Billionaire Bodyguard (19 page)

“Only the decisions that affect me.”

“If that’s your criteria, then by all rights everything needs your stamp of approval. Because what I do, every day, affects my life with you. You’re a part of me.”

A tear slid loose, gliding down her cheek. “There has to be a balance, Logan. We need a separation. To figure out where we can compromise.
If we can compromise.”

Angry and hurt and frustrated, he lost his temper. “Compromise? You’ve already packed your bags. I should’ve figured this was coming. The going gets tough, someone gets too close, and Allison runs. That’s why you keep your shit in boxes. You need your freedom so goddamn bad, you can’t see when something’s worth sticking around for.” He whipped his arm toward the door. “Fine. Keep running. I’m done chasing something that doesn’t want to be caught.”

Her face went white. “That’s not fair.”

“You want to talk about not fair? I’ve given you everything. I don’t understand what the hell you want from me!”

The hurt and sadness in her eyes pummeled him. “I hope someday you will.”

It felt like everything he’d ever wanted was slipping through his hands. His heart shredded. Stubborn, selfish pride took hold. Instead of saying
I love you, stay
, he retaliated. “When you walk out that door, we’re over.”

“I’d hoped what we mean to each other was stronger than ultimatums.” Another tear, then another cascaded down her face. “I was wrong.”

Then she left.

The click of the front door latch sounded like a cannon.

This wasn’t happening.

“Fuck.” His shout echoed through his house like a bullet shattering stained glass. “Fuck!”

He paced every square inch of his home. He bit his thumb nail down to the quick. He didn’t even know what the hell he was trying to figure out.

All he knew was he had just watched his future walk out the door. And he wasn’t sure he could get it back.

CHAPTER 11

Logan spent the next thirty-six hours straight at work.

He didn’t go home. He didn’t shave. He took showers at the nearby gym after working out. He wore jeans and long-sleeved t-shirts, told the receptionists to hold his calls or take messages. The rare moments he left the confines of his office, he glared at anyone who approached him.

He became a recluse in his own life.

He didn’t stop to care.

Work had piled up while he’d been home taking care of Allison. He had enough to keep him preoccupied for weeks, if necessary. Anything to escape the emptiness growing inside him.

The sky darkened behind him as he hunched over his desk, absorbed in concentration. Sometime after sunset, his office door sailed open.

He didn’t bother looking up. “Go away.”

“You look like something my cat hoarked up last night.”

Logan glared at Rick beneath the shelf of his brows. “A disgusting, hairy blob of puke. I’m touched.”

“Don’t forget the mouse entrails.”

Logan dropped his pen. “Do you need something? Or did you run out of people to annoy?”

Rick sighed regretfully. “Everyone else went home. It’s eight o’clock on a Friday night. So yeah, you’re it.”

“Go home to your wife and your happy life. Leave me alone.”

“Vivi has friends over for a scrapbooking party.” He shuddered. “I’d rather hang out with rattlesnakes.”

“Keep bugging me, that’s what you’ll get.”

“Yeah, yeah. All rattle and no bite.”

Logan shot to his feet. “Try me.”

Rick slanted him a look. “You’re the crankiest son-of-a-bitch when your heart’s broken.”

“Nothing’s broken,” Logan muttered. Decimated, pulverized, reduced to a pathetic heap, maybe. But not broken. No one would break him.

“When was the last time you slept?”

“Don’t remember.”

“When’s the last time you had a beer?”

“Too long.”

Rick nodded toward the door. “I’ve got a twelve pack of winter lager, your favorite microbrew. Let’s hit your place, shoot some pool. It’s been a long time since we hung out.”

“Not in the mood.”

“Dude, you’d be doing me a huge favor. I mean, scrapbooking? C’mon, you’d really leave me to that horrific fate?”

Logan scratched his unshaven jaw. “You know you’re bad off when your only alternative is me.”

Rick eyed at him solemnly. “I’ll owe you.”

“Fine.” Logan exhaled. “I was sick of signing my name for the thousandth time anyway.”

“Thanks, man. You’re a lifesaver.”

At least someone appreciated Logan’s skills in that arena.

