Hayden

A few days later,Logan broke the news of his sister’s visit to me at the last minute. She was coming in about an hour, and apparently, she was looking forward to seeing me.

I stood up and glared at him. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

He shrugged like it was no big deal. But it was—I had never met a boyfriend’s family before.

“I didn’t want you to stress all day.”

“But this is even worse! At least if you had told me this morning, I would have had all day to prepare.”

He frowned and took me in his arms, stopping my frantic movements. “Prepare for what?”

“For her visit.”

“What do you need to prepare for?”

I sagged then. How could he not know? “I’m not good at talking to people.”

His lips twitched and it looked like he wanted to laugh. But he didn’t. Instead, he nodded, as if he sympathized with me, the jackass.

“I’m serious. You might as well know this about me now, but I am not charming or outgoing in the least. If you’re expecting a trophy wife who can cook a ten-course meal, wow your guests when you invite them over and be charming and put-together, look somewhere else.”

“Wife, huh? Does that mean you imagine us marrying in the future?”

My eyes widened and my cheeks burned red hot. “I didn’t mean… that is not to say I expect… what I mean is, you know, if we ever do get married, and I’m not saying this like it is a sure thing—”

“Calm down, baby. I’m not freaking out because you brought up marriage. If fact, I’m ecstatic about it.”

“You are?”

“Mmm-hmm.” He tweaked my nose like I was the cutest thing he ever laid eyes on, and I was sure that was what he thought from time to time.

Cute.

Not unbelievably sexy or, you know, porn star material.

“What?” Logan asked on a laugh.

I didn’t realize I said all of those things out loud. If my face wasn’t still red from before, it would be now.

“Just shut up and tell me why you’re happy.”

Logan laughed about the contradicting demands. “Because my exceptionally beautiful, beautiful girl, who, I should add, has definitely starred in many of my porn fantasies…” He smirked and I looked away. I stood by my earlier assessment: He was a jackass. “You thinking about us married tells me you see this going somewhere. You can see it now, yeah?”

“See what?”

“Our future,” he said in a whisper, and it was hard not to be happy when he was looking like that. Like he just won the lottery.

“Yeah,” I agreed. And that was the truth. I could see the picture of our future so clearly in my head, it was hard to believe that picture wasn’t real.

I sagged against him. “What if Veena doesn’t like me?”

“Nonsense. She’ll love you.”

Veena was thirty-one, which meant she was eight years older than me. I didn’t want her to take one look at me and think I wasn’t good enough for her older brother. That I was too young, too immature, to be with someone like Logan.

What if she hated me because of it?