when he says it.
Logan raises a curious brow
at me. I mouth the word sorry to him. He smiles and shakes his head.
My dad abandoned his dancing partner on
the floor, and she approaches Logan and holds out her arms. Logan
looks down at her for a moment, and I see his chest bellow with a
sigh before he takes her hand in his and puts one on her waist. I
don’t like it. Not at all.
“ Stop looking like that,
Emily,” my dad warns. “The boy is doing fine.”
“ I’m not worried, Dad,” I
protest. Well, I kind of am. Logan isn’t used to these kinds of
parties. There are a lot of people here who make a lot of
money.
“ Mmm hmm,” he hums. He spins
me around in a circle, and surprisingly, it makes me laugh. My dad
looks happy.... Something is up. I can feel it.
He skirts around the edges of the dance
floor until I lose sight of Logan completely. “You can do better,
Em,” he says. “A lot better.”
I grit my teeth together. “Define
better, Dad,” I toss back. “I highly doubt that I can do better
than a man who loves me like crazy, who will care for me and be
there for me for the rest of my life.”
“ He’s not our kind, Em,” my
dad says.
“ He’s not your kind, Dad,” I
breathe out on a heavy sigh. “He’s most definitely my
kind.”
“ You can do better.” He
pinches his lips together in a straight line. “Trip is afraid that
you think you can’t do better than Logan because of your
dyslexia.”
I stop and step back. “What?” He may as
well have kneed me in the gut. Trip said as much to me, but I never
expected my dad to even entertain the idea. “I just want what’s
best for you.”
“ Then let me be,” I say. I
step back, and I walk around the edge of the dance floor looking
for Logan. I am seething. The crowd parts to get out of my way.
Except for Trip. Trip steps up beside me and holds out his arms for
a dance.
“ No, thank you,” I grit
out.
“ What’s wrong?” he asks, as
though he’s all concerned.
“ Nothing.” I don’t want to
talk to Trip.
“ You’re angry because Logan
went outside with that girl?”
My eyes immediately meet his, and then
his gaze skitters away. “What girl?” I ask. The girl he was dancing
with? “Why would he do that?”
“ I don’t know, but they were
looking pretty chummy.” He shrugs and points toward the
terrace.
Logan is coming in the door at the same
time I’m going out it. He’s tucking his shirt into his pants. My
heart stops. He brushes the curls from his forehead and blows out a
frustrated breath.
“ Where have you been?” I
ask.
“ With Trip’s decoy, I’d
suspect.” He takes my elbow and pulls me toward the terrace, and I
can now see that it’s empty. She must have gone in the adjoining
door. “I can’t believe he did that to me.” He looks off into space
and rocks his head back and forth. “Well, actually, I can. He’s
Trip, after all.”
“ Did what?” I’m so
confused.
“ She said she was feeling
sick and needed some air. And that she was so lightheaded she
couldn’t walk by herself. So I brought her out here. Then her
illness turned into octopus hands.” He gropes at me frantically,
imitating her movements. His eyes narrow at me. “Did Trip send you
out here?”
He did actually. “What difference does
that make?”
“ That sorry fucker tried to
set me up,” he growls. He smacks his hand against the wall. “I’m
going to kill that little dicksmack.”
I lay a hand on his chest, and he
closes his eyes. “She put the moves on you?” I ask.
“ If you call those moves,”
he says. He covers my hand with his, and I can feel the steady beat
of his heart. “It was more like she wanted to drop and suck my
dick. It was all I could do to get away from her.”
I cover my mouth. It’s not funny. It’s
really not. But a laugh bubbles through. He looks so discouraged.
He balls his hands into a fist. “I’m sorry,” I say, when his eyes
narrow at me.
“ You think this is funny,”
he
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