Let it be said that Logan had never been on the various forms of social media. At least, not as a private citizen. His company had a page, but not him personally—and the company page was nothing he managed himself. He’d had to create an account just to check this third Dylan out. Finally, when all that was done, he had to wait for Dylan to accept his friend request. His only bit of luck was that he didn’t have to wait long.
Because...this? He was in no way prepared for this.
The man may look like him, but the two were nothing alike. Every single picture was with another girl. At another party. All in various stages of undress. Dancing, drinking, taking shots. In one particularly memorable shot, he was standing on top of a bar, with a cluster of glow sticks looped around his neck, and a pair of blond triplets hanging off of him. Not a single time did the camera not catch him both drunk and smiling. Not a single time, did he look like he was doing anything he would later regret.
Logan was intrigued. If he didn’t know better, he’d say it was himself in these photos. The two of them were identical twins down to the letter. Same sandy blonde hair. Same athletic frame. Same high cheekbones. Same blue eyes. It was like looking in a mirror into some parallel universe. Some alternate life he could have had.
Yes, he was intrigued. But he was something else as well. Something he hadn’t been in a very long time. He was jealous.
“Mr. Chase?”
Logan jumped a mile and tilted down the top of his laptop—angling it towards himself so Annalise couldn’t see the screen. Her eyebrows lifted ever so slightly, and he fought back the urge to literally slap himself in the face.
Really smooth, man. She probably thinks I’m looking at some kind of office porn.
“Yes, Annalise—what is it?”
A flicker of curiosity danced through her eyes, but she kept a strictly professional composure. “I was just coming to remind you that you have a meeting in the conference room in about five minutes. The Taiwanese presentation...?”
“Yes, of course.” Logan pushed to his feet quickly, straightening out his tie. “I’ll be up in just a minute. Thank you.”
She cast him another curious look, then vanished out the door—leaving him staring down at his own intoxicated face grinning back at him from the desk. He shut the computer without another glance and headed for the meeting, but not before sending off a quick email.
It whizzed through the digital world, before landing in the inbox of a man named Bill Hellis. A private investigator Logan had used several times before. He specialized in opposition research, but occasionally investigated things of a more personal nature.
This would certainly qualify. This was as personal as it got.
Chapter 5
“—which is why we were thinking of setting up both locations in Taipei, focus efforts—”
Logan leaned back in his chair and let his mind wander, furrowing his brow with the occasional thoughtful frown so anyone watching would think he was still listening. In reality, he was having the same problem that plagued most of his generation—except that he was having it for the first time. He couldn’t take his mind off Facebook.
Dylan had basic privacy settings on his account, enough that Logan had to digitally befriend him if he wanted to learn any information. But he’d also accepted the request without having any idea who Logan really was.
What did that say about him? Was he friendly? Was he careless? Was he simply not paying attention, or perhaps he clicked the wrong button?
“—more room to expand the adjacent developments, while maintaining a strict policy—”
After he’d analyzed his mysterious brother from every possible angle, making inadvertent comparisons of their lives, Logan turned his mind to other things...
Brigitte, his former girlfriend, had probably moved out of the house by now. He had left for the office even earlier than normal that day to let her pack up her things. The two of them had dated on and off for the better part of seven months, but it was clear that things were never going to work out between them.
Brigitte was beautiful, but vapid. Nothing more than a pretty face. A pretty face that happened to be as high maintenance as an aspiring model from Orange County could be. She did very little to hide the fact that she was interested in Logan for three things: his money, his body, and his social position. Three things, but he was only able to give her two of them. Money and social standing were easy enough, but he was never home. Never left the office until the night was already half done. When he’d caught her cheating (curtesy of Bill Hellis), he was hardly surprised. The relationship might not have been fair to him, but it wasn’t fair to her either. The girl needed a man in her bed. He could hardly blame her for finding another in his absence.
But Dylan...he wouldn’t have cared about any of that, would he? He probably wouldn’t even have a girlfriend—too much commitment. If he did decide to take the plunge, he wouldn’t have just one, he’d have about twelve—
“Mr. Chase?”
For the second time in less than an hour, Logan’s head jerked up in surprise. He cast a quick look around the table, only to see no less than two dozen pairs of eyes staring back at him, waiting for his response. A response he couldn’t give, seeing as he hadn’t been paying attention to the question. Fortunately, his right-hand man, Arnie Hacker, came to the rescue.
“I know you weren’t wild about two resorts in the same city the last time you talked about it with me,” he said with a thoughtful frown, cueing in his boss while simultaneously wondering what could have possibly broken his legendary focus. “Have things changed?”
“No,” Logan said quickly, before clearing his throat and following it up with a more dignified, “no. I’ve heard the arguments for both sides, gentlemen, but we’re going to continue on with one structure in Taipei, and one in Tainan.”
The man sitting on his left shook his head, looking a little overwhelmed. “But the construction costs alone skyrocket the second you—”
“It’s the richest cultural center for hundreds of miles,” Logan replied calmly. “If that means we pay a little more to keep with the general architecture, then so be it.”