by Sierra Rose
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.
“Here you go.”
The waitress set down a plate of French fries and walked away, leaving Lacy holding a ketchup bottle—lost in thought.
But he lied. He lied the entire time I’ve known him. He never stopped lying.
With that, the computer screen came down. Lacy had read enough. The man might be literally perfect—but he wasn’t perfect for her. And she wasn’t going to think about him for even a second longer. She had a life to live. And he had to be getting back to Florida.
She left without touching a single fry, leaving a large bill upon the table. Her quest for the truth was finally over. It was like she told Logan back at the lake...she always got her man.
Chapter 15
Lacy swore she saw a flash out of the corner of her eye, like someone was taking pictures. But when she looked, she didn’t see anyone.
She glanced around one more time. Maybe it was a reflection or something.
“I want to set you up on a date with someone.”
Both Sarah and Quin swarmed Lacy the second she stepped through the office doors the next morning. One exchanged her jacket with a tall cup of coffee, while the other thrust a large file into her hand.
“Um...good morning to you too.” Lacy shrugged them off as best she could, settling down at her desk, although the two persistently followed her there. “And I don’t know what exactly you’ve extrapolated from my newfound hatred of...” Her eyes flickered back to the breakroom, picturing his perfect face. “But trust me, it’s way too soon for a blind date.”
“Yeah, uh, as much as I’d love to dabble in your twisted love life—this isn’t that.” Sarah snatched the file back out of her hands and opened it on the desk. “Meet Brad Harmon. Husband to the woman you so considerately consoled yesterday before storming out of here.”
Lacy flushed and sank an inch or two lower in her chair.
“Anyway, Lydia—the wife—wants to know if he’s cheating.” Sarah smacked the center of the file with a triumphant grin. “And that’s exactly what you’re going to help her do.”
While the instinctual deception inherent in the male species was exactly the last thing Lacy wanted to think about that day, she found herself nodding along. It was the job, after all. It was the very reason why she’d started the business.
“Fine,” she replied with a tired sigh. “I’ll head to the usual spots. See if the guy...wait a second!” She pushed the file back and stared up at Sarah accusingly. “Why am I the one who has to date him? It’s your month, Ems, not mine.”
“Yes, but I have an actual date,” Sarah replied smugly. As if by chance, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and waved it around—inadvertently flashing the picture of a gorgeous doctor she’d met the other week at a nightclub. “And besides, I’m not the one who basically promised poor Lydia the guy was a player. That was all you, honey. Now you’ve got to prove it.”
Lacy’s eyes narrowed in a preemptive rage, but Quin was quick to cut it off. She eased the file back and replaced it once more with the coffee—calming her boss’ temper with caffeine.
“It’ll be a piece of cake,” she said reassuringly. “Lydia says that he’s been spending a lot of time on his computer lately—always behind closed doors—so I snooped around all the major online dating sites until I found him.”
Sarah and Lacy exchanged an incredulous look, before turning away at the same time, shaking their heads in wonder at the male brain.
“Why do they always think that will work?”
“Cro-Magnon ego.”
“Anyways,” Quin continued, swatting the others for silence, “I already made you a profile
and it caught his attention. He asked you out for dinner at The Metropolitan tonight at eight. Said you should wear something fancy.”
Lacy raised her eyebrows with a caustic glare. “Oh he did, did he?”
“Aw—that’s cute.” Sarah nudged her with a teasing grin. “He wants to show you off.”
After responding with a rather rude hand gesture, Lacy pushed to her feet. So the guy wanted to parade her around in public? It would just make for better pictures for the wife.
“Then if you’ll excuse me ladies, it looks like I have a little shopping to do...”
