Page 18 of Perfect Persuasion (Love’s Second Chance #2)

By lunchtime, Claire had replayed her conversation with Logan at least thirteen times.

It was all she could do to concentrate on work, and there was a seemingly endless supply of that.

She’d never be finished by the end of next week, and she shuddered to think of the hapless soul who would have to take on her workload, mid-projects.

Then again, after Logan’s smug revelation that morning, a replacement didn’t seem likely.

Claire blew out a sigh, saving the proposal she’d been editing on her laptop and closing out the program. Logan was right, her decision to leave LM was solely based on her pregnancy, and, if she were to be brutally honest, she’d admit that she had been hiding from him.

But with good reason. The man was a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, sensual and soft one moment and hard, angry, crude the next. She never knew what to expect from him, and she hated that. She hated the unpredictable.

But what she hated, absolutely hated most of all, was that she was beginning to care for him far more than she should.

No one knew better than Claire just how self-destructive it would be to fall in love with him.

Falling in love with a man who couldn’t reciprocate would be incredibly foolish.

After the disastrous end to her marriage, she couldn’t willingly jump into another, potentially similar situation once more.

Especially with the inclusion of a baby into the equation.

So Claire had checked the impulse to accompany Logan on a week-long getaway and told him exactly what she had to tell him, no. There was really no other option, both for her sake and for the baby’s.

Another sigh left her as she closed down her laptop and stood, stretching.

Too much work and not enough time had her practically chained to her desk all morning.

She needed to go for a walk, maybe grab a quick bite to eat down at the Blue Room.

Claire grabbed her purse from beneath her desk and left her office.

Jamie wasn’t at her desk, apparently already having gone for lunch, so Claire headed to the elevator bank at the far end of the floor.

She pushed the down arrow, waiting for the next available elevator to arrive. Suddenly, Amy, the co-partner of Claire’s best Creative Team, hurried to her side, the three-inch heels she wore thumping audibly on the carpeted floor.

“Claire.” Amy was slightly out of breath and she looked altogether rumpled, her brown hair disheveled, the tan pantsuit she wore wrinkled. “I’m so glad I found you.”

Claire was beginning to suspect that Amy and her Creative partner, Leo, had finally consummated their flirty relationship. She’d never seen Amy look so out of breath, so rumpled. “What do you need, Amy?”

Amy flushed a bit, looking sheepish. “Mr. Monroe asked me for a finalized proposal for the Scrubby Soap account this morning, but I got, um, waylaid, and I’m running late to a lunch date, and I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind terribly?

” She pulled a folder out and held it toward Claire.

“I would have emailed it, but my computer’s down, and Leo’s crashed yesterday.

I think the system’s a little haywire today. Would you mind taking it to him?”

Claire resisted the urge to sigh yet again. Whenever Amy was embarrassed, she out-talked even Jamie. Yep, something was definitely up between her and Leo, Claire decided. Logan would take one look at her and know it too.

But Logan was really the last person she wanted to see right now. Even so, Claire couldn’t, in good conscience, turn poor Amy loose to face Logan’s wrath alone. It was without question that he wasn’t exactly in one of his better moods today.

“No problem,” Claire found herself saying, reaching out to accept the folder.

“Thanks.” Amy flashed her a smile and disappeared into the elevator that had just arrived for Claire. She waved as the doors closed.

Grumbling to herself, Claire hit the up arrow.

When she finally made it to the hallowed tenth floor, Mindy looked up from her computer and the half sandwich she was munching. “Do you have an appointment with Mr. Monroe?” she asked, her superciliousness obviously in overdrive today.

Claire tilted her head and gave Logan’s assistant her best don’t-you-know-I’m-important look. “Why don’t you just buzz me in, Mindy?”

It was a command, not a polite request. Mindy’s mouth scrunched up into a tight little circle, but she picked up the telephone and announced Claire. “Mr. Monroe says he’ll see you now,” she informed Claire rather frostily after she had replaced the phone in its cradle.

Claire grudgingly thanked her and swept into Logan’s office. He looked up from a sheaf of papers he’d been examining when she entered the room. “Ah, Claire. How efficient of you to appear in my office before I can send for you.” The hard tone in his voice was not lost on her.

Logan was still furious, there was no mistaking it. Every inch King Monroe. She decided to throw him off balance a bit.

