Diamonds & Desire: The Priceless Collection (5 page)

Her sweet conviction on his behalf both amused and amazed him. A person like Jordana didn’t come along every day. How fortunate she’d crossed his path.

Tricked by a supposed friend; saved by a practical stranger.

Funny how life threw these conflicting curves at a man.

Even though he was taken aback by Rebecca’s ballsy agenda and admittedly could’ve fallen for it, he wasn’t that shocked. She wasn’t the first woman who vied to corner him for his money, though she was the first one to be secretly pregnant with a friend’s child.

And people wondered why he was so disillusioned.

Even though she’d done him a big favor by saving him, disappointment bloomed that she’d sought him out for that singular purpose. She’d said she wanted to see him, but that was an excuse. Clever girl. The way she kissed him though…yeah, that wasn’t just a ploy. The attraction was mutual, real. He remembered that very clearly.

A fast and hard knock at the door surprised them both.

He pushed up from his seat and smiled down at her. “How about that coffee?”

She smiled and followed him to the living room, taking a seat on the sofa.

When he opened the door, it wasn’t room service, it was his best friend Neil, well-slept and alert—complete opposite to what Logan felt.

The attorney raked his gaze on him, lifting a brow. “Savant. Holy hell, I’ve been downstairs waiting for you for over an hour. Did you sleep in your tux? You look like you did. My God man, where was this after-party I missed?” Neil strolled in without invitation, and stopped. “Well. Hello.”

Jordana rose from the sofa. “Um, morning.”

Logan checked the need to groan. “Come on in,” he drawled, “I overslept.” He gestured to her as he closed the door. “Jordana, meet my friend Neil Caenon.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said in a soft, friendly voice.

“Pleasure,” Neil greeted in return, tone heavy with innuendo. He cast a glance back to Logan. “I was wondering what happened to you.” Before Logan could say anything, Neil cut him off. “Anyway, I covered for you last night, but everyone is expecting you for brunch. No excuses.”

“I’ll try to make it. I have a meeting at eleven.”

Neil glanced between Jordana and Logan with a knowing smile. Jordana cast her blue-green eyes to the floor, as if she had anything to be ashamed about, and Logan scowled at his friend’s untimely interruption.

Another knock on the door.

Neil took it upon himself to answer. “Room service. Nice.”

The young female pushed the cart into the room, the smell of coffee drifting through the air. “Good Morning, Mr. Savant.”

“You are way too cute to be working in room service,” Neil said, the blatant flirt. He grabbed a muffin. “But I’m not Savant. That guy is right behind me.”

Logan smiled at her apologetically, and motioned for the server to wait as he went to talk to Jordana, who looked ready to bolt. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I want to continue our conversation—”

The hotel phone rang. He made a frustrated sound.

“It’s all right,” Jordana said, picking up her purse. “I’ve told you everything.”

The phone continued to ring loud and obnoxiously.

“Want me to get that?” Neil called.

“No,” he replied with a sharpness of a man with migraine, marching to the phone. It could be his client. He picked up the receiver. “This is Savant.”

“Why aren’t you answering your cell phone?” It was Miranda, a close friend of he and Neil’s. How come everyone was so concerned about his absence? Oh wait. It wasn’t concern; it was nosiness.

“Does it matter? I’m answering this phone.”

Coyly shooing off Neil’s flirtation, the room service girl handed Logan the bill as Miranda went off in his ear about the gossip he missed last night, as if he gave a damn.

“That’s Miranda on the phone?” Neil said, picking on his muffin. “Tell her I’m going to kill her husband for outbidding me on that round of golf with that PGA pro. He doesn’t even like the sport and neither does she! You know she’s just getting revenge for that time I knocked over that chocolate fountain on their carpet. Total accident.”

Distracted, Logan used his shoulder to hold the receiver as he took the bill, added gratuity, and scribbled the short hand version of his signature. He mouthed “thank you” to the girl and she smiled. He held the receiver away from his ear, Miranda’s shrill voice echoing in the room. Neil winked at the server as she shuffled out. Tamping down his annoyance, Logan covered the receiver. “Neil. Do you mind?”

“Mind what?”

“Can you—” Suddenly he realized they were the only ones in the room now. “Jordana?” He craned his head to glance in the bedroom, but he didn’t see her.

