“Miss, do you work here?!”
Lacy grimaced as the woman grabbed her by the hands. “Not today.”
“But please!” The woman stifled a broken sob and pulled a crumpled photograph out of her purse. “I think my husband is lying to me—”
“You know what?” Lacy wrenched herself free and swept out the door. “I’m sure he is.”
Chapter 14
The rest of the day passed in a sort of blur. For the first time in longer than she could remember, Lacy got in her car and drove south out of the city limits. The industrial highways were soon enveloped in trees, and a world of grey uncertainty gave way to nature’s green. She pulled in deep breaths of the clean mountain air—feeling like she was able to clear her head for the first time in weeks. The newfound clarity was addictive, and she made it almost all the way to the Oregon border, before swerving suddenly into a rest-stop.
The rest of the highway traffic flew past her, as she stared out the window—her eyes fixing with dilated intensity upon the sunlit trees.
What am I doing leaving the city? It’s MY city! He doesn’t even live there! Dylan Stone might live there, but Logan Chase is from—what—Miami or something?!
A sudden memory froze her right to the core. What had Logan said the first moment that he saw her? When he was lying on the ground, dazed and disoriented from Bill Heam’s attack.
...I need to get back to Florida.
A soft gasp of air rushed out of her as she pressed her forehead slowly against the steering wheel. That wasn’t the only clue he’d given. It was like a part of him had never been fully committed to the lie. It was like a part of him had been trying to tell her the whole time.
He had no money to pay his electricity bill, and yet he whipped out an exorbitant bail check without blinking. He didn’t know how to get back from his ‘childhood lake.’ He blanked when confronted with evidence of adultery, and acted as though he honestly knew nothing of the women involved. He never answered to his name, and was absolutely nothing like his file.
For fuck’s sake—the guy was afraid of his own dog! She was supposed to be some sort of private detective! She couldn’t tell the man she was sleeping with wasn’t as he seemed?!
By now, the sun had just started to slip beneath the trees. She’d been driving a rather circuitous route, and had completely lost track of the time. As the engine revved back to life, she cast a wistful glance towards Oregon. She had friends in Portland she could stay with. Get out of the city for a while. More accurately, get out of the city for the next week and a half so her prince could turn back into a Miami pumpkin and she could get on with her life.
But avoidance had never been one of Lacy’s strong suits. She thrived on confrontation.
With a look of steely determination, she whipped the car around and started driving back towards Cleveland. The ball was in her court now. It was time she read up on this Logan Chase...
LACY DIDN’T GO HOME. What was the point? Logan knew where she lived, and given the man’s track record, he was likely to simply show up with a boom box on his shoulder and tear right through all the beautiful resolve she’d been building to hate him for the last twelve hours.
No—she didn’t go home. She didn’t need to. She went to a café instead.
“Excuse me, miss?” A pretty waitress paused by Lacy’s table, flashing a professional smile. “Can I get you some more coffee?”
Lacy pushed her empty mug across the table. “Please.”
Her face was lit up with the glow of a computer screen. The same screen she’d been staring at for the last two hours. Trying to make sense of her mixed-up life.
“Who is that?” The girl finished with the coffee and leaned past her, squinting slightly to get a better look at the screen. “Logan Chase?” A familiar dreamy look drifted across her face, as she glanced at Lacy curiously. “Are you a reporter or something? Writing an article on him?”
My WAITRESS. My fucking WAITRESS knows who the guy is. But not me. Oh no, I like to find these things out in time. After I’ve SEXED THE MAN INTO A COMA!
“Yes, he was my job assignment at one time,” Lacy redirected the over-curious girl with a polite smile. “I’d actually like to order some fries.”
“Oh—of course! Coming right up!”
The woman disappeared and Lacy leaned back towards her reading. To say that Logan’s dossier was different than Dylan’s was massively understating it. Forget twins—it was hard to see how the two were even related. They were so different...
Logan Chase had been adopted by a family on the east coast, while his brother had been sent to live on the west. He’d played sports in high school, gotten a full academic scholarship to Stanford, then proceeded to make the real estate market of Miami his own little playground.
Youngest CEO in the nation’s history. Richest self-made man under thirty. And to top it off, the guy somehow made time for charity. Spartacus the dog might have scared him to death, but he’d donated over five hundred thousand dollars to various animal shelters around the country. He was known for not only learning about a cause, but really taking it to heart. There was rarely a non-profit that he wouldn’t visit personally, and when a hurricane destroyed a line of homes nearby where he’d grown up, he’d singlehandedly paid to have them all re-built.
He was smart, thoughtful, intuitive, and impossibly attractive. And as if that wasn’t enough—the man apparently worked so much that he was currently single.
Not a cheater. Even when he was pretending to be someone else. The man didn’t cheat.