Chapter 16
It wasn’t often that Lacy was the person forced to go out on these sorts of missions. The office had taken a secret vote and elected Sarah as ‘bait.’ (Coincidentally, the secret vote was taken when Sarah herself was out of the office.) It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy the free meals, the free booze, and the opportunity to bring a serial adulterer to justice. It was that the whole thing hit a little too close to home. It was still hard for her, years later, to look across the table at a man’s lying face and not picture Jeff—the man whose betrayal launched her entire career. It was still hard not to feel personally offended, when a person looked you in the eyes and lied.
But like it or not—these sting operations were part of the job. And Lacy would be damned if she didn’t give each one a hundred and ten percent.
“Holy hell!” Quin dropped her camera the second Lacy answered the door, her eyes bugging out like a cartoon as she looked her up and down. “You look incredible!”
They had agreed to meet up at the house before proceeding on to the restaurant. Lacy usually took the pictures herself, but with Sarah out of the picture, the roles had been switched and the task fell to Quin. (A task that had worked her into unprecedented levels of excitement.)
“And you...dressed up like Dylan Bourne.”
Lacy’s eyes widened in dismay as they swept the receptionist up and down. When she had been told to remain ‘incognito,’ the girl had clearly taken it to heart. Black boots. Black pants. Black shirt. Black jacket. And as if that wasn’t enough—
“Please tell me you’re not actually going to wear that beanie.”
Quin slid it guiltily off her head, flushing a million shades of red. “I thought it went with the whole undercover thing. You know—urban camouflage?”
Heaven help me.
“Honey, the whole point of going undercover is blending in.” Lacy quickly reached inside to her coatrack and handed her an ivory blazer instead. “Do you think anyone else in the restaurant is going to be dressed like a dystopian bounty hunter?”
“...maybe.”
“Put on the damn blazer.”
Quin slipped it over her shoulders (secretly relieved she hadn’t gone with her original plan and charcoaled her face), and took back the camera with a rueful grin. “Seriously though Lacy, you look totally amazing. This guy isn’t going to know what hit him.”
Lacy smoothed down her new dress with a sudden flutter of nerves.
“Yeah, well, that’s the general idea...”
She might not do this sort of thing often, but that didn’t mean that she hadn’t played the part of the potential mistress many times over the last few years. Enough times that she and Sarah had adopted a set of unofficial rules. Rule number one: spend none of your own money.
It was a rule Lacy had broken that day.
Unwilling to go back to her house in case Logan was waiting there to apologize, she’d gone for a little retail therapy instead—hitting up stores she usually only fantasized about on the weekends. First up was the dress. A devilish little number of crimson silk that clung to her skin like it had been painted there instead. It stopped just a few inches below her thighs, while the neckline stretched almost all the way down to her navel. Needless to say, it wasn’t a dress that was meant to be worn very long. The shoes were towering, seven-inch stilettos. The impractical kind that she regularly scoffed at other women for wearing, but found herself strangely drawn to that day. The makeup was dark and smoky. Charcoaled eyes and dark red lips.
“You know,” Quin continued conversationally, “if this whole ‘private investigator’ thing fizzles out, you could always consider a career as a high-priced escort.”
The smile melted off Lacy’s face, before she smacked the girl upside the head.
“Let’s just get this over with...”
Chapter 17
The Metropolitan was a classic. One of Cleveland’s finest. But it wasn’t the prestige of the restaurant that made the women use it again and again. It was the location. Less than a stone’s throw away from Glitter—Lacy’s favorite club. A perfect place to lose an unwanted date.
“Okay—you ready?”
Lacy was the one walking into the lion’s den, but it was Quin who was getting all the reassurance. The young assistant had long dreamt of being ‘out in the field,’ but now that the moment was upon them, her nerves were starting to get the better of her.
“Uh...yeah. Yeah—I’m totally fine. Totally ready.”
Lacy pursed her lips doubtfully, looking the girl up and down.
“Look, there’s really nothing to it, okay? You’re going to get a booth by yourself in the corner—somewhere you can see me—and take pictures without a flash. If anything should happen, I’ll do the secret signal, and we’ll both get out of there. Meet up around back.”
