Of Loss & Betrayal (Madison & Logan Book 2) Read online

  I opened my eyes and realized my hand holding the phone was shaking. I put the phone down as if it was scorching hot. As much as I wanted to erase what I had just read from my mind, I knew they would be forever burned into my memory as evidence of Logan’s betrayal. It was bad enough that he had communicated with her, but he had let her come see him. She had gone to him in his time of need, when it should have been me.

  My mind was in overdrive as it feverishly tried to figure everything out. I wondered if he had lied to me and had been communicating with her all along. Her phone number was no longer programmed into his phone and there had been no other text history, but maybe he had hidden her under a different name.

  I quickly picked his phone back up and went through all of his texts, but didn’t see anything else suspicious. Searching his texts inevitably lead to searching his emails. I was desperate for some clue as to whether or not he had been in contact with her this entire time.

  After an hour of reading texts and emails that led to nothing, I told myself that Logan was too smart to communicate with Kristina through his regular phone or email account. He could have a burner phone just for her, or a secret email account that he used to communicate with her.

  I covered my face with my hands, wanting to scream. How had I gotten here? Just moments ago, I had been thinking about how lucky and happy I was, and now I was frantically trying to think of how Logan could have duped me with Kristina.

  I heard a noise in the bedroom and quickly put Logan’s phone down, grabbing my coffee cup and standing up. I walked swiftly to the kitchen and as far away from his phone as possible. Whatever was going on, I wasn’t ready to confront Logan about it. I felt too fragile to demand answers from him. Despite being hurt and angry, I was scared to shatter our happiness that had seemed so perfect. I also didn’t want to give him a chance to cover his tracks if he really was screwing around on me before I got a chance to investigate further.

  Despite my decision to keep quiet about what I had found out, when Logan walked into the kitchen and smiled at me, I wanted to throw my cup at him and scream. I felt shattered, and my heart felt like it was broken into a million pieces. Even if he hadn’t been cheating with Kristina this entire time, he must still have feelings for her if he had let her come visit him in the hospital, knowing how upset that would make me. I couldn’t help wondering if I was being selfish, if he had needed someone familiar in a cold, lonely hospital. But why did it have to be her? And who the hell was this Marcus that had been mentioned in the texts? Maybe he was the key to finding out more.

  “How long have you been up?” Logan asked, as he dropped a light kiss on my mouth before heading over to the coffeemaker, having no clue of my inner turmoil.

  “Not that long,” I replied, trying to sound normal but I couldn’t keep the quaver from my voice.

  Logan glanced back at me before returning his attention to the coffeemaker. “Did you get enough sleep? You sound tired.”

  I watched silently as he made his cup of coffee, having no idea how I would continue the farce that everything was okay when I felt like I was dying inside. Logan turned to me with a frown when I didn’t answer.

  “You okay, babe?” He put his cup of coffee down and reached for me, grabbing my hand and pulling me against him. His eyes looked down at me with concern, and I couldn’t help wondering if he looked at Kristina the same way he looked at me. I was going to be sick.

  “I’m fine,” I said, plastering a smile on my face. I just had to get through this morning before Logan went to work, and then I would figure out what the hell I was going to do. “I must be tired from the workout you gave me last night.”

  Logan grinned, obviously accepting my claim that everything was okay. I was relieved, but it also upset me. How could he not know that my whole world was caving in, and that I was just pretending? I had thought he knew me better than that.

  I gave myself a mental shake. I was wasting energy on useless thoughts. I just needed to concentrate on getting through the next hour or so before Logan left.

  “Are you going to stay here or go back to your apartment? I need to know whether I should pack some stuff to sleep at your place tonight.”

  Logan naturally assumed that we would spend tonight together, whether it was at his place or mine, because that was the pattern we had settled into. I used to think it was because he never wanted to be apart from me, but now I had to contend with the idea of another woman. And not just another woman, but one he cared about. Or even loved.

