Gently tilting her chin up, Logan forced her to look at him. He leaned in, bringing their faces closer together, needing to make his point. “You’re the strongest woman I have ever met. Trusting me wasn’t easy for you, but you did trust me, Sam. I need you to keep trusting me.”
When she would have argued, he stopped her by interrupting. “What I feel for you isn’t superficial. Heather would never be able to distract me from you.”
He’d captured her attention, making her think about his meaning. Logan could see her confusion, knew he’d inserted doubt in her mind. When tears welled up in her eyes, Logan cupped her face. “God, Sam. You really don’t get it, do you?”
He brushed a kiss over her lips, still cupping her face so she couldn’t back away. “I didn’t go to California to have dinner with Heather. She set me up.” Logan explained, feeling Sam’s body tense. “I would have never gone to California if I had known what I was walking into. There wasn’t an issue with At Last’s contract. Heather manipulated the entire thing. Then, to top it off, when I told her that I had actually met someone, she did some digging and she found out about you.”
Sam pulled back quickly, his hands slipping from her cheeks. She was definitely listening now. Logan didn’t want her to have a chance to think about how lousy things could be, so he continued. “Xavier called me into his office this afternoon. He knows about us.”
“Oh God, Logan, I’m so sorry.” Sam turned and started pacing the floor.
What? What the hell was she sorry about? Logan hadn’t expected the sudden turn, so he just stared at her, his eyes tracking her every movement as she wore a path in the carpet.
“Maybe I can go back to San Antonio. I didn’t mean for this to happen anyway. Yes, it would be better for me to go back.”
Sam would have rambled more, except Logan grabbed her arm, stopping her back and forth momentum, pulling her flush against him. Gripping her arms, he held her back just enough to see her face. “I’m not letting you walk out of my life, so you can forget about San Antonio. We’ll work out any issues. Xavier understands what’s going on.”
“But, what if they think –”
“Trust me, Sam.” Logan gripped her chin more forcefully than before.
Sam’s palms were pressed against his chest, her face inches from his, and he knew she felt the way his heart thundered. She relaxed against him, and her body shuddered, making him pull her against him, his chin resting on the top of her head.
“I do trust you, Logan. That’s what the problem is. I trust you and I know that I can’t compete with anyone or anything for your attention.”
Holding her close, Logan inhaled the sweet citrus scent of her hair, felt the soft skin of her arms beneath his fingertips. At least they were making progress, but he didn’t expect this to be easy. Nothing worth fighting for ever was.
“We owe it to each other and to whatever this is between us to discuss this further.”
She nodded her head against his chest, her hands sliding around to his back, sending a frisson of heat coursing through him. When Sam touched him, his world slowed, and nothing mattered except the feel of her hands on him.
“This hurts Logan. The pain in my chest is almost unbearable. The worst part of it is I don’t want this to be over, but I know I’m no longer in control.”
She controlled more than she would ever know where he was concerned.
Feeling the need to explain, while she was giving him the chance, Logan started talking, still holding her close. “I didn’t even know Heather worked for At Last. I haven’t talked to her or seen her in eight years. Seeing her there caught me off guard, but the only thing I could think about was you.”
“You never even called. I waited for you to call and you didn’t. What was I supposed to think when I hear you telling Deanna that you had dinner with Heather?”
She was right. He hadn’t called. Trying to come up with a backup plan while preparing to discuss the extent of the negotiations At Last called him there for, Logan managed to stay busy. That’s what he tried to tell himself anyway.
If he was honest with himself, and Sam, Logan had avoided calling her so he could contemplate the feelings he had for her. They hit him unexpectedly and being the reasonable business man that he is, he had spent time trying to think about the pros and cons of how he felt about her.
This was one of the cons. He didn’t want to fight with her. He didn’t want to hurt her. And he didn’t want to get hurt. But, the reasonable side of him knew if he didn’t take the chance and risk all of those things, then he would miss out on what was probably the best thing to ever happen to him.