Ellie
“You look gorgeous, Ellie. I’m not sorry Logan had to fly to Atlanta and you’re stuck with me as your date. That was some of the best food I’ve had. I am sorry he couldn’t see you looking like this though.” Norah drains the last of her wine and tosses her napkin on the table.
My hair is wavy and hangs down my back, my makeup is darker than usual, and my white dress dips low, showing off a hint of cleavage. I wanted to dress up for Logan, not that he’d care what I wore. The man has made it clear with actions and words he doesn’t expect me to be anything but me. Be that it may, all he’s seen me in besides the night we met are jeans and leggings.
“Is that your way of saying I usually look like shit?” I laugh, waving my hand playfully through the air as I finish my glass of wine and push my empty plate forward enough to fold my hands and rest them in front of me.
I’ve never been into crawfish, but when Logan told me the other night, he wanted to bring me to his favorite restaurant and promised I’d love the crawfish étouffée he wasn’t wrong.
“No. It’s my way of saying I’m happy for you, Ellie. You’re glowing all the time. Logan must be giving it to you good.”
My mouth gapes and my attention darts around the restaurant. I lean in, lowering my voice to a whisper and kick her under the table. “I was planning on telling you everything, but our paths haven’t crossed much outside of work lately. Now that you’ve blurted it to all of New Orleans elite, I’m not going to.”
It’s my fault we haven’t seen much of one another. I’ve been spending my nights with Logan. Some nights we do nothing but talk, others he has me in bed bringing all kinds of pleasure to my body. I find out something new about him every day, and I can’t wait to find out more. What we have is fresh and bold. It’s crazy and wonderful. Logan Mitchell rescued me.
“I don’t need to know the sordid details, the look on your face said it all.”
Memories fire through my mind. The man is so big, so dominating, and so good at what he does that he’s like an instant high: one hit and my body buzzes. My mind starts racing with the excitement to seek and explore.
I’m relieved that Logan is showing me who he is. I was attracted to him before I realized he’s down to earth. I didn’t want to be, I wanted to hate him, and I might have if he didn’t bulldoze his way through my walls, knocking them down like a man on a mission.
I knew he’d suck me in. Wasn’t expecting it to be this quickly. I need to hang on to my heart and trust a little longer though. He hasn’t come clean with me about something. Logan will not get all of me until he does.
“His world is frightening, but beneath the hard man is a romantic and soft guy. He’s mysterious, captivating. He’s different than I thought he’d be. Dangerous yet safe.”
Norah’s eyes shift around the room. I know she’s thinking of the security who will appear out of nowhere the minute we walk out the door.
It’s comforting knowing they are there, still, the idea of anyone having their eyes on me and not knowing what they look like is hard to ignore.
“This isn’t me being nosy; it’s me being your friend. These past few weeks you and Logan have been caught up in one another. Are you falling in love with him?” A sneaky smile spreads across her face.
She’s so full of shit, she smells. I do owe her something though. Logan and I have been living in our own world.
“Falling? Yes. Am I there? Not yet, but it’s coming, Norah. I’m scared and excited at the same time,” I answer without hesitation.
There are many things I love about Logan. He’s playful; he’s as much intense as vulnerable. He pushes and pulls; he gives and takes. When Logan looks at me, it’s as if he steals every ounce of breath from my lungs. Every time he kisses me, I feel the world tilting. Every time he holds my face in his hands, it feels like he’s unraveling all of my knots. Holding me in his muscular arms, I’m growing accustomed to this. For so long, I’ve longed for it, and now I’m not willing to give it up.
I’m Logan’s, and regardless of what he’s hiding, Logan is mine.
“I’m happy for you, Ellie. No one deserves to find love as much as you. Let’s get out of here.”
I start to stand and halt when I catch the eye of a woman heading our way. She strides with purpose, her cruel eyes glaring at me.
She’s dressed in a short silver thin strapped dress. It hangs loosely over her tall model-like frame. Her braless breasts bounce and are practically spilling out of the sides.
The closer she gets, the more her hardened glare directed at me tells me she has a lot to say.
Well, whatever it is, she better be prepared for me to shove it back down her Botox lipped mouth. I might have ignored her at Lexi’s party, but that was because I know when and where to keep my mouth shut. I have no qualms about knocking her teeth down her throat if she jerks me the wrong way. Upscale restaurant or not, she’ll be knocked down a peg or two.
Trouble making bitches. They can be smelled from miles away.
“Mind if I sit?”
She doesn’t wait for me to tell her to march her ass back to where she came from. No, she pulls out a chair, takes a seat and leans toward me. Shoulders squared and elbows off the table. Huge diamond on her wedding finger. How lovely. A married woman who thinks she’s going to put me in my place.
What a desperate and pathetic creature she is.
The thought of Logan sleeping with a married woman makes me want to vomit my meal down the front of her. Makes the trust I was finding in Logan slide backward a little too.