  I stopped that train of thought before I got physically ill. “I’ll stay here. I brought my laptop so I don’t need to go back to my place.” It would also give me a chance to snoop around and do some digging.

  “Good. I need to jump in the shower and get ready for work.” Logan leaned down to drop a kiss on my neck before walking out of the kitchen. I wanted to grab him and demand for him to tell me the truth. I wanted to beg him to give me a plausible explanation for his contact with Kristina that wouldn’t make me feel like my heart was being shredded into a million pieces. But I kept silent as I watched his retreating back.

  I somehow kept up the charade until Logan left, but the moment the door closed behind him, I collapsed onto the couch, feeling exhausted from the strain of having to pretend my world wasn’t crumbling right before my eyes. I lay on the couch for a while as I mentally prepared myself for the task at hand. I needed to take emotion out of this and be methodical. I could be hysterical later, when I actually had all the facts before me. Right now, I needed to snoop.

  I started with his laptop, which was easy enough because he always left it on. I opened his browser and typed in the webpage for his email, hoping that it would automatically log him in, but I was rewarded with a blank login page. I hadn’t gotten a chance to look at his emails as in depth as I wanted to earlier on his phone, and now I cursed myself for not having taken more time to do so. I tried a few possible passwords, but stopped before the account got locked. I decided to just look through his computer and clicked on every file I could find.

  Two hours later, I had found nothing. I wasn’t sure whether I was frustrated or relieved. I had one more folder to go through, and the instant I clicked it open, my heart stopped. Dozens of thumbnail pictures popped up and, as small as they were, I could still tell who was in the pictures. Despite it all, I still held onto desperate hope that I was wrong, but that vanished once I clicked open the first picture. Then the second. And third. And so on, and so on.

  They were all pictures of Kristina. Some were by herself, others with people who I assumed were friends back in California. The worst ones were the pictures of Logan and Kristina together. The one word that kept pounding into my head was happy. They looked happy. Happy, happy, happy. A godawful happy couple who loved each other. I was pretty sure these pictures were old, since Logan’s hair was lighter in them, and his golden locks had darkened again since being back in Chicago, but that didn’t make it sting any less. Sure, this wasn’t evidence that Logan was cheating on me, but why the hell did he still have them on his computer?

  I took a deep breath, trying to clear my head. The one good thing about these pictures was maybe I could figure out who Marcus was.

  I studied all the pictures with males besides Logan in them, hoping to find some clue as to who Marcus was. I was feeling more hopeless the longer I went through them, because it wasn’t as if Marcus was going to be standing there with a nametag emblazoned across his chest.

  Just as I was ready to give up on the pictures, I opened one up where Logan and Kristina were posing in front of a lake with another couple. Logan had attended law school at the University of Michigan after undergrad, and the other guy in the picture was wearing a University of Michigan Law sweatshirt. It triggered a memory of Logan telling me that one of his law school buddies lived in L.A., and he had struck up a friendship with him again when he had moved there. I was almost positive that he had said his name was Mack, which could be a nickname for Marcus.


  I took a deep breath as I opened Logan’s contact list to see if I could find his name. For what was probably the hundredth time today, I reached up and touched the gold heart hanging on the chain around my neck. Cassie’s necklace, which I always wore, helped to ground me and make me feel not so alone. The irony wasn’t lost on me that I was experiencing a betrayal that I had committed against Cassie, but I had made amends with the past.

  I scrolled through the list of names until I got to Mack Wallers. There was no address but he had an L.A. area code, so it had to be him. I reverse searched the number but it came up as unlisted, although it was identified as an L.A. cell phone number. I did a quick Google search of Marcus Wallers to find that there was indeed a lawyer who resided in L.A. under that name, and he was the right age to be Logan’s law school buddy.

