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“The nausea medication isn’t working?”

She side-glances at me, leaning against me in the elevator. “I haven’t taken it.”

“Youwhat?”

“I have it with me! I just haven’t taken it except the once because it made me so drowsy. I can’t take it at work.”

“Then we have to work it out where you work from home.”

“Not yet, Logan, please. Let me try to manage this and work, too. At least for a while. Until…”

“Until what? Until you have enough to leave your mother’s house? Leave the state? Hell, even the country, with your trust fund?”

“What I do with my trust fund is none of your business, Logan.”

I open the hotel room door, storming in and heading straight for the minibar. I need a drink or three if I’m going to tell her the whole truth.

“You’re planning to leave.” I shoot down a mini bottle of tequila. I’m not even going to start small.

I open the second bottle, and Meredith grabs my wrist.

“You're going to get sick."

“I don’t care. I need this.” I shoot back the next bottle, and she sits down on the bed, staring at me warily as if I may have gone crazy.

Maybe I have.

The tequila burns, and my head’s spinning slightly as I sit down next to her on the edge of the bed.

She stares ahead of her. “Now, are you going to tell me the truth?”

I squeeze my eyes shut.

I guess I have to. I have no other choice.

ChapterThirty-One

MEREDITH

“It was never easy, between us.”

I frown. “That’s not how I remember it.”

He snorts. “Of course, it was easy for you. What do you think it was like for me, Meredith? Sneaking around, lying to Grayson, lying to your parents, my aunt...”

“I lied, too.”

“Sure, but you knew your family would always back you up. What would happen if I got in trouble? I might have been kicked out of my aunt’s?—”

“She would have never done that.”

He grits his teeth. “You’re probably right. Aunt Beatrice probably never would have cut me out. Hell, she knew about you even back then, listened to my lies and let me get away with them.”

He shakes his head. “But what you don’t—no, can’t—understand, is that I had no one. Beatrice didn’t have influence or money to help me. Your father did. He took me in like I was his own, and what did I do? I started sleeping with his daughter. With my best friend’s baby sister. You don’t get it. You’re never going to get it.”

I grab his shoulder, turning him to face me. “Then explain it to me, Logan.”

“I was nobody, Meredith. Don’t you get that? I’mstillnobody.”