“Your lady friend left.”

“What?” Logan took a step, then was halted by the phone cord. Miranda was still talking, not bothering to ask if he was listening. “Where did she go?”

Neil shrugged. “She excused herself and walked out. You were busy signing the bill.”

Logan controlled the urge to throw down the phone. “Miranda, I’ll see you at brunch.”

He dashed into the hallway, looking right, then left.

Gone. Just like that. Disappointed, he went back in the room.

“Did you get her number?” Neil asked, picking up a mug.

Logan glowered, temples throbbing. “No. She has mine, though. I gave her my card last night. And it’s not what you think.”

“It’s not what everyone thinks?” Neil teased. “You come to the gala with Rebecca, who was acting extra clingy, giving you do-me eyes all night. Then you spend an insane amount of money on a necklace you can’t use. You vanish before the party had really gotten started, and I had to bang down your door the next morning.” He gave a one-shoulder shrug before going to sip his coffee. “Sleeping in with them isn’t really your M.O.”

Deciding not to mention how dead on Neil was about Rebecca acting clingy—he seriously hadn’t paid any attention had he?—he chose to give his friend a little information before he booted him. “I gave away the necklace,” Logan said pouring his own cup. “To the woman who just left. And I didn’t sleep with her except in the strictly literal sense. Not that it’s any of your business. Turns out there were all kinds of things I missed last night.”

“What?” Incredulity filled Neil’s voice. “You didn’t have sex with her? No wonder she looked so…put together.” He chuckled. “What did happen? I’m curious as hell to know how she earned a diamond necklace.”

Leave it to Neil to focus on sex, or as it turned out, the lack thereof. He dragged a hand down his face, unsure he could answer that question without more time to think and recharge. “I’ll tell you about it later. Now get the hell out of my room so I can shower and shave and staple my brain together.”

“Man, this is a rare sight. You all discombobulated.”

“Neil,” he warned.

“I’m going, I’m going.” He took his coffee with him and Logan closed the door behind his friend.

All he had was her first name.

Damn his memory. Damn the side effects of whatever he’d ingested. Damn Rebecca.

Somehow, he’d find Jordana.

He couldn’t believe she just skipped out without so much as a see-you-later.

Usually, he thought with a smirk, he was the one who made that move.

***

Days after the gala, Logan was still wrapping his mind around the whole ordeal. Especially since it involved someone he once thought of as a good friend. On most occasions, he’d keep his personal business to himself, but this time, he felt the need to share it with the one man he trusted implicitly. Neil. Whose opinion he valued, even if he could make light of things at times.

They were at his house playing pool in the library when Logan shared the details.

Neil lined up his cue stick. “Shit, Savant. That’s one hell of a story. Hard to believe Rebecca would sink so low.”

“Hard to believe, but it’s true. Jordana had no reason to make it up. She knew personal things about me and Ben she couldn’t have known otherwise. How Ben and I went to college together, how I helped Carla after her husband died, things like that.”

Neil shook his head. “Rebecca was too close to getting away with it, too.” He took a gulp of ice water and set it on the sidebar. “I mean…damn. Drugging you so she can claim you knocked her up? Pretty desperate. Didn’t she realize you would’ve insisted on a paternity test?”

“Probably hoped I wouldn’t question it. She’d been complaining her love life was on a bit of dry spell lately. I figure now, she wanted to make sure I’d think no one had touched her but me.” He sighed heavily, staring at the table, determining his next move.

“Even if you did believe the baby was yours, I would’ve insisted on a test.”

“I know. Maybe she thought of a way around that, too. Who knows? She’d go this far, why not go further?”

Neil huffed. “Good thing you’ll never know. Women.” They took a couple turns for their game before he asked, “Talked to Rebecca yet?”

“Got that over with Sunday night.” It’d been one of the most uncomfortable conversations of his adult life, but it made him realize how blind he’d been.

“And?” Neil prompted.

“She knew why I was there the second she looked me in the eye. When I told her Jordana heard every word of her conversation in the restroom, Rebecca caved, started crying, claiming her mother had fed her the idea. Her story was, she didn’t want to be single with a baby and thought it was in her and the child’s best interest to find someone responsible, since Ben is in a bit of hole right now. In the end, I just felt sorry for her.”

