He felt like he was in the depths of hell being tortured by soulless phantoms he couldn’t see. All because he lived seventeen hundred miles away and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to help Gabriella. Help her, see her, comfort her…fuck her. Her tempting body had teased him every single night for almost a month—when he was awake as well as when he’d finally fallen asleep.
She had more power over him than she knew. He’d never felt this way about a woman. And it was so easy. Funny thing was, when they were in bed, she always thought he was the one in control, but he wasn’t. She was. She held all the power. She held the reins and it was all he could do to hang on.
An ugly realization came upon him then. She had his heart. Only her. It would only ever be her. He had no fucking business feeling this way for God’s sake. Maybe he needed to get laid—put an end to Cinderella invading his mind once and for all.
“Logan? Mr. Reeves?”
Logan blinked his eyes, coming out of his daydream focusing on the sound of his name. It was coming from his desk phone. He cleared his throat and went to his desk. He pressed down the two-way button that allowed the person beeping in to hear him on his end. “This is Logan.”
“Logan. It’s Suzanna, from the reception desk.”
He knew exactly where she was located in the building. Since he’d come back, she’d practically thrown herself at him every chance she got. When he first met her, he’d found her attractive, and she still was attractive, but she wasn’t his type. She always dressed in perfectly tailored black clothes, her blonde hair was never out of place and her bright red lipstick was never smudged or missing for that matter. She was the epitome of high maintenance.
High maintenance was the last thing he needed.
He liked low-maintenance women. He preferred brunettes to blondes and he absolutely liked some curves on a woman. Suzanna was rail thin. He didn’t particularly care for that in a female. He wanted something to hold, curves to caress and long thick hair to run his fingers through.
Gabriella.
“Logan?”
“Sorry, Suzanna. Can I help you with something?”
“Yes,” she giggled. “I was wondering, ah, hoping actually, that you were free this weekend and maybe would want to go to the East Village with me?”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. He had a feeling this was going to happen at some point. “I can’t, Suzanna. I’m sorry. I’m actually going back to Colorado this weekend. Maybe when I get back some of us can all go out together.”
Am I going to Colorado? He had no plans to. Fuck, he didn’t even have a plane ticket. But the minute the idea was formed in his head, he knew it was the truth. Suzanna was saying something about a new bar in the East Village when he cut her off. “I’ve gotta go, Suzanna. Another call. We’ll talk soon.”
He pressed the disconnect button, retrieved his credit card from his wallet and called the listed frequent flyer number connecting him to the airline. It was Wednesday and panic clogged his throat. He had to get a flight out of here. The automated system patiently asked for his flyer number and whether he was calling for a new reservation, a current one or something else. He pressed the proper buttons, repeated his flyer number three times and finally, when he was almost at wits’ end, a customer service representative came on the line.
“I need a flight to Denver from La Guardia, please. It doesn’t matter what it costs or what day—Thursday or Friday. But please find me something. This is an emergency.”
Securing a plane ticket, Logan hung up the phone. Was he crazy? He just spent an ungodly amount of money to fly home for…for what actually? What was he going to do once he got there?
“Logan?”
Logan glanced up to see Jack standing in his doorway. “Hey Pops. Come in. What can I do for you? If this is about Hiroshi, I’ve spoken with him multiple times—”
Jack waved his hand in his face. “It’s not about Hiroshi, Logan. I came in earlier, but you were on the phone. Sounds like you were reserving a flight back to Colorado?”
“Yeah, this weekend. There’s something I need to take care of there.”
“Tell me, what’s got you down, son?”
“Nothing.” Was he that transparent?
“That face doesn’t belong on a man who’s got no worries.” His father bent over and peeked through his blind. “It’s New York, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not your home. That’s what I mean. I might work a lot and I may not have been with you every second of your life while you were growing up, Logan, but I’m pretty perceptive when it comes to you. I can read you fairly well. Come on, you don’t think I can see that you’re miserable here?”
Logan swallowed. Under normal circumstances he might have felt a little awkward but because his father’s observations were dead-on accurate, he couldn’t come up with a response. “It’s fine, I—”
“—Don’t lie to me, boy.” Jack’s stern voice reminded Logan of his childhood. “I can see it. These past few weeks you’ve hardly slept. You haven’t touched any of the food at the house. The bottom line is you haven’t been living. You’ve been going through the motions of day-to-day life, but nothing more. This is my fault, too. I blame myself.”
“Dad.” Gosh, Logan felt terrible. Like he was already letting his dad down. He wanted his father to be proud of him, wanted to give him what he wanted. He wanted his father happy. “I’m not miserable. Don’t blame yourself.”
“Maybe not miserable, but not great either.”
