Fighting Fate (Granton University #1)(25)

He nodded and went back to work.

It took everything she had to stay conscious. She concentrated on him, reminding herself why she hated him and what he’d taken from her. Meanwhile, he tended to her the same way he worked his job: with quick, precise efficiency. Keeping his touch tender, he—

Wait. Tender?

Paige furrowed her brow in confusion. Yeah, she must be totally out of it. She stared hard at that place where their hands stayed in constant contact to find he’d already cleaned her up and was wrapping the area with a wad of sterile, white gauze. His warm fingers grazed hers with every rotation.

“This doesn’t mean I forgive you.”

He paused before continuing with his work. “Don’t worry. No one else has either. I wouldn’t expect you to be the first.”

She wrinkled her eyebrows, wondering what he meant by no one else. Had he been to see her father recently, begging for forgiveness? She could only imagine how well Dad had received him.

Probably by throwing a beer bottle at his head. He was kind of famous for that these days.

“I didn’t know…about your mom,” he said into the silence, his voice low and clogged with emotion.

Paige swayed. She didn’t like to think about her mom. Ever.

He kept his attention lowered as he worked, using a pair of scissors to neatly sever the gauze wrapped around her from the roll it had come from, cut a piece of surgical tape, and fastened the wrap.

“You didn’t have a picture of her on your desk in your dorm room like you did Trace.”

Trace.

The entire reason why she hated Logan Xander.

Immediate rage engulfed her, once again reminding her she did not and never would like this guy. Paige snapped her hand away from him and surged to her feet. “Don’t you dare say his name!”

Startled blue eyes popped up to gawk at her.

She glared at him. “Don’t…don’t talk to me about any of this like we’re besties or something. I only stayed to help clean up because I want to be a good employee, not because I wanted to hang out with my brother’s murderer and share my feelings, okay?”

His expression fell blank. But he opened his mouth to respond.

She didn’t think she could handle hearing his voice, so she pushed past him. “And I only let you near my finger because the sight of blood makes me pass out. So can we please not talk?”

“Okay.” His voice was defensive as he lifted his hands, showing his surrender. “Okay, I get it. No talking.”

But with his hands in the air and his palms facing her way, the un-cuffed sleeves of his shirt sagged down, exposing his wrists…and the multitude of scars slashed over his veins.

He’d cut himself. A lot. Had probably even tried to commit—

Her mouth fell open as she gasped, unable to take her eyes off his ruined flesh, unable to believe the pampered, got-everything-his-rich-heart-desired lawyer’s son had actually tried to kill himself.

It took him a second to realize what she was ogling, but when he caught her expression, his face drained of color and he yanked his hands down, burrowing his mangled wrists against his waist and out of sight. But those scars continued to blaze through her mind’s eye as clearly as if she was still looking at them.

He backed up from her, looking more afraid of her than she’d ever been of him.

When he whirled away and staggered from the closet, Paige remained frozen, staring at the spot where he’d exposed what might possibly be his deepest, darkest secret.

Seeing him looking all depressed on her dorm room floor might’ve stirred the tiniest bit of empathy in her. Knowing he’d cried at the grief meeting had been unsettling. But this…this blew her away.

For the first time in three years, she actually felt completely aware of another person—outside her family—hurting. Suffering.

Logan Xander had definitely suffered.

She plopped down hard onto the box she’d been sitting on before…and promptly fell through, landing in a pile of plastic and Styrofoam.





Chapter Eleven


PAIGE HAD NO IDEA how long she sat in the supply closet of The Squeeze among scattered and squashed cups, staring dazed at the doorway where Logan had disappeared. Could’ve been twenty seconds or twenty minutes; her brain was too dazed to keep track of time.

But seriously, what was she supposed to make of this new development?

Logan Xander was no longer just a name to her, the name of the evil being who’d taken away her brother. He was a person with feelings, lots of feelings. Reserved and moody, hard-working and keeping to himself, he wasn’t anything like she had assumed he’d be. He seemed more like a guy who’d made a horrible mistake and was constantly struggling to make some kind of amends. Full of an inner strength and sturdy determination she wished she could have.

And he had beautiful, sad, blue eyes.

A sound from the front of the store jolted her out of her rambling thoughts. Blinking, she glanced around her and scrambled to her feet. After setting the broken cardboard box and stacks of cups back to rights, she hurried into the main area, certain Logan couldn’t be lingering around.

From the way he’d lit out of the supply closet, she would’ve thought he had escaped the building without even bothering to punch his time card. Wondering if it might be a burglar, she snatched up a broom and crept down the hall. After peeking around the corner, she stopped short.