Write or Wrong (Common Threads #9)

Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

NICE TO KNOW YOU

ZARA

Her house in Calabasas had been her second in the Los Angeles area. She’d had high hopes when choosing the magnificent mansion with double height ceilings, the wine cave cellar, and enough gorgeous landscaping to offer better than average privacy.

This was the home she’d chosen with Logan and their future in mind. A place for them to be them . A place to hide away from the chaos that had been their lives since they were sixteen.

It was also the place he’d brought his first side chick.

Ugh.

She hated that expression.

At the time, she’d been so furious at the other woman. Everyone knew Logan and Zara were together. Everyone . They’d been the It couple. Both their camps had made sure of it.

But while Logan had been filming a TV series in LA and Zara had been overseas on tour, he’d convinced his costar they had an open relationship.

And they hadn’t been discreet.

Zara had found out five minutes before it had hit the public.

That had been their first breakup.

She’d tried to move past it but she couldn’t stop wondering where they’d done it and how many times and if it had been only the one woman or had there been others? She hadn’t been able to stay in the house since. Instead, she would stay at a hotel when she was in town.

A few months later, they’d reconciled and but she still couldn’t sleep in the Calabasas mansion. Logan didn’t have the same issue. He’d basically moved in even though he had his own place in Studio City.

She crossed her arms over her middle and wandered over to the floor-to-ceiling windows near the kitchen that looked into the backyard.

It really was a beautiful place. Peaceful, airy, and bright. It just didn’t bring her any peace at all.

“G,” she said softly, not wanting Logan to overhear. He’d had to take a call and had stepped away just as they’d arrived.

Gregor stepped closer.

“Let’s sell this place, yeah?”

Gregor made a noise in his throat and nodded.

“Sorry about that,” Logan rejoined them. “That was Rachelle.” His publicist. “She wanted to go over a few things.”

Zara took one more breath before turning around to face him. They hadn’t spoken since the afterparty and apart from the glimpse she’d caught of him when they’d arrived, they hadn’t seen each other either.

Logan Black, former teen heartthrob and three-time winner of the Youth's Pick Award for “best hair.” Her first friend in the game, first kiss, first everything. Her gaze drifted over his charcoal button-down, designer jeans, and luxury house shoes. Six feet of white boy, styled dark blonde hair with natural looking professional highlights threaded throughout, and a day’s worth of scruff. She’d helped him pick that look years ago.

Her heart pinched with the memory of that young man who had once been so eager and wide-eyed. They’d had so much in common. Raised in Jersey by single parents, had to fight for every opportunity. Both faced with fame at too young an age, they’d clung to one another. Because no one knew what it felt like to be in the middle of it. All they’d had was each other.

Which was probably why she came back again and again.

But not today.

While she still held affection for the person she used to know, she felt nothing for the man standing before her.

Logan slid his hands into his pockets, his eyebrows pitched up. It was his “please believe me, I’m about to lie my ass off” face. She knew it well. His eyes flicked between Zara and Gregor. “I was hoping we could talk in private.”

Zara stopped herself from rolling her eyes. “Fine,” she said, with a nod in Gregor’s direction.

Logan watched her assistant walk towards the front of the house and then waited until they both heard the heavy door close behind him.

He turned those cool gray eyes back on her. “I missed you.”

“What do you want to talk about?” she asked, ignoring his statement.

He took a few steps in her direction. “I know this week has been crazy,” he said, voice soft. Controlled. “But I really have missed you.”

Oh, so he was going to push the issue. Missed her how exactly? She wanted to ask. Because it was very clear Rachelle had made all the shots she’d taken in the press.

“Look, Logan,” Zara started, trying to keep her voice neutral. “Let’s not make this take longer than it needs to.”

His eyes narrowed a fraction. “You have somewhere to be?”

She nodded. Of course she had places to be. She always had places to be.

His mouth grew tight and a muscle jumped in his jaw. “So are you with that guy then?”

“What guy?” she asked with a frown.

“The one you left with. Your producer.”

Zara blinked, her eyebrows raising slowly into her hairline. “Are you serious?” she asked, being completely genuine.

“I don’t get it.” Logan shook his head. “He’s so old and not even your type. What the hell is that all about? Is this to get back at me for sleeping with Mandy?”

Zara held up a hand, palm facing him as if that would stop the words from reaching her. She licked her lips, blinking several times as she tried to decide what horrible declaration she wanted to address first. “Hold on. Just a second.”

The one thing she’d wanted to avoid that day was fighting with him. She didn’t want to yell or get so upset it made her sick.

“You know his ‘band’ never even broke the top one hundred, right?” Logan did the air quotes and everything. “He’s a nobody.”

