I had told Vira about everything Logan had said to me and Vira insisted there was nothing wrong with me, but his comments had cut me deep. So deep that I totally changed everything about myself. I was no longer happy being the naive little country girl and had completely changed who I was so that no man would ever hurt me that way again. Vira taught me all about sex and taught me how to dress. After that summer, I could seduce a man and knew how to please him without being self-conscious. Over the years, I got even better at it and had always dreamed of one day confronting Logan and showing him what he was missing. I had done that last night, though he didn’t know it was me.
I finally got out of bed and went to the kitchen to make some coffee. I sat down and checked my email and tried my hardest to forget about last night. About a half hour later, Vira came stumbling out of her room with the guy that she was talking to at the bar last night. He was tall with dark hair and stubble along his jaw. His eyes were dark brown and he was looking at Vira like he was ready to throw her over his shoulder and take her back to the bedroom for another round. Vira didn’t do seconds though. She had a one night policy and the guy never got to stick around for more in the morning.
“Hey, Cece. This is….” She turned back towards the man waving her hand, but couldn’t come up with a name.
“Jeremy.”
“Yeah. This is Jeremy and he was just leaving.”
“Ouch. Just kicking me out without a cup of coffee?”
“Sweetie, last night was fun, but let’s not drag this out.”
“Sure. Let me grab my shit and I’ll be out of here.”
He didn’t seem pissed, just surprised that she wasn’t expecting more. He came back, pulling on his shirt and grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair. He walked over to Vira and gave her a scorching kiss. “Until next time, baby.” Then he smacked her ass and walked out the door.
“He is hot, Vira.”
Vira waggled her eyebrows at me. “He’s great in bed too.”
“So, why’d you kick him out?”
“He was gonna want to come back for more. I’m just not interested,” she shrugged. “I think I’m going to break up with Kyle.”
“Why?”
“Meh. He just isn’t doing it for me anymore. At first, he was really cool about having an open relationship, but then he didn’t like it when I wasn’t available for a quick fuck.” She put her hand on the counter and leaned forward conspiratorially. “Lately, he’s been talking about changing the terms of our relationship. Says he thinks we should consider being monogamous.”
I reared back. “Shut up! He knew you weren’t into that. Break up with him before he goes out and buys a ring.”
“I know, right? Why can’t they just stick to the rules? So. What happened with dickhead last night?”
“Well, he pulled me over to the side of the club and fucked me against the wall. It was the hottest sex I have ever had. Then, of course, I came to my senses and left his ass. I saw him come running after me, so I ducked into the alley and hid from him.”
“Smart move. You don’t need him coming back. Unless…” Vira bit her lip and gave a wicked grin.
“Unless what? What’s going through your head right now, Vira?”
“Unless you want a little revenge.”
“What kind of revenge? Please tell me you have some fantastically, evil plan up your sleeves.”
I leaned over the counter, anxious to hear what devious ideas she had.
“Well, we need to start by finding out as much about him as possible. Do you know anything about what he’s doing now?”
“No, but I did catch his license plate last night. Does that help?”
Vira got up and walked over to the coffee pot for another cup. “Well, I happen to have a friend who’s a police officer. How about we get him to check out his police record and give us any important details about dear Logan. Where he lives. Arrest records. Maybe we can fuck with him a little, get my friend to follow him around and fuck with his head. Maybe he can give him some parking tickets, traffic tickets, shit like that.”
“I like the sound of it, but what I really want is to draw him in, get him really attached to me, and then crush his fucking heart like he did mine.”
“Sounds good, chica. Let me give my friend a call and then we can strategize. You know you’re gonna have to spy on him. If this is gonna work, we’re gonna need as much information on him as possible.”
“That’s fine with me.”
Vira called her friend and then we mapped out times that each of us could take a shift watching Logan’s movements. We decided we would start on Monday because I needed to get my stuff unpacked. Each of us would take a shift at night watching for him. Vira’s cop friend, Eric, gave her his home address and where he worked. Turned out, he owned a construction company and was doing quite well for himself. I was going to go to his job after I got off work and see if I could follow him home. Vira didn’t work until the afternoon, so she was going to stop by his house early and try to follow him to work. We planned to do this for the first week and get whatever intel we could on him.
I spent the rest of the weekend in my new apartment unpacking. I started my new job on Monday and I was pretty excited to get started. I had gone to school for marketing and had interned at a prestigious firm during college. I worked there for six years after college, but had decided to move closer to home. I found a job quickly and even though it wasn’t a huge firm, it was closer to Vira. One of the stipulations of taking the job was that I did some work off the books with a new foundation that was providing services to veterans. They were still in the planning stages, so I had at least a month to settle in before we would need to start working on that campaign.
