Oh, finally some good news.
I just managed to stifle my smile. “Okay. Have a good day, then.” I skirted around her and hurried down the stairs before she subjected me to any more of her judgmental bile.
I had just entered the supermarket when Aidan called and asked me if I fancied grabbing a quick coffee. I knew saying yes was deliberate procrastination, but I talked myself around to it because coffee might wake me up a bit and thus give me more energy for my work later.
The low spring sun cast the outside of the coffee shop in a beautiful soft light. I shaded my eyes against it and saw Aidan sitting at one of the little metal tables. He’d already ordered me a coffee.
I smiled gratefully as I slipped into the seat across from him. “You are a rock star.” I immediately wrapped a chilled hand around the hot cup and sipped at the smooth drink.
Aidan squinted at me against the light of the sun. “You look knackered.”
I grunted. “Thank you.”
“Is it that neighbor of yours?”
I thought on the news Janice had imparted this morning and decided not to mention it to Aidan. It would concern him. He would jump to conclusions.
Perhaps… well, perhaps I should be jumping to conclusions, too, about the fact that my neighbor was a convicted criminal, but I didn’t know what he’d been convicted of, I didn’t know why Mr. Carmichael seemed so sure of the man’s character, and I’d always found it best to reserve judgment until I had all the facts. For instance, I did know Logan MacLeod was arrogant, annoying, and loud. I could judge him all I wanted about that. “He seems intent on living life to the fullest.”
“Meaning?”
“He’s very loud.”
Aidan shrugged. “Well, perhaps he doesn’t know how loud he’s being. Just say something.”
“If I do, he’ll just assume I’m being difficult.”
“You?” Aidan said. “Difficult? You wouldn’t know how to be difficult.”
“I don’t want to talk about Logan. Why are you lot so interested in my bloody neighbor?”
He grinned. “Because of your reaction to him.”
“Oh, not this again. Ever since Chloe introduced you to Juno, you’ve come to think of her as the queen of perception. I’ll have you know she gets lots of things wrong. All the time.” I sipped at my coffee and then deliberately changed the subject. “How’s Callum?”
Callum was Aidan’s teammate. I’d dated him a few years ago for a couple of months, until we both realized we didn’t have a lot in common and were actually very boring as a couple. We were definitely better off as friends. A few months after we broke up, Callum started dating Annie, a very outgoing, outdoorsy sports journalist. They’d been together ever since and were planning their wedding.
Aidan’s face fell. “Callum and Annie broke up.”
“Oh no!” I said, aghast. “Why?”
“Believe it or not, you and she share a very similar family situation, except she still talks to hers. Her parents are dominating and negative, and they’ve completely tried to take over the wedding. They also started putting pressure on them about grandkids, and not like other parents’ kind of pressure. It turns out they own Annie’s house. Callum didn’t know that. Her mum and dad have threatened to force them out if Annie isn’t pregnant within their first year of marriage. Apparently, they believe that having children will prove that Callum is serious about Annie. Unlike marriage.”
“Oh my gosh,” I murmured, feeling a deep empathy. Other people might think it ridiculous that any parent would act like that – perhaps even disbelieve that such parents existed – but I knew from personal experience that they did.
“Callum kept waiting for Annie to stand up to them. They had already discussed that they were going to have at least a year to themselves as a married couple before they’d try for kids. He could give a shit about the house. He’s ready to walk away from it all. But Annie… she won’t, and she keeps getting pissed at him when he asks her to stand up to her family. Finally Callum got sick of the arguments. He felt trapped by her parents, and he can just see that that’s what he’s in for, for the rest of his life, if he marries Annie.”
“That’s awful,” I whispered, my chest aching for Callum. “Bloody families.”
“They’re not all bad.”
“No,” I agreed. “Especially if you self-build them.”
Aidan chuckled. “I have heard that self-building is the smart thing to do.”
“As long as you choose good-quality materials, you can’t go wrong.”
