“Oh, I’m good! I’ve just been working. I wanted to let you know that I implemented all of the suggestions you made for my business, and things are already improving,” he stated happily and she thought she could detect a note of nervousness in him.
“Well that’s wonderful to hear! I’m so pleased to know that things are going well for you. Thank you for making those changes!” she replied pleasantly.
“Mia…” he paused and she knew that she had pegged his nervousness correctly, “I have been thinking about you a lot lately. I know things might have gone a little fast at first, but I wanted to give you a call and ask you to come to dinner with me again. The date we had a few weeks back was one of the most fun nights I’ve had in a long time, and you’re really an amazing lady. I’d just like to see if we could give it another try. What do you think? Would that be all right? I promise not to mix business and pleasure. We’ll keep it all pleasure while we are out!” he gave a thin laugh, and then he waited quietly for her to respond.
She sighed. Logan was not her first choice of men to get back in the game with, but he was a good man, a sweet man, and even Maddie had told her that he was an amazing lover. She bit her lower lip thinking about it and closed her eyes.
“Okay, Logan. I guess if we are going to keep business and pleasure separate, we can give it a try. What were you thinking for us?” she wondered aloud. She also wondered what she was doing, and reminded herself that she was moving forward. Just like she had promised her friends and herself that she would do.
His voice grew excited. “Oh! Well, I was thinking we could go to dinner again! What do you think? Is there some place that you’d like to go? We could go tomorrow night if you want to.”
She could hear him waiting again, almost holding his breath. She gave her head a shake and tried to get Alexander from the back of her mind and her thoughts. “…um, how about Hastings?” she asked suddenly and then immediately squeezed her eyes shut in regret. She silently berated herself for choosing that restaurant. She couldn’t imagine why she would have chosen it, except that Alexander had told her that it was his favorite. He had promised to take her there one day and it hadn’t happened. She sighed quietly and rolled her eyes. That’s what she got for thinking of him.
Logan jumped on it. “Oh! I’ve heard really good things about that place. We can go there. I’ll call them to make reservations right away. Can I pick you up at say… six?” he asked hopefully. She let out a long slow breath and agreed, giving him the address of her apartment. They said goodbye and she shook her head as she hung up. He sounded almost giddy about seeing her.
Setting her phone on the small table near the bathtub, she closed her eyes and sank back down low into the water, wishing she’d thought before she had spoken. She wondered how she was ever going to keep Alexander off of her mind by going on a date with another man to his favorite restaurant; a restaurant he had told her all about and promised to take her to.
Groaning, she laid a warm wet washcloth over her face and closed her eyes, wishing her thoughts had not betrayed her like they had just done. Taking a deep breath, she decided to focus on Logan and try to have the best time with him that she could. She was going to dress her best, look her best, and she was going to give her date with him all that she could. It was going to be a fun and wonderful night for them, she told herself with complete determination; it was going to be incredible, come hell or high water, by god.
***
Mia was less enthused about her date with Logan than she was for any of her dates with Alexander, but she continued to tell herself that they were going to have a night to remember, and she spent a fair amount of time making sure that she looked beautiful.
She put her hair up at the back of her head, she took extra time and care doing her makeup, and she was careful about selecting a dress that showed off her figure without showing off too much skin. It was form fitting and white with wide straps and a V-neck that offered a partial view of her cleavage. It hugged her waist and hips and then fell loosely to the floor from there. There was a slit in the material that went straight up the middle of the front of the dress to just above her knees, and when she sat, the material fell away from her legs.
She felt sexy in it, she decided, giving herself a few turns in front of the mirror. She thought she would see how she felt with Logan at the end of the night. She had no doubt in her mind that if she decided that she wanted to spend the night with him, he would be more than happy to be with her.
Logan arrived at her door on time, and when she opened it to him, he stared at her and grinned, shaking his head.