It was dim when I entered. 1 left it that way. The moonlight spilling through the tall windows painted silver lines across the bedspread, softening the edges of everything but the ache in my chest.
I peeled off the gown carefully, laying it across the back of a chair instead of tossing it aside like I wanted to. It wasn’t the dress’s fault, after all.
The steam from the shower helped a little, softening my muscles, coaxing the tension from my shoulders.
But it couldn’t wash away the image now seared into the back of my mind: Chloe’s hand on Logan’s arm. Logan not pulling away fast enough. The camera flash catching it all, freezing it into some mockery of an intimate moment.
It wasn’t the photo that hurt. It was the fact that I didn’t know if I was allowed to feel anything at all.
I wrapped myself in a towel and stood in the center of the room for a long time, not sure what I was waiting for. Maybe a knock. Maybe nothing.
When I finally moved, it was only to sit at the edge of the bed, towe clutched to my chest, hair still damp, the chill of the room settling across my skin.
I opened my phone without meaning to and found it immediately an early leak of the photo, already circulating in through social channels.
The angle was perfect. Chloe leaning in, eyes upturned. Logan–still, unreadable. Neutral enough to be misinterpreted as either flirting and loving the attention, or holding out for more.
I stared at it for a long time, thumb hovering over the screen like maybe if I held it long enough, the moment would shift. But of course, it didn’t. I turned the phone off and set it facedown.
I wasn’t angry with him. Not exactly. I wasn’t even angry with Chloe. I was angry with myself for hoping it would be different. For starting to believe that the way he looked at me when no one else was around might mean more than just partnership or strategy or whatever this arrangement was meant to be.
For thinking that maybe I wasn’t just a shield against political fallout or a name on a document.
But for all the faults, I was still a Blackwood, and Blackwoods didn’t cry over things they couldn’t change. So I didn’t.
I lay back on the bed, hair damp against the pillow, and stared up at the ceiling, letting my thoughts circle around with no destination.
There were things I wanted to say. Questions I wanted to ask. But I already knew I wouldn’t, because I didn’t really want to hear the answers.
And because if Logan had something to say—if he cared–he would’ve come to say it.
Eventually, I turned off the lamp. Not because I was ready to sleep, but because I was tired of seeing the truth in the light.
I pulled the blanket up, curled onto my side, and told myself it was fine.
That I didn’t need him to follow me. I didn’t need anyone at all.
And in the dark, when I let myself imagine what it might have felt like to be chosen first–without conditions or contracts—Į told myself to forget it.
And tried to convince myself that fine was the same as enough.
Just as sleep threatened to pull me under, I heard it.
The soft creak of floorboards outside my door. A shadow shifting beneath the crack. A pause. Then retreating steps…
Chapter 67
Logan had come home, but he hadn’t knocked
And I didn’t know what hurt more-
that he’d been there… or that he’d left.
V