“Please, shut the hell up,” Zara said, pinching the bridge of her nose. She took a breath and tried to talk herself out of screaming at him.

What was it about knowing someone for so long that patience went right out the window when they acted like an ass? At one time, Logan had been her entire world. She’d never wanted to hurt him or tell him to shut up. But he’d said less than fifteen sentences and she was ready to drown him in the pool out back.

What was she supposed to even say to all that?

Her stomach churned and she pressed a hand to her belly. “You actually slept with Mandy?” she asked.

He shifted uncomfortably on his feet as it dawned on him that she hadn’t known about that one.

Truth be told, she wasn’t entirely surprised. She and Mandy hadn’t been as close after Zara had become friends with Mandy’s ex, Sunshine Capone and his wife Sabine.

But damn. It still hurt.

Zara put her hands on her hips and stared sightlessly at the floor, slowly shaking her head. “You know,” she started, swinging her gaze up to meet Logan’s. “I never cheated on you. Not once. It never occurred to me to be that kind of person.” She’d never even slept with anyone besides Logan. Not even the times they were broken up. But she wasn’t going to tell him that. She had a feeling his ego would shoot through the roof. He’d assume it had something to do with his sexual ability. It didn’t.

“As far as Asa?” She let out a disappointed sigh. “He’s none of your business. I don’t know why I stay and stay and stay. So many chances. And for what? So you can fuck my friends and live in my house?” She rubbed the fingertips of one hand over her forehead.

“Zara—” Logan started to walk toward her, desperation in his tone.

She stepped back and held up her hand. “No. We’re done. There’s nothing to talk about. Get your stuff and get out.”

“I know you’re mad, but if you’d just let me ex?—”

“I’m selling the house,” she continued over him, staying calm. “Don’t call me. Don’t do anything really. Not if it involves me.”

“Please, Zara,” Logan pleaded.

She met his eyes and felt that last small piece of her heart that held onto him with nostalgia and teenage naivety shatter. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t feel like anything.

“Goodbye, Logan.” Her voice came out flat. Dead. Disappointed. He’d been someone else a long time ago. Pretending like he could ever be that person again was foolish.

She glanced around the beautiful house that had never felt like home. Her purse was in the car with Cas. She had nothing to get before she left.

Her footsteps echoed on the marble floor as she headed for the door. Sorrow flashed through her for a brief moment as she realized this was it. She wasn’t coming back. Not to this house, not to Logan.

She reached the door, her hand on the solid, bronze handle, thumb on the latch.

“Wait. Please. Just…don’t go. Let’s talk about this.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder. A hundred times she’d been here. A hundred times she’d given it one more conversation, one more try. But she just didn’t have it in her to do it again. “No,” she said. Then she opened the door and walked away for good.

She’d gone straight from Calabasas back to NoHo. No stops in Chicago. She was too grumpy and didn’t want to inflict that on people she cared about. It was bad enough that Gregor and Cas had to deal with her.

They didn’t seem to mind, but she did. She minded. Her ill feelings were her own to deal with. They had hard enough jobs without her being a drama queen. Even though she knew that if she said that to them, they’d roll their eyes and tell her to knock it off.

They were the best.

By the time she’d returned to her penthouse in New York, Logan had already lashed out in a truly epic way.

Just as Sonja had predicted.

Dissatisfied with just using the media as his weapon, he’d turned on her art. He’d filed a claim that he’d written her next album. The one they were getting ready to release.

Zara’s lawyer and Sonja had video called her before she’d even set her bag down.

Logan wanted writing credit added to the album which would set him up forever in residuals. They could try paying him off in one large payment. But Zara knew he really wanted her to come back to him.

His life was easier with her. He was trying to force the issue. In one phone call and one fake promise, he’d stop doing this.

But that wasn’t going to happen.

About twenty-five percent of her was furious with him for using this tactic. The other seventy-five was dangerously quiet on the subject.

So, her options came down to either adding him in a writing credit on each track, or shelving the album entirely, or fighting him on it. The last one was the least appealing. Logan would make it as public as possible. And even when she won (because that asshat didn’t write shit), the damage to her public persona could be catastrophic.

Her label wanted her to choose the first option rather than not release an already produced and paid for album. They’d want to recoup their costs and also make mad cash as they always did with her. She didn’t think it was arrogant to recognize how beneficial she was to their entire operation. Sure, they had other artists. But she knew she was the one who kept the lights on.

Seeing as they had planned on releasing the first single in two weeks, she needed to decide what to do soon.

What was one more crisis on her plate, right?

She also needed to deal with the Mandy issue.

“G, how would you handle it if one of your friends had slept with your boyfriend?”

Gregor’s look was glacial