Please Be Mine

Chapter Sixteen

Selena simply stared, suddenly realized that she barely thought about him over the past two weeks.

"I didn't expect to see you here, Logan."

He gave a benign smile. "I expect it seems like a dream." Sure of himself, Logan smiled down at her. "Aren't you going to invite me in?"

"No. You broke off our engagement, Logan. I was devastated." Selena frowned to herself. Her devastation hadn't lasted long, though, had it? It had been supplanted by bigger issues-but should that have been possible? Did broken hearts really mend that quickly?

"I can't talk about this on the doorstep." He pushed his way into the flat and thrust the flowers into her hands. Past their best, a few curling petals float onto the floor. "Here, These are for you. To show that I forgive you."

"Forgive me?" Selena winced as a thorn buried itself into her hand. Gingerly she put the flowers down on the hall table and sucked the blood from her finger. "What are you forgiving me for?"

"For kissing the prince." Logan's face turned the same shade as the roses. "For making a fool of me in public."

"Logan-you were the one partying in that box with your new girlfriend."

"She was no one special. We both need to stop hurting each other. I admit that I was furious when I saw you kissing the prince, then I realized that it must have been hard on you, watching me get that promotion and then losing me. But it seems to have loosened up something inside you. A whole new you emerged." He grinned like a schoolboy who had just discovered girls. "You've always been quite shy and a bit prim. And suddenly you were, well, wild. When I saw you kissing him, I couldn't help think it should have been me."

Looking at him, Selena realized that not once during her entire passionate episode with the prince had she thought "this should have been Logan."

"I know you only did it to bring me to my senses," Logan said. "And it worked. I see now that you are capable of passion. I just need to be more patient with you."

The prince hadn't been patient, Selena thought absently. He'd been impatient. Rough, demanding, forceful.

"I didn't kiss the prince in public to make you jealous." She'd kissed him because she couldn't help herself.

"Never mind that now. Put my ring back on your finger, and we'll go out there tell the press we'd had a row and you kissed the prince because you were pining for me."

Life had a strange sense of humor, Selena reflected numbly. Logan was offering to get back together. But she was already propelled down a different path.

"That isn't possible"

"We're going to make a great couple." He was smugly confident. "We'll have the Porsche and the big house. You don't need to be a waitress any more."

"I like being a waitress," Selena said absently. "I like meeting new people and talking to them. People tell you a lot over a cup of coffee."

"But who wants to be weighed down with someone else's problems when you can stay home and look after me?"

"It can't happen Logan-"

"I know it's like a fairytale, but it is happening. By the way, the flowers cost a fortune, so you better put them in water. I need to use the bathroom."

"Door on the right," Selena said automatically, and then gave a gasp. "No, Logan, you can't go in there." Oh, dear God, she'd left the positive pregnancy test on the floor-he'd see.

Wanting to drag him back out but already too late, she stood there, paralyzed into inactivity by the sheer horror of the moment. The inevitability was agonizing. It was like witnessing a pile-up-watching, powerless, as a car accelerated towards the back of another.

For a moment there was no sound. No movement.