He gives me a look. “All right, Miss ‘Friendship Never Ends.’”
My jaw drops. “How dare you bring that up?” My scowl deepens as Logan dissolves into deep, resonating laughter.
He leans down and kisses my scowl away and pulls back too soon, still sporting a shit-eating grin. Then he flicks his finger across my lips and looks into my eyes. His grin fades until he’s deadly serious.
“Madison Daley, there’s something you need to know about me. When it comes to protecting my girl, there’s not a single thing in this world I wouldn’t do.”
I try to keep my face stoic, but end up smiling in spite of myself. How anyone could ever let this guy get away is beyond me, but even if we are moving too fast, I don’t care. He’s a keeper. I’m not letting Logan Caldwell go.
Trucks zip by us on the highway. Logan squeezes my hand and lets it go to focus on the road. “Are you ready to drop it like it’s hot?”
I grin, remembering the last time we danced together at my birthday party. Him walking in looking like a Nordic god personified and sweeping me off my feet on the dance floor was the one good part of the evening. I should have just kissed him right then and there.
“Definitely. I can’t wait to dance with you again.”
Sideways, he flashes me a sweet smile that melts my insides. “Same here. I’m going to show you all my moves.”
“That wasn’t all of them?” I tease.
He gives me an arrogant, self-satisfied smirk. “Not even close.”
When we pull up to the venue, the valet takes Logan’s car from him and we walk hand in hand to the VIP line at the front, gripping each other with excitement. We decided against bringing security since Logan is more than capable of protecting me himself. The bouncer, a boulder-like African-American man with a rigid stare, looks me up and down from head to toe when we reach the front of the line.
“You’re not on the list,” he tells me. “And you’re underage. This is a twenty-one years and up party.
With a wry smirk, I sidle up to him with a sizable stack of cash in my left hand and tuck it into his pocket, keeping my hand on it. “You’re a reasonable man, aren’t you, Felix?”
His eyes widen. Uncertainty enters his voice. “How do you know my name?”
“That’s mine to know,” I say in a sugary-sweet voice. Back when Raven and I were hanging out, she let me in on all the bouncers in town that will let in underage celebrities for a price. I made sure to bring just the right amount. “I think we can come to an agreement now, don’t you?”
He clears his throat, pats the cash into his pocket, and steps slightly to the right. “Have a good night, Miss Daley.”
“Thank you, Felix.” I smile as we pass him.
Logan stifles laughter as we step toward the entrance. “That was amazing,” he whispers, leaning into me and wrapping his arm around me. I grin up at him as he pulls me into a deep kiss. Camera lights flash around us like lightning, but neither of us cares. When we reach the door, instead of going inside, we stand still and gasp in unison.
Blocking the entrance is the calm, composed form of my vicious twin. She’s wearing a sparkle of victory in her eyes.
“Raven…” Breathless, I grasp for a reason for her to be here. I didn’t tell anyone where Logan and I were going. It is the party of the year, though, and if I know one thing about Raven Redinger it’s that she never misses a party. And of course her tall Italian boyfriend and all her girls are in tow.
“Buonasera, darling.” She leans forward and kisses my cheek before I can jerk away. The imprint of her lips burns like fire on my skin.
“Don’t touch me,” I yell. Logan’s arms loop around me from behind to hold me still. “Just let us through.”
A disgustingly sweet smile works its way onto her face. “Why so hostile, my dear sister?”
“I’m not your sister,” I spit. “You lost me the day you conspired with Gio to hurt me.” My eyes flash to Gio’s. He shrinks back under my gaze. I must be more intimidating to him than I thought I was.
My focus returns to Raven. “How did you know I’d even be here? Have you been spying on me?”
She clicks her tongue. “My methods are ‘mine to know.’” She levels her gaze with mine, smirking in a way that makes me want to slap her. “What matters is I’m here to prevent you from making any more foolish mistakes here tonight. If you continue to insist upon wrecking your life, who will I have to dominate in this year’s talent show?”
“What?”