“Am I the good-quality material in this analogy?”
I just grinned, because he knew he was.
I thought on Annie and wished I could go to her and tell her how much better her life would be if she took a chance on Callum and made him her family instead.
There would be relief.
Nothing but sweet relief.
It was around two in the afternoon before I eventually climbed the stairs to my flat, carrying my small bag of shopping. I was already editing in my head and was thus jerked out of my own little world at the sound of laughter as Logan’s door opened.
I paused in surprise at the sight of the tiny, gorgeous redhead stepping out of his door in front of him. She was not at all his type. She was wearing too many clothes, for a start.
The laughing redhead stopped at the sight of me. She smiled. “Hello.”
I was too polite not to return her smile. “Hello.” I moved toward my door, but she stopped me again.
“I’m Shannon. Logan’s little sister.” Her violet eyes gleamed at me in friendly amusement. She stuck out her hand to me.
I shook it. “Grace. It’s nice to meet you.”
“You’re Logan’s next-door neighbor, right?”
“Aye,” Logan grunted beside her.
I glanced up at his suddenly surly expression and felt a frisson of satisfaction. It was wonderful I annoyed him as much as he irritated me. It really was the only thing that made his inconsiderate noise levels bearable.
“You’re not at all how he described you.” Shannon grinned up at her brother before turning back to me.
I inwardly questioned the mischief in her stunning eyes and wondered what exactly Logan had said about me. “Probably not,” I concurred.
“So what do you do, Grace? Logan’s the manager at Fire, the nightclub on Victoria Street.”
I knew where Fire was. I’d been dragged there to dance several times by Chloe. Why on earth did Shannon feel the need to tell me what Logan’s occupation was? The job made sense, considering the late hours he kept. “I’m a freelance book editor.” I looked up into Logan’s eyes and added pointedly, “I work from home.”
“Oh, that’s great,” Shannon said enthusiastically.
Why, oh why, hadn’t this friendly sweetheart moved in next door instead of her grumpy older brother?
“It can be.” I took a deep breath, suddenly finding courage in Shannon’s presence – or her possible role as buffer. “I work late hours. I couldn’t last night, however.” I tried not to falter under Logan’s imperious expression. “Your party was very loud. I’m not a fan of U2 at three in the morning, I’m afraid.”
Shannon pinched her lips together and looked up at her brother. He stared back down at her, not saying a word in response to my “accusation.” Shannon shook her head in admonishment. “Try to be a bit more considerate, eh?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Take it with a pinch of salt, Shannon. Miss Farquhar here is a professional complainer.”
“Logan!” Shannon looked affronted.
I took even more courage from her reaction. “I complained about your one-night stand’s thong drying on my landing and about your other one-night stand getting sick on my doorstep. I haven’t complained about the numerous nights I couldn’t work because of the very loud sex coming from your flat.”
His sister stared up at him with round eyes filled with horror. “Logan?”
He glowere
d down at her but remained quiet. He didn’t need to speak. The words “I answer to no one” were written all over his face.
The sound of footsteps interrupted the tense moment, and we all turned as Janice walked down the stairs onto our landing. I braced myself.
The attractive brunette nodded at me. “Grace.” She then turned her chin up in such a haughty manner it was almost comical. She sailed past Logan and Shannon without acknowledging them.
As the sounds of her heels faded upon her descent, Shannon whispered, “What was that?”
I shifted uncomfortably, hating to be the bearer of bad news. Even if it was to Logan. “I’m afraid Mr. Jenner made the mistake of mentioning Logan’s time in prison to Janice. Mr. Jenner is so nice, you see. He doesn’t realize that people like Janice… well… aren’t.”
The news caused Logan’s whole body to tense. Even his facial features tightened.
Shannon paled. “We thought everyone knew already. Are you saying now they know?”
For some reason I could not fathom, I felt an unpleasant sensation in my stomach and suddenly realized I felt bad for Logan.
