Chapter 9

Logan gets a towel from minibar hidden in the corner of the study so I can clean myself off. Afterward, Logan and I curl into one of the leather couches. The couches are softer and more comfortable than they look, though I’m sure having Logan’s arm draped around me has something to do with it. Things just seem nicer when he’s around—and it’s extremely annoying. But now that we’ve had some time to calm down from all of the…activities… there’s still one issue nagging at the back of my mind…

Mara.

“You’re incredible,” Logan says.

I curl against his hard chest as his strong arm pulls me tight. It feels so nice to be curled up with him like this that it would be easy to put off the real world for a little while longer—but I know I can’t. I’m not going to let myself get played into another situation like what happened with David.

“So what is going on with you, Mara, and Lucas?” I ask.

Logan’s chest heaves as he barks out a laugh.

“You don’t beat around the bush, do you?” he says.

I sit up to look at him. 

“I’m serious. If she’s just an old family friend, why are you and Mara pretending to be engaged?”

He gives me one more smile before the jovial look on his face disappears. 

“It’s a complicated situation…”

I shake my head and fix him with a serious look. He’s not getting off that easily.

“I’m a big girl, I can handle it. Explain it to me.”

Logan winces. It’s the same expression he used earlier when I first confronted him about Mara. Whatever is going on clearly has him on edge. 

Logan lets out a loud, resolved breath. His eyes soften as he looks at me, taking all of me in. For a moment it feels like I could fall into those eyes. If there weren’t all of these other issues getting in the way I would probably let myself do just that.

Why can’t life just be simple?

“Well?” I prompt. 

It’s time to find out exactly what’s going on once and for all. 

“Remember how I told you what I do for a living?” Logan asks.

I nod.

“You said you’re like a consultant—you bring people together, or something?”

“It’s something like that,” he says. “I do deals. I make sure that things get done.”

“But what does that have to do with you and Mara pretending to be engaged?” I ask, not quite sure where he’s going with this.

“First you need to understand the kinds of people I’m dealing with. I don’t work with your typical CEO or business investor. I work with the moguls, the billionaires, the men who don’t settle for anything less than changing the world. They don’t do things in half steps—when they commit to something, they’re all in.

“The men I deal with aren’t new money. In fact, a lot of them are old money—very old. These are men of privilege who have never had to worry about money for a day in their lives. But, along with that, they’re also very sheltered. They’ve grown up in extremely conservative situations and expect everything to be prim and proper and in its place.”

A groan escapes me.

“I hate people like that,” I say, before even realizing I’m saying it.

Logan gives me a knowing smile.

“A lot of people share that sentiment, but these men aren’t bad people. They’ve just been raised in a world that is completely and utterly foreign to everyone else.” He shrugs. “It’s not really bad, it’s just different.”

Logan might say that it’s not all that bad, but in my experience these types of guys can be unbearable asshats. But maybe I’ve got it wrong. If Logan says that they’re not that bad, then maybe there is something more that I’m not seeing.

“But what does any of this have to do with you and Mara?” I ask, again. 

Logan gives me a gentle rub on the arm. He can probably sense my frustration at this point because he gives me a gentle rub on the arm, as though to comfort me. I hate the fact that it actually seems to help.

“I’m getting to that part,” he says. “You see, a lot of these people have very conservative beliefs. And they’re not the kind of men that are interested in doing business with... boys.”

Logan seems to pause and consider that last part before adding it, as though it’s the first time he’s really given it thought. He probably hasn’t had to deal with that kind of discrimination on a daily basis for his entire life. How many times have I been passed over for something because I’m just a girl? It’s not quite the same, but I think I have an idea of what he must feel like.

“You’ve been pretty successful on your own—no one can say you haven’t made your own way.”

“I wish that were the only thing that mattered,” he says. “Unfortunately, appearances are everything, and until a man is settled down—married, family, the works—he’s not going to be taken seriously.”

“So you and Mara are faking an engagement so your clients will do business with you?”

“In a manner of speaking,” he says, nodding. “Like I said, she’s an old family friend and when the time came that my professional life wasn’t going to progress until my personal life progressed first I asked her if she’d help out.”

“And she just dropped everything to be your fake fiancée?” I ask, disbelievingly.

“Being my pretend fiancée isn’t all that bad of an arrangement,” he says, waving a hand around at his luxurious study. “Besides, she gets cut in on the deals as well.”

I don’t even want to think about it, but I have to ask.

“And do you two… you know…”

He lets out a laugh.

“No, we never have. I’ve never seen her take an interest in a man—I think she has a thing for the fairer sex. I can’t say I blame her, men are animals.”

He can say that again. It seems like they only get more confusing as I get older. But at least I can take some small comfort in knowing that he and Mara have never been together. That fact is more comforting than I had thought it would be—I don’t know if I could handle knowing that he has even casual sex with her from time to time.

Maybe I just can’t do casual.

“But where does it end?” I say. “Are you two going to keep faking the engagement forever? Or will there be a fake wedding, and fake kids, and a whole fake family, too?”

Logan gives an adamant shake of his head.

“It’s not like that at all,” he says. “Actually, it’s a short term thing…”

My brow knits together and I give him a puzzled look.

“How so?”

“There’s a deal that I’ve been working on for a long time. It’s been a bit of a slow play, but it’s almost done.”

