I’ve blown it. I know I have.
I told him I need to go find my dad, that I don’t believe he could really want me… those files… must’ve been hundreds of girls in there…
Oh! I just don’t know anymore.
I can barely focus as I step into the elevator, realizing that on top of walking away from the greatest man alive, I have no idea where I am or where I’m going.
I stab a button and bark a sob as the doors finally close, heading down. The only way I can go from now on.
I have to sniff back my tears as I feel the elevator slowing, somebody else getting in. I don’t want to look up but it’s nice to see such a friendly face when I feel so bad.
“You alright, sweetheart?” she asks, an older gray haired woman. She looks like someone’s friendly grandma.
I can only crease my mouth, kind of shrugging.
“You’re lost,” she observes casually, pushing her own floor and patting my arm gently.
“I still lose my own way around here sometimes. Do you know where you should be?” she asks, her tone friendly and helpful.
“PR,” I stammer, “My dad,” I manage, but know if I try to speak again I’ll burst into tears.
Oh, Logan! I’m sorry.
“But it’s not your dad you’re worried about is it?” she asks, and I can’t help but shake my head.
“What happened?” she asks me firmly, her mouth set in a determined look, but her eyes staying clear and calm.
“I was with Mr. Parker, Logan,” I tell her, watching her eyes grow wide.
“Somebody said he was using me, that he has a hundred girls and once he’s had them he just throws them away,” I blurt out, feeling the tears coming now, I can’t help it.
“Who said that?” She asks me cuttingly, practically gripping my arm.
“Mike… Mike…” I stammer.
“Mike Collins,” The old woman says sharply to herself, her eyes narrowing before they grow clear and wide again.
“Let me tell you something dear,” she says with great warmth, taking my arm in hers as the elevator opens silently and she guides me out with her into an empty corridor.
“I’ve worked here for twenty years, worked my way up from cleaner to executive in human resources and I can assure you, Logan Parker has only ever had one woman.”
I feel my heart sink, waiting for the news of his wife, his long and happy marriage to miss perfect somewhere.
“It’s this place,” she adds with a confidential tone. “Logan Parker is married to his company and has worked on it day and night for twenty years, he even lives here. I’ve never known him to even have a day off let alone go on a date. Why, if any girl ever was lucky enough to land him, he’d treat her like a queen. I can guarantee you that!”
She registers the look of shock on my face, her own dropping a little as she realizes what I’m really experiencing.
She takes a deep breath. “Young lady, I’d forget anything anybody else said that isn’t reminding you what a great man Mr. Parker is, and if you’re trying to tell me what I think you are, don’t waste a minute, go back to him and don’t you ever let him go.”
She gently squeezes my arm, pointing to a series of frosted glass doors up ahead before disappearing into a stairwell. “PR is through there honey… but I’d be getting back in that elevator if I was you, heading straight back up to you know who.”
I feel a moment of relief, then hope. I know deep down that Logan’s not a womanizer, but that Mike guy was so convincing… like he has an answer for everything.
It’s enough to make me stop blubbering, but the jagged hole that’s the pit of my stomach dropping hasn’t improved with the knowledge I really have made a fool of myself with Logan.
I doubted he wanted me in the first place, and now I doubt he’d ever take me back let alone give me a second chance,
I know from what my dad’s told me, nobody gets near Logan Parker personally unless he wills it to be so. The man’s an island and this building is his fortress…
‘Why, if any girl ever was lucky enough to land him, he’d treat her like a queen…’
The old woman’s words echo in my mind and I hear the elevator opening again, a couple of burly looking security guards are heading my way.
One of them looks happy to see me.
Somebody’s happy to see me… probably come to throw me out though.
“Ms. Foster?” he asks politely. “Boy are we glad we found you, Mr. Parker sent us to make sure you got to where you need to go. Public Relations, where your dad is at, it’s right this way,” he says, holding his open hand towards the doors up ahead.
“We have some other business there ourselves, so we’ll walk with you if that’s alright?”
I nod absently, stunned. Even after being so stupid, acting like a spoiled child, Logan’s only concern is making sure I don’t get lost.
Even once I walked out on him he still only wants to protect me.
“What do you know about Mike Collins?” I ask one of the guards, making both of them look awkward to the point of stopping in their tracks.
They eye each other for a second, then look around, making sure nobody else is listening.
“He’s not our favorite,” the first guard says diplomatically. “Matter of fact we’re just on our way to escort another of our least favorites from the building, wish it was Collins we were getting rid of as well. Man’s a damned criminal, but the board they keep him on,” he says before catching himself.
“This way, Miss. Please,” he says, both of them urging me forward, looking like two boys who just told a stranger everything they shouldn’t have.
“What do
