Playing with Temptation (23 page)

“Fucking asshole, whoever he is,” Paige said fiercely. “I’m going to rip his balls off and stuff them down his throat as soon as Dean or Logan figures out who the creep is who’s harassing you.”

That made Raina laugh, but Logan inwardly winced. He wouldn’t put it past Paige that, given the chance, she’d emasculate the guy responsible for tormenting Raina. The other woman was feisty and gutsy, and she was the kind of friend who had Raina’s back.

“How did you find out about what happened?” Raina asked.

“The grapevine called Jillian,” Paige said with a suddenly impish grin. “Dean told her, and she called me immediately. She’s in a meeting this morning with a client or she’d be here. She wanted to make sure you were all right, and so did I.”

“I really do appreciate it,” Raina said, absently rubbing her arms. “I have the best girlfriends.”

“Damn straight you do,” Paige replied, waggling a finger at her. “We’re all here for you, always.”

“I know.” Raina’s voice was soft and a bit choked up. “Thank you.”

The front door to the shop opened again, and Sawyer, one of Logan’s friends and co-workers at Noble and Associates, walked inside, a can of paint in one hand and a plastic bag from a hardware store in the other. Both women turned around to acknowledge who they thought was a customer, but instead of greeting him, Raina stared at Sawyer in shock, and Paige sucked in a startled breath as her wide-eyed gaze clashed with Sawyer’s.

His friend came to an abrupt stop, and the
oh, shit
expression on Sawyer’s face, combined with the extreme tension vibrating in the air, made it apparent that there was some kind of connection between Sawyer and Paige, and not necessarily an amicable one.

Logan stepped closer, wanting to dispel the awkward silence that was starting to make
him
feel uncomfortable. “Do you all know one another?”

“Uh, yeah,” Sawyer finally said, his voice hoarse as he nodded politely to both women. “Raina. Paige.”

Logan frowned as he watched the dynamics play out between the trio. No
nice to see you
. No
how are you doing
? Nothing cordial or friendly, just a wariness that he’d never seen shake Sawyer’s confidence before.

After a moment, Raina replied very curtly. “Hi, Sawyer.”

Paige said nothing, but now that the initial shock of seeing Sawyer had worn off, there was an unmistakable glimmer of pain in the other woman’s eyes. There was history of some sort between her and Sawyer, and when Paige finally glanced away, Raina touched her friend’s arm protectively.

Sawyer shifted on his feet, his features etched with silent regrets. He looked as though he wanted to say something more, but instead, he gave his head a small shake and met Logan’s gaze. “Dean sent me over with supplies to paint the back door,” he said, indicating the items in his hands. “And I need to discuss a few updates about this case with you, as well.”

“Yeah, sure.” Logan nodded his head toward the rear of the shop, where the storeroom and office were located. “Bring that stuff to the back, and we can talk where it’s quiet.”

Logan cast a quick glance at Raina, who looked relieved that he was taking Sawyer away from Paige. He headed toward the back of the boutique with Sawyer following, and heard the two women talking quietly but couldn’t make out what they were saying, but it sounded as though Raina was now comforting Paige in a low, hushed voice.

As soon as Logan and Sawyer walked through the doorway separating the main floor from the back rooms and he knew for certain they were out of earshot of the women, he turned to Logan and didn’t hesitate to ask, “What the hell was
that
all about?”

“Nothing,” Sawyer muttered irritably.

“I’m going to have to call bullshit on that one,” Logan replied, only half joking. “There was definitely
something
going on between you and Paige.”

Sawyer met his gaze, his jaw clenched tight and his eyes reflecting a darker misery. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Logan immediately backed off. Sawyer had only been working for Noble and Associates for a few months, ever since being honorably discharged from the military, but the two of them had become good friends in a short period of time. And right now, Logan respected the other man’s need for space and privacy and turned the conversation to business.

“What did you need to talk to me about?” he asked, making sure he still had a clear view of Raina and the customers entering the store.

Sawyer set the can of paint and the bag of items on the floor near the back door, then withdrew his phone from his back pocket and swiped his finger across the screen. “Dean and Mac finally had a chance to take a look at the footage from the security tape from Raina’s place on the night that someone left the handcuffs on her door. Unfortunately, it’s hard to get a good look at the person, even when Dean tried to zoom in on the guy. He gave me the short clip to show you. Take a look.”

After pulling up the video feed on his phone, Sawyer handed it to Logan. The building’s camera caught a man in a bulky jacket heading up the stairs to Raina’s apartment, the collar flipped up around his neck and a baseball cap pulled low on his forehead to shadow and conceal his face so it was impossible to see his features. He quickly clipped the handcuffs around her doorknob, then turned around and averted his face away from the security camera once again as he made his way back out of the complex.

“Shit,” Logan muttered in frustration. “The guy was obviously aware of the security cameras.” He handed the phone back to Sawyer. “Send me the video, and I’ll have Raina take a look at it to see if the guy looks at all familiar to her.”

“Done.” Sawyer pressed a few buttons on his phone to text the clip to Logan before putting the unit back into his pocket.

“The other thing Dean wanted me to tell you is that since the clip doesn’t really help to identify the person and Raina thinks the stalker could be the guy from The Players Club, he suggested that you and Raina go back to the club on Thursday, the same day she was there last week, to see if she can single out the man who harassed her so management can at least question him.”

Logan scrubbed a hand along his jaw and exhaled a deep breath as he glanced at Raina, who was ringing up a customer’s purchase, with Paige standing nearby. He hated to put her through the stressful ordeal of going back to the club for the sole purpose of pointing out the man she suspected was the culprit, but at this point, they didn’t have a choice. It was the next logical step in finding out who was terrorizing her.

He looked back at Sawyer and nodded. “I’ll talk to her about it tonight.”

