. He was standing on the sand, bare-chested in the sunshine, beer in one hand and shades over his eyes. The dream began with me trying to get him to notice me in front of him. I smiled, waved and eventually shouted his name. But he looked right through me, ignoring me despite my efforts. My temper swelled, fury consumed me, and by the end of the nightmare I was pounding clenched fists against his chest. Screaming and crying, begging him to listen, to see what was before him. But his face didn’t even register my words, his body didn’t flinch, and eventually he turned and walked into the sea. I always woke with wet cheeks and the covers thrown off. Twice Giselle had come into my room in the early hours to see if I was all right when she’d heard me crying out. But she’d gotten used to my new nightly routine, and now she left me to my torment.
I didn’t know which emotion was the worst so I tried to block them all. It was the only way to get out of bed in the morning. The sadness was so desolate, so vacant that I felt like a planet knocked off course for all eternity. It gouged out a part of me that had never even had a chance to fully grow. The fury was the opposite, it was hot and wild and left my skin prickling when I thought of his words and the last time he’d laid his hands on me. My body felt as though it was not my own, it had been used by a lover in a way that wasn’t loving. Penetrated by a man as full of anger and revenge as he had been full of sweetness and love. It had felt so good, so intense, but seconds after the climax the plug had been pulled on my euphoria and now I’d ever be able to trust anyone again.
“Brooke, have you taken those double cheeseburgers to table ten yet?” Max asked, wiping his greasy hands down his apron.
“Just doing it,” I said, slipping a pencil behind my ear and reaching for the two overloaded plates.
“You need to get a move on, the place is filling up.” Max dropped more fries into fat and the air in front of him hissed and spat. “After-work rush.”
I glanced out the window at the full parking lot, sidled around another waitress and headed to table ten. I deposited the food with a strained smile and dashed to table six to take an order from a young family.
“Three nuggets and fries, a double bacon burger with two eggs over easy and a medium steak with salad and fries,” I called to the kitchen as I hastily scrawled the order.
I reached for a tray with a lone Bud on it.
“Table eighteen,” Max said.
“Not mine,” I said, reaching for a cloth to go and wipe down a recently vacated table that was mine.
“Just do it,” Max said gruffly.
I tutted and straightened my skirt. I was always picking up Shirley’s work and she never shared tips. I grabbed the Bud, without the tray, and walked to the far end of the restaurant. At table eighteen, with his back to me, sat a guy in a deep purple t-shirt with a baseball cap pulled low and big legs sticking out from under the table.
I took out a coaster from my pinny pocket, dropped it in front of him, and placed the dew-covered bottle on top of it. “You ordered a Bud?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He curled big fingers around the beer and looked up at me.
I froze.
My mind registered what my eyes were seeing but it took a moment for the neurons to fire. When they did my heart melted at the same time as my blood boiled. “What…What the hell are you doing here?”
“I needed to see you.”
“Well, I damn well don’t need to see you.” I snatched back the beer. “You’re not getting served here. Go.”
“Sit, we need to talk.”
“Not a chance.” I glanced over at Max, who was busy ordering the junior chef about. “Apart from the fact I’m rushed off my feet, I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, Logan.”
“Brooke,” he said through gritted teeth. “Please.”
“No, now get out.” I went to point to the door but as I raised my arm he snapped out his hand and harnessed my wrist.
“If you don’t sit your ass on the seat oppos
ite me,” he said in a low growl, “right now, I’m going to throw you over my shoulder, march out of here and put you in my truck. Then I’m gonna lock the door and say what I want to say and you will listen. Now it’s your choice, you can show the whole place the color of your panties as you no doubt scream and holler over my shoulder or you can sit quietly and listen to me.” The pressure on my wrist tightened. “Now what’s it gonna be?”
I jerked my arm, trying to rid his fingers. His touch was sending electric currents up to my shoulder, across my chest and straight into my vulnerable heart. The thought that he could dart straight back in there made my blood pressure rocket with fury. As did the thought that he might actually throw me over his shoulder and flash my underwear to the whole place. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“You wanna try me?” His eyes flashed dangerously as his fingers squeezed my tendons and bones even tighter.
