Chance (6 page)

At least her imagined vision
of him pushing rows of collected shopping carts in a supermarket parking lot
had been well and truly been disabused.

Logan helped her unload
the various boxes and suitcases from the van, dumping them all down in the
living room, initially. The inside of the house was just as spacious and
impressive as the outside, if not more so. Plush, white leather sofas lined
each wall of the main room, situated at perfect angles to view the large
television screen that hung proudly above the fireplace. The décor was classy
and expensive, minimalist but with a warm tone.

She was pleased to see he
had good taste in home furnishings, as well as in the clothes he wore and the
neat way he combed his hair.

He's quite a classy
man, I've gotten myself
, she thought to herself, congratulating herself silently.
He's so masculine,
intelligent, well off and he's extremely good looking. Logan's the type of man I'd
always envisioned myself settling down with, eventually…only not this soon.

“This place is amazing,”
she grinned, taking it all in like a child at an amusement park.

“Sweetheart, this is only
one room,” he chuckled, reaching for her hand. “Let me give you a quick guided
tour.”

He led her down the
expansive hallway, ignoring the large set of curling stairs snaking around and
up to the next floor. Instead, he took her through to the kitchen. It was
probably the biggest kitchen she’d ever seen. It had dark, shiny work surfaces,
two large ovens and a large breakfast bar in the center with tall stools for
seating.

There was even a sofa in
the corner for her to relax on while watching Logan cook. She could imagine it
all already; she could see herself living there. She visualized every enjoyable
moment of her new life with him. A warm feeling filled her at the prospect.

Next, they toured the elegantly
appointed dining room. He had such a great sense of style. Then he showed her
the game room, complete with a pool table, jukebox, pinball machine and a bar, stocked
with drinks and taps for pulling beer. He finally took her upstairs, showing
her a shimmering, perfect bathroom, two spare rooms and the largest bedroom of
all, which would be theirs to share.

“It’s beautiful,” she
smiled, wrapping her arm around his waist as she looked at the massive four-poster
bed. “This place is more beautiful than any dream I've ever had. I'm blown
away! I don’t think I’ve ever slept in such a big bed.”

“It's fit for a queen,
your highness,” he murmured in his low, sultry voice. “Perhaps you’d like to
test it out with me?” He gave her a squeeze.

“What? Right now?” she
asked.

“Yes,” he said with a
twinkle in his eye.

“But…I’m not sleepy yet.”

“Oh sweetheart, I wasn’t
talking about
sleeping
...” He winked at her.

“Oh,” she suddenly realized
what he'd meant. She rolled her eyes at how dense she could be. “God, I’m so
slow. I'm sorry.” She gave a little, embarrassed laugh then stood on tiptoes to
kiss him on the lips.

Then in a husky voice, she
said, “Sounds like fun.”

Then, it
was
fun.
The first time they had sex in that big, four-poster bed
was
fun, a lot
of fun, indeed.

However, the many times they'd
made love after that first night were typically not as fun. She understood why
he'd wanted to make love that first night; it was special. That was their first
night living together in his house. She could even understand why he might want
to have a repeat performance the night after. However, he wanted to have sex the
night after that, and then again the night after that, and so on…

Charlotte enjoyed sex.
However, she had trouble keeping up with his appetite. He wanted to have sex
every day, sometimes more than once. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to; it was
just she was often tired after work. It was more difficult for her to get into
'the mood' sometimes. She couldn't get turned on as fast, and be as ready to go
as he could.

Sometimes she found
herself engaging in the act just to please him. At those times, it was simply
easier to go through the motions than to upset him. She liked when Logan was
happy; he was much easier to get along with when he got his way. His dark,
moody behavior when something didn't go his way was almost intolerable.
Frankly, it made them both miserable.

When Logan was in a bad
mood, Charlotte invariably ended up with an overwhelming sensation of guilt.
She feared something she did or didn't do caused his upset. Most of the time,
she'd end up enjoying sex, once she’d agreed to it. It was just that she hadn’t
felt like it in the first place. Luckily, it wasn't exactly a grueling task, or
one that took up too much time. It simply didn't feel special when it happened
all of the time, and mostly just to please him.

Within three days, she
was fully moved in. She'd informed her landlord she’d moved out. As was to be
expected, he wasn’t pleased. She was supposed to have given at least a month’s
notice. However, Logan was supportive and told her not to worry about a thing.
After having had doubts about the entire move, in the first place, she found it
was actually a relief to have it all done and forgotten about. She'd miss her
little apartment as well as her independent life, but she was excited to start the
next chapter of her life with Logan, the man she loved.

