Page 69 of The Player Next Door

“Yeah, I didn’t want to fall into old habits. I’ve never had sex with someone I wasn’t dating, and I wanted to try something new. And with the Senior Game Designer position opening up soon, I really need to stand out.”

“And I assume that means I have to be a secret at your work?”

Clare shook her head. “I never told Craig any details, just that I’d taken his advice. And we ran into Noah that once, but he never got your name.”

“Well. There’s that at least.”

“I’m sorry if I—”

“You didn’t hurt me,” Logan interrupted, but his voice still wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t warm and playful, but it wasn’t cold and harsh either. “I get it. We barely knew each other. And I’m, well, me.”

“Right, and—”

“And there’s that whole shit with my work, yeah.” Clare wished Logan would let her finish a damn sentence, but she also wanted to tread lightly. “I guess we’re even then, huh?” Logan said. “I did something kind of crappy, you did something kind of crappy, we both still have jobs, the end.”

Clare bit her lower lip. “I am sorry,” she said again. “I didn’t know how to tell you without hurting you.”

“I get it. It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

Logan smiled at her finally, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Positive.”

Chapter Thirty-four

Logan was nervous. He was never nervous about anything before Clare, especially not before something as simple as a client dinner. He’d done dozens of these since he started working at Loyalty. This was the sort of thing he was made for; he excelled at small talk and at calibrating his flirting to the right amount of charming-but-non-threatening that usually delighted men like Schneider. And he did genuinely like talking to people. People were interesting to him, even the ones he didn’t intend to sleep with.

He felt jittery, like he’d had a few too many coffees on an empty stomach. Sure, his job was more or less on the line but he could count on Clare. She cared about him and he cared about her, and he just needed Schneider to see that.

But Clare’s confession from the other day kept resurfacing in his mind, like a piece of trash that kept rising to the top of a flood of water in the gutter.I’m sort of sheltered and needed more experience.

Logan understood. He really did. He knew what he was like, and he knew she had been aware of his reputation before they slept together. There was no reason to be hurt by this revelation, especially not since she had so easily forgiven him for his shitty motivations regarding her.

He’d meant it. They were even. They had to be, even if the knowledge that Clare wasn’t really all that different from the other women he’d slept with stung like hell. In the end, she had just wanted him for sex. Sure, she wanted more now, but how much longer was that going to last?

He tugged at his waistcoat—yes, a three-piece suit was probably too much, and no, he didn’t have any regrets, he knew how good he looked in them—and checked his watch. It wasn’t like Clare to be late, and while she wasn’t late yet, technically, he was anxious. They were meeting a good ten minutes before Schneider was supposed to arrive, but Logan wanted to be there to greet her at the door in case Schneider was early and saw them. Chivalry, and all that shit.

A car pulled up to the curb and Clare hopped out, waving cheerfully to the driver before turning to him. “Wow,” she said, drawing up short. “You clean up nice.”

“So do you,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her close to drop a kiss on her cheek. She was in a nicer outfit than he’d ever seen her in, a fitted, dusky pink dress that brought out the tint of her lips.

“I changed in the bathroom at work,” she explained, ducking under his arm as he swung the door open for her. “And did my makeup in the car.”

“You couldn’t just wear that to work?”

“Not if I didn’t want to explain why I was so dressed up,” she said.

Logan furrowed his brow and gave their drink order to the bartender. “And you couldn’t just make up a reason?”

Clare looked unusually flustered. “I mean, I could have, I just—”

“I thought you said I wasn’t a secret?” he asked, hating the note of suspicion that crept into his tone. He wanted to believe her, he really did. There was no reason for him to feel this way.

But god, it still hurt like hell.

“You’re not, I just didn’t want to tell them anything about my personal life, okay? I have to get through the pitch meeting first,” she said sharply, and the hostess chose that moment to come over and escort them to their table. Logan took care of ordering the wine, figuring Schneider might be happier if he had a glass waiting when he arrived.

Clare studied the menu quietly while Logan studied her. He ran over everything he knew about her boss Craig in his mind, wondering what could have driven someone as confident as Clare to reach for his approval like this. She’d explained the whole failed-right-out-of-the-gate thing, and Logan certainly understood doing stupid things to get your boss’s approval. But it still just didn’t fit.