The One That Got Away by Kelly Hunter

easily enough. It
was hard to keep hold of her anger when her overwhelming emotion was sadness. ‘I
appreciate you telling me about your past, and Logan’s, but please...don’t pin
any hopes on me and Logan staying together, or on me being able to influence his
relationship with you. I’m not pinning any hopes on
me and Logan staying together. He’s here for a week and we’re halfway through it
already, and after that he’s going to go. And while I hope very much that
Logan’s been able to slay a few demons when it comes to him being too dominant
and me being too submissive all those years ago, I’m going to let him go.’
    ‘You don’t care for him?’
    ‘I do care for him. It’d be so easy to care deeply for your son, but I can’t, don’t you see? Logan doesn’t want to fall in love with me. He wants a casual, easy
relationship that he can walk away from, no damage done to either of us. That’s how Logan knows he’s not the dangerously
obsessed and unstable man his father was. He doesn’t trust his heart in that
regard. Only his actions. He walks away. You know that’s what he’ll do.’
    ‘But he isn’t walking away,’ offered Caroline quietly. ‘Not
from you.’
    ‘He will.’ Evie took a jagged breath. ‘It won’t be long
now.’
    ‘He’ll be back.’
    ‘Maybe. And then he’ll go again. And again. And again. Mrs
Carmichael, what do you want me to say?’
    ‘I want you to say that you’ll give my son a chance. That you
won’t be so busy protecting your own heart that you fail to see the love pouring
out of his. Don’t go into this thinking that Logan’s
only move will be away from you. I think he’ll surprise you. Let him surprise
you.’
    Evie glanced away. She didn’t know what to say. ‘Anything
else?’ Because Evie really wanted to be done
here.
    ‘One more thing. One more piece of advice that perhaps my
second husband might give to you were he alive today. He was a good man, Evie. A
loving man and he loved my Logan as if he were his own. He’d have asked you to
be generous with Logan when he makes mistakes.’
    * * *
    ‘I had lunch with your mother today.’
    Logan stilled and Evie felt the headache that had been coming
on all afternoon pick up. Most of the conversations she’d had today hadn’t gone
well. Evie didn’t hold out a lot of hope for this one. ‘She cornered me at work.
Max was in on the plan as well, though I noticed he managed to weasel his way
out of the actual lunch.’ Bastard.
    ‘What did she want?’ Logan asked finally, his attention
seemingly fixed on the far corner of her not-so-sparkling kitchen floor.
    ‘Mostly to apologise for using me to get to you.’
    ‘Sounds about right.’ A muscle ticced in his otherwise rigid
jaw. ‘What else did she want?’
    ‘To sing your praises, I think. She did a bit of that.’ Evie
wasn’t sure she wanted to share the entire conversation with Logan, but she
could reveal bits of it. ‘She wanted to know my intentions towards you.’
    Logan looked up, his gaze ever so slightly incredulous. ‘What
did you tell her?’
    ‘I probably should have told her to mind her own business, but
I didn’t. I told her you were leaving at the end of the week and that I had no
idea what we were doing after that. Does that sound about right?’
    Logan cleared his throat and rubbed his neck with his hand. One
of Caroline’s traits too, when she wasn’t busy aiming for full composure.
‘Something like that.’
    ‘Max asked me what was going on between us too. We’re a hot
topic of conversation within your family, apparently. I told him that you were
an excellent houseguest and an incredibly skilled lay.’
    Logan seemed to be having trouble with speech. Which was just
fine by Evie, because she didn’t particularly want to talk about where their
relationship was going either.
    Evie picked up a slice of apple pie she’d brought home with her
and handed it to him along with her smuggest smile. ‘You’re