Page 35 of The Lost and the Found

“Is what common?”

“People, women especially, catering to your every whim.”

“There is only one woman I want, and she isn’t doing that.”

I blushed harder than I thought possible, though that didn’t stop my glare. He laughed and I shook my head. “Is that why you’re so interested? Because you think I’m playing hard to get? You should know, I’m not playing.”

“I know you’re not,” he said softly. “You don’t play games. But you can’t decide whether or not you want me, or at the very least, your mind can’t. I know your body wants me.”

“Stop talking as if my mind and body are two completely different entities.”

His smile widened. “You’re right. I should say you want me. You know you do. But you don’t want to want me. You’re scared, and that’s understandable. But I’m not going anywhere, so you should get used to that.”

I looked down at my pizza, my denial, my lie, already on the tip of my tongue, when I stopped myself. What was the point? Logan would know I was lying, after all. I had my tongue inside his mouth three times, by my count, and each time, I wanted nothing more than to prolong the kiss a little longer. And then longer again.

I looked back at him, and to change the subject, asked, “What do you do for living?”

He smiled, like he knew what I was doing. “I’m a lawyer. I work at Kade, Walker and Cross. We mostly specialize in corporate law.”

He said lawyer, I heard rich. Logan was a wealthy man, and perhaps one of those men with not a lot of time on their hands. So why the hell was he spending so much of his time driving me around? And having lunch with me?

A thought occurred to me then. “Mostly? You mean you practice other kinds of laws?”

He shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal. “Sometimes. For people I know, as a personal favor of sorts.”

I nodded. He sounded so vague about it; it was obvious he didn’t want to tell me more. “Then what are you doing with me?”

He shot me a confused look. Funny, considering I had been confused from the very moment he entered my life. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why are you here? With me? Surely there are other people who’d want to hang out with you. Other women.”

He smiled then, a wicked glint in his eyes. I resisted the urge to shiver under his intense gaze. “There is only one woman I want to hang out with, and I’m looking right at her.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because I find you interesting. Isn’t that enough?”

There was that word again. Interesting. “You’re here because you like the mystery. Believe me, I’m pretty easy to know.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m always learning new things about you every time I see you.”

“Like what?” I challenged.

“Like how strong you are. How resilient. You’ve had a shitty life, and you didn’t let it define you. You’ve worked your ass off for everything you have, and that says more than some of the rich and entitled pricks I work with. You’re prideful, too. And we both know no one can take that away from you. And you’re so goddamn beautiful, my chest hurts just looking at you sometimes.”

I looked away, unable to meet his eyes. That was the first time he ever called me beautiful. And I immediately wanted to punch myself in the face over my reaction. I was turning into mush. No, worse than mush. I was becoming…

Just like my mom.

My mom was a bit of a romantic. She always had her head in the clouds, reading all those romance books of hers, as if real life was actually like that.

I didn’t see anything wrong about being a romantic, but the conditions of my life after she was taken from me didn’t allow me to be a romantic.

I took a huge bite of my pizza. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “You’re not good for me.”

I looked up to his stare. “Maybe so,” he said quietly. “If I were a better man, I might let you go. I might let you graduate without interfering in your life. Let you find a nice boy to settle down with, adopt a golden retriever and have two point five kids. The whole white-picket-fence dream, yeah?”

“So why don’t you?”

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