✯✯✯✯✯
The week flew by and I was really enjoying my new job. Everyone that I worked with was very nice, except for one woman who appeared to be the office slut. She must have seen me as competition because she made sure to tell me to keep my hands off Jeff. My boss. Yeah, like I would ever go there. I was all about having fun and being carefree, but I would never jeopardize my job by sleeping with my boss. There were some lines you just didn’t cross.
After work every day, I followed Logan from his construction company to his house. He lived in town in a secluded subdivision. It was a pretty nice house with a few acres for each lot. I didn’t get to pull up real close because he would have noticed my car. I could practically feel the eyes of nosy neighbors on me, so I made sure I didn’t stick around. I did drive back later each night to see he was still at home.
On Wednesday night, when I drove back, he was just pulling out of the driveway, so I followed him out of town. I had to hang way back because there weren’t really any other cars on the road and I didn’t want him to spot me. He pulled into a driveway that was already packed with other vehicles. I had to keep driving, but turned around down the road and drove past the house a second time. It seemed to be some kind of get together, but I couldn’t really stop by and see without giving myself away. I headed home and resumed my stalking the next night.
Saturday morning, Vira and I talked over coffee about all we had noticed for the week. We sat in our living room, sipping our coffee and lounging about. Neither of us had anywhere to be this weekend, so we could be lazy all day if we wanted.
“Okay, so at night, he pretty much goes home directly after work. Except for Wednesday. He went to a house in the country and met up with a bunch of people.”
“Do you have an address? I could ask Eric to look into who lives there.”
Eric was her cop friend and had already gotten a bunch of information for us.
“Um. I don’t know the address. I’ll have to look it up on Google Maps.”
“Alright, well when we get it, we can find out some more about his friends. We do have one minor problem.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s friends with another cop. Sean something. This could make it a little difficult for us. I alrea
dy talked to Eric about having a little fun with this guy and he had no problem with it. He said he even had a few friends that he could get to watch for his car and give him parking tickets and bogus traffic tickets. However, if this Sean guy is his friend, there’s only so long that will last before he puts a stop to it. We need to come up with some other good ideas.”
“Well, I think we should go back to the club tonight and scope him out. If he is interested in seeing me again, he’ll go back there to look for me.”
“And what do you plan to do when you see him?”
“I don’t know yet. Seduce him. Have him take me back to his place so I can check it out. If I can get an invite back there, I can snoop through his stuff while he sleeps.”
“Not a bad idea, but you need to know what you want out of this. Sleepovers are dangerous if you want to avoid affection. Don’t make a habit out of it.”
“I know, but I need to find out as much about him as quickly as possible. If I’m going to manipulate him, I’m gonna need as much fire power as possible.”
“Okay, well as far as his morning routine goes, he leaves for work every day by seven-thirty and is in the office by eight. He stops by the cafe on Madison and grabs a black coffee before heading into work. I’ve never seen him grab any food. I think you need to meet up with him Monday at the coffee shop. Start getting him to buy your coffee every morning. Make sure you order an expensive drink.”
“What’s that going to accomplish?”
“Not a whole lot, but in the end, he will have bought you a delicious coffee every morning and he’ll be kicking himself. Every little thing you do will chip away at him. Remember to be thankful that he buys your coffee, but you have to keep up the air of indifference. Like it really doesn’t matter whether this man buys you coffee or not. If he suspects that you expect him to buy your coffee, he’ll think you are using him. We want him to be on his knees for you.”
We sat and drank our coffee in silence for a few minutes, absorbing all that we had discussed. I was trying to think of some more ways to get back at Logan when Vira interrupted my thoughts.
“We might have one other problem. He doesn’t recognize you now, but he may put two and two together when you tell him your name is Cece. It won’t take much for him to link Cece with Cecelia.”
“I have that covered. My last name used to be Clark, but when my dad cheated on my mom, I changed my last name to her maiden name, Baker. He may link the names, but he has never known me as Cece Baker. Even if he suspects, I think we can pull off quite a bit before he figures it out.”
“Well, we better make some plans for what we’re going to do to him so that we’re ready. We don’t know how much time we have, so we need to work like we’re running out of time.”
“I think you’re going to have to seduce the cop friend.”
“Sean?”
“Yep. We need an inside man and he’s it. He’s just not going to know it. I’m sure when he starts getting tickets, he’s going to go to Sean. If you’re dating Sean, you can pull some information out of him and get him to tell us what he knows.”
“I can definitely do that. Nobody does seduction better than me.”
“I’m well aware.”
“I think we need to go after his car also. You’ve seen it. He treats it like it’s his baby. So let’s hit him where it hurts. We’ll need to talk to a good mechanic and find out what we can do without totally destroying the car. We don’t need to ruin it, but we can make life difficult for him.”
“I think we should also look at his business.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re in marketing. You have a lot of contacts. You could make business very difficult for him. Word of mouth is a good thing in his business. A few bad reviews about his business could make getting new projects very difficult.”
“Hmm. I’m not sure I want to take it that far. He has employees that he needs to look after.”
