Stay With Me by Maya Banks Page A

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    “Don’t leave us, Catherine,” Logan said abruptly. “I know you’re hurt and angry, but we can work this out.”
    “Can we? And are you speaking for Rhys now?”
    Both men looked startled at the bitterness in her voice.
    “Of course he doesn’t speak for me, Cat, but in this case, everything he says is true. We can work this out. I love you.”
    Her lips turned down into a resigned moue. “There’s so much I want to say,” she said in frustration. “So much that should have been said years ago.”
    “Then say it now,” Logan said calmly. “We can’t fix it if we don’t know what’s wrong, and damn it, Catherine, we— I —want to fix it.”
    She looked at her fingers clasped together in her lap. She pressed them together until the tips whitened. “Each of you has been handing me off to the other for a long time. Taking a team approach to our relationship.”
    Logan’s protest was swift, but she silenced him with a look. “Let me finish. It’s true. At first you both took your commitment to me very seriously. You took nothing for granted. Over time it became easier for the two of you to rely on each other instead of nurturing your relationship with me.”
    Logan made a strangled sound of irritation. He’d never been able to stomach touchy-feely emotional talk, and she knew it, but he couldn’t avoid it this time. She would have her say. Rhys was more subdued. He wore an almost guilty expression as if she had touched on something he’d already realized.
    ”That’s bullshit,” Logan muttered.
    She eyed him straight on. “You didn’t have to be there all the time if Rhys was around. Rhys didn’t have to feel bad about missing an event or special occasion if you were going to be there. You tag-teamed me instead of treating our relationship as one between the two of us instead of the three of us. You had it good. One of you was on standby at all times. Can’t pay attention to poor ole Catherine? She has two husbands. She doesn’t need but one around, right? Well, you were wrong.”
    She crossed her arms over her chest as her anger grew.
    “Eventually you stopped even that, and both of you shut me out, placed everything ahead of me, your business, your colleagues, even your personal assistant got more of your attention than I did.”
    “We were busy making our business a success,” Logan said tightly.
    “At the expense of your marriage? Tell me, Logan, was it worth it? I’ve long thought money and success was more important to you than I was, but I want to hear it. Maybe I need to hear it, because imagining it is so much worse. Maybe I need to face it instead of wavering back and forth as I wonder if I’m overreacting.”
    Rhys sucked in his breath, and Logan’s eyes widened in shock. For a long moment, there was complete silence as if both men were absorbing, finally, how dangerously close they were to a relationship that wasn’t salvageable.
    “We did it for you,” Logan said, his voice strained and low. “We wanted the best for you.”
    “You and Rhys are…were what’s best for me.”
    She uncurled her fingers and crossed her arms, trailing her hands up to her shoulders in an effort to instill comfort, anything to make the feeling of emptiness go away.
    “I can’t go on living like this,” she whispered. “I deserve better.”
    Logan stared at Catherine. His wife. She looked utterly small and defeated and so damned sad. Worse, she looked resigned. She didn’t see any other option other than leaving.
    Panic knotted his stomach. He couldn’t wrap his brain around a future without Catherine. No, he hadn’t been around much. He and Rhys had been throwing themselves into their company. Making it a success. Never had he imagined that it could cost him the one person who’d loved him when he’d had nothing, been nobody.
    He exchanged glances with Rhys, and Logan could see the same despair in his friend’s eyes. Sex wouldn’t fix this. Catherine was right about that much.