“That’s right. We both got in.” She extends her hand for a handshake. “Congratulations.”
When I make a move to spit on her hand, she yanks hers back.
“What a crude little girl you are.” Looking down her nose with disdain, she straightens her posture. “Now that I’ve been treated in such an appalling fashion, there’s no way I’m letting you past this door. If you get past me, I’ll make sure your dishonesty is reported to our parents. Where is your moral code, Madison?”
“Moral code?” Now I’m screaming with no regard for who could hear me or watch me act like an infuriated maniac. “You’re one to talk about moral code, you insensitive bitch! I’ve had enough of your attacks. What is your issue with me? Why have you targeted me since the day I stepped foot in this city?”
I hear the roar of reporters building up behind us. This story is going to be all over the news. I’m like a bull in a china shop right now, though. There is no chance I’m letting this poor excuse for a person stand in my way.
Glancing up at Logan, Raven chuckles. “My sister’s crazy. I’m sorry you have to deal with her nonsense.” She sidles up to him right in front of me and sizes up his frame, a flame entering her eyes. Leaning in, she whispers so Gio can’t hear her, “If you ever want to be with a woman instead of a petulant child, give me a call.”
“Oh, that is it!” I jerk out of Logan’s arms and charge at her, barely missing when she jumps out of the way to let my face hit the door jamb. Hard metal smacks against the bridge of my nose. I moan and pull away amidst Raven and her girls’ unapologetic laughter.
“Madison! Are you okay?” Logan rushes to my aid. He turns me around to look at my nose, which is smarting. I can smell and feel the metallic liquid leaking from it. “Your nose is bleeding.”
“I’ll be okay.” I look past him at Raven and say, “Have your fun now, you little shit. I’m about to expose you for everything you are.”
Clearing her throat, she says, “Come again?”
“I have evidence of what you did to me, and I’m about to tell everyone exactly who you are.” Tasting blood, I reach up and wipe my nose with my long black sleeve. “Your treachery is about to go viral, Raven Redinger. Say your prayers.”
Fear hangs in her eyes for only a second before her smugness returns. “We’ll see about that.”
“Come on, sweets. Let’s get you out of here.” Logan pulls me away from the door. Sighing with reluctance, I follow him, knowing I need to get medical attention for my nose.
“Let’s go, ladies.” Raven calls her minions back into the club, glancing over her shoulder at me to send me one last arrogant look.
Though if I didn’t know any better, I’d think there was just the slightest hint of fear in her eyes.
“She suffered trauma to her nose and a small fracture.” The ER doctor brings over an x-ray for us to look at. “Her nose will need to be in a cast for a week or so.”
I groan from my place atop the examining table. They haven’t given me any pain meds even though I begged. Logan’s sitting beside me in a chair. They let him in because we told them he was my fiancé.
“Any special needs we need to remember?” Logan asks. His phone is in his lap, and he’s taking notes on it for me.
“Just take it easy on her for about a week. No strenuous activity.” The older man gives us a stern, father-like look.
Logan keeps his face drawn. “Thank you, doctor.”
After the doctor leaves the room, I hang
my head, wishing I could pass out and forget about this sucky night.
“You all right?” Logan stands and comes to my side. When he slips his arm around me, I lean into him.
“I’m sorry about what happened today. I feel like such an idiot—”
“You have nothing to apologize for. Raven is horrible. ‘I’m sorry you have to deal with her nonsense.’”
I laugh at the quotation. “Can you believe her?”
“No, I can’t.” Logan laughs with me. “She must not know I was there on the night she screwed you over.”
Pulling back, I look up into his eyes. “Is she more attractive to you than me?”
He jerks backward in horror. “What? No! What would ever make you think that?”
I shrug. “Her boobs are bigger, she doesn’t have a crooked jaw…she has extensions…” Raven now has hair that extends to her tailbone. It draws the eye right toward the impressive ass we both share. Looking at her is like looking into a Photoshopped mirror. I immediately feel every insecurity I’ve ever had crawling up to the surface when she’s around.