“It can be a back up plan, in case you change your mind. I’m just spitballing ideas here.”
“Let’s keep it on the back burner for now. I mostly want to make him fall in love with me and then crush him.”
“Let’s plan on going to the club tonight and if he shows, you get an invite back to his place.”
“Sounds good.”
I turned on the TV ready to veg out on the couch for the rest of the day. I didn’t have anything I had to do, so a day of relaxing in front of the TV sounded like heaven. Vira suggested we watch Heartbreakers to get us in the mood. About halfway through, Vira paused the movie.
“I need you to be honest with me about something.”
“Of course.”
“Are you sure you can be cruel to this man? I mean, you loved him. Are you sure those old feelings won’t resurface?”
I thought about what she said for all of five seconds. Logan was a snake in the grass. I would be doing ladies everywhere a favor by teaching him a lesson.
“I’m sure.”
“It’s just…I saw how heartbroken you were with him. Last weekend he was all over you. I saw the way he was looking at you. He wanted you big time.”
“Vira, you don’t have to worry about me. I know what I’m doing.”
“I’m not suggesting you don’t, but sometimes the heart is a fickle bitch. I just want you to be aware that if you do this and you fall for him, he may not forgive you.”
“Who says he would find out?”
She looked at me with sad eyes. “Honey, the truth always comes out. He will find out who you are and when he does, he’ll probably never speak to you again. I just want you to be prepared.”
“I appreciate your concern, but there’s nothing to be worried about. This man told me he loved me, promised to take care of my heart, and then carelessly tossed me aside. He was so cruel to me that I changed who I was to be sure no man would ever treat me the way he treated me. He broke something inside me that I may never be able to fix. I hate him. So there is nothing that he could ever do to make me fall in love with him again. I’ll have my revenge and I’ll cut him out of my life the way he cut me from his.”
Vira must have seen something in my eyes because she nodded and turned back to the TV. We spent the rest of the day vegging on the couch, watching movies. After dinner, we prepared for our night out. I was ready to exact my revenge and maybe then I could finally move on with my life.
CHAPTER FOUR
Logan
The week had been difficult to get through. All I wanted to do was figure out a way to find my mystery woman, but work was crazy and I didn’t have the time to dwell on it. Ryan and I met with the different departments and spent long hours doing research on veteran needs in a one hundred mile radius. Ryan asked Cassandra to send over her files on the research she had done for the needs of the veterans and what she hoped to have in the facility so we could put some kind of plan together. Our research was pretty similar, though hers was definitely more detailed. She had obviously spent a lot of hours working on this project.
After our research teams had gone through all the paperwork, they laid out a detailed spreadsheet of what was needed in the facility and the dimensions of the different spaces. From there, my team got together and made some rough sketches of our ideas for the facility. We finished that on Friday and we still needed the interior design team to look at the sketches and put together some designs so Cassandra could see what we had in mind for the space. Our meeting was on Thursday next week, so the design team had a few more days to get some ideas laid out.
I came into the office for a half day on Saturday to answer any questions the design team would have. They were on a tight deadline and I needed to be sure they were on top of things. When all my work was done, I headed home for a night off. I desperately needed a break from the monotony of the work week. I loved my job, but sometimes, I just needed a break from my life. As I got older, I found that I was tired of finding a woman to come home with on a Saturday night and really wished that o
ne was there every day when I came home from work. I had spent all of my twenties and my early thirties fooling around. Now it was time to settle down. Two of my friends, Jack and Cole, had someone special to come home to every night.
I had always been the jokester of the group. The guy everyone thought was an asshole, and I was for the most part, but I wanted a lot more out of life. When I walked away from Cecelia all those years ago, I had done it for selfish reasons. I had wanted a woman that was more experienced with life, that I didn’t have to teach everything to. She was a sweet, innocent girl and I did love her, but I was too young to realize what I had. I knew when I broke up with her that it had been a mistake, but the things I said to her were cruel and I knew she would never take me back. I became the player that was carefree and fun-loving so that I didn’t get myself into that situation again. If I’m being honest with myself, I really didn’t feel I deserved to find someone after the way I treated her.
I’m older now and wiser. I know that people make mistakes when they’re young and stupid. I don’t deserve to live my life alone because of something I did when I was in college. Time moves on and you have to move with it. I was tired of my friends viewing me as the asshole of the group and that was on me. I had put up that front a long time ago and only I could change their minds about who I really was.
I had some time to think throughout the week and I came to the conclusion that I needed to find this girl from last weekend and take her out on a real date. She was a great lay, but there was something that I was instantly attracted to with her. I can’t pinpoint it exactly. Maybe it was the confidence she exuded or her good looks. Either way, I was going back to that night club tonight to find her. I hoped she would be there because I didn’t have a clue how to find her if she wasn’t there.
Logan (For The Love Of A Good Woman Book 3) Page 3
