Page 10 of Seductive Nights

She packed up her laptop. Then she finished her iced tea. "Thank you for the iced tea. Are you sure I can't pay for it?"

"I'm sure. It's on me. Come back again. I'll buy you another one. Especially if you come to tell me that my offer has been accepted."

She laughed.

He stared.

She stood and swept her hair over her shoulder. Then she strode out the door.

And he watched every single step she took. Until the door closed behind her.

6

Margo climbed into her SUV and took a couple of deep breaths. Did Jace Marriott think just because he was handsome and flirty that she'd just fall at his feet?

She closed her eyes. Is that what Logan did? Is that how he met Sierra Stigler? What about her, anyway? Margo hadn't slept much last night. She'd stayed awake way too late, reading through Logan's texts with Sierra. Half the time she told herself not to read them anymore. It was just making her sadder and madder. Then, the other half of the time, she wanted to know exactly what was going on in his mind. Since she couldn't ask him and kick him in the nuts, the only thing she could do now was to read what he was telling Sierra and what she was telling him. When she got to the part where Sierra said,

I love you so much, Logan, I can't wait to see you tonight.

and when he replied,

I love you so much, Sierra, I wish we were together all the time.

She nearly threw his phone across the room.

Wish they were together all the time. Why hadn’t he fucking divorced her? Why did he play this game? Then she picked up her phone and looked at that date on her calendar and saw that it was the weekend that Logan had said he was going fishing with his friends. He was fishing all right, but it wasn't with his friends, and it wasn't for fish. She bristled again and once again thought she should probably stop reading these texts. But part of her, the morbid part of her, needed to know exactly what was going on. How would she ever find out if she didn't read these insidious texts? And quite frankly, she felt like it was making her stronger. The more she hated Logan, the less she mourned him. Actually, right now, the only thing that she was mourning was the fact that she couldn't tell him off. That she couldn't make him look her in the eyes and tell her what he was doing. That's what made her the maddest right now. There was going to be no closure for her. How would she ever get that? She let out a deep breath and started her SUV. She pulled away from the Sandbar, turned around in the parking lot, and pointed her SUV in the other direction to head back toward her office.

When she entered the office her receptionist Addison smiled. It wasn't a complete smile. It didn't reach her eyes. It was a pitying smile. She was really getting tired of the pitying smiles, and she didn't even think Addison knew about Logan's affair. "Hi, Margo, I have a couple of messages here for you."

She handed her two sheets of pink paper. Margo glanced at the names; they were from two of Logan's sellers. "More,I'm so sorry about your loss,andhow are we gonna handle this?" phone calls. She felt like she'd answered a hundred of them today, but truth be told, Logan didn't have that many deals in the pipeline. When she thought about it now, she'd been working her ass off. He was the one out playing all the time with Sierra.

"Thank you, Addison. I just wrote an offer on the thrift shop. I'm going to call Lorraine to see if she wants me to fax it or email it to her."

"Oh, that's fantastic! Congratulations."

"Thank you." She strode into her office and closed the door. She sat at her desk, and while she was thinking about it, she decided to pull up their software and see the ongoing real estate deals that she had versus the ongoing real estate deals that Logan had. She waited a few minutes for the information to populate, and just as she had expected, she had twenty-five deals in the works, either as a listing agent or offers. Logan had eight, so she hadn't taken a hundred phone calls today. It only felt like it. Eight. Logan had eight. Man, she was all kinds of stupid for supporting his sorry, cheating ass. No wonder he didn't leave her. He'd have actually had to work. Deciding not to get all morose and pissed off one more time, she called the owner of the thrift shop, who was a nice little lady named Lorraine. She'd moved out of state to live closer to her children, and Margo knew she'd be happy with Jace's offer. Deciding she should get this deal wrapped up right away to keep her mind in the right frame, she set her sights on that. The other buyer, who had been somewhat interested was working with another agency. Margo, being the listing agent, and the selling agent, would get the entire commission. Part of her bristled that it would be too easy for Jace Marriott. Everything was probably easy for Jace Marriott. He was handsome. He was built. He had a great personality. He enjoyed his job. She watched him saunter through the restaurant and outside on the beach, stopping and talking with his customers and flirting with the ladies. You could tell he liked what he was doing, and then that brought her right back around to Logan. Did he like what he was doing? And then she wondered how he met Sierra. Was it because she had called about selling a business or selling a home? She looked her up in the computer system. Nope, she didn't see anything like that. She shouldn't dwell on it, but it was bugging her. The constant vacillation between getting past this and dwelling on it was giving her a headache.

She tapped Lorraine's number and waited as it rang. "Oh, hello, Margo, how are you?"

"I'm fine, Lorraine. How are you doing? Did you get your unpacking finished?"

"Pretty close. I only have a couple of little boxes left. I didn't have much, you know. I didn't need to bring furniture or anything. My daughter has everything I need right here, so there wasn't much to unpack, but I'm settling in nicely. How can I help you?"

Margo sat back in her chair and tried to relax her shoulders. "I received an offer on your thrift shop. It's a good offer, to be honest with you. A hundred and thirty thousand, five thousand over asking."

"Oh goodness, that's fantastic and so fast! Thank you so much, Margo. Yes, I'm happy to accept that offer."

"I do believe there was one other interested party. Did you think we should wait and see what their offer would be like?" Margo closed her eyes. She shouldn't ask clients that. She should get this deal done and done now.

She was kind of losing her edge here. The old Margo would have had this deal closed already.

"Nope, if we have an offer, I'm happy to get it signed and get everything settled. And five thousand over asking, my goodness, that's fantastic. That old building needs a lot of work."

"My understanding is he's going to tear it down."

"Oh dear. Well, can't blame him for that, I guess. Like I said, it needs a lot of work."

"Right, so okay. How do you want to receive this offer? I can email it to you. I can fax it to you. You let me know what works best for you."

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