Page 3 of Twisted Fate

Logan

Stupid. So stupid.

Logan glared at the road ahead, his thoughts, as always, on Keily. Leaving her all those months ago had been a stupid mistake. His heart tried to tell him, even one half of his brain had balked at what the other half wanted to do, but he hadn’t listened. Now, he was miserable, and it was his own fault.

He’d used logic and his intelligence to guide him throughout his life. He hadn’t allowed teenaged romantic entanglements to ruin his high school career. When he’d graduated to the university level, he’d enjoyed sex, but he hadn’t allowed himself to become distracted by it. Later, when he’d started to make a name for himself, women were available, but he’d always held back his emotions. That hadn’t been a hard thing to do.

Not until Keily came back into his life. He’d had a crush on her when he was a kid. She’d been sweet, charming, and always ready for life until puberty took over all of the kids their age. He couldn’t shake that crush, maybe because he remembered that innocent charm she’d had, even when she’d learned to make snide comments and to put her nose in the air.

Logan wasn’t stupid, he’d known back then he’d never stand a chance with a girl like her. There was no way he could compete with guys like Joe and his friends. Besides, being a loner meant he didn’t have friends anyway. He could have dated some of the girls at school, there’d been pretty girls that were more suited to his personality, but he’d just…shut all of that down.

When she walked into his office that day, all airs and lies, he knew he should have told her who he was, should have told her he knew her resume was a lie, but he’d wanted something like revenge. Sure, living well was the best revenge but there was a part of him that wanted her to beg to have him. And she had, hundreds of times, in so many pretty, delightful ways.

That last night was a mistake though and he knew it before he’d even put his key in the ignition of his car so he could drive away. Pride wouldn’t let him go back in and apologize to her. His pride wanted to enjoy that stricken look on her face, the heartbreak he’d seen in her beautifully shattered gray eyes.

Unfortunately, his heart was just as shattered as hers was.

Seeing the dawning realization on her face hadn’t felt as good as he’d thought it would. Knowing he’d finally got some vengeance for that night didn’t help either. Instead, that part of his brain that wanted her, needed her, told him that Keily was a young woman who had no idea how to fend off young men like Joe and his friends, that she couldn’t do anything to protect herself if they turned on her. The mean streak in those guys could have easily turned to her and if they'd hurt her it would have broken Logan even more.

It was too late to realize all of that now. She probably hated him, probably didn’t want to see him ever again. He had to assume she was disgusted, having begged him for sex not knowing that he was the loser she’d known as Eugene. Humiliation made people do strange things and when he figured out she’d left the apartment, on a secret drive-by late one night a week after he’d revealed who he was, he knew she must be humiliated.

The apartment was dark, and her car was gone so he’d let himself in. She’d taken most of the things she’d bought, but there was enough left behind that he knew she’d lived there. The bedroom still smelled of her perfume, the bathroom smelled of her shampoo. The only communication he’d had from her was a parcel, delivered with a whole lot of insurance attached, that contained the butterfly necklace he’d given her.

That was when he really knew he’d fucked up. He hadn’t bought the necklace to goad her, or as some subliminal reminder of who he was, he’d bought it because it made him think of her. She’d always loved butterflies, even when they were kids, and he’d noticed she still did the first time he walked into her apartment. Even her screensaver at the office had been of butterflies.

His new PA changed it to sensible lines scrolling across the screen and bouncing around. He’d missed those butterflies when she quit working for him. That was probably what prompted him to buy the damn thing in the first place, his new PA’s awful, boring, colored lines.

The necklace was in the safe at his house now, which was being guarded by a live-in housekeeper named Judith that he’d hired to not only keep the place clean, but also occupied while he was out in California. He had a business to rebuild from the ground up, which meant he was gone from the house in South Carolina often.

Over the last few months since the devastating earthquake that toppled his building, he’d moved his manufacturing process to a rented building and set up his offices there. It was going to cost a fortune to rebuild the old building and by the time the insurance paid out, he might be better off just buying a new place. But, he thought, as he stared through the windshield at the evening traffic that slowed his progress back to his apartment, maybe it would pay off down the road.

It wasn’t a decision he had to make quickly, but he had already started the process of clearing the land of rubble and making sure health hazards were handled. He followed the law, as he should. Dividing his time between three locations left him exhausted, but usually too tired to think about Keily too much. She was always in the back of his mind, but being stuck in traffic, or in a line at the grocery store, or at home waiting on food to be delivered, or any other time when he couldn’t distract himself, she was front and center in his thoughts.

“Damn” He muttered and poked at the console of his car, looking for someone, anyone to call to distract himself.

He scrolled all the way to the bottom of his list, which was Wally, his right-hand man in California. Wally had been shaken up by being buried alive, and Logan couldn’t blame him. Logan let all the staff that had been trapped in the collapsed building take a couple of weeks off, with paid leave, to recuperate and destress. Wally had come back to work with less fear on his face, but there was still something haunted in his eyes.

Logan had a feeling it would be a long time before that look left Wally’s eyes.

From his own traumatic experiences, Logan knew that day wouldn’t be forgotten by Wally, and that it would probably haunt him for decades to come. He felt for the guy, he really did. As he did for all of his employees, but Wally was the one he was closest to out of them all.

Well, besides Keily, but she wasn’t his employee anymore or his girlfriend. Lover. Whatever it was she’d been. He’d never been able to define what she was to him but that was mainly because he hadn’t wanted to.

Logan finally found a name he felt like talking to and hit dial.

“Hello?” The feminine voice asked, a hint of hesitance and confusion.

“Hey, Rosa, it’s me, Logan. How’s things in South Carolina?” He tried to sound casual, like he was just checking up on his business, but even he could hear the falseness of that casualness.

“Um, fine, Logan. No problems. Why? What’s up?” She was always a nice lady, good at her job, and a good friend to Keily and he hoped she might mention her friend now but the tenseness in her voice said that wasn’t about to happen.

“Nothing, just checking to make sure all is well. I get the reports every day and they tell me the manufacturing part is fine, but I just wanted to touch base with you, find out how it’s all going with the employees? Everything alright?”

“Everything is fine, Logan. No problems that all of us here can’t handle.” She still sounded confused and tense, perhaps even a little defensive.

He shouldn’t have called her.

“Great, thanks then. I won’t keep you.” He rushed the words out and reached out for the button on his steering wheel that would end the call.