Chapter 15: Chapter 15

LOGAN

A week had passed, and he hadn’t heard anything from her. Lauren Landon was an expert at avoiding, and he was not a patient man. Logan had messaged and called, but she had cut him off.

It had been amusing at first, his Little Landon fighting back with that fiery attitude by ignoring him, but now he was over it. He wanted her back in his bed, and if he could convince her, standing next to him.

She had flipped a switch inside him. She wasn’t clingy, she wasn’t begging, and she wasn’t manipulating. She had told him where she stood, and she had meant it. She had asked for one night, and it was infuriating that she had meant that too.

Logan looked out the glass walls of his office, lips pursed as he tried to think of a way to get to her. Lauren had a hard shell, and if he could just figure out how to crack it, he could convince her to at least talk to him.

“Mr. Hawke?” Shana knocked on the door to his office and came in.

He nodded at her to sit down, resting back in his chair with his fingers tapping his lip.

Shana sank into the chair opposite his desk, crossing one leg over the other, a tablet in her hands. “You’ve asked me to book a stay for us out of town this weekend,” Shana said in a way that could have been a question.

Logan nodded, not really listening. Exhaustion fogged his mind, but it’d been hard for him to sleep. He needed to sleep in a bed that still smelled like Lauren, though he knew it wasn’t just about her vanilla scent. “Yes.”

“But there’s the fundraiser on Saturday,” she said. “We already RSVP’d that we were going.” Again, it could have been a question, but he didn’t see where she was going with it.

Wanting the conversation over, Logan shrugged. “Send a check. I don’t need to be there in person.”

Shana nodded, looking at her tablet. “Sure, sure. But, um, do you mind if I go to the fundraiser instead, though?” She looked up at him with a pleading smile, then scooted forward in the chair. “It’s just, I promised Lauren I would go and—”

“Lauren?” he said, his mind finally clinging to a solid thought.

“Yeah, she’s organized it.” Shana eyed him. “Biggest client yet, so I was going to go support her. But if you need me on this out-of-town trip—”

Logan stopped her words with a raised hand. “No, cancel that. We’ll go to the fundraiser.”

Shana raised a brow. “Are you doing okay, Mr. Hawke?” Always so perceptive, she was indeed a good assistant.

“Perfect, Shana.” He dismissed her question with a wave.

“Sir,” she said, eyeing him again. “Is there something I should know about Laur—”

“Anything else?” he asked, standing up and gesturing toward the door. ~Shana’s maybe too good~, he thought. Logan would have to be less obvious if he was to keep good on his agreement that no one would find out about him and Lauren.

She shook her head and then left the room, checking over her shoulder before closing the door behind her.

Finally, he could get her. At the fundraiser, she couldn’t run. Logan grinned at having an opportunity to build on the connection that was between them. Lauren was different. Real. She made him feel real things. He wasn’t about to let that go.

He just had to convince her of the same.

“Sir,” Shana said, poking her head back in, “your next appointment is here.”

Logan sat up straight and cleared his desk, trying to clear Lauren from his mind too. But it didn’t work. It hadn’t for the past week, so why would it now? “Send them in,” he said after a few moments.

Two of his associates walked in, both wearing pinstripe suits, one with a navy tie, one with a black-and-red-striped tie.

Navy Tie had the face of a bulldog, short white hair and heavy jowls included, and Logan could never pronounce his name correctly, so he never said it. Black and Red was a man so nondescript Logan could never remember his name.

Logan went through the motions—handshakes, greetings, pleasantries—but his mind wasn’t there. He’d rather be seeing Lauren than discussing the business venture he was meant to be going on.

After what felt like an eternity of business drivel that Logan hadn’t listened to, Navy Tie said, “Would that be acceptable, Logan?”

Logan nodded, not wanting to lose face for being distracted. “Yes, of course,” he said with a smile.

The two men stood up, big smiles on their faces, and Logan did too, concerned because their meeting had come to an end, they were happy, and he had no idea what he’d just agreed to.

Lauren was really fucking with his head, and now with his business too. This needed to end. ~The fundraiser~, he told himself. ~It’ll end there.~

“Great,” Navy Tie said, “so you’ll pick up my sweet Arabella Saturday night?”

Logan froze, panic causing his face to heat up.

“What time shall I tell her to expect you?” Navy Tie asked.

He shook his head to clear the fog. “Sorry? Saturday, you said?”

Navy Tie nodded, smile beaming further. “For the fundraiser. You’ll pick her up, no?” He moved away from his chair to the door. “Shall we say six thirty?”

Meeting the men in front of the door, Logan cursed himself, but he couldn’t go back on his word. Instead, he offered the man a tight nod with an even tighter smile. “Yeah, that’s fine. Six thirty,” he said, shaking the men’s hands and opening the door.

“I’ll leave the details with Shana, shall I?” Navy Tie said, but Logan had the door halfway closed already, so he didn’t respond at all.

When the door was closed, Logan waited until he heard no more voices before he thudded his head on it. ~Fuck, fuck, fuck! What have I done?~ He clenched his eyes shut.

Taking another woman to Lauren’s fundraiser was the last thing he should do, especially if that other woman was a clingy, whiny brat.

And Arabella was as clingy and whiny as they came.

Navy Tie had been trying to set them up for years, and Logan had always managed to get out of it. He would this time too. Once they got to the fundraiser, as soon as he could, he would ditch that girl.

Then, he would find Lauren and convince her that whatever was going on between them was real and that whatever could happen between them was worth taking the risk for.