Logan lowers his face to look into my eyes, carefully avoiding my nose. “Sweetheart, I love that you’re all-natural. I love that you kept your jaw just the way it is, and honestly, you could chop your hair and dye it blue if you wanted, and I’d still think it was sexy. In fact, that would look killer good on you.”
Giggling, I let him brush his thumb around my hairline.
“All of that pales in comparison to your beautiful heart. You’re obviously the yin to her yang. I’ve never met two people so different, yet so similar. Rest assured she holds no appeal to me and never will. You’ve got me for good. And even if she tries something on me, believe me, I won’t fall for it. I don’t think she could even fool me into thinking she was you if she got her implants removed and busted her jaw.”
I smile, remembering Halloween night and how he immediately knew who I was. It’s not my body he recognizes—it’s my soul. Makes sense, since I strongly suspect I’ve found my soulmate.
I whisper my love for him, carefully leaning toward his lips. We’ve said the three words a lot over the past few hours, but it never feels like we’ve said it enough.
Logan places a quick kiss on my lips and pulls back. His voice drops an octave, and gravel enters it.
“By the way, you lunging at her like that because of me was damn sexy.”
Smirking, I slap his arm. “Glad you get your jollies from seeing your girlfriend get hurt, you asshole.”
“Well, of course it wasn’t sexy anymore when you broke your nose.”
“Good. I’m glad to know you’re not that much of a pervert.”
“I just meant I’m glad you’re territorial around me. That’s how I know you love me.”
Laying a hand on his chest, I whisper, “Mine.”
Password not recognized.
I roll my eyes at the red lettering on the screen. Stupid website. I hate it when you enter the right password, and it tells you the password is wrong. Like really? Do I look that dumb?
Sighing, I enter the password again and get the same response. I enter it a third time, tracking my fingering so I know I’ve entered the right password, and it still doesn’t work. The blogging website I use for my private diary blog must be down, I reason. That’s the only logical explanation for this.
Fantastic. I have a fractured nose and my diary is down. I guess I’m going to have to just lay here, watch Netflix, and be bored. Logan had to go to home thirty minutes ago. It was sad how apologetic he was and how much he didn’t want to leave. Dad basically forced him out the door so I could “rest.” Ana and Jerica are away celebrating their engagement, and I don’t want to bother anyone else right now, so I’m stuck by myself.
While Gossip Girl plays in the background, I pull out my phone to get rid of all those pesky red notification circles on my multitudinous apps. When I go into my email app, I notice there’s an email from the blogging website saying my password was changed.
My stomach goes crazy inside me. I didn’t change my password, at least not that I remember. These pain meds are making me a little loopy, but I’m sure I’m not so out of it I wouldn’t remember changing my password. Am I?
I look at the timestamp on the email. It was sent a couple hours ago, while I was at the hospital with Logan. There’s no way in hell I could have changed my password then. Someone hacked into my blog while I was away.
My personal, private blog where I keep my deepest, darkest feelings and my most important secrets.
Just as I’m about to panic, my brain fuzzes out. Everything gets dark and blurry. Somewhere deep inside, I’m protesting against the strength of the prescription medicine I took, but its effect is too strong. I can’t fight its power over me.
I have to sleep…must sleep…
When I wake up, the sun’s rays are pouring through my window. The medicine kept me asleep all through the night. I yawn and stretch, forgetting about my nose, and then when I accidentally hit it with my arm, I yelp in pain. Feeling around my bandage, I discern I’ve done no permanent damage to my nose, despite the pain balling in the bridge and shooting up to my forehead.
Taking my medicine bottle downstairs with me, I hurry into the kitchen since the medicine has to be taken with food. Looking at the stove clock, I’m amazed to see I’ve slept in until eleven. I glance down at the medicine again, debating whether I should take it or Advil. The sharp pain in my nose convinces me to risk falling asleep again. Being a sloth is better than dealing with this all day.