Her tears hadn’t done much for Logan; when he was young, he’d seen his mother shed so many false ones to manipulate his father. However, Rebecca sounded genuinely stricken with remorse that she’d actually gone through with her plan. Desperate times, extreme measures. Little did she know she would’ve been better off telling him about the baby; he would’ve done everything in his power to help her.

“Well, she doesn’t get any empathy from me,” Neil stated, ever loyal. “And it sounds like you were too easy on her.”

“Did you expect me to crucify her?”

“Not really, but you’re surprisingly ambivalent.” He rounded the table. “It’s no small thing what she tried to pull off. I don’t know how I’d react, but it’d be hard to brush this off. Not to mention I’d want to warn Ben about what kind of baby mama he has on his hands.” He bent down and shot a ball in the pocket.

I’m losing this game. “Ben has enough to worry about with his debt and setting things right with his life. I don’t want to get tangled up in some triangle when I barely escaped it. Maybe once he finds out he’s going to be a father, it’ll motivate him to get clean. At least, I hope it does. For the kid’s sake.”

“Aren’t you pissed off she tried to screw with you?”

Not as much as he would’ve imagined. Ten years ago when he was twenty-six, he might’ve reacted differently. Now? “Getting angry at this point doesn’t benefit me.”

“Ah yes, I forget,” Neil drawled. “Nothing ever gets a rise out of you.”

He had his limits. “Emotion will never serve me as well as logic.” Letting anyone see him weak or vulnerable would open up a box that couldn’t be resealed. Besides, there was nothing to be angry about now. Thanks to Jordana. If only he could tell her that. “I don’t let things get to me because if I did, well,” he leaned over, eyed the line, and hit the ball hard into the right corner, “I wouldn’t be able to run a company and keep my sanity.”

With a snicker, coming around the other side of the pool table, Neil said, “I don’t think Rebecca should get off so easy.”

“Trust me, with Ben as the baby’s father and no income, she isn’t. She’s leaving the Bay, heading to her folk’s place in Fresno,” Logan informed him, straightening. “By the way, let’s keep this between us. Rebecca is gone, and the last thing I want is to rehash this, and possibly leak it. I know our friends would never say anything on purpose, but these things have a way of getting out.”

“I agree. No one has to know. Just you and me.”

Logan paused, just thinking her name made a corner of his mouth twitch. “And Jordana.”

“Ah, yes.” Neil grinned. “Your guardian angel. How could I forget?”

Logan knew he never would. Or the smile, the voice, the electric chemistry between them he couldn’t stop thinking about. Every morning this week, he asked his executive assistant, Ashtyn, if she’d found her yet. No such luck. He had her calling every ear, nose, and throat doctor in the area. Using social media proved fruitless without a last name.

Neil, observing him, stood up on his toes and rocked back on his heels. “I, uh, assume you’re going to see her again?”

If fate was kind, then yes, he would. Nevertheless, he set his mind to forget about sleeping with her, if indeed he ever found her. It didn’t take a psychology degree to sense the vulnerability in those hazel eyes. Women like Jordana were on the lookout for one knight, not one night.

“I plan to see her at least once,” he admitted to Neil. “I want to convey my gratitude for what she did. I would’ve that morning, but as you’ll recall, you rudely interrupted and scared her off.”

“All the better for the chase!”

He slanted him a glance. “I think she deserves something for saving my ass.”

“I think a diamond necklace worth thousands would suffice.”

“Not to me.”

“If I were you,” Neil advised, “I wouldn’t go near another woman for at least six months.”

He smiled. “Now that’s a lie and you know it. You love women too much. Besides, it’s not as if I was dating Rebecca. What the hell was she thinking?”

“Dollar signs.”

Logan twisted his mouth in wry distaste. Her betrayal had him questioning his instincts, which he relied on a great deal. His ability to read others and sense deception, conflict, underlying motives, had been honed razor-sharp. Over the years, it’d alerted him to everything from dubious businessmen to imprudent investments. Either Rebecca had been one fantastic actress, or his reliable perception had dulled. Not good.

“Like I’ve always said,” Neil said, chalking his cue stick. “Men and women can’t do the platonic dance. All moves lead to disaster one way or another. Sex, feelings…sex.”