He didn’t know what the hell he wanted to do either. The only thing he did know was that he couldn’t allow Claire to reconcile with her shithead of a husband. Damn her. God, he was so furious. Like hell another man, especially that asshole, would be raising Logan’s child.
So he was at a bar.
If Logan could have solved all the problems in his life with lager, he’d be worry-free. A self-loathing smile curved his lips as he tipped his glass and drank deeply, his second lager going down smooth. He plunked his glass back on the bar. At least this place was rather nice, he thought, eyeing his surroundings somewhat unconcernedly, not a dive. He didn’t know what it was called. Mahony’s or Maguire’s or some Irish pub knockoff kind of name.
Not that it mattered.
All that did matter at the moment was that Logan had come here to drink away his problems. He never used alcohol as a tool of avoidance, never even got drunk. The feeling of losing control over himself or his situation had always been repellent enough to keep him from even thinking of it.
Until Claire.
Damn it, he should never have allowed the one lapse in judgment that let her under his skin. He’d always been attracted to her, and he’d always known that acting on that attraction would lead only to disaster. Still, that weekend in New York, he hadn’t given a damn for any of that. There had only been Claire and him and the best sex of his life.
But it hadn’t really been just sex for him, and that was the trouble. He’d felt and known it then, in the aftermath of their explosive passion, and dealt with it by retreating and putting up a cool façade. But the façade had begun to crack and slip away and he was starting to acknowledge he had feelings for Claire, as goddamn crazy as that was.
She sure as hell didn’t want him as her unsuspecting mother had so cheerfully let him know.
“Mind if I sit down?”
Logan glanced up from his lager to find an attractive brunette at his side, a flirty smile on her glossy red lips.
He gestured to the empty barstool to his left. “Be my guest.”
She seated herself gracefully and crossed legs that were long, lean, and capped off by sexy red heels. “I’m Carla,” she told him, the flirty smile still in place.
“Logan.” He introduced himself, raising his glass to her in a salute. Her eyes were blue, he noticed, but not as deep and radiant a blue as Claire’s.
Damn it, there he went again, thinking about her. And why, when he had a pretty woman at his side who was clearly interested in him? Hadn’t he always been partial to leggy brunettes over petite blondes, anyway?
“Can I buy you a drink, Carrie?” he asked, hoping like hell he’d gotten her name right.
She laughed, a deep, throaty, wait-until-you-see-me-naked kind of laugh. “It’s Carla, and yes, you can buy me a drink. Make it a Cosmo.”
Logan gestured to the bartender, a twenty-something who spent more time hitting on women than he did pouring drinks. The smarmy bastard looked over, got an eyeful of Carla and sauntered their way. “What can I get for you?”
“A Cosmopolitan,” Logan informed him coolly.
“A Cosmo it is,” the bartender said, grinning at Carla, not even bothering to spare Logan a glance.
There goes your tip, asshole.
To her credit, Carla virtually ignored the bartender beyond a polite “thank you” when he delivered her drink. Sensing more susceptible prey elsewhere, he moved to the other end of the bar. Carla sipped her drink delicately. Logan decided what he needed was sex, meaningless, mindless, leave-before-she-wakes-up sex. Maybe that would cure him of the disturbing preoccupation he’d developed with Claire. She was having his child, but that didn’t mean their relationship needed to go beyond that of co-parenting.
He just needed sex, that was all. It had been too long since he’d been with a woman. In fact, he hadn’t been with a woman since Claire. Logan decided it was definitely time to rectify that little situation.
“Are you from Philadelphia?” she asked, her gaze dropping to his mouth.
“My business is here,” he replied. “I live in a suburb. You?”
“Oh I’m here for a business meeting,” she replied, raising her glass to her full red lips and taking another sip. “I fly back to Chicago tomorrow afternoon.”
Perfect one-night-stand material. Tomorrow, she would leave and they’d never see each other again.
“Where are you staying?” Logan took a long draught of his lager, awaiting her response.
“The Pierpont.” She put her hand on his arm, her eyes meeting his frankly. “My room has an incredible whirlpool tub in it. Maybe you’d like to see it.”
There it was, out in the open, a blunt invitation for what he’d been craving. Logan should have felt elated, but he felt slightly sick instead. He couldn’t do it. An image of Claire rose in his mind.
