The Promise of Us (Sanctuary Sound #2)(83)

“Okay.” She stood, wobbling slightly. He handed her Rosie and took her other arm until he was certain she was steady.

When they got to the auction tables, they wandered to the two she’d most wanted, while he stole a glance at those US Open tickets. The bid was up to twelve seventy-five. After making sure she wasn’t looking, he bid sixteen hundred, hoping that would be enough to keep others from outbidding him.

He went to her side. “Let’s go outside for a minute. I could use some fresh air, after all that time with my dad.” And she’d had a lot to drink, so the chill might sober her up a bit.

“I thought you two formed a truce.”

“We did, but it doesn’t mean it’s easy.” He opened the French doors where he’d been photographing Peyton.

“It’s chilly out here.” She shivered.

He wrapped his arms around her. “Did my family make you uncomfortable?”

“No.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Did Karina?”

“No. Why?” Her brows pinched together.

“You drank a lot tonight. I sense something is off now, but I don’t know what. Is it because I disappeared for a while?”

“I already told you, no. I can survive thirty minutes on my own, especially here. I’ve more friends and family in there than you do.” Her defensiveness suggested she’d overstated her case, but he still didn’t know why.

“Okay.” He wanted things to return to how they’d been for the past few weeks, so he kissed her. Unlike every other time, she pursed her lips and pulled away. He released her with a huff. “Claire. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She glanced at the door. “Won’t they be announcing the auction winners soon?”

“Yes, but I want to settle this tension first.”

She sighed and spun away, walking to the edge of the patio and grabbing hold of a pillar. “I’ve realized some things tonight, and one of them is that this”—she gestured between them—“has to end.”

He hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t that. “Right now?”

“I wasn’t going to say anything until we got home, but I guess there’s no point in putting it off. You’re leaving for Greece in another week—a fact you failed to mention. Not that it matters, because you’ll always be going off on assignments, often with women with whom you have a ‘fluid’ relationship, like Karina.

“After speaking with her and thinking about things, it struck me. The truth is . . . the truth is that I’m not good at being fluid. I’ve tried it your way, but I disagree that a happy life is one lived only in the moment. I also disagree that goals and expectations make me too rigid to enjoy life. Being loved, having real friends, starting a family . . . these things matter to me. They do make me happy.

“You—let’s be honest—you’ve meant so much more to me throughout our lives than I ever meant to you. We came into this thing on unequal footing—something I should be used to by now.” She wryly nodded at Rosie. “I have nothing but love for you, Logan. You’re exciting and charming and, at heart, a good guy. These past couple of weeks have been like a dream, but it’s time to wake up. Our needs are incompatible, so you should stick to women like Karina, and I’ll keep searching for someone more like me.”

Love. She’d said she loved him. Not exactly in a declarative sense, but that word shimmered between them like the beautiful last bits of glitter before a firework extinguishes. He’d never used that word, not really. Not the way she meant it.

He crossed to her and reached for her hands. “But I don’t want Karina, or women like her. I want you.”

He’d come to crave her earnestness, and to like himself better with her, where he could drop all pretense and persona.

A wan smile appeared. “I know you care for me, and after all these years, it’s been a wonderful surprise. I don’t regret what’s happened, but I can’t pretend to be who I’m not just to hold on to something that we both know has an expiration date. I need something more. Something to build on.” She eased her hands out of his grip. “Every day I spend with you only adds to the time it will take me to get over missing you and wishing things were different.”

It might have been cold enough outside that Logan could see his breath, but his chest burned. “What did Karina say to you?”

“Nothing I didn’t already suspect.”

He raised his arms from his sides, irked and more than a little thrown off balance. “I’m not sleeping with Karina.”

“Not at the moment. But that’s the point. In four weeks, you’ll be in Greece, and in that moment, we won’t be together and you two will . . . you know.” She fluttered her hand as if to suggest sex was a forgone conclusion.

“How do you know?” he snapped.

“How do I know what?”

He rolled his hand, mimicking her. “You assume that I’ll end up in bed with Karina. You assume I won’t miss you or be thinking of you. In fact, I was planning to invite you to meet me in the Mediterranean for a vacation when I’m done working. Maybe Sicily.”

Her lips formed a perfect O until she sucked them in for a moment. “That’s romantic, but we both know I can’t fly to Italy when I couldn’t even drive home from Hartford! I’m not proud of that, mind you, but let’s be real.”