  Now that I had figured out this piece of information, I didn’t know what to do with it. I doubted Marcus would take kindly to a stranger calling him up and demanding to know whether Logan and Kristina had been involved in an affair. Even if he did speak to me instead of hanging up, his loyalties were to Logan, and obviously Kristina, since he was the one who had told her about Logan’s accident.

  I decided to just sit on the information while I raided the rest of Logan’s apartment. I searched every nook and cranny, opened every box and looked through every drawer, but I found nothing. It was late afternoon by the time I was finished carefully putting everything back in its place after ransacking his apartment, and I was exhausted, both emotionally and physically. When my phone beeped and I saw Logan’s text, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  Hi, babe. I’m leaving work early because I miss you. I’ll pick up dinner. Any requests?

  The latter emotion won and I felt tears streaming down my face. It was the first time I had allowed myself to cry since finding Kristina’s texts. What the hell was happening? I felt like I was going to go crazy from not knowing the truth. I was tempted to just lay everything out there and demand that Logan to tell me the truth. But the thought of what that truth might be scared me too much.

  I quickly texted a reply, glad that he hadn’t called since there was no way to hide what a blubbering mess I was.

  Anything’s good. See you soon.

  I let myself cry, to mourn the loss of everything I had thought we had shared, and then determinedly wiped the tears from my face. I didn’t want Logan to see how upset I was when he came home because I still wasn’t sure how I was going to approach the situation.

  By the time Logan came home, my face was streak free and I was able to muster up a smile.

  “Hope you’re in the mood for Chinese,” he said, after he had kissed me hello and set the bags on the table.

  “I’m always in the mood for Chinese,” I replied with a smile. “I’ve never turned down a Kung Pao anything in my life.”

  I was going to pretend tonight. I was going to pretend that everything was okay, and make myself believe it. I would decide tomorrow what to do with everything I had found out, but tonight Logan loved me, and only me. Tonight there was no Kristina and no betrayal, no pictures of Logan tenderly looking at Kristina burned into my brain. Tonight it was just me and Logan, and I pushed everything else out of my mind.

  We had a leisurely dinner in front of the TV, although we mostly ignored the news channel that hummed in the background. After we finished eating, we relaxed on the couch and I sighed in contentment, cradled in Logan’s arms. I refused to let any errant thought ruin this moment.

  “Did you get a lot of writing done today?” Logan asked, as he played with my hair, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. Despite my determination to keep my mind off my troubles, I tensed at his question. I had spent the day raiding his privacy, not writing.

  “A fair amount,” I lied. “I still have a ways to go.” I quickly changed the subject before he could ask any more questions. “What about you? How was work?”

  “Nothing too exciting. I won’t bore you with the details.” Logan absentmindedly twirled a lock of my hair around his finger. “Do you remember me telling you about my friend Mack from law school? The one who lives in L.A.?”

  What in the actual fuck. Could he read my mind? I was glad that I was leaning back against him so he couldn’t see my face, because there was no way I could hide my reaction. I paused before answering, trying to make sure my voice was steady when I spoke.

  “Yeah,” I answered, as casually as I could. “What about him?”

  “We touched base while I was in L.A. and he actually came to see me at the hospital because he found out about my accident from one of my colleagues. He’s coming out here for work next week, so he called me today to make plans to hang out. Of course, I’d love for you to meet him. I thought we could all go out to dinner one night.”

  Was this some sort of cosmic joke? I wondered if somehow Logan knew that I had snooped and he was testing me. But, apart from having his apartment rigged with cameras, there was no way he could know. This just had to be a crazy coincidence. It was also an opportunity. I could ask Mack face to face whether Logan was screwing around with Kristina, and it would be much harder for Mack to lie in person than on the phone.

  “Sure, that sounds like fun.”

  “Speaking of fun…” Logan’s hands slid down my arms and slipped under my shirt, stroking my stomach. I tensed reflexively, feeling on guard with him for the first time in a long while. He obviously felt my reaction because his hands stilled.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked softly, and despite my fears of Logan’s infidelity, I still felt a shiver run down my spine as his lips brushed against my ear when he spoke. Maybe physical pleasure could blot out all the pain of today’s revelations. I was at least willing to try.

