“Cassie your mother and I need to talk to—”

Cassie’s dad burst into the room without knocking. When he saw them both laying on the bed, Logan’s hand halfway up Cassie’s shirt, he stopped short, his eyes narrowing as his face turned bright red.

Logan shot up in bed, but Cassie was a bit slower to rise. She crossed her arms over her chest, while Logan stared wide-eyed at her dad seething in the doorway.

“I guess you’re not feeling that sick anymore.” His words were a simmering quiet volcano ready to burst.

“I was just leaving,” Logan said, standing up.

“No, don’t go,” Cassie said, and grabbed his arm. She turned to her dad, her brows furrowed and her eyes flashing. “If you were Spencer he wouldn’t care.”

“If he were Spencer you wouldn’t have lied to us,” her dad said, crossing his own powerful arms over his chest. “I need to talk to you. Alone.”

His eyes flicked to Logan, who swallowed hard. His palms were starting to sweat as he tried to keep his own rage under control. He’d gone back and forth tonight from having Cassie in his arms to her being ripped out of them, and back again. The ups and downs were starting to take a toll. He’d been about to tell her how he felt. He’d been thinking the words for days; they’d been on the tip of his tongue a hundred times. Was he actually a little relieved for the interruption? If he’d said it and she hadn’t said it back, it would have been more than his poor tortured heart could handle for one night.

“Di already talked to me,” said Cassie, still holding on to Logan’s arm. He wanted to stay, to help her somehow. She wasn’t used to standing up to her parents, and didn’t seem to really know how. Not that Logan did either, but at least he knew what a good relationship looked like. An honest one. He’d seen her cry more than once over all this drama. He couldn’t leave her now.

But her dad was starting to get really scary. A flare of protectiveness shot through Logan, and he sat back down next to her on the bed.

“Well, I need to talk to you again on the subject. Please leave, Logan.”

Logan took a deep breath. Please don’t let it be my last, he prayed.

“If Cassie wants me to stay, I’ll stay.” He looked right into his eyes. The volcano looked close to erupting and a rock settled in Logan’s stomach. This was definitely not how he’d pictured the evening going. But he remembered what this man had done. What men like him did all the time. They hurt women like his mom and let girls like Cassie think that it was okay for guys to treat them like crap. Logan had seen how Spencer talked to her, and he’d probably learned it from his dad. Cassie just accepted that kind of behavior from hers.

“I won’t say it again,” her dad said, every word weighty with danger.

Their eyes met, both filled to the brim with barely controlled rage, but Logan burst first.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Logan cried. “You can’t bully people just because you’re rich! Money doesn’t make you above the law.” Cassie gasped next to him and dropped his hand.

Okay, maybe that had been too far.

“I can certainly ask someone to get out of my own house. Which I have multiple times now.”

Logan stood his ground and set his jaw. He didn’t know what her father’s lowered eyes meant, but Cassie obviously did. She stood up and tugged on Logan’s arm.

“Come on, I’ll just take you home,” she begged. His arm flexed beneath her hand. She tugged harder.

Logan took a deep breath and tried to still his beating heart. Yelling was one thing. But if he took a swing at her dad, not only would Columbia be out of the picture, so would any possible future he had, and everyone in the room knew it. Logan hated how much power her dad still had in this situation. It didn’t matter if they were in his house, it would have been the same no matter where this had gone down.

But Cassie’s dad looked at him with so much anger, it was impossible for Logan to not want to respond somehow. He had put up with so much crap at the restaurant and while cleaning houses over the years. People talking to him like he was nothing, like he didn’t matter. He thought of the person who’d nearly ran him off the road, in their fancy red sports car, probably hadn’t even noticed they’d nearly killed someone, so involved in their own perfect life. He thought of his dad, abandoning him just for wanting to spend time with him.

Cassie tugged a final time at his arm, and Logan shook his head, relaxing the fist his hand had made unconsciously. Her dad wasn’t worth losing everything over. None of them were. Throwing away his future wasn’t going to change how they acted.

Thank goodness Cassie was different. She was there for him, worried about him. She cared about him. And if she asked him to stay, he’d stay. But right now, she was begging him to go.

“Come on!” she said, her hand on his back now.

With a final last glare at her dad, Logan let her push him out of the room.