“I’ll get the outside of the door painted back to gray,” Sawyer said, picking up his supplies once again. “And if you don’t mind, once I’m done, I’ll leave the
back
way.” He gave Logan a wry grin.

To avoid another awkward confrontation, obviously. “Sure. Thanks, man.” Logan slapped him on the back. “I appreciate you coming by and taking care of the door, and I know Raina does, too.”

“No problem.”

Logan opened the back door to let Sawyer out and made sure it was locked securely behind him.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Aaron arrived for his shift at noon, followed by Callie two hours later. Raina helped the customers who browsed the store, a smile always on her face despite the weariness reflecting in her eyes.

Logan would never equate the term fragile with Raina, but after this morning’s incident, he could see that vulnerable crack in her normally unshakable composure, the lackluster look in her eyes, and by four o’clock in the afternoon, he decided that he needed to get her out of this environment and take her to a place where she wasn’t surrounded by reminders of the person stalking her. Where she felt safe and protected.

And he wasn’t giving her a choice in the matter.

W
hen Logan announced
they were leaving the store for the day, Raina had been too weary and emotionally exhausted to argue as she normally would when a man tried to take charge of any aspect of her life. Knowing that Aaron and Callie had the night shift covered made it easier to go along with Logan’s suggestion, and honestly, she was grateful to be away from the store and the reminder of what had happened earlier that morning.

He drove onto the freeway, away from her apartment, and she didn’t even ask where he was taking her, because it didn’t really matter. Just getting out of the store made her breathe easier, but unfortunately, it didn’t make her forget.

After a while of enjoying the comfortable silence, she looked over at Logan and posed the one question she’d been meaning to ask him all day long. “When did Sawyer start working for Dean?”

“A few months ago,” he said, meeting her gaze, his own curious. “It was hard not to notice all the tension between the three of you, and Paige especially, when he walked in this morning. Is there something going on between him and Paige?”

She hesitated for a moment before answering. Logan and Sawyer were co-workers, and possibly friends, so how much did she reveal? “Currently, no,” she replied, keeping her response neutral. “But they were dating about a year and a half ago, right before he left to serve his last tour of duty in the Army.”

He casually glanced in the rearview mirror, keeping an eye on the cars around him. “So what happened?”

Again, she paused, then wondered why she was trying to be so careful with the truth when Sawyer had caused her best friend a wealth of hurt. So, she told Logan exactly what his friend had done. “Sawyer cheated on Paige with her stepsister.”

Logan’s head whipped around and he stared at her in disbelief. “Cheated, as in…”

“Slept with, fucked, screwed,” she clarified so there was no doubt in his mind what had transpired. “Any of those verbs will do.”

He grimaced as he returned his gaze back to the road. “Oh, damn,” he said quietly. “I never would have pegged Sawyer for that kind of guy.”

“Well, he did, and it was bad.
Really
bad,” she said, clearly recalling that awful phone call she’d received from Paige and how devastated her best friend had been because she had fallen in love with Sawyer, had trusted him, and he’d shattered her heart. “And to make things worse, he did it the night of Paige’s birthday party. Happy fucking birthday to her, right?”

He winced and shifted in his seat as they exited the freeway. “I’m sorry I asked,” he said, only half joking.

Raina didn’t say anything more. But the worst part of the situation was that despite Sawyer’s involvement with Paige’s stepsister, Paige wasn’t over Sawyer, even a year and a half after the humiliating incident had occurred. She couldn’t bring herself to date, she was insecure about those full curves of hers, and she didn’t trust men’s motives and interest in her, and that was the part that made Raina the most upset for her friend because Paige deserved a good man in her life.

Raina glanced around at their surroundings and frowned when Logan turned into a familiar upscale neighborhood in La Jolla—where his sister lived. Dread tightened her chest. Was the man trying to totally stress her out? The last thing she wanted or needed today was to make polite small talk with a woman who clearly disapproved of what she did for a living. Especially after those degrading words that had been spray-painted on her store door and were still taunting her in the back of her mind.

“Why are we going to your sister’s?” she asked, unable to keep the panic out of her voice.

He reached across the console and squeezed her hand. “We’re not going to Emily’s,” he assured her quickly. “We’re going to my house. I live in the same neighborhood, a few blocks away from my sister.”

That completely caught her off guard. “You live in this area? Are you independently wealthy?” Because the exclusive custom homes in this part of San Diego did not come cheap, and Logan himself didn’t come across as rich and affluent. He didn’t wear designer clothes and accessories, and while he drove a midrange sports car, it was an affordable and practical vehicle.

He shrugged, though a smile curved his lips. “I’ve done okay. I took all that money I’d been saving for Charlotte and me while I was in the military, along with the rest of my monthly paychecks, and made some really good, solid investments while I was in the service. By the time I got out, I had a really nice nest egg.” He put both hands back on the wheel and made a right-hand turn down a street, slowing for the children playing on the sidewalks. “I waited until a house in this area went into foreclosure, and when it went to auction, I put in a bid and got it for a steal.”

She added
smart businessman
to his many talents.

He waved to one of the mothers standing out in her yard, a baby on her hip while two other kids tossed a ball back and forth. “I love this neighborhood. It’s kid friendly, it’s in a reputable school district, and it’s a great place to raise a family.”

That Logan had already thought that far ahead made Raina’s stomach twist with envy, as well as the knowledge that she would never fit into that image he saw for himself and his future. This was the kind of prominent neighborhood where the women stayed home to be housewives and raise their children, and moms joined the PTA and got together for coffee klatches while the kids were in school so they could catch up on neighborhood gossip. Just like in high school, there would be cliques and women who would look down on and judge someone like Raina who owned an adult novelty boutique and didn’t conform to their rules and standards.