After a few hours, and more than a few beers, he felt less like cat vomit and more like himself. Except for the monster-truck-sized hole in his chest where his heart used to beat. They shot pool, best out of six. Logan won, as usual. For a guy with sniper training, Rick was a lousy shot on the pool table. It felt good to win at something. Since he’d just lost the most important thing in his life.

“Heavy thoughts, my friend.” Rick knew him way too well. His friend dragged out a kitchen stool and sat at the counter while Logan rummaged for food. “Care to share?”

“Nope.”

“Logan, this is killing you.”

“Whatever.”

“So you’re going the denial route.” Rick tapped his fingers on his beer bottle. “That’s not going to get her back.”

“Screw that,” Logan growled. “I did nothing wrong.” Small comfort. He hadn’t come home last night because he couldn’t handle sleeping in his bed without her.

“It’s no way to live, Logan.”

Existing was a better description. The thought of going through the rest of his life without Allison amounted to a living hell. His eyes stung hotly. He blinked, took a long pull of his beer. His favorite seasonal brew and he barely even tasted it.

“Nothing makes sense without her,” Logan admitted. “I don’t know. I guess somehow she thinks by putting a guard on her, I was smothering her, or something. Oh, and all I care about is the baby.”

“If you and Allison went back as far and you and I do, she’d know better.”

“Well, we don’t. And she doesn’t know. It’s not about the baby—I mean, it is. Of course it is. But it’s not only about the baby, never has been. I wanted her in my life before she got pregnant.”

“Have you told her that?”

“I think so.” Logan slapped his palms on the granite counter. “I don’t know. You think you’re doing things right until she tells you you’re not.”

“Welcome to the rodeo.
Step right up, you’ve got yourself a permanent front row seat.”

“Can I get a refund?”

Rick chuckled. “Doesn’t work like that, man.”

“She talked about needing to compromise. Then she accused me of stifling her, keeping her caged. What the hell?”

“I’ll interpret. Compromise means meeting her halfway, each person gives one-hundred percent. Not one person giving fifty-percent and the other giving one-fifty. Without balance, the whole thing collapses.”

“Yeah, she mentioned something about balance,” Logan muttered. “And then I opened my big mouth and accused her of running like she always does.”

“Ouch.”

“Not my finest moment, but I was right.”

“That keeping you warm at night?”

“No. Asshole.”

“There’s more to life than being right.”

Logan shook his head. “I can’t figure out why she’s so mad at me for protecting her.”

“Women are funny that way.
They want the big, strong, macho type. But they also want us to go against those instincts and give them their single-girl independence, too. A fine line to walk. Not for the faint of heart.”

“I guess I failed. She’s gone.” Logan drained his beer in three chugs.

Rick pulled a Swiss Army knife from his pocket, went to the fridge and cracked open two more bottles. “What can you do to change that?”

“No clue.”

“There’s got to be something. And it needs to be big enough to take her trigger finger off her usual coping mechanism. You need to convince her to stay instead of run.”

Logan accepted the beer Rick handed him. “There may be one thing, though
I don’t know if I can do it.” He thought for a long moment. “What sent her over the edge was finding out about the detail following her.”

“Oh, man. You didn’t tell her up front?” When Logan shook his head, Rick went silent. Logan’s thoughts twisted into a thousand knots. Then Rick spoke quietly. “Put yourself in her place. She has this brutal run-in with her ex, who’s notorious for lying, manipulating and stalking her. Then you do the same type of thing by getting one of your guys to spy on her.”

“It’s not the same thing,” Logan denied fiercely.

“In her mind it is. She trusted
you
to take care of her. You went a step further. A step she wasn’t prepared to handle.”

“That step saved her life.”

“At what cost to your relationship?”

Logan cursed, raking a hand through his hair. “You know the authorities haven’t found Trevor yet.”

“You have more to prove to her than him.”

After a ferocious internal debate, he finally picked up his phone. “David, hey it’s Logan. Operation Allison is over.”

After he hung up, he stared at his phone. “I hope I don’t regret that.”

“If it proves you’re willing to meet her part-way, and it gets Allison back, I don’t see how you could.”

Logan had never experienced this level of anxiety knifing through him. But he’d made the choice, the step. For her. “Let’s hope you’re right.”