Logan’s eyes seem to sparkle with new life when he mentions the deal nearly being finished. His intensity can be so mesmerizing.

“And this deal is with one of those conservative types you mentioned?”

He nods.

“A real prickly bastard.”

I’m starting to understand where this is going and why Logan has been acting so strangely today.

“And if he finds out that you and Mara aren’t engaged for real then the deal will fall through?”

“He’s a real stickler for family values,” Logan says. “Actually, the engagement was the final push that convinced him to go through with it…”

“It’s Lucas isn’t it?” I say.

Logan gives me an amused smirk.

“Close. His father, actually.”

At least that explains why Logan freaked out when Lucas showed up unexpectedly. And why he was so careful to not say anything earlier, until he was sure we were in the study by ourselves. But what doesn’t make sense is how emotional he got when he saw Lucas and I together. Maybe he thought I was going to hook up with Lucas out of spite for Logan lying to me? I had thought about it but could never go through with something like that. No, he wasn’t worried that I might hook up with Lucas, he was mad that Lucas might find out he’s not really engaged.

Logan seems like the kind of guy who does everything on the level. He doesn’t seem like the sneaky kind of guy that has to cut corners to get ahead. So why would he fake an engagement for this one ‘slow play’?

“Is there some kind of bad blood between you two?” I ask.

Surprise flashes across his face for the briefest moment before it’s gone again. He tries to cover by shrugging a shoulder, nonchalantly.

“It’s nothing really. Mostly just ancient history.”

I give him a hard look.

“Don’t start lying to me,” I say with the hint of a threat in my tone. “You’re doing so well so far, don’t fuck it up now.”

He gives me a long, searching look before finally giving in with a sigh.

“Our families have... history. Our fathers used to be in business together, until things started to go south and my father discovered that some of the contracts he’d entered into had been way more one-sided than he had been led to believe…” Logan shakes his head. “We lost everything and Lucas’s family barely even felt it.”

His tone makes it obvious just how painful the memory is.

“Logan, I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like.”

And the truth is: I can’t. My family never had any money to lose in the first place. While that comes with its own forms of struggles it’s very different than having something and losing it. When you never had it in the first place then you don’t even know what you’re missing out on.

Logan waves a hand, dismissively.

“It’s all ancient history. Besides, I wouldn’t be the man I am today if I hadn’t watched my dad pull himself up from nothing. He passed away before regaining even a fraction of what he lost, but not before he showed me what it really takes to succeed.”

If my heart hadn’t been overflowing with affection for Logan before—misplaced or otherwise—then it definitely is now. The more I get to know about him the more special I think he is. There’s still that little seed of doubt in the pit of my stomach, but after what happened with David, I may never fully trust a man again. Not fully. But with Logan I’m starting to wonder if there might actually be the hope for… something real.

“If you don’t like him so much then why are you putting yourself through all of this?” I ask.

Logan glances off into the study, again, like he’s expecting to find someone spying on our conversation. When he turns back his demeanor is grave.

“I can’t believe I’m about to say this,” he says, giving a shake of his head. “There are only three people who know this, and I need you to promise not to repeat any of what I’m about to say.”

“I won’t,” I say, without hesitating.

I wouldn’t even dream of it. Logan is baring himself to me—the last thing I want to do is betray that trust.

He’s silent for a long moment before he continues.

“The thing is… my company isn’t doing as well as it might seem.”

I frown. My stomach tightens and twists.

“What do you mean?”

In an instant, all of the confidence Logan showed fades, replaced by… something real.

“It’s been a rough year,” is all he says.

His shoulders seem to slump despite the fact that he’s nestled into the couch. I don’t respond immediately. A million questions are going through my mind, but the look on Logan’s face lets me know that it’s not the right time to grill him. The weight on his shoulders must be immense.

Logan is the first to break the long silence.

“I think it’s just that I have been too focused on Lucas. It feels like it’s been almost done for too long—like the end is only a few weeks away. But it’s felt like that for months. And here we are…”

My lips purse together.

“How bad is it?”

The smile he gives me isn’t reassuring.

“Two months… maybe. After that I won’t have cash to meet my operating costs, and I’m too leveraged to go to the banks. All of my lines of credit are tapped—I’m out of options.”

The tone of his voice sends a pang of guilt running through me. I curl into his chest knowing that I would do absolutely anything I could to help him, but what in the world can a girl in marketing do to help someone who is supposed to be a billionaire?

“What about this place?” I say. “And all of your other assets… Can’t you sell some of them to generate some cash?”

Logan hugs me tighter.

“Unfortunately they don’t sell very quickly. And I’ve already extracted a lot of their equity through secured loans. Once I start defaulting on those payments…”

His voice trails off and the silence that replaces it is thick. We cuddle in that silence for a few minutes before either of us says anything again. My mind races for something that might cheer him up, but nothing comes to me.

Logan kisses my forehead—somehow managing to comfort me when I should be comforting him. 

“We should get going before someone starts to wonder where we are,” he says. “The last thing I need is Lucas getting suspicious when we’re so close to being done with this.”

Well, I wanted answers, and now I have them. And it feels like everything has changed because of it. Hopefully it’s a change for the better, but who’s to say? All I know is that I’m closer to Logan now than I’ve ever been, but not nearly as close as I want to be.

Why does being an adult have to be so difficult?