Who would have thought?
“It makes no difference,” I hurried to assure them both. “Janice… well, we all know how unfriendly she can be. I wouldn’t worry. Everyone else will be fine.” I shrugged, not knowing what else to say. “It was lovely to meet you, Shannon.” I turned toward my door and then stopped. I glanced over my shoulder at Logan, who was staring at me in a way that made my breath catch.
He looked… disarmed.
I shook off my reaction to his reaction and said in what I hoped was a diplomatic tone, “If you could try to be a little more quiet, I’d appreciate it.”
Logan gave me a sharp nod. “Party noise I can lower. However, how loud women are in my bed is out of my control.”
“Oh, Logan.” Shannon made a comically disgusted face at his arrogance, and her brother broke out into a massive grin.
Once more I felt breathless at the sight of him smiling widely down at his sister. It was the first time I’d ever seen Logan MacLeod smile in a way that was pure and real and not tainted by mockery.
What a sight it was to behold.
Suddenly he looked at me, and our gazes locked.
Frantically I searched for a way to release myself.
Breathe, Grace. Breathe!
I blew out air between my lips and forced myself to lower my gaze. I opened my door and stepped inside. “As always, I’m charmed, Mr. MacLeod,” I said, wishing I’d injected more sarcasm into it.
I closed my door before he could say or do anything to throw me off-balance again.
CHAPTER 4
J
ust as I expected, Logan’s past became a nonissue once Janice moved out of our building. It seemed everyone, like me, was reassured by Mr. Carmichael that we were in no danger with Logan in the building. Despite my aggravation with my neighbor, I couldn’t help but wonder what it must be like for him in everyday society as an ex-convict. It would seem he’d fallen on his feet regarding a job – Mr. Carmichael owned Fire and had obviously offered Logan a position there. But surely that was about knowing the right person. Not everyone was a Mr. Carmichael. Janice was a great example. So whenever Logan had to fill out a form or explain absences for whenever it was he did his time, he had to face judgment.
In a way he was still doing his time.
I knew how deep the cut was when people refused to see beyond their own perceptions and judgments of you.
Despite myself, I think I really did feel bad for him. However, and I would never admit it out loud, I was incredibly curious to know what it was he’d been sentenced for. Clearly, it was a misdemeanor in conviction terms, right? Or Mr. Carmichael wouldn’t be so assured of his stability. Maybe that was naive of me, but I was blissfully ignorant in my naïveté and quite happy to be.
It helped that, as promised, Logan attempted to be more considerate with his noise levels. There was one instance over the next few weeks of loud sex, but there was no music or partying. When we passed each other in the stairwell, we offered a polite nod of acknowledgment, mostly because ignoring each other would be bad manners.
Life was returning to a sense of normality and I was even working at night again.
What I wasn’t doing was getting out much.
After the disastrous date with Bryan, which was really the fifth in a long line of disastrous dates, I felt more than a little gun-shy, but I was also bored. Chloe’s fiancé was home for a bit and Aidan was in focused “training mode.”
So when Chloe called me up at the beginning of the week to ask me if I fancied getting fixed up with a colleague of hers, I reluctantly said yes.
To my pleasant surprise, John was handsome in an old-fashioned kind of way and nervous upon meeting me in a way that was endearing. Half an hour into our dinner date, however, I was growing concerned by the quick rate at which he was consuming wine. It seemed he needed the alcohol as fortification to converse with me, and it also seemed he just didn’t know when to stop.
And John and alcohol apparently weren’t a good mix.
His dark eyes had been friendly and kind when he approached me in the restaurant. They were warm, even if his gaze did dart around the room anxiously as we chitchatted while deciding what to eat.
By his third glass of vino, however, a mocking light entered the backs of his eyes.
“I’ve seen pictures of you, you know,” he said.
I looked up from my pasta, wondering what on earth he meant. “Excuse me?”