I lift a brow in hopes she’ll take the hint to get on with it and then get gone before I bitch slap her to the floor.
“Let me be blunt, I have to wonder why a man like Logan would want a woman like you. Are you after his money or do you enjoy the way he fucks you? He’s good, isn’t he?”
Rage. It just ate up my shock.
“Listen, bitch; I don’t know who the hell you think you are—”
“I’ve got this, Norah,” I cut her off. She’ll get loud, and this woman might walk away, and I’d like to hear what she has to say.
“You have some nerve coming over here when it sounds to me like you’ve never gotten the chance to see how good Logan is. Are you jealous Logan is fucking me and not you? Do you have a friend hiding around the corner that sent you over here? Enlighten me please.”
I hate her. Hate the idea that Logan might have touched her.
“You don’t know the man well enough to know who I am. I have a lot more to say. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll take your kind and back off.”
She’s right, I don’t and thank God for that. If I had to spend time looking at this woman, I’d carve my eyeballs out.
Steam.
It’s billowing off both Norah and me.
“My kind?” I try keeping my voice even, my expression blank, but she turns up a gleaming smirk at me.
Every muscle in my body stiffens. I feel the insult in her icy glare, one that’s bouncing right back in her direction, and pegging the bitch between the eyes.
Intimidation doesn’t work on me, not after what I’ve lived through.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. I’m Ellie Wynn, and this is my friend, Norah. Whatever brought you over here, please get it off your chest, but if you piss my kind off, you’ll be sure to know this talk you want to have will end up with you wiping it off the floor right along with your face.”
Her eyes go wide with the deliberate slip of my tongue.
“Let me rephrase. Do you have any idea who Logan is?”
My blood boils as she sits in front of me all smug and proper. Eyes are searching for a sign of weakness. She won’t find one. Knowing when to hold and release is another thing I’ve learned well.
I dig my nails into my palms as I try to calm myself. Violence and I don’t get along, but this woman is making me question just how good it would feel to thump her off the chair and I will without giving it a second thought.
“I know who he was, and my guess is you’d like to steer me clear of him. Are you here to speak for a friend, for yourself or for all of you who aren’t good enough to hold Logan’s attention?”
There is no stopping the tremor of discomfort that slides down my spine. My brain is struggling to understand why this phony woman seems to think she needs to warn me. I shove the thought of Logan being intimate with this woman away. I do care about the women he’s slept with before me, but not in the way she’s hoping. I care because it was one of them who sent someone after me. It could easily have been her. Makes me wonder how many more are going to crawl out of the woodwork and come at me.
I’m not about to bring it up. I might not trust Logan completely, but I do trust it won’t be long until he finds out who it was. And I believe him when he said he hasn’t been with anyone since we met. Makes me curious as to why she’s here.
I lean forward, hiding the fear she might tell me something that will crush me. I cover it with anger and hope she picks up the scent coming out of every pore in my body.
She stiffens.
“I didn’t come over to argue with you. I came to warn you. It’s your choice if you want it or not.”
She’s lying.
My body pulsates with a compelling forcefulness to lunge across the table and strangle her. I never knew I had this much pent up anger in me. It’s a laughing shock to my system. I squeeze my lungs to hold it in. To not dig her judgmental eyeballs out of their sockets that are looking at my dress as if I’d picked it out of a garbage can.
“I don’t. So Logan has a past. All of us do. Unlike you, appearances mean nothing to me, but Logan does, and I will not let you warn me away. It was you, wasn’t it? You sent someone to hurt me and you didn’t do it for yourself, did you?”
The woman studies me. Lips are curling as she drags her gaze up and down my body. Once again, I feel disappointment crashing over me, little pins and needles poking at my skin, trying to puncture through in hopes of drugging me with a reminder that I’m not meant to be in Logan’s world. But I won’t let her take that away from me. Logan has spent the better part of our time together proving he isn’t the typical millionaire. He’s a lot like my father. He is giving and caring of his time. Loves his family fiercely and the way he is with Lexi makes the man sexier than anything else.
Regardless of what he’s hiding from me, he makes me feel special and wanted, and no matter what Logan told me about him not being a good man, he is with me, and this woman can take her warning and shove it right up her ass.
“You might know parts of Logan, but you don’t know them all. He isn’t at all who you think. He’s calculating, cunning, and he is hiding something big from you. If you don’t believe me, go to his house and check it out for yourself.”
“Get up, you filthy fucking bitch. How could you do this? Go home and wait for Logan, Ellie. Norah, don’t you dare leave her alone. I promise this woman will never bother the two of you again.”
I jolt at the dark figure leaning over the table. Muscles in his face twitching, hands balling into fists and his upper body moving slowly to crowd this woman’s space. Shock rocks me back in my chair from what she said. More worriedly, it’s what Lane said as he stares her down with so much hatred she flinches.
Somehow I believe the only one speaking the truth here is her.