Trust (Temptation #3)(10)

Cole pulled his chair out and sat, appearing to think over his next words carefully. He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Logan spoke up again.

“Please don’t give me some speech about how I didn’t miss much. This I already know. But I bet he used to look just like you when he was mad, all scary and shit. He had your hair color and my eyes. I’ve seen pictures. Mom used to try to be strict with me, but really, with this face?” he said, pointing to himself as he gave his most charming smile. “She always crumbled. A bit flaky, she was.”

Once he finally stopped talking, Cole sat back in his chair and asked, “You done?”

Logan made a show of clamping his mouth shut and waited for Cole to continue.

“Jesus. When you’re nervous, you don’t know how to be quiet. It’s been so long since I’ve seen that side of you I forgot it even existed. Nice to know that that geeky school kid with the skinny legs, big glasses, and shaggy hair is still lurking in there under all of that sophisticated arrogance.”

“Oh, fuck off. Like you’re one to talk,” Logan retorted, but he appreciated that Cole was trying to ease the tension in the room.

He really didn’t want to get into this. Not with Cole—the one person who’d known him since he was a teen. The one person who’d witnessed the way Chris had treated him back in college. How could he admit to him that he’d…what? Gone back for more as an adult? For years?

God, he was disgusted with himself.

“So, you want to go first?” Cole asked.

Logan’s brow winged up, and he asked, “What is this, show-and-tell? Just ask what you want to ask and get it the fuck over with.”

Cole regarded him as if he were deciding where to start, and then he asked something Logan hadn’t expected.

“Does Tate know everything that happened with Chris? Or just the parts you decided to tell him?”

Typical fucking lawyer, went straight for the jugular.

“He knows everything.”

Logan couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw a flash of hurt behind the shock that entered Cole’s eyes.

Cole’s jaw bunched. “So, it’s just me who was left in the dark?”

Logan wondered how long he had until the temper that was rising in his brother exploded. Deciding he should just lay it all out on the table, he offered up the details before Cole asked for them.

“I told him about Chris when we were up at the cabin.”

The hazel eyes drilling him appeared hard as stone, and Cole looked just as unmoving. But what was most disconcerting was that he still hadn’t revealed what Chris had told him.

“How nice,” Cole said, but his voice certainly didn’t match his opinion. “Did it ever occur to you when you found out that Chris would be at the function that it might be a good time to tell me you, oh, I don’t know, had a fucking affair with him for two years?”

Shit. He’d figured Cole had known it all, but he wasn’t sure he believed it since…well, how did Chris even bring that up?

“Logan?”

“What?” he snapped, growing more irritable by the second.

“Please tell me he was lying. Trying to piss me off for punching him all those years ago.”

He wished he could tell Cole that that was the case, but as he sat there staring his brother head on, it became apparent he was not going to refute the claim.

“Fucking hell, Logan. When did you even see him? Why would you… You know what? That isn’t important right now.”

Logan offered no words. Now wasn’t the time to apologize, and it certainly wasn’t the time for a joke, so he figured his best course of action was silence because there was no way Cole was done with him yet.

“I need to know if working with them, him, is going to be a problem? LPCW Architecture would be a huge account. You aren’t stupid.” Cole paused for a moment as if he wanted to tack something on after that claim, but then, he kept going. “You know how much revenue this would bring in. But if you aren’t comfortable working with Chris—”

“I’m fine,” Logan said, cutting him off.

“If you’re not, that would be understandable.”

“I said I was fine, and I am,” Logan stressed.

“Is Tate?”

The room fell silent as the question lingered between them, and Logan was appalled to realize he hadn’t even considered that.

“Well?” Cole pushed. “Is he?”

Good fucking question…

Logan stood as if the seat were on fire, making it rock back. Then he pulled the phone out of his pocket and looked at the blank screen. Tate hadn’t said that he was upset about him working with Chris…but would he be?