Having not spoken to her
friends for at least a few weeks, she decided to let them know about her new home
and give them the address. She thought her move would be a good excuse to reach
out and get back in touch with her friends again. She also thought she could
arrange a time to go out with them.

She and Logan would be
seeing each other every day, now that they were living together. Charlotte
reasoned this would be a great time to reconnect with her friends. She figured
she wouldn't run the risk of Logan feeling left out, or too saddened he didn’t
get to see her on one particular night.

While she was at work,
she phoned Sarah, Bethany and Louise, her three closest friends. They arranged
a girls' night out for the upcoming Friday, agreeing to meet as soon as they'd
finished work. Bethany’s wedding was the following Saturday so this would be
the last chance they had to all go out as single women.

The bride to be and her
future husband had been away for the last two weeks, visiting her parents in
Australia. They couldn’t attend the wedding. They’d had a pre-marriage blessing
ceremony done Down Under, with all the trimmings. Bethany called it a rehearsal
wedding, so her parents wouldn’t feel too left out when it came to the
real
big day in Chicago.

Besides having time to
catch up with her friends, Charlotte wanted to secure a wedding invitation for
Logan. She'd been single when the original invitations went out. It wouldn’t
seem right if he couldn’t attend the event with her. Since she'd met him, he’d
become an intrinsic part of her life. She couldn’t imagine herself going to the
wedding without him; she certainly wouldn’t be able to relax and enjoy herself
if he wasn’t there.

On Thursday evening, when
Logan picked her up from work, as he always did, she told him of her plans. His
laid back, happy manner instantly cooled. She could feel the tension rise between
them in the car. His smile evaporated, replaced with a surly, moody expression.

“What is it, Logan?
What's wrong?” she asked, knowing immediately this had everything to do with
her plans to go out. It couldn't be anything else.

“Nothing,” he mumbled and
shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road.

He reached over and
turned off the upbeat pop song that had been playing on the radio. Silence
descended on the vehicle, the uncomfortable atmosphere was palpable.

“Did you have a good
day?” she asked cheerily, trying to change the subject.

“Fine,” he mumbled.

More silence.

She sighed quietly and
stared out of the window. This was ridiculous. If they didn’t talk to each
other about their feelings, how would they ever work out their problems and
sort things out?

“What is it, Logan?” she
asked again. “What’s wrong?”

“What time are you going
out?” He answered her question with another question.

“What?”

“Tomorrow. What time are
you going out?”

“Straight from work.”

“Will you be changing at
work?”

She turned and gave him a
baffled look. “No, I’ll just…go in whatever I’m wearing to work. We’re not
going anywhere fancy, just a bar.”

“Which bar?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet. We
haven’t decided. Why?”

“I just need to know
you’re safe.”

“You're so sweet,"
she said with a big smile. "Of course, I’ll be safe, silly,” she said
reassuringly, reaching out her hand and squeezing his knee gently.

In an instant, he swerved
the car up to the curb, slamming on the brakes and stopping the engine. He
grabbed her arm and twisted round in the seat to look at her, his intense blue eyes
were wild and angry as they stared intently into hers.

“Do
not
call me
silly,” he hissed, the barely concealed fury in his voice sent a chill down her
spine. “I am
not
silly. I'm
concerned
about you, because I love
you and I want you to be safe. Do you understand?”

“I…” She swallowed, taken
aback by his aggression. She was momentarily rendered speechless.

“
Do you understand
?”
he repeated, his voice louder.

She’d never seen him this
angry before. It frightened her.

“Yes,” she answered, her
breath catching in her throat, as if she’d just been punched in the stomach.

“Good,” he bit out.

He turned the key in the
ignition, signaled to pull out and took off again, driving them back home at a
normal speed. He acted as if the entire incident had never happened.

Charlotte was a little
shaken by the experience. This time, it was her turn to keep silent or give
monosyllabic answers as he asked her various questions about her day at work.

Finally getting sick of
it, Logan snapped again, raising his voice slightly as they stopped at a
traffic light. “Are you going to be moody all night?”

That’s rich, coming
from you
, she
thought to herself, but said nothing.

“I get upset when you’re
moody,” he continued. “Why don’t you cheer up, eh? Give me a kiss.”

“You’re driving,” she
answered. “It’s dangerous.”

He gave a quiet chuckle
and said, “Well, at least
that
got an answer from you, hmm?"