She marched across his office and seated herself before sending him a disdainful look. “You know, you really ought to do something about the disposition of your assistant. She’s not exactly a sweetheart.”

Logan raised a brow. “She was rude to you?”

“She’s rude to everyone. Except for you, of course.”

“That’s not really what’s bothering you, is it, Claire?” He was as insufferably perceptive as ever.

She shrugged, uncomfortable under his sudden scrutiny. “If you want a bitchy assistant greeting all the clients, it’s not my problem.” She slid Amy’s almost forgotten folder onto his desk. “Amy asked me to bring you this. Her computer is down and she was late for an appointment.”

Logan’s eyes narrowed. “Would that be a second appointment for a quick screw with Leo?”

Claire’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

“Apparently your little Creative duo has been exploring all the meanings of the word ‘teamwork’. In the men’s lavatory.” He pulled the folder toward himself, a grim cast to his features.

Claire had a horrible thought. “You didn’t catch them, did you?”

“Christ no.” He paused, his mouth kicking up into the barest trace of a smile. “Thank God. I’ve received several disgusted emails from poor shits who apparently did.”

“What are you going to do?” Claire worried her lower lip. “Amy and Leo are our best team.”

“Now we know why.”

Claire laughed at his quip despite herself, and Logan did too for a moment, before apparently thinking better of it.

An awkward silence hung between them. Claire suddenly regretted pushing him away that morning.

The urge to skirt his desk and kiss his sullen mouth, to coax him back into the softer Logan she’d seen glimpses of, was strong.

She hated when he retreated to King Monroe mode.

The gap between them seemed to widen to an enormous chasm.

Logan cleared his throat. She noticed he was tugging absently at his earlobe, a habit of his when he was agitated. “Claire, I want to make a deal with you.”

The abrupt change in subject matter startled her, as did the edge in his voice. Her response was hesitant. “What kind of deal?”

“I’ve realized you and I do best in a business relationship.” He slid a stack of papers to her. “My lawyer drew this up for me. Why don’t you take it with you, read it over, and get it back to me by Monday?”

Claire stared in disbelief down at the papers he’d given her.

It was a contract, she realized, and Logan’s lawyer had emailed it to him just that morning.

Her eyes skimmed over it quickly. When she finished, Claire didn’t know whether to tear it up or punch Logan in the face.

Maybe both. She’d never been more enraged.

She stood. “You want me to stay on at LM, to live with you for a year, to inform you of every doctor’s visit I have, to agree to shared custody. This is absolutely ridiculous. You can take your stupid contract and shove it.” Angrily, she picked it up and tossed it at his chest. “I won’t sign it.”

Logan remained implacable, the arrogant, cold veneer firmly in place. “Naturally, I don’t expect you to sign it without consulting your own counsel. I’m sure we can iron out a mutually agreeable arrangement.”

Part of Claire, the part that had traitorously developed feelings for him, couldn’t reconcile this Logan with the other Logan she’d gotten to see.

The Logan before her was the man she’d always assumed he’d been.

Icy, hard, all-business, emotionless. But she’d been given a precious peek beneath that exterior and she knew there was more to him.

Unless she’d merely been deluding herself.

She searched his face for clues. “I thought you wanted a relationship with me. Something more, you said. Now you’re foisting this contract on me like this is some kind of business deal.”

He shrugged carelessly. “I thought it over and realized you and I only work well in business terms. Claire, the contract’s a formality. For peace of mind. Eventually, you and I will bring other partners into our child’s life. I want him or her to have as stable and normal a life as possible.”

Other partners.

Claire hated admitting it, but the idea of Logan’s future wife really, really annoyed her. Okay, she didn’t like it at all.

She forced that errant thought from her mind and turned it instead to the current conversation. “People provide their children with stable lives all the time, and they don’t need contracts to do it.”

God, how could he be so suddenly blasé about this when he’d been laying those smoldering kisses on her only this morning?

Logan slid the contract back across the desk to her. “My top priority at this point is our child.”

“And mine isn’t?” Totally outraged yet again by his I-wish-you-could-be-as-selfless-as-me attitude, she stood. “God, you can be such an unfeeling jerk sometimes. I’m not going to let you play corporate games with my life.”

“You’re the one who plays games.”