Page 100 of Break the Barrier

There are things in the guest room and Logan’s room, and I break a little more that I subconsciously never allowed myself to think of this house as my own home, not really.

I never should have done any of this. I never should have made Logan take care of me, to let him protect me in any capacity.

I don’t know what I was thinking. He has a daughter, for Christ’s sake. A gorgeous, smart, funny daughter who doesn’t deserve to have any of this dumped on her doorstep.

Not now, not ever.

I rush to pack, and then I wait in the living room, waiting for the end of the relationship I never deserved to have in the first place.

I hear the sound of Logan’s truck pulling up, my bag at my feet, and the letter now safely tucked away, where it will never touch him.

I’m doing the right thing.The thought blares in my head as Logan comes into view of the living room, smiling for a moment when he sees me.

“Hey, baby.” He walks back to hang his hat up in the hall when he realizes that he forgot to and says, “I was thinking my girl and I need to go on a date, since Lue is at Mom’s tonight. You up for that?”

My eyes prick with tears at the casual way he asks, like it’s a sure thing. Swallowing hard, I wait until he comes into the living room and stops when he sees my expression.

“Dorothy, what’s wrong?” He only calls me Dorothy when he’s being serious about something or teasing me, and he sure as hell doesn’t sound like he’s teasing me.

“We need to talk,” I start, knowing it’s the kiss-of-death phrase that no one wants to hear.

Logan eyes the coffee table in front of me, and that’s when he nearly trips over my bag, his eyes stay on it long after he’s plopped himself down on the coffee table.

I see his expression, and my heart breaks again. Devastation, anger, hurt, and confusion all strike across his features.

“Thea, talk to me, why do you have your bag?”

“I need to go home,” I start, and quickly get interrupted by him.

“You are home.” His words are firm, sure, and God, they break my heart all over again.

But no, I steel my spine. I have to do this to protect them.

“I need some space,” I start, working through the words that I’d told myself to say. “We’ve been moving at warp speed, and I’m just not ready for all of this.”

Logan eyes me like he doesn’t believe a word coming out of my mouth. Maybe he doesn’t. “Where is this coming from? You’ve been contentedly playing wife and mother for over a month without a word of unhappiness.”

I open my mouth to defend myself, to tell him I wasn’t “playing” at anything. But no…that works in favor of what I’m trying to do right now.

“I’m sorry, Logan. I don’t know why I thought I could do this, that I could just let go, but the truth is that I’m not able to trust anyone right now.”

His face looks like I’ve struck him, and I blanch at myself for being the person who did it. How can I hurt him? How can I let myself hurt him?

You don’t have a choice.

“I can’t believe this.” He sits up from where he was resting his elbows on his knees and shakes his head. “Now you don’t trust me? I can’t believe a word out of your mouth right now.”

For a long while, we’re both silent, and I tell my legs to get up, to move, to leave right now.

He scoffs. “My wife, right. Well, this is fun.” His expressionis clearly hurt, but the anger is taking hold of him right before my eyes. I’ve never seen him look like this toward anyone, let alone me. “This will be my first divorce, too. Well, now, wait a minute, it’s been less than a year, so I guess we can just get it all annulled, right? It’ll be like this never even happened.”

He stands and stalks away from me, his hands on his hips. “Yeah.” Turning to face me again, he nods his head. “Yeah, that’ll be fine. It will be like a really awful, horrific dream where the love of my life left me and my daughter high and dry when the arrangement no longer suited her.”

“Logan.” I stand, ready to defend myself, ready to give in and tell him everything, tell him what happened and why I’m running scared. Tell him I’m only doing it to protect them.

But he digs the knife in just before I can.

“I never knew you were a coward.”