Chapter 109
Not Accepting Rejection
Chapter 102: Not Accepting Rejection
Logan’s POV
I didn’t sleep.
+25 Pointe
That wasn’t unusual for the past several weeks, sleep had become something unpredictable and never happened on a daily schedule like it did before, but tonight was made up of something else
that made sleep not even an option.
This night was worse because Cameron had told me she found something better than what you gave her* and then ended the call, and those words had taken up residence in my chest and I could
not unhear it.
She’s found someone new.
I lay in the hotel room and looked at the ceiling and turned those words over, looking for the angle where they made sense. The fact that they may be true, the Sedona who had spent the past three years in my house, who had signed divorce papers and disappeared, who was somewhere in this city fighting a cancer diagnosis-had found someone new in the time between leaving and now.
The math didn’t work. The timeline didn’t work. Sedona didn’t work that way.
Cameron was lying to me. Or protecting her. Or-
I sat up.
Both. He was lying to protect her, which was what an older brother did when his sister didn’t want
to be found. That had to be the reason.
That was what Cameron Preston had done.
He was good at it-I’d almost believed him for a moment, he had said the words that were designed to hurt me in a way that made it seem more believable to me.
I got up and went to the window.
Seattle at two in the morning was doing what Seattle did. The city lights blurred in the rain, the
harbor somewhere in the distance, and me here, trying to understand more about this woman that
kept giving me more mystery boxes to open.
Sedona Claire Preston.
I’d said her birth name in my head a hundred times since Reeve had given it to me, trying to attach
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+25 Points it to the woman I’d known, to reconcile the Sedona I’d had with the Sedona who’d grown up in this city with a family and a name and a tennis career before she’d walked away from it. known her for three and a half years. I’d thought I understood the shape of her. I hadn’t known her at all. But I was going to find out. That was the decision I made at two in the morning with the Seattle rain on the window-I was done waiting, done being patient, done making calls through intermediaries who had their own agenda for how this ended. Cameron Preston had taken it upon himself to manage this situation on behalf of his sister, and I had let him, because it had seemed like the right protocol, like the respectful approach, like the behavior of a man who had learned something and was trying to act accordingly. I was done with the respectful approach. Tomorrow. I would go to the hospital tomorrow. I arrived at St. Anthony’s at ten in the morning, which was after I’d stood outside it for twenty minutes convincing myself that this was the right call, that showing up was better than another call to Cameron that would go exactly the same way, that I needed to see her. That whatever she decided when she saw me was something I could work with, something I could respond to, something real rather than the managed version of reality Cameron had been giving me. The hospital was large, private, the kind that screamed a lot of money was invested in this and was the best for the richest families who needed the best care available. “I’m looking for a patient,” I said. “Sedona Preston. Or possibly Sedona Hayes. She was admitted several weeks ago for cancer treatment p> The woman at the desk looked at me with the expression I had gotten used to. “I’m sorry, sir. Our oncology ward is a private ward. Patient information for that unit is only accessible to the treating medical team and approved family members.” She held my eyes with the particular steady kindness of someone delivering a policy they hadn’t written but had said enough times to believe in. “If you’re a family member, you’d be on the approved visitor list and you’d have the ward number already p> “I’m her husband,” I said. Something moved in her expression-not surprise exactly, more like a recalibration. “Sir, if you’re her husband, she would have listed you as an approved visitor or contact at the time of admission.” A pause that was carefully neutral. “If she hasn’t p> 2/3 MON 1 12 O O +25 Points “She didn’t know I was coming. She didn’t list me because we’ve been-there’s been a situation/a separation, and she left without-“I stopped, because I was explaining too much, because explaining too much was not helping. “Can I speak to someone in the ward? A nurse, a doctor, anyone who can p> “I’m not able to provide ward numbers or room information for patients in our private units,” she said, gently but entirely final. “If you’d like to reach her, the most straightforward approach would be to contact her directly p> “Her phone is disconnected p> “Then perhaps through another family member who is an approved contact p> 7 Comments MAON LUCK DRAW > Vote 1 Admins2