“ARE YOU SURE you don’t want me to come in with you?” Tate asked for the third time since he’d pulled the Mustang up at the main entrance of the Sheraton.

Logan shook his head even as he leaned over the console to kiss Tate, loving that he’d willingly sit through a meal with Evelyn just to look out for him. “No, I’ll be fine and quick. Just have your phone at the ready so you can swing back around and get me when I send out an SOS.”

Tate held up his phone. “You got it.”

“My hero,” Logan said, and then quickly got out and shut the door before he changed his mind and told Tate to floor it.

At first, he’d been tempted to take an Uber to go meet up with Evelyn, but then he’d decided that might tempt him to drink his way through this little meeting. So when Tate had offered to drive him, Logan had jumped at the chance, knowing he didn’t plan to stay long enough that Tate would even need to get out of the car.

As the Mustang turned into the underground parking, Logan looked up to the double doors of the lobby and asked himself for the millionth time, What the hell am I doing here? But as he headed inside and crossed the marble floor to the cafe, he reminded himself he was finally doing what he should’ve done many years ago.

He was done dealing with Evelyn’s shit, and where he’d once brushed it aside, thinking she was his mother and he had a moral obligation to at least try to have a relationship with her, he was done with that also. He was sick and tired of always wondering what she was up to. And there was no way he was about to sign Tate up for a life of that.

No, that was all going to stop. Right here. Right now.

Logan stepped inside the boutique café, and as the rich aroma of crushed coffee beans and French pastries filled his nose, he scanned the area. It didn’t take long to spot her. Evelyn was perched at a high-top table with one leg crossed over the other, her midnight-blue Chanel skirt showing off the shapely length of them to anyone who wanted to look. Her black hair fell in waves down her back, and she looked like a million dollars—someone else’s millions of dollars.

Always dress to impress, that was her favorite motto. Funny, it was one Logan actually agreed with. Well, what do you know? Evelyn managed to pass along one crumb of advice.

He crossed over to her, making his way through the tables, and when he reached hers, Logan walked around to stop behind an empty chair by the window.

“Logan,” she said, as he remained standing behind the chair. “Won’t you sit down?”

“No,” he said, and shook his head. “I don’t think I will.”

A frown barely formed between Evelyn’s eyebrows, but Logan suspected that had more to do with some work she’d recently had done than with her lack of emotion.

“No? Then what do you plan to do, just stand there? Sit down. People are staring.”

Logan glanced around the cafe at the couples chatting and family members laughing with one another, and not one of them were looking in their direction. Gritting his teeth, he let out a breath and returned his attention back to his mother. “Where were you yesterday?”

“I was—” Evelyn stopped and raised her chin a fraction, as if she were offended he wanted her to explain herself. “I got held up. I called.”

“So I heard.”

“Yes, well, your young man wasn’t very…” Evelyn must’ve caught something in his eyes—annoyance, most likely—because she stopped her current train of thought and changed direction. “Tate said you were busy.”

Tate had said no such thing, and since Logan had heard the tail end of their conversation, he knew that for a fact. “Did he?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Kind of like you were too busy to stop by for lunch yesterday, right?”

Evelyn shifted in her seat, angling her body away from the other people in the cafe. “Why don’t you take a seat and we can talk about it?”

“No thanks.”

“Hot Whee—”

“Cut the crap, Evelyn,” Logan snapped, and heard his teeth click at the bite of it. “I’m done playing this game with you. That’s what I came here to tell you today.”

As his words sank in, Evelyn reached up to push a piece of her hair behind her ear. “Done?”

“Yes. Done.” Logan shook his head and moved around the table until he was standing close enough that she could hear him when he lowered his voice to say, “I’m done taking your calls. I’m done meeting you for brunch. I’m done visiting with you because you haven’t got anything better to do or anyone else to pay for whatever it is you need that day. I’m. Done. And you know what?” Logan said, his eyes roving over her beautiful face. “I don’t even feel bad about it.” He shook his head at her. “I always thought I would, you know? Feel bad for abandoning you the way all the other men in your life have. But I don’t.”

Evelyn’s lips pulled into a tight line, as though she were fighting back words, or a rant of some sort, but Logan wasn’t finished yet. Before he walked out of there today, he wanted her to know that, despite her best efforts, he had turned out just fine. She was free to go. In fact, he wanted her to.

“I remind you of him, don’t I? It took me a while to work it out. Actually, I wasn’t even the one who did. But that’s it, isn’t it? I imagine that must be hard. To look at me and see him, the one who threw you away.” Logan bent down to put his mouth by her ear and said, “Now think how hard that was for a five-year-old. To look in the mirror and wonder who it was staring back at him. But then imagine having you as a comfort.”

Evelyn gasped and reared back from him. “What’s gotten into you?” she said. “Do you really hate me this much? To say such horrible things.”

“Hate you?” Logan said, and regarded her carefully. “No, I don’t hate you. I feel sorry for you, because you had someone ready to love you even when that piece of shit left, and that still wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. So maybe it’s you who hates me.”

Logan swallowed back the years of anger, resentment, and disappointment, and said, “So, this is it. It’s over, Evelyn. And until you change your behavior, I don’t want you anywhere near me or Tate, because I won’t let you poison that. I won’t let you come between us over a holiday dinner or a day in the life of Evelyn when she deemed her life more important than ours. I’m done trying to buy your love in an attempt to make you see me. And you know why? Because I finally found someone who wants the job for free.”

He was about to leave when Evelyn reached out and took his arm.

“Logan, wait,” she whispered, but Logan couldn’t bring himself to look at her. He’d said his piece and now he wanted out of there. So without another word, he shook his arm free and walked out of the café, and as he did, he felt as though the weight of the world left his shoulders, and he happily left it behind with the beautiful, but sad, woman in the Chanel dress sitting by the window on a cold November afternoon.