Three Hard Lessons (Blindfold Club 2)

“Look at me,” I said.

“Where you parked at?” He set his hand in the small of my back, guiding me down the street. I tried to dig my heels in.

“Come on, help me out. I have to talk to him.”

Julius sighed. “Girl, he paid and Marquis put him in a cab.”

“Shit, no.” I dug for my phone in my purse, intent on calling Evie, but Julius’ face was haunting. “What? What is it?”

“Joseph . . . he, uh, wasn’t real happy with the guy.”

No, probably not. Dom had made Joseph lose one of his best girls, and Joseph wasn’t the type to let that go easily. Marquis put him in a cab. Not “got him a cab.” Oh, no.

“What did Marquis do?”

“He fucked him up. Only a little.”

Anger, coupled with more crushing guilt, turned almost immediately to concern. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah. Not rough enough that the guy would think about bringing charges, just enough for him not to come back.” A thick, muscle-bound arm wrapped around my waist in a brotherly gesture of comfort. “Marquis told him you skipped out.”

“Marquis’s a fucking asshole! I didn’t.”

“I know you didn’t, girl. This shit sucks for you, I’m sorry.”

We were suddenly at the door of my Jag. We’d been moving this whole time and I hadn’t realized it. I felt like a zombie when I produced my keys and unlocked the door.

“Damn, I’m gonna miss you,” Julius said, shivering in the cold.

I turned to face him, and threw my arms around his hulking frame. “God, me too.” I drew back so I could see his face. “You should have asked me out, you know.”

“Joseph don’t like his people–”

“Fuck Joseph. We could have had fun together.”

He gave me a sad smile. “Shit, girl, you would have destroyed me. Good luck to ya.”

Julius was so much smarter than he let on.

I didn’t need luck, though. I had Logan Stone. He’d given Dom the

details to this club and upended my life, which meant Logan also knew how to put me in touch with Dom. He owed that to both of us.

As the engine warmed in my car, I pulled out my phone and something sharp bit into my fingers. It had been smashed, the screen white with spiderweb cracks, and wouldn’t turn on. It wasn’t personal why he’d done this. I had passwords to the club website and phone numbers of the staff, but still. Fucking Joseph.

Even if I could find a payphone in this city, it’s not like I had Evie’s number memorized. I couldn’t drive over to their place because they’d never hear the intercom from their bedroom to buzz me up, and it was two in the morning.

I went home. I tried to contact her through email, then Facebook and Twitter, which I knew was pointless. Every hour that passed was making this worse. How had Dom been hurt by Marquis? Had he been hurt by my assumed rejection?

At four thirty I started to get really desperate. I drove to a Walgreen’s and bought a prepaid phone, then raced back home to comb through old emails on my laptop. At five thirty I had one terrible option. I had Amy’s number in an email chain Evie had copied me on between her and Blake.

Blake was Evie’s friend, not mine. For a long time, right up until the point Logan stepped into the picture, Evie had been in love with Blake. I had no idea why; the guy was so beneath her. He’d strung Evie along for months, even while he was living with Amy. Confused, he’d said. Bullshit. His dick wanted two women. The only confusion was why he couldn’t have both. He’d also let the W word pass his lips while addressing me. His apology afterward did nothing to help. I didn’t even acknowledge it.

It had worked out, I guessed, for Blake. Amy was preggo with Blake’s kid and they were getting married in a few months, shotgun-wedding style. It had most definitely worked out for Evie. There was no confusion who Logan wanted.

As I contemplated calling and waking a pregnant woman I didn’t really know, I kind of got mad at Logan. Did he realize what he’d done by setting Dom in my path? This was all Logan’s fault. My eyes burned with exhaustion as I’d been up almost twenty-four hours, and in my weakness, I was okay with assigning all of the blame squarely on him and not myself.

“Hello?” a female voice said.