attractive, but she wasn’t his type. She always dressed in perfectly tailored black clothes, her blonde hair was never out of place and her bright red lipstick was never smudged or missing for that matter. She was the epitome of high maintenance.
High maintenance was the last thing he needed.
He liked low-maintenance women. He preferred brunettes to blondes and he absolutely liked some curves on a woman. Suzanna was rail thin. He didn’t particularly care for that in a female. He wanted something to hold, curves to caress and long thick hair to run his fingers through.
Gabriella.
“Logan?”
“Sorry, Suzanna. Can I help you with something?”
“Yes,” she giggled. “I was wondering, ah, hoping actually, that you were free this weekend and maybe would want to go to the East Village with me?”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. He had a feeling this was going to happen at some point. “I can’t, Suzanna. I’m sorry. I’m actually going back to Colorado this weekend. Maybe when I get back some of us can all go out together.”
Am I going to Colorado? He had no plans to. Fuck, he didn’t even have a plane ticket. But the minute the idea was formed in his head, he knew it was the truth. Suzanna was saying something about a new bar in the East Village when he cut her off. “I’ve gotta go, Suzanna. Another call. We’ll talk soon.”
He pressed the disconnect button, retrieved his credit card from his wallet and called the listed frequent flyer number connecting him to the airline. It was Wednesday and panic clogged his throat. He had to get a flight out of here. The automated system patiently asked for his flyer number and whether he was calling for a new reservation, a current one or something else. He pressed the proper buttons, repeated his flyer number three times and finally, when he was almost at wits’ end, a customer service representative came on the line.
“I need a flight to Denver from La Guardia, please. It doesn’t matter what it costs or what day—Thursday or Friday. But please find me something. This is an emergency.”
Securing a plane ticket, Logan hung up the phone. Was he crazy? He just spent an ungodly amount of money to fly home for…for what actually? What was he going to do once he got there?
“Logan?”
Logan glanced up to see Jack standing in his doorway. “Hey Pops. Come in. What can I do for you? If this is about Hiroshi, I’ve spoken with him multiple times—”
Jack waved his hand in his face. “It’s not about Hiroshi, Logan. I came in earlier, but you were on the phone. Sounds like you were reserving a flight back to Colorado?”
“Yeah, this weekend. There’s something I need to take care of there.”
“Tell me, what’s got you down, son?”
“Nothing.” Was he that transparent?
“That face doesn’t belong on a man who’s got no worries.” His father bent over and peeked through his blind. “It’s New York, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not your home. That’s what I mean. I might work a lot and I may not have been with you every second of your life while you were growing up, Logan, but I’m pretty perceptive when it comes to you. I can read you fairly well. Come on, you don’t think I can see that you’re miserable here?”
Logan swallowed. Under normal circumstances he might have felt a little awkward but because his father’s observations were dead-on accurate, he couldn’t come up with a response. “It’s fine, I—”
“—Don’t lie to me, boy.” Jack’s stern voice reminded Logan of his childhood. “I can see it. These past few weeks you’ve hardly slept. You haven’t touched any of the food at the house. The bottom line is you haven’t been living. You’ve been going through the motions of day-to-day life, but nothing more. This is my fault, too. I blame myself.”
“Dad.” Gosh, Logan felt terrible. Like he was already letting his dad down. He wanted his father to be proud of him, wanted to give him what he wanted. He wanted his father happy. “I’m not miserable. Don’t blame yourself.”
“Maybe not miserable, but not great either.” Both men sat on the black leather couch Logan had in his office.
“This isn’t home to you, and I do blame myself. I wanted you to work here. I’ve always had a dream that you and I could work together some day and I wouldn’t take no for an answer.” He chuckled. “I even sicced Hiroshi on you in the