He grinned, the smile off-kilter, lazy with wine. “On Facebook. Chloe shows me her pictures on Facebook. I’ve always thought you were very pretty.”
I blushed at the compliment. “Thank you.”
John suddenly ogled my chest, and I tensed. “You could dress a bit sexier though – don’t you think? You’ve got a cracking figure, but we can’t really see it.”
Hiding my flinch at the far-too-close-to-the-bone comment, I looked at his almost-empty wineglass and wished I had it in me to say something, but I didn’t want to cause a scene in the restaurant. I met his glazed stare with one of quiet reproach. “I like my style just fine.”
He held up his hands defensively. “Oh, I didn’t mean to be insulting. I was just suggesting that you might not be single if you dressed a bit better.”
I almost choked on my food.
“And you might look better with your hair down. You look a bit uptight with it up like that.”
I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to block him out, because unfortunately, his criticisms were a trigger…
The butterflies swarming in my stomach threatened to upend all the nothing in it. I’d never felt so nervous. I hadn’t been able to eat all day.
My first school dance.
I stared into the mirror, fidgeting with my hair and my dress and wondering if I should have worn my hair up and if I should have worn the black dress instead of the purple one.
“Why is there a boy at the door?”
I whirled around, my pulse instantly racing at the sight of my mother leaning against my doorframe. She was frowning at me as she swirled a glass of red wine in her hand.
“I thought you were having dinner with Mrs. Ferguson this evening.”
Mother scowled at me. “Clearly I’m not. What are you hiding? Why are you dressed in that hideous monstrosity?”
“I got asked to go the school dance.”
She snorted. “By the short boy at my door? He has acne.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust.
I flushed and looked away. “His name is Michael and I like him.”
“Does he come from a good family?”
“Why?” I looked up, scared because Michael’s dad was a dentist and his mother was an actress on a soap opera. It was hard to know if that made them a “good” family or not.
“Because,” she sighed impatiently, “I need to know if, despite the acne, this boy is worth my advising you out of a dress that
makes you look like you have four thighs instead of two.” She stared at me suspiciously. “Have you been sticking to that diet I told you to start?”
I trembled. “The nurse at school said it’s not meant for a fourteen-year-old.”
“Why the bloody hell does the nurse at school know anything about your eating habits?”
“I – I fainted at school.”
Mother rolled her eyes. “Dear God, how maudlin.”
My finger curled into the fabric of my dress, crushing it. I was slender, and still it didn’t seem to be skinny enough for my model-thin mother.
“Well?” she snapped. “Who is this boy?”
“His mother is Andrea Leeds.”
“The actress?” Mother tilted her head in thought. “I suppose it could be worse. Well, you can’t wear that.” She put her glass down on my desk and sauntered over to my wardrobe. “Let’s see if we can’t find you something that gives the illusion of a figure. Boys want girls who look like girls, you know, Gracelyn. You won’t ever be sexy, but we can but try to make you feminine.” She stared doubtfully at my wardrobe selection. “We’ll also need to do something with your hair. You look like a bloody waif. You’re getting it cut next week.”
I touched a strand of my long hair. “I don’t want to cut it.”
Her head jerked around, her dark eyes flashing angrily. “As long as you’re under my roof, taking my money and representing my name, you will do as I say. Understood?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Bloody children,” she muttered, turning back to the clothes. “I’d never have had any if it weren’t for your goddamn father and his need for heirs to his bloody empire. But does he give a shit that it’s me who’s left to deal with your stupidity? No, he does not…” She trailed off, lost in thought.
Tears burned in my eyes, but like always, I fought against them and the painful lump in my throat…
“Oh fuck,” John groaned, running his hand through his hair in distress. “I’m just saying all the wrong things. I say these things, and in my head they sound helpful, but they come out all wrong.” He leaned across the table, and his elbow hit the bottom of his dessert spoon. It pinged up off the table. He didn’t even notice. “I think you’re gorgeous, Grace. I really do.”