Quin’s face paled, as her fingers trembled nervously upon the camera.
“And what’s the secret signal again?”
Lacy shifted impatiently.
“Come on, Quin. You know this.”
“Right! You’ll knock over a water glass.”
“I’ll knock over a water glass,” Lacy reaffirmed calmly, “and then we’ll both leave. It’s as simple as that. You could do it in your sleep.”
“Right,” Quin said again, nodding with more confidence. “You’re right—I’ve got this.”
“Hey Quin?”
“Yeah?”
“...did you remember to charge the camera?”
Five minutes and a furious reprimand later, both women walked into the dim lighting of the restaurant—cool and collected.
“Good luck,” she whispered, as the two of them split off in separate directions.
Lacy flashed her a smile.
Quin settled herself on the far side of the establishment, while Lacy walked up to the hostess—a picture of innocence.
“Hi, my name’s Samantha Cregg. I’m here meeting Mr. Harmon.”
The woman scanned down her list, before brightening with a gracious smile. “Ah yes! Mr. Harmon. I’ve actually already seated him. Right this way.”
Mr. Harmon, huh? The guy actually had the nerve to use his real name.
But as Lacy was quick to discover, the man’s boldness didn’t stop there. Instead of choosing a table in the back, as most of their secretive marks tended to do, he had picked one right in the center of the front window—a prime spot looking out over the entire city.
She had never seen a picture, Quin had conveniently forgotten to retrieve the photo she’d downloaded from his dating profile, but a tall man stood up the second she walked into view. A man with a smile so broad and greasy, she felt dirty just looking at it.
“You must be Samantha.” He took off her jacket without even asking, sliding it down her slender arms and giving a low appreciative whistle at the dress beneath. “You do not disappoint.”
Oh—this is going to be fun.
Lacy settled into her chair with a smile. “Well that’s the whole point, isn’t it?” she replied coyly. “To see if the face lives up to the picture?”
“Absolutely!” He flashed her a seductive grin, then snapped rudely for the waitress. “Hey honey—we’ll take a bottle of your most expensive red.” His entire expression changed, as he turned quickly back to Lacy. “You like wine, don’t you?”
“The more the merrier.”
Her eyes swept over him, taking in every singl
e detail. Spray tan—which left a smudge of whiter skin behind the ears. Expensive suit, but well worn—he had done this sort of thing before. And no wedding ring—although there was a pale circle around his finger.
She wondered where he kept it when he went out. In his wallet?
“So—Samantha.” He elongated her name in a way that he clearly thought to be quite suave. “Tell me something about yourself.”
First rule: Spend none of your own money.
Second rule: Keep the spotlight off yourself.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Lacy grinned, picking up her crystal goblet and taking a dainty sip. “I’d rather hear more about you. Your profile didn’t say much. How is it that a good-looking man such as yourself has managed to stay single all this time?”
She said it with a mischievous purr, then listened attentively for the response. Somewhere across the room, Quin was no doubt snapping pictures, but Lacy wanted to get a little information out of the guy first. It was the least she could do for his wife.
Brad squirmed a little in his chair, but countered it immediately with another greasy smile. “I guess you could say I’m still looking. Just haven’t found the perfect fit.”
There was something rather disgusting about the way he said that as well, but at this point, Lacy was too preoccupied to care. The guy had apparently decided that the ‘pleasantries’ part of the evening was already over, and it was time to make his move.
“And what about you?” His fingers snaked around her wrist, inching higher and higher up her arm. “You looking for the real thing? Or just an unforgettable night?”
Lacy resisted a shudder as his clammy hand clamped down upon hers, forcing herself to smile instead. He wanted an unforgettable night? She could promise this was going to be one for the books. One he’d remember for a very, very long time.
“An unforgettable night, huh?” Her teeth bit down upon her lip, as she flashed her most seductive smile. “And what exactly did you have in mind?”