I glared at his steely, challenging face and knew I had no choice. He was seconds from hauling me into the air like the caveman he was.
I slammed down his beer again and slipped onto the red plastic seat opposite. He finally let go of my arm and reached for his Bud.
“Be quick,” I said, averting my eyes from the face of the man who’d made me love him and then broken my heart.
“It will take as long as it takes,” he said, resting back as if he had all the time in the world.
“No, it won’t,” I glanced at my watch. “You’ve got one minute, starting now.”
“That’s not long.”
“Long enough to drink and go.”
“But not long enough for me to apologize to you.”
I gave a small huff. “Words are not enough to undo what you did, Logan. It cut too deep.”
“I know and I’m sorry.” He leaned forward and reached for my hand again.
I snapped it away. I couldn’t let him touch me, it weakened the ridiculously fragile armor I’d built around myself.
“You’re right, sorry isn’t enough,” he said, taking a sip of beer. “Words are pathetic, so let me make it up to you in other ways.”
My treacherous body was flushing at his proximity, repeatedly pulling in deep breaths of his delicious aftershave and my gaze, like a magnet, was drifting to his face again. Absorbing the angles of his cheeks in the shadow of his peaked cap, the small creases darting from the corners of his eyes to his temples and the way a small drip of froth sat on his top lip. “You’ve hurt me too much,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and curling my fingers into the thin cotton of my blouse. “It’s too late for us.” I leaned forward and lowered my voice, anxious not to be overheard by other customers, or worse still, the waitstaff. “You called me a whore, Logan, remember? You called me a whore.”
He pressed his lips together and snatched in a breath.
“And…” I whispered. “And you treated me like a whore too.” I swallowed tightly. “You touched me like I meant nothing to you when I thought you were being passionate, that we were making love as two equals.”
An infuriating silence fell between us.
He took a draught of his beer as my body trembled, memories from that night flashing through my mind.
“I was mad at you,” he said. “Real mad.”
“But you wouldn’t even let me explain.”
“I understand everything now.”
“How, how the hell do you understand now, but you couldn’t back then?” I unfolded my arms.
“I went to your apartment.” He took off his cap, ran a hand through his hair then pulled the peak back down low over his brow. “I spoke to Giselle.”
“You went to see Giselle? When?” I placed my fingers on the red-checked tablecloth.
“Today, this afternoon, when I was looking for you.” He reached for my hand again but I snapped it away.
He flinched as though I’d struck him. It was the way I’d wanted him to flinch in my angry dreams.
“I didn’t care about the circumstances,” he said in a tight voice, “or the situation, I just needed to see you. Because what you said, right before I left that night—”
Prickles of irritation swept through my scalp. “So you thought I’d slept with you for money right up until this morning. Until only few hours ago you still thought I’d done all of that on some sort of business deal?”
“Yes…no…yes.” He shook his head and pulled in a deep breath. “Until this morning, yes, I still thought you’d slept with me for the money. But your roommate filled me in on the details and told me in no uncertain terms that if I ever called you a whore again I’d regret it big-time.” He rubbed his fingers over his chin. “She’s very protective of you, isn’t she?”
The image of Giselle, all tiny and perfect, wagging her finger at Logan, sprang to mind. The girl looked sweet but she could bite like a pit bull, I’d seen her do it before. “She’s always looked out for me,” I said. “She’s all I’ve got.”
“No, she isn’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I frowned.
“You’ve got me now.”
“No, I haven’t, Logan, you’re not part of my life anymore, you made sure of that, and…” I paused then spoke again in a quiet but firm voice, “If you still think I’m a whore I want you to leave right now.”
“I know you’re not a…whore. Giselle told me about the deal with Fergal. How you were getting paid for a holiday, to be a companion and that sex wasn’t part of it.”
