~*~*~
Logan stared intently at the cell phone laying on the table in front of him as he waited for his dinner companions. The meeting had fortunately been scheduled for Sunday evening, although he had almost been forced to wait until Monday.
Being in the business of negotiations, Logan spent Saturday visiting with another vendor in order to establish a backup plan. Price negotiations, after the contract was signed, didn’t normally happen, so he needed to be ready for anything. And the first rule was to never walk in without a backup plan.
After convincing At Last, Inc. that he would not wait until Monday to meet, he accepted their dinner offer for Sunday evening. He had to admit he was only a little surprised by the insistence of his presence in California over the weekend. Couldn’t business wait until Monday? Of course it couldn’t.
Those people who genuinely believed that work only occurred between 8am and 5pm Monday through Friday had some serious blinders on. In his world, when it came to strategically managing one of the largest corporations in North Texas, business occurred at any time… day or night.
Unfortunately, this mini crisis had taken him away from a weekend he could have spent with Sam. Being in a different time zone as well as having spent the better part of Saturday wining and dining the other vendor, Logan had missed the opportunity to call her.
He had wanted to hear her voice, but he had put it off in hopes of catching a last minute flight on Sunday and arriving to surprise her. That didn’t look like it was going to happen. Especially since it was already 9pm in Dallas.
So here he was, nursing his second drink, waiting.
He glanced over at his cell phone one more time when he heard a familiar voice echoing behind him announcing her meeting with Logan McCoy.
Shit. Damn. Fuck.
When did Heather Knight start working for their main software vendor? For a brief moment, the first reaction that came to mind was to get up and walk out. But, that would be childish and unprofessional. He was above that.
He hoped.
“Logan. I’m so glad you could make it.” Heather said sweetly as she approached the table, extending her hand to Logan in greeting.
I bet you are. Logan slowly stood from his seat, extending his hand to return her gesture. “I was told this was an emergency.”
“I’m not sure it can be classified as an emergency, but it is rather urgent. Please, have a seat.” Heather replied as she gracefully sat in the chair to his left.
Something did not feel right about this meeting, and Logan had a hunch that Heather had used a business matter to engage in a personal meeting. It didn’t make any sense since they hadn’t spoken in years.
However, he had been wrong before so he would give her the benefit of the doubt and let her get to the heart of the matter. Logan knew it wasn’t going to be a quick meeting by any means.
“Is Mr. Campbell going to join us?” Logan asked although he already knew the answer.
“He had a last minute engagement that pulled him away. I’m afraid it’s just going to be you and me this time around.” Logan could tell she was trying to gauge his reaction, so he purposefully didn’t react.
He couldn’t think of anything he wanted less than to be having a sham of a dinner meeting with Heather Knight. Logan couldn’t help but think of what he could be doing. Back home. With Samantha.
Instead, he was going to have to endure dinner with his ex, rather than lying in bed with his woman.
“What was it that called him away?” Logan asked casually as he glanced down at the menu in front of him.
“He didn’t say. But, we figured since you had come all this way and you were probably eager to get back home, I would meet with you to go over the issue we discussed with Mr. Thomas yesterday.”
“Xavier didn’t give me much of the details so you’ll have to enlighten me some.” Logan was unable to keep the irritation out of his voice.
As Logan sat back, watching Heather sit in the prim and proper way she had of doing everything, he was curious as to why she lured him all the way to California. It had better be good, that was all he knew.
Heather started to speak but was interrupted by the waiter. They took a moment to give him their drink orders; Logan ordered a double scotch on the rocks to replace the last one he had finished. It was the least he could do to try and survive the next hour or so.
“Well, it appears there’s a problem with the contract we went into with XTX. Apparently there was a small pricing error that was overlooked.” Heather said as she stared directly at Logan.
Why did Logan get a feeling Heather had a hand in manipulating the events that had taken place? They hadn’t seen or talked to one another since they had broken up, so Logan couldn’t imagine what might have caused her to interfere with something like this.