Stay With Me(33)

Only she hadn’t responded how they’d thought. Now they were faced with not only proving themselves to her, but they were also faced with tearing down the protective barrier she’d created around herself.

Chapter Sixteen

Catherine walked into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of juice. As she moved into the living room, she was surprised to see both Logan and Rhys. They had laptops open on the coffee table. Cell phones were out. Logan was talking to someone on one of them. There was even a fax machine on the floor with an extension cord leading to the wall plug.“Good morning, beautiful,” Rhys said as he looked up and saw her.

She glanced self-consciously down at her rumpled knee-length T-shirt and bare legs and grimaced. She didn’t feel beautiful, even if she was feeling a lot better since she’d left the hospital several weeks ago.

“What’s Logan doing?” she asked as a way to put the focus off her bedraggled appearance. He was talking on the phone, but he looked at ease, not at all tense like he did in ninety percent of the phone calls he made.

“He’s talking with our new director of operations.”

Her brows furrowed. “Your what?”

He grinned. “Thought that might trip you up.”

She walked over and sat down in the chair across from the couch. Though she slept between both men each night, she still wasn’t comfortable overtly seeking out their attention or affection. She wanted nothing more than to snuggle into Rhys’ arms on the couch, but she didn’t like what the action implied.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “Who’s your new director of operations, and what the hell is that anyway?”

“Paige is,” Rhys replied.

Catherine raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Paige? Not that she doesn’t deserve the promotion. I hope you gave her a hefty raise as well.”

“Oh, we did,” Rhys muttered. “It was the only way she’d take the job.”

She grinned and realized it felt good to let go and smile. It felt strange, and then it hit her that she hadn’t smiled—really smiled—since Jamaica.

Poor Rhys was looking at her like a desperate man. It couldn’t have been easy living like this for the last several weeks. Always on tiptoe.

Neither he nor Logan had pressed her. Hadn’t made demands or tried to persuade her to stay. In fact, they hadn’t done a lot of talking at all beyond idle everyday chitchat, asking how she was doing, if she needed anything, that sort of thing.

But what they had done was show her that she was all-important. Yes, they worked, but astonishingly, they were home by five every day, six at the latest. There had been one overnight business trip that only Logan had gone on, and he’d returned early the next day.

They ate dinner every night together, usually ordered in, but the guys also took turns cooking. Evenings in the kitchen had turned out to be the highlight of her day as they talked about everything and nothing.

At night, they crawled in beside her, always close to her, touching and snuggling. It was so much like the early days in their relationship that it made her physically ache.

How much longer would they keep it up? They were relentless in their quest to make her stay. She certainly couldn’t dispute that, but was it real? If she gave in, would things go back to the way they’d been before?

Logan bent over her chair, startling her from her thoughts. She hadn’t realized he’d gotten off the phone. He leaned in close and kissed her gently on the lips. She sucked in her breath in surprise.

“Good morning,” he murmured.

Then he very lightly put a hand on her belly, splaying his fingers over her shirt.

“How is the little one today?”

A sudden wash of emotion hit her hard in the chest. This was how it was supposed to be. She stared down at his hand and imagined a larger swell. She was only just now starting to pooch the slightest bit, but in a few months, she’d round out quite nicely.

She had fantasies about lying between him and Rhys, their hands on her belly feeling the baby move. Gentle kisses and late night conversations with their son or daughter.

“Why do you look so sad, baby?” Logan whispered.

She shook her head, refusing to voice aloud her innermost wants and dreams. As long as she kept them closely guarded, they remained hers. The moment she let them go, they entered the realm of harsh reality.

He stroked her cheek, light and loving. Then he kissed her eyelids before backing away.

“Are you not going into the office today?” she croaked.

He smiled. “Nope. Rhys and I are working from home. Paige is more than capable of running the office along with her new staff. I think she’s loving her new digs.”

“Staff?” she echoed in disbelief.

Logan and Rhys didn’t have a staff. They had Paige who they piled way too much work on. They had a secretary who worked on an as-needed basis, and they had one or two temps who filled in during busy times, but a staff? Logan was too much of a control freak to relinquish the running of their business to staff members.

“She’s on quite a power trip,” Rhys said in amusement. “It’s why Logan and I are hiding at home today. She’s holding orientation and letting her new worker bees know exactly what she expects from them.”

Catherine laughed. Rhys froze and stared at her with a fierce expression.

“That is the most beautiful sound,” he murmured.