*

When Allison woke Saturday morning, she felt groggy and out of sorts. She hadn’t slept well Thursday night or last night, and it was taking a toll. Hoping a shower might lift her mood she put her feet into slippers, slid on a robe and meandered down the hall to Devon’s guest bath.

It was strange, getting used to this new awareness of her pelvis. She’d “popped” a little, as Devon termed it. There was a little bulge in her abdomen now. She was happy to see proof of the small being growing inside her. She and Devon had Googled
Stages of Fetal Development
. She’d spent
awe-inspiring hours reading articles and gazing at pictures online of a baby’s growth from conception to birth. At ten weeks, her child was the size of a corn nut, Devon determined, yet had already developed all its internal organs, fingers, fingerprints and toes. And somewhere in there, a tiny heartbeat pulsed with life. Hope. Promise.

Wistful, she let the hot water pelt her skin as she showered.
She missed the master bath spa at Logan’s. How he often followed her into the shower. She’d enjoyed watching soap suds skim down his hard body. She remembered how good it felt when he massaged her with exfoliating scrub, caressing from her neck to her toes.

Before
the two weeks he’d confined her and lorded over her every move. Before she’d discovered the secret he’d kept from her. Before he told her to never come back.

With a heart-heavy sigh, she stepped from the shower and toweled dry then hauled on a black sweater and a pair of jeans. The jeans were a bit snug. But she wasn’t about to go to Logan’s and grab a change a clothes. It would be too hard to leave again, and insulting to his insistence she not return. Unlike him, she respected people’s needs and boundaries.

She should probably think about where to go next. The idea of returning to her former dingy apartment made her stomach turn. She didn’t want to live in those conditions with her baby’s health and safety her foremost concern.
And she wanted to stay in Denver, despite the high cost of living and her aversion to staying in one place. Trevor was already here, and the authorities would catch him sooner or later.

She’d finally made friends, carved out a life for herself here. The first and only place she’d ever considered
home
.

“Hey, early bird.” Devon’s voice filled the hall. “What are you doing up? It’s Saturday.”

Allison paused at the top of the staircase. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Again?”

She nodded. “I’m going down to make coffee.”

“You have the best ideas. I’ll be down in a bit.”

Some of Allison’s ideas were better than others. She was regretting packing her bags so impulsively. The last thing Logan had said before their blowout was
Allison, we need to talk
. Maybe she should’ve let him, before she walked away. But the realization of what he’d done behind her back, and her panic attack, had been too much to handle. She’d needed space. Or so she’d thought. Maybe what she needed to do was to stick around, and attempt to work it out.

Logan had been right. She was running again. And he’d run out of patience. She didn’t
blamed him. She was too good at leaving, and no good when it came to staying. A relationship wasn’t something she could check in and out of, like a hotel.

It was a commitment. Something worth working for, fighting for, and treasuring all the good times that got a couple through the tougher moments.

Instead of trying for something better than what she’d known before, she’d taken the path of escape. No wonder Logan told her never to come back. She brushed away the dampness trembling on her lashes.

As she filled the coffee carafe with water, she stared out Devon’s kitchen window. It was a bright sunny day. Most of the recent snowfall had melted. She liked that about Denver. The snow came hard but didn’t linger long, and most days she woke to blue skies and sunshine. She adored this city. She didn’t want to move again. This was where she’d started over. A new job, a new city, a new life, new friends, new passion, new baby, new love.

The carafe slipped from her hand, clanking
against the sink. Water spilled over her fingers and her lips parted. A terrifying combination of hope and need filled her. Yes, she had found love here.

I love Logan
.

Her heart skipped a beat. Her hands trembled with piercing recognition.

The truth surrounded her,
beckoning her to surrender to the emotion. To shatter her own defenses and finally accept the love she felt for the best man she’d ever known.

“I’m in love with him.” The words rolled off her tongue as if they’d always been there, waiting to be spoken. No second-guessing or denial. It was totally unexpected and absolutely amazing.

“What are you staring at?” Devon stood beside her at the sink and peered out the window. “Oh, how about that. He’s gone.”

“Who?”

“Your watchdog.” When Allison looked at her blankly, Devon stated, “The guy Logan sent to guard you. His car isn’t outside my house anymore.”

Allison parted the blinds. Sure enough, the unmarked car with tinted windows was nowhere in sight.