Modern Romance January 2020 Books 5-8. Heidi Rice

Standards that didn’t factor in my needs or aspirations. Standards that didn’t include love. I want more than that now. I deserve more than that and you do too.’

      His expression was masked but she sensed a simmering anger behind the dark screen of his gaze. ‘You’re free to come and go as you please. I can’t make you stay.’

      Yes, you can, Layla wanted to say. Just three little words would make me stay.

      But those three little words had never been a part of their arrangement. Neither had a future together ever been part of the deal. Logan had always been blatantly honest about that. ‘I don’t think it will help either of us if I were to stay on in this relationship. Of course, I won’t jeopardise your inheritance of Bellbrae. I will be your wife on paper, as you first suggested, to fulfil the terms of your grandfather’s will.’

      ‘Magnanimous of you.’ His coolly delivered comment was as cutting as a switchblade.

      Layla pressed her lips together to stop them from trembling. She couldn’t fall apart now. He was making it perfectly clear there was no hope for their marriage. No hope at all. ‘I think it’s best if I leave straight away. I will pack a few things and come for the rest later.’

      ‘There’s no need to be so dramatic, Layla,’ Logan said. ‘I’m sure we can be perfectly civil to each other until tomorrow morning. It’ll be dark in a couple of hours. I don’t like the thought of you driving all the way to Edinburgh at this time of day.’

      And risk having him try and change her mind? No. It was better she leave now while she still had the strength and courage and self-respect to do so. Layla raised her chin to a determined height, her gaze steady on his unreadable one. ‘I appreciate your concern, but my mind is made up.’

      Anger flared in his gaze and his mouth went into a flat line and he began a caged-tiger-like pacing of the floor. ‘This all seems rather sudden and impulsive.’ He stopped pacing to spear her with a look. ‘A few minutes ago, we were kissing. Now you say you want out?’

      Layla smoothed her sweaty palms down her thighs, wishing she could smooth away the heartache she was feeling. ‘It’s not as sudden as you might think. I’ve been worried from the start—you know I have. I didn’t want you to lose Bellbrae. But I can’t lose myself in the process of you gaining your inheritance. And that’s what’s already happening. I can’t be who I’m meant to be if I’m tailoring my needs to suit your plans. I have my own plans and they don’t include a short-term loveless marriage.’

      He rolled his eyes heavenwards and let out a not-quite-inaudible curse. ‘Oh, I thought you’d mention the L word eventually. You think I don’t care about you? Is that what you think?’

      Layla forced herself to hold his embittered gaze. ‘I know you care. You care about lots of people. But you don’t love me.’

      He sucked in a harsh breath and strode to stand in front of the waist-height bookcase. ‘You’re suddenly such an expert on my feelings.’ He pushed a hand through his hair and then dropped it back by his side. ‘Love?’ He shook his head and let out another breath and continued, ‘I don’t trust that emotion. I don’t trust the word when people say it to me. My mother said it so frequently and look how that turned out.’ His gaze narrowed. ‘Are you saying you love me?’

      Layla ran the tip of her tongue over her parchment-dry lips. ‘It wouldn’t matter if I did or not. You don’t love me the way I want to be loved.’

      He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. After a moment, he lowered his hand from his face to look at her. ‘No one can love anyone the way they want to be loved. The standard is set too high, fed by romantic fantasies encouraged by popular culture. It’s not real, Layla. What you feel for me is not real, it’s just a fantasy.’

      How like him to intellectualise everything. How like him to dismiss her feelings as simple fantasy. What hope was there to ever change his mind? She had seen her mother try desperately to get her father to love her and it hadn’t happened. Layla had tried to get both her parents to love her and yet the drugs and drink had triumphed over her. Lucky Layla wasn’t so lucky after all.

      She was unlucky in love.

      ‘I’m going upstairs to pack. I’ll text you when I arrive in Edinburgh.’

      ‘Fine.’

      Layla took off the engagement ring and held it out to him. ‘I think you should have this back. It’s a family heirloom and I’m not family.’ Or ever will be.

      His eyes hardened to ice, his jaw set in stone. ‘Keep it. I don’t want it.’

      Layla curled her fingers around the ring and slipped it into her pocket and silently left the room.

      His words could just as easily be referring to her love for him.

       Keep it. I don’t want it.

      Logan forced himself to watch Layla’s tail-lights fading into the distance. Forced himself to stand there at the window, watching her leave, instead of racing to his own car and driving after her, begging her to come back. But he was not the sort of man to beg. To plead. To humiliate himself over a relationship that was never going to work. It had all the odds stacked against it from the start and wasn’t he the biggest odds of them?

      He was the last person to be anyone’s godparent. What sort of spiritual guardian would he be? He had messed up big time with his younger brother, keeping the reins too loose, and now he couldn’t pull back on them. It was painful to watch his brother self-destruct, knowing he was partly, if not wholly, responsible. He had done an even worse job of taking care of his fiancée. Taking on any more responsibility was asking for another monumental screw-up.

      And now he had another one for his personal failure board—his relationship with Layla. It had been doomed from the outset because he was the common denominator in all his failed relationships. There was no escaping the uncomfortable truth that he was unable to care for someone without letting them down.

      The tail-lights were finally swallowed by the cloaking darkness and he closed the curtains. Hadn’t he stood at this very window as a seven-year-old boy, looking for the lights of his mother’s car? Every night for a year he had waited, hoping, praying she would return. But, of course, she never had. His mother had told him she loved him every day of his life and yet those words had not brought her back. Her love had not brought her back. It had vanished with her. Or—even more likely—it hadn’t been there in the first place.

      Layla fancied herself in love with him and he blamed himself for not sticking to his rules. He had blurred the boundaries by taking their relationship from on paper to passion and now he had to pay the price.

      But he still had Bellbrae.

      Layla had promised not to do anything that would compromise his inheritance and for that he was grateful. To lose Bellbrae would be to lose a big part of himself. He glanced at the Christmas tree that only a short time ago they had decorated together. The porcelain angel on the top of the tree had slipped sideways and looked in danger of falling. He deliberated on whether to climb back up the ladder or leave the angel to its fate. It had been repaired a few times—once Flossie as a puppy had run off with it during the tree-decorating process. Another time Robbie had thrown it in a tantrum not long after their mother had left. It had taken Logan ages to glue it back together before anyone noticed.

      Flossie pushed the sitting-room door open with her nose and padded over to him, her tail low, her brown eyes so woebegone it made something in Logan’s gut tighten. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he said, frowning. ‘I didn’t ask her to leave.’

       But you didn’t convince her to stay either.

      He pushed aside the intrusive thought and went over to where he had propped the stepladder against the wall. He unfolded the ladder and began climbing but he had only got up