Page 9 of One Night Seduction (ONS #1)
Logan
I slam Arianna’s door shut harder than I intend as I storm into the empty room beside hers.
Tossing my bag onto the bed, I dig my fingers into my hair.
What the fuck am I even doing here? This was such a mistake.
A stupid, impulsive, desperate to see her and test if the connection was real or something I conjured in my head at the club, mistake.
Test concluded.
Just two minutes alone with her, and all suspicions are confirmed.
It wasn’t a fluke. It wasn’t a lust induced one-off or twice-off, I guess.
Being near her sets my skin on fire. It has my mind clouding, my heart racing.
She puts me on edge, and I’m like an adrenaline junkie flirting with the cliffside, torn between staying safely where I am and free-diving straight off.
What a fucking ride it would be.
Clearly, that isn’t an option, though. Despite the obvious morality conflicts, there is one larger hindrance I didn’t account for. She wants absolutely nothing to do with me.
I’m not going to say that it hurt when she spoke about our moments together, as if they sickened her. Mainly because that would make me seem weak, which I am most definitely not. Her response was…upsetting, to say the least.
I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting her reaction to be when I showed up unannounced to her family vacation. Is it too delusional that I hoped she’d be a little excited? That she’d feel that small sense of relief wash over her when she saw me like it did for me when I saw her?
Fuck.
Listen to me, I’m losing my goddamn mind. I can’t be this strung out on a woman after two nights spent together. We’ve barely even spoken to one another in years. It was sex, just sex.
It was more than that, though. I know it, and she does, too, even if she’s not ready to admit it yet.
I’m standing in the middle of the empty room, contemplating getting in my car and driving back to Seattle, because this is clearly a terrible fucking idea. My spiraling thoughts are interrupted by the sound of my phone ringing.
Glancing down, I see it’s my younger brother Tyson. I almost don’t answer, but I know that he will just keep calling until I do. He’s annoying as fuck like that.
“What?” I snap.
“Geeze, that’s not a very nice way to answer the phone,” Tyson lightly scolds.
Blowing out an irritated breath, I lift my head to the ceiling.
“What do you want, Ty?”
“I came by your place to see if you wanted to grab a beer, but you’re not here. I called your office, and your secretary said you were out of office for the next week. Since when do you take a vacation?”
“Since now. Wait, are you in my house again?”
“You really need to update your security code, bro.” He laughs.
Shaking my head, I move to the window in the room, looking out over the lake.
Tyson is twenty-eight, but you wouldn’t know it.
He’s stuck in the immature ‘I have no responsibilities’ phase of his life.
I keep waiting for him to grow up, find a girl, get a job that he’s actually passionate about.
Something. Instead, he’s more content bobbing through life, living off his inheritance our parents left, and bartending on the weekends.
I think the bartending is just so he can have an easy selection of hookups.
“So, where are you?” he asks.
“The lake house,” I answer quietly, like maybe he won’t hear me or be interested enough to ask more questions.
Of course, neither happens.
“The one out on Lake Roseiger? Where you and Kelly used to vacation?”
“Yep,” I say stiffly.
The line is quiet for a few moments before he laughs.
“Holy fucking shit. Don’t tell me you’re with her right now.”
“Not just her,” I add in quickly, like that makes the situation any different.
Yes, my ex-wife is here. No, it’s not just her and I here alone. No, she is definitely not the reason I came.
I can’t share that piece because, as judgment free as my brother is, telling him that I fucked my ex’s daughter twice, and have been thinking about nothing else but doing it again and again, tells me I’d warrant some judgment.
“The whole family is there? Why the fuck wasn’t I invited?” he pouts like he’s genuinely upset.
Rolling my eyes, I sigh into the phone.
“I gotta go. Get the fuck out of my house.”
“Whatever. Have fun fucking your gold digging bitch of an ex,” he says as the phone goes dead.
Ty was pissed when everything went down with Kelly.
Almost more so than me. I think a small piece of me knew before I actually found out.
I was always away, and she needed constant attention.
She was good for my ego, a pretty face and fairly sweet.
We never quite…fit, though. I was approaching forty with a large fortune but nothing to truly show for it.
I wanted a wife, a family, and Kelly offered both to me in a pretty package.
It was easy to fall for the charming, beautiful woman, or at least I thought it would be.
The honeymoon phase didn’t last long. My hours at work became longer, my work trips became more frequent, and eventually, I found myself not missing her at all.
That’s probably when she started fucking around, maybe even before that.
I guess I don’t hate her because I don’t really blame her.
We never had that spark, that connection.
We were never truly in love with each other.
More like we just were mutually using one another for different things in life.
Things we thought we needed to feel fulfilled.
Our marriage and divorce left me with the resounding feeling of failure, something I was not accustomed to. Thanks to my iron-tight prenup and her clear violation of the infidelity clause, it financially cost me nothing. Something she was furious about, hence Tyson’s gold digger comment.
Tossing my phone onto the bed, I run my hand down my face.
I hate who I’ve become. I’m restless, irritable.
All I can think about is…her. It’s fucked up and irrational, but here I am, sharing a vacation home with my ex-wife, her sister, and the woman who has quickly become the entire center of my attention. What could possibly go wrong?