When I opened the door, Logan stood on the other side. He just held out a porcelain cup filled with steaming tea
I stared at it for a second too long, confused by the gesture. But the the scent hit me. Black rose and chamomile. A blend I’d only ever found in one apothecary shop near my childhood home
I hadn’t asked for it. Hadn’t mentioned it was my favorite. But here it was. And here he was.
I took the cup carefully. “Thank you,” I said, automatically, though my voice came out softer than I intended.
He nodded once and stepped back like he meant to leave. But I didnt close the door. And he lingered.
The moment stretched between us.
Logan shifted his weight, his gaze drifting toward the table behind me. The scattered documents. The ledger book. The crumpled notes.
“You can come in,” I said, finally.
He did. And he didn’t ask what I was reading. Just pulled out the chair across from mine and sat down without a word.
The silence settled again—but it felt different now. Steady as a heartbeat.
I sipped the tea. It was perfectly steeped. Stronger than I remembered, but grounding.
Logan leaned back slightly, his hands clasped in front of him. Watching.
I looked back down at the papers. I could have stayed guarded. Could’ve kept the discovery close, locked behind legal privilege and fear.
I’d done that before, but I didn’t want to do that with him.
Not now.
I turned one of the sheets toward him. The one with my grandfather’s old signature scrawled across the top. A name that meant everything and nothing, depending on who you asked.
“He wrote this for me,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Years ago. Before he died. My father buried it.”
Something in Logan’s expression shifted. A quiet understanding passed between us, wordless and real.
I slid the page a little closer to him. “It’s enough to win the case.”
His eyes flicked up to meet mine, holding something I wanted more of. Approval.
And for once, the warmth I felt wasn’t from anger or fire or survival. It was from being seen. Fully and without needing to be anything but what I was in that moment.
He didn’t reach for the paper right away. Instead, he held my gaze and looked at me as if he was trying to memorize me. Take in the look of my relief.
“I’m glad,” he said quietly. “You deserve this.”
The words were simple. But they felt larger than life.
I smiled, just a little. “It’s not over yet.”
He nodded once. “No. But now you’re more prepared to give them hell.”
I looked down quickly, unsure what to say to that. My fingers adjusted the edges of the page, smoothing it flat again though it
didn’t need it.
Logan reached across the table and tapped the edge of one of the signatures.
Chapter 120
+25 BONUS
“He thought ahead,” he said, meaning my grandfather. “Even when no one else did.”
1 nodded. “He saw more in me than most people did. Including my own father. He never cared that I’m dormant “He wasn’t wrong,” Logan said, and his voice was so certain it made something in my chest ache.
We stayed there together, the documents still spread between us, and I wanted to share the whole thing with him. But I also didn’t want to depend on anyone else to provide for me to have something to hold over me and control me I needed to reclaim what was mine so that I’d have something to fall back on when this contract with Logan was finished