While I’m munching on a banana after swallowing my medicine with some effort, Dad and Cass come into the room. At first, I ignore their presence due to my pain, but then they come closer and Dad brings his laptop into my view.
My eyes bug out on me and I have to rub them to see the screen clearly. Dad doesn’t say a word, just lets me look for myself to see what’s going on with the screen.
At first I think my eyes are deceiving me, but the sight lingers, making me face the fact that somehow my private, password-protected diary is open on my father’s laptop—a place I have never opened it, never even searched the link.
“Dad, what are you doing with this?”
“You don’t know?” His voice is laced with pain and suppressed anger. I meet his deep brown eyes, and my stomach does a flip. In an instant, I can sense this is the angriest he’s ever been. “Are you tellin’ me you set your diary to public and then forgot about it?”
“Public?” My chest tightens painfully. Oh, shit. How the hell did my diary go public? “Dad, I don’t know—”
“Look at Cass. Just look at her! You broke her heart!” His spit flies in all directions as he screams at me. I obey his command and look over in Cass’s direction. Her eyes are red-rimmed and overflowing with tears. “What you wrote about her was despicable. Cruel and uncalled for. What do you have to say about it?”
“I, um…I don’t remember writing anything bad about her.” I grip my head, reeling from this downpour of accusations. I’ve never said a bad word against Cass in my life. Have I?
Is this medicine making me hallucinate or something? If so, I need to go puke it up. Like, right now.
“Wow.” Dad narrows his eyes at me, his dark brows shadowing them until I can’t discern his pupils. “Writin’ that load of horseshit was one thing, but lyin’ about it to our faces? That’s somethin’ else entirely. You are not the girl I thought you were. The girl I thought I raised.”
“Dad, I have no clue what you’re talking about!” I scream at the top of my lungs, as if that’s going to magically clear up this massive miscommunication we’re having. “I never wrote anything bad about Cass, and I never set my diary to public—”
“I’ve had about enough of your lies, young lady!” Tendons pop out all over his neck, and his eyes spark fire in my direction. “Go to your room. You’re grounded until further notice.”
“You can’t ground me. I’m eighteen.”
“
Don’t worry. I don’t think anyone is going to want to see you now after what you wrote about them all.” His eyes shoot daggers at me as he turns away, taking a sobbing Cass into the living room. I stand in shock, wondering what the hell he read in my diary that I don’t remember writing.
As fast as I can with the medication seeping into my bloodstream, I head up the stairs and down the hall into my room. When I get inside and lock the door, I take out my laptop and search my name, shivering as I type the letters. Searching my name on the Internet has become the most frightening thing I can do these days. Sure enough, my diary has been set to public. People are sharing it all over social media, too, with the caption—
Madison Daley is not at all who you think she is!
Shaking, I click on the link, praying that somehow I’m in a drug-induced nightmare that I’ll wake up from shortly. When I skim through my now-public diary, my horror spikes to nauseating levels.
My diary is not just public. It’s changed.
The person who hacked it altered everything I wrote, and now, in the eyes of the world, I’m the villain. My latest post about Christmas Day now reads like this—
December 26
Merry Christmas to Me
Christmas came with a lot of surprises for me this year. Ana and Jerica got engaged. Dad and Cass got engaged. I found out I’m going to be the maid of honor at two weddings next year. It sucks about Dad and Cass, but what are you going to do? Guess every Cinderella has to have an ugly, evil stepmother. Cass and I will tolerate each other while I’m in high school, and then I can finally be free of her forever. Dad, too. He’s such a tight-ass. Maybe when I graduate I can finally get a car that belongs to me.
Last night, Logan held mistletoe over me and offered to kiss me “wherever I wanted,” and I told him I wanted to wait to lose my virginity to disguise the fact that it’s already long gone. I had to suppress a laugh when he went on about how sweet and innocent I am. Poor fool has no idea I’m just biding my time until Dalton Jacobs finally comes to his senses and steals me away. Logan’s nothing compared to his cousin.
D.O.R.K. Series Box Set Page 53