Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 17021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 85(@200wpm)___ 68(@250wpm)___ 57(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 17021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 85(@200wpm)___ 68(@250wpm)___ 57(@300wpm)
"Rebecca. Hi." I set my phone down. "How are you?"
"Busy. Good busy." She tilts her chin to my half-eaten sandwich. "Mind if I steal a few minutes?"
"Of course."
She crosses her legs and studies me. "You look tired."
"Gee, thanks."
"I'm not being rude. You looked tired two years ago, too. Overworked and underpaid at that firm." She raises one perfect brow. "Still there?"
"Still there."
"Pity. You were the best accountant they had, and they treated you like shit."
I laugh despite myself. "Tell me how you really feel."
"I've expanded since we worked together. Three more studios, plus I bought a small restaurant group. Five locations." She leans forward, her voice dropping. "I need someone good with numbers. Someone I can trust. Someone who won't try to upsell me on services I don't need."
"Rebecca…"
"Hear me out. I don't care about your resume or your certifications. I care that you caught that vendor billing error that would've cost me fifteen grand, and you did it during a casual review because you're thorough as hell."
"I think office life isn't for me anymore."
"Good thing I'm not offering you an office. Video call once a week. Email when questions come up. Deliver the same quality of work you always do. I don't care if you work from outer space."
Something that's been locked tight for two weeks rattles. A door I didn't know existed creaked open just a crack.
"I..." My brain spins, making connections I'm not ready to name yet. "Can I think about it?"
"Of course." She stands and pulls out a business card. "My personal number's on the back. Call me when you decide."
After she leaves, I sit in the café and stare at her card. Work from anywhere. Once a week, video call. The same quality of work.
Anywhere could be a lot of places.
It could even be an island.
I'm still processing the conversation when I walk into my building lobby at six-thirty. The job offer, the possibilities, the door Rebecca just opened—it's all swirling in my head like pieces of a puzzle I'm afraid to put together.
Which is why I almost don't see him at first.
He's sitting in one of the lobby chairs, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. Tall and tan and completely out of place. His hair is longer than I remember, more salt-textured, and he's wearing jeans and a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up.
Logan.
My Logan.
In my lobby.
In my city.
My purse slides off my shoulder and hits the floor with a thud. My keys scatter. Logan looks up at the sound, and those eyes find mine across the small space.
We stare at each other for what feels like a year. He looks the same—that jawline, that slow smile starting at the corner of his mouth—but there's something different, too. Something tired around his eyes, like the past two weeks cost him the same thing they cost me.
"Why are you here?"
Logan stands, well, more like unfolds all six-foot-five of his masculine frame in my tiny lobby, as if showing up fifteen hundred miles from home is perfectly normal. He bends down to pick up my things.
"I told you I'd follow you anywhere," he says. "I just took time to make sure the bar could run itself. Longer than I hoped, but still, here I am."
"You're crazy."
"Yes. About you."
Suddenly, I can't breathe properly. He's here. He's actually here, looking at me like two weeks of silence didn't happen. Like, I didn't walk out on him. Like, I didn't call what we had 'vacation sex', and mean it as the cruelest possible truth.
"Logan..." I don't know how to finish. How do you apologize for being a coward? How do you take back words that have been rotting in your chest? "I need to tell you something."
"Okay."
"I was wrong. Not about being scared—the fear was real. But about running. About calling it vacation sex when I knew it wasn't. About walking out instead of staying to figure it out."
He takes a step closer. "Hannah…"
"I missed you. Not the island, not the ocean, not the vacation. You. The person who makes me funnier and braver and lighter. The version of myself I forgot existed until you found her at Shore Thing."
"I missed you, too," he says quietly. "Every damn day."
"I don't have all the answers. I don't know how this works, or where we live, or what happens to my job, or your bar. But I don't want to spend the rest of my life wondering what if. I'd rather be an idiot who tried than someone who—"
"Hey." He reaches out and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear, the gesture so familiar it makes my throat tight. "Those are my words."
"I know. You were right, and I was too scared to admit it."
"I wasn't right about everything. You were right to be scared. This is terrifying." His thumb traces along my jawline. "But I'm not here to pressure you into anything. I'm here because I meant what I said. I arranged things so Shore Thing can run without me for as long as it needs to. Eli's in charge—he's been ready for years. I didn't abandon anyone. I just made room to choose you."