Page 28 of Wait for Me

Ah, so we know who’s in charge, calling the shots.

It certain fit the narrative in Marie’s mind that the assistant is Aliyah’s handler. She could also be her personal protector, technically speaking. But it begged the question why. Why were they in Alaska, on this particular cruise?

Pretty soon, a couple of children younger than Jonas had joined the big play rug. For some reason, one of the little girls sat down on Marie’s lap.

“That’s my mommy,” Jonas declared.

Nice to be acknowledged.

When Marie looked up to ask Aliyah to join them, she was gone. Did she leave with Zaid?

The assistant came over, calling for the two boys, telling them it was time to leave.

The boys fussed, but she said they had to get ready for dinner. Their meal with special dietary needs would be ready for them soon, and their mother wouldn’t want their food to be cold.

It all sounded normal.

Marie smiled and waved goodbye to the assistant, but was ignored.

Well, you have a nice evening too.

Chapter Fifteen

“Something on your mind?” Logan asked Marie at dinner.

She hadn’t spoken a word since they sat down, and had barely mumbledamenwhen they said grace before eating.

Marie didn’t answer. Maybe she didn’t hear him. Logan decided not to press. Something was clearly on her mind.

Across the table from them, Jonas was eating chicken fingers.

Ten thousand dollars for this trip, and all the kid ordered were chicken fingers.

“We came all the way to Alaska for fast food,” Logan said.

He glanced at Marie. She was smiling.

That’s my girl.

Logan wished he could be her confidant. He wished she would talk to him and tell him everything about herself, her life, her career.

Three years of marriage had not been enough time for them to know each other, with Marie gone ninety percent of the time.

Maybe this cruise ship was a second chance from God for them to reconnect, reinforce the tenuous thread that had been their marital relationship.

For Jonas’s sake, Logan would at least try. The poor kid had spent the last three years without his mother. A phone call here and there did not a bond make.

Logan had almost remarried for Jonas to have a live-in mother, but Lexi Parker wasn’t the one for him, contrary to what everyone else had thought. Lexi only wanted to live in his twenty-room estate and drive his car collection.

On the other hand, Marie didn’t want a thing from him. Not a dime.

In Logan’s heart, he knew he could only love her. However, she was so far away, so distant from him that he wondered if he had been in love with only a mirage.

“Marie?” Logan tried to get her to talk.

She lifted her head.

“Are we walking tonight?”

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