His face grew somber as
he said, "Charlotte, listen, uh…”

He hesitated and ran his
fingers through his hair before reaching out his hand and grasping for hers,
holding it tightly.

“I’m sorry about before.
It’s just…I’m very protective of you, you know? You mean so much to me.”

His apology thawed her a
little. She couldn’t really stay mad at him when he was being so nice. He was
actually opening up a bit about his feelings and apologizing. Those things
didn't happen all of the time. Logan obviously cared about her very much. That
showed in almost everything he did. She also knew he was protective of her.

Maybe he'd had a bad day
or something. She decided to forgive him for losing his temper. He snapped out
of it quickly, although he was quite scary for those brief moments. He'd done what
she wanted, after all. He said why he'd gotten so upset. What she'd wanted was
for them to talk things through between them. Charlotte wanted them to apologize
to each other and work together to improve their relationship.

“Yeah, I know,” she
mumbled. “It’s only a couple of drinks with some friends. I promise it's nothing
to be worried about.”

“Yeah, that’s what the
last one said,” Logan said quietly and in a somber tone.

“The last one? The last
what
?”
Charlotte asked, intrigued by his statement.

“My last wife,” Logan
admitted.

“You’ve been married!”
She was totally shocked by his admission.

She looked across at him with
her eyes and mouth open wide as saucers. She was in complete shock at that
information. It was the first time she’d ever heard about this. It reminded her,
once again, there's
so
much she didn’t know about him.

“Yeah. Twice. They both
cheated on me,” Logan sounded and appeared upset.

“Oh,” Charlotte didn’t
quite know how to respond. She fell silent for a moment and looked down at her
lap, then back up again.

“I’m…um…I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m with
you
now. I know you’d never ever do anything like that to me. I know I can trust
you one hundred percent, but it’s not that,” he explained. “It’s not that I
don’t trust
you.
It’s just…I don’t trust the people
around
you.

"Lynda, my last
wife. She was so loyal, so caring, just like you are to me. I trusted her and I
don’t think I made a mistake doing that. The mistake I made was trusting the
people around her. I'd trusted them to be able to take her out and get her home
to me safely without anything happening. Well, something
did
happen. She
ended up fucking another man.”

“But…that was
her
decision,” Charlotte answered. “Nobody forced her to do it, right? So, you really
can’t blame her friends.
She
made the decision to…”

“Don’t argue with me,
Charlotte,” he interrupted with a heavy sigh. “It gives me a headache when you
argue with me.”

“I’m not arguing. I’m
just…giving my opinion.”

“You’re giving a
different opinion from mine. A difference of opinion, by definition, is an
argument, plain and simple. Therefore, you’re arguing with me.”

Charlotte gave a little defeated
sigh. She couldn’t win against that point of view. It made everything she said sound
like an argument.

“Anyway,” he continued.
“That was why I was a little agitated before, when you said you were going out
tomorrow.”

“Because you don’t trust
my friends?” she asked.

“No, no, it’s not your
friends so much. It’s the other people in the bar. The guys. They’re very
predatory and you're very attractive. They’ll see you and they'll want you. You
won’t be able to resist.”

“Of course, I will. I
don't want anybody else, Logan. I have you,” she said calmly but firmly. “I’m
with you. Nothing’s going to change that. You don't need to feel insecure.”

“Do me a favor, don’t
tell me what I need, Charlotte, okay?” he squeezed her hand then let go and
placed it back on the wheel, pulling up outside their house.

“Things will be a lot
easier between us if you just let me know where you’re going.”

“Well, sure. I will. I’ll
text you as soon as we make a decision.”

“And please keep in touch
with me throughout the night?”

“Of course.”

“Alright,” he smiled,
obviously feeling a little more relaxed. He leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“And don’t wear anything provocative.”

“When do I
ever
wear anything provocative?” she asked, as she undid her seatbelt and got out
the car.

“What about the night we
met, hmm?” he asked. “You were asking for trouble by wearing that short skirt.”

“That’s like saying that girls
who wear short skirts deserve to get raped,” she gave a little chuckle, trying
to keep her tone nice and light so he wouldn’t think she was arguing.

“No, that’s not what I
mean. Of course not.” He locked up the car and walked around to the other side,
wrapping his arm around her waist as they approached the front door together.

“I just don’t want you
inviting any unwarranted attention. You’re my precious baby, not anyone
else’s.”

“Of course I am, Logan,”
she pouted, smiled and kissed his cheek.

He grinned happily and
unlocked the door for them to enter.