“Are you going to eat?”
Camilla’s voice ripped me from my trance, and I saw her stuffing her face with salad.
“Yeah. Sorry. Zoned out for a second,” I said.
“You really didn’t sleep well, did you?”
“I really didn’t.”
“You want to talk about it?”
Images of the night before pummeled my brain. Logan’s face between my legs. His teeth latching onto my breasts. His hands venturing down my thighs. The look of pleasure on his face as I rode him to heights that drowned us both in darkness.
“No. I think I’m good,” I said.
“You sure?” Camilla asked.
“Positive.”
“Because I’m done talking, so we can talk about you if you want to.”
“Thanks, but I’m good. Just some dreams I can’t shake.”
“What dreams? Oh, are they sexy dreams? Domination dreams? Dreams with—?”
I held up my hand to silence her as an exhausted sigh left my lips. “Can we just eat?” I asked.
“Are you upset with me for breaking up with Logan?”
I was upset she was lying about it, because I knew she was.
“No,” I said. “If you weren’t happy, then you needed to end it. Yes, I liked Logan. I liked him for you. I thought he toned you down a bit. But if he’s not what you want, then there’s no point in staying with him,” I said.
“See, I didn’t want to be toned down. I felt like he was trying to do that with me, like he wanted me to put on an apron and some heels and cook him dinner in our white picket-fenced house on four acres of land while our kids played silently upstairs.”
“Well, that was a mouthful.”
“It was how I felt. And I had a lot of time to think about how he made me feel when we weren’t having sex. I don’t want to settle down. I want to travel the world. I don’t want kids. I don’t want a family. I want a man who can’t get enough of me, a man who wants to whisk me away to see the wonders of the world before proclaiming I’m his only wonder in bed. That’s what I want, not the toned-down, domesticated, nine-to-five bullshit Logan wanted for me.”
“Then you made the right decision and I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks for listening to me. I know I can always count on you to have my back,” she said.
Two things entered my mind at that moment: one, Camilla was a lying, selfish little brat; and two, the life she had spouted to me that she hated sounded like music to my ears.
The way she painted Logan made him seem like the man of my dreams, and he was forever off-limits.
Logan
I shuffled papers around and started digging through law books, trying to prepare for a massive case that had dropped into my lap. I didn’t get a lot of criminal cases with the work I did, but fraud of any sort in business wasn’t something I took lightly, especially after building a business of my own. I wheeled around my room and plucked books off my shelves. I had my assistant tracking down all sorts of leads and getting her hands on evidence I’d need in order to mount my case.
A familiar voice sounded at my door.
“Hello there, Logan.”
I whipped my head up as Adam came into the room.
“Adam? What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Well, since you let me go, I had to take my expertise somewhere else. Apparently there’s a good job market for defending those wrongfully accused of fraud.”
He dropped a stack of folders onto my desk, and I stared at them in disbelief. But I didn’t show it on my face. Nope. It read as stoic as a stone as Adam sat down and grinned at me.
“Congratulations on the new job,” I said flatly.
“Now, I know I personally can’t take the case because it’s a conflict of interest. You know, with you being my former employer. But I can be the go-to guy. That’s the supposed evidence your assistant has been looking for, but I think you’ll find some interesting transactions in there from the bank account of your client.”
I grabbed the stack of folders and slid them toward me.
“Thank you for dropping these off. You can go,” I said.
“One more thing. Have you heard from Ava?”
I bristled at her name, and my eyes locked hard on Adam’s.
“I have not,” I said curtly.
“It’s just that I can’t seem to get her out of my mind. That sweet little laugh of hers and the way she was so attentive while I was talking. No woman has ever listened that closely to me before. I wonder if she’d listen in other avenues of her life.”
I drew in a deep breath, trying my best to keep my cool.
“Well, the last I heard she was seeing someone,” I said.
“I thought you said you hadn’t heard from her.”