  “Nothing,” I whispered, slipping my hands under my shirt and covering his hands with mine. I guided them higher to cover my breasts. My nipples instantly hardened under the warmth of his hands, even through the barrier of my bra. “I need you to fuck me hard tonight.”

  Logan gripped the cups of my bra and pulled them down, freeing my breasts which were already responding in anticipation of what was to come. I caught my breath when he grabbed my nipples and twisted them between his thumb and forefinger. Pleasure, heightened by an edge of pain, shot through me and I whimpered as I arched my back, asking for more.

  “Get up and take your clothes off,” he rasped, his voice thick with desire. “I want to see my slut’s body that belongs to me.”

  We shifted into our own little world as raw desire propelled us into a space that seemed almost foreign in our everyday lives. Sure, there were times when we had sex and it was just vanilla, but those instances were few and far between. Our norm was Logan using me as his sexual plaything and me loving it. Tonight I was grateful for it, because I was able to lose myself in it and push everything else out of my mind.

  I stood up and faced Logan on the couch. His normally brilliant blue eyes were dark with desire as he watched me with a predator-like gaze. I gripped the bottom of my shirt and lifted it up, only breaking eye contact for a brief second when I pulled it over my head. I shimmied out of my pants so that I was standing there in only a bra and panties. Before I could continue to undress, Logan stood up abruptly. I stared at him as he unbuckled his belt and pulled it out of the loops of his pants. Instead of dropping it onto the floor and continuing to undress, he looped it around his hand, all the while never breaking eye contact with me. I felt myself start to breathe heavily as anticipation mounted. Logan had never used a belt on me before, but I had a pretty good idea of where he was going.

  “Did I tell you to stop?” he asked, his voice guttural. “You’re not naked yet.”

  He sat back down and continued to watch me. My gaze dropped down to his hand with the belt, mesmerized by the way his thumb stroked against the hard leather. I was still watching his hand as I reached behind me and unclasped my bra, letting it drop to the floor. I hooked my thumbs under the waistband of my panties and pulled them down
, stepping out of them.

  “Kneel in front of me.”

  I obeyed Logan’s command as my eyes raised to his. I could see the desire on his face and it made me want to please him even more.

  “Please,” I whispered.

  Logan raised an eyebrow. “Please, what? What do you want?”

  “Use the belt on me.”

  He smiled darkly, his eyes glittering as he studied me. “We’ll see if you still feel the same way after I’m done with you.”

  Logan unwound the belt from his hand and then looped it in half. He took the curved edge and stroked it against my collarbone, making goosebumps appear. The hard, impersonal leather was somehow one of the most erotic things I had ever felt against my skin. My breath caught as Logan lowered it, dragging it between my breasts which were heavy with arousal. I gasped when the belt ran over my hard nipples, catching them against its edge. My head tipped back and I moaned as Logan ran the edge of the belt back and forth against one of my nipples, sending shockwaves of pleasure down my body.

  “Look at you, getting excited about being touched with a belt. You must really be a slut.”

  “Yes,” I whimpered as I arched my body forward, feeling how wet my pussy was getting with each pass of the belt against my nipple. I felt like my body was on fire and we had barely gotten started. “Please use me as a slut. I deserve to be used.”

  I gasped when I felt the leather of the belt crack against my nipple. It wasn’t an overly hard blow, but the suddenness of it was shocking, yet highly arousing, and I could feel myself getting even wetter. I held my breath in anticipation when Logan moved the belt to my other nipple, teasing it. I knew what was coming and I moaned loudly when the belt came down on that nipple with a firm smack. Logan alternated between my breasts, keeping the rhythm of first caressing my taut nipples with his belt before bringing it down firmly to abuse them.

  “Do you like that?” His voice was low, his expression intense.