“Well of course it wasn’t.” I rolled my eyes.
One corner of his mouth tilted. “I’m glad it happened, though, I’m glad you were there as my companion, like, really damn glad.”
I pursed my lips and looked at my watch. Tried to ignore the buzzing in my belly at the memory of our naked time in the villa. “I think you’ve said everything you need to say now, don’t you?”
“Not by a long shot.”
“I have to work, Logan.”
“Take your break.”
“I don’t get a break.” I went to stand.
He reached out. This time I was too slow and he grabbed my hand as it rested on the table, then tugged me back down to the seat. “I’m sorry, Brooke. If you let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
“You could never make it up to me. No one has ever made me feel so low, dirty and used.”
The muscle in his cheek flexed and he tightened his fingers around mine. “What I did was bad,” he ground out. “But you’re not totally blameless either.”
“How do you figure that?”
He shook his head. “You could have just been honest. You could have said you were getting paid to stop me, to quote Giselle, ‘from drinking myself into a coma every night and watching reruns of old games.’ That way we would have both known where we stood. All this bull about your dad being a friend of Fergal’s, it’s driven me fucking nuts wondering what else you made up.”
I stiffened. “I lost both my parents in the car crash I told you my mother died in. So there was only the made-up father and really Fergal started that one, so other than that you got to know the real me at the villa. I didn’t tell you any lies about who I am or what I want to do with my life.” I paused. Logan had a point. I’d known at the time I should tell him. The deception had hung over me, blotching my aura like an oil slick.
“Look at it from my point of view,” he went on earnestly. “I thought I’d finally met someone who liked me for me. Someone who knew me as Logan and not Phoenix. And then I find out you were paid to like me, paid to be with me. How low do you think that made me feel? I thought I’d been making love to a beautiful woman who was into it and then found out it was all an act.”
I saw pain pierce his eyes. It stabbed my heart to know I’d put it there.
“I felt dirty and used too,” he said quietly.
“Please don’t say that. Because it wasn’t an act, you have to believe me.” A bubble of emotion popped in my chest. “I was as into it as you, and I do like you for you,” I said
, beating down a thickening in my throat.
“Just like?”
“Oh, Logan.” I dropped my head into my free hand and blinked back a tear of regret. “We could have been so perfect together, but this is such a mess now.”
“We can sort it.”
“No we can’t, we’ve messed up our karmas forever.”
“Don’t say that. You’re good for my karma, you cleanse it, you know you do. You get rid of all those nasty black streaks.”
“That’s auras, not karmas, that are cleansed.”
“Well, whatever, all I know is yours is good for mine. I played better than I had all season with you in the stands. Did you see that shot in the first period? It was awesome.”
I nodded and nearly smiled at the memory.
“I’ve still been playing well, but jeez, that game really set me back on form.”
Glancing at Max I saw him glaring at me with his hands on his hips.
“Please, Brooke,” Logan said, leaning in and lowering his voice. “Come with me. Come with me now to my place, move in while you do your nurse training and let me look after you. I’ve got a huge house to rattle around in, plenty of money—”
“I don’t need your money,” I said quickly.
He sighed and looked down at the table. “I know you don’t, and I didn’t mean look after you like that although of course I want to.” He smoothed his thumb over my knuckles so softly it was as if butterflies had landed there. “I meant let me rub your feet when they ache after a shift on the ward, let me bring you coffee and cake when you’re studying.” He looked up and smiled. “Let me take you to the beach for picnics on your days off so we can swim naked in the sea again.”
His gaze lowered to my lips and it took every ounce of self-discipline I possessed to stop myself from leaning over and kissing him. I wanted to swim naked in the sea with him again. I wanted to let him look after me more than I wanted to do anything else in the world.
“Tell me you haven’t missed me touching you, holding you, kissing you and I’ll walk away.” He looked deep into my eyes and his jaw tensed. “But say it like you mean it, ’cause you’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a very long time and I’m not going to let you go unless I’m sure there’s nothing left to repair.”
