Chapter 132

I wasn’t mad at Logan. Just… disappointed.

A night of celebration with the man of my dreams turned into another fun night with my friends. I loved my friends, and was always happy to spent time with them. But this was supposed to me my first real date with Logan.

And he had bailed for work.

Was this what our relationship would always look like?

The thoughts stuck in my mind all through the night, even after my friends went back to their place and I spent my first night in a long time in an actual bed.

I stared at the ceiling and tried to imagine what my future looked like. It seemed very lonely.

Eager to start a new day and put the past one behind me, I arrived at work early in the morning. This early, most of my fellow employees would still be at home getting ready, so I anticipated a quiet morning to settle myself and ease into the day.

Yet, when I went to the elevator in the lobby, I was surprised to find Logan already there waiting for it.

He looked at me, and I looked at him. Every nerve in my being urged me to step closer to him and eliminate the distance between us. But I held myself back.

Glancing behind us, I reminded myself of the receptionist and the security guard both sitting at a large desk near the door. Any closeness between Logan and I could be tracked by them and sent on to HR. So I kept my feet firmly planted.

Logan did too.

“Good morning, Hazel,” he said.

“Good morning, Logan,” I replied.

“I trust you and your friends had a nice time last night?”

“Yes. We did.” It wasn’t the housewarming party I’d wanted, though, which kept me from revealing too much of what happened. I guessed in some sense, I wanted to punish him for bailing on me. I knew it wasn’t his fault, but it still hurt.

“Good,” Logan said. He took the hint and didn’t say anything else.

Side by side, we waited in silence until the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Logan motioned for me to enter first, then he stepped in behind me and pressed the button for our floor.

We both faced the elevator doors as they slid closed.

“Hazel,” Logan started.

“It’s fine,” I replied, even though it wasn’t. I was working very hard on letting this go, and if he kept bringing it up, I wouldn’t be able to move on.

“It’s clearly not fine,” he said. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, too sharply maybe, because he instantly swiveled toward me.

He was holding a cup of coffee in one of his hands, but his free hand lifted to cup the side of my jaw. With my face prisoner, he stared down into my eyes with such an intense focus that it stole my breath away.

“Logan…” I whispered with my final exhale.

“I mess up last night,” Logan said. “I shouldn’t have left you. I should have made some excuse. Maybe I shouldn’t have answered the call at all.”

“Work is important,” I said.

He inched closer to me, his body a hair’s width from mine yet still, impossibly not touching me.

“It is,” he said. “But so are you.”

Gently, he coaxed my face up farther still and then began to lean down. He was close, oh so close, when the elevator chimed and the doors slid open.

We both jumped away from each other at once. Some of Logan’s coffee spilled down onto my blouse.

“How clumsy of me,” Logan said quickly. At once, he had a handkerchief in his hand and passed it to me. “I keep spilling my coffee this morning.”

“Yes…” I said, glancing at Cameron as she looked curiously between us. She stepped onto the elevator.

“You should really put water on that before it stains,” Cameron said. She smiled slightly, as if caught between mocking and teasing.

She was right, however, so I stepped around her and out of the elevator.

“I trust you won’t spill any coffee on me?” Cameron asked as the elevator doors closed behind me. I didn’t have the courage to turn and look at them.

My cheeks burned red. Did Cameron know what was really going on? Even if Logan tried to cover with the spilled coffee, she must have at least suspected, or she wouldn’t have made that remark.

God, Logan and I really were not very good at keeping our hands to ourselves. Though, after last night, having him be so romantic made me feel a hell of a lot better.

So are you.

Those three little words would keep me going for a while. I could survive any hardship so long as he kept saying things like that to me, throwing me little life preservers while I’m adrift at sea.

It’s those words that carry me forward even with the embarrassment I feel, as I head to the women’s locker room.

Inside, many of my female co-workers were preparing for the day, fixing their hair and makeup in the mirrors at the sinks. I parked myself at the last sink and removed my shirt. I had an undershirt on underneath.

With the shirt free, I ran the stain under cold water. For good measure, I added some soap.

Beside me, the girls were gossiping about this and that, mostly about people from outside of work that I didn’t know. But then…

“I bet Logan will attend that high society gala coming up.”

I nearly dropped my shirt. Logan hadn’t mentioned any upcoming event to me. Usually I helped him coordinate his ride and help select his outfit. I made appointments if he needed his hair styled a specific way.

But I hadn’t heard a single word about this high society gala. Was he… keeping it from me?

No. It must have just slipped his mind. If I were to bring it up with him later, I was sure he’d tell me what he needed.

“Of course he will be there,” said another girl applying her mascara. “All of the area’s most prestigious families will be there. They are every year. The question is, who will he take as his date?”

The other girl laughed. “You aren’t hoping it’s you, are you?”

The mascara girl’s face turned bright red. “Like hell he would ask me. No one at the office is a blip on his radar, even with all of HR’s new rules.”

Lowering my head, I didn’t want to give into self-doubt, but it still knocked on the door to my heart all the same. Logan obviously couldn’t take me to this gala, or we’d risk breaking HR’s rules. But would he find himself another date? Was that why he hadn’t mentioned this to me? He wanted to keep it secret?

No. I had to believe in Logan. He wouldn’t do to me what my ex had. He wouldn’t pretend to care about me while secretly dating someone else right behind my back.

Logan wasn’t Chance.

“He’ll probably take some beautiful movie star or an heiress,” said another girl at the mirror. “A guy like that, he’s got it all. Money, looks, a good career. Why would he want anything less in a partner?”

I tried to focus on cleaning my shirt, blocking out the rest of their words. But a heavy heart made for slow hands.

Doubts were creeping all around me, sinking into my thoughts.

Logan could have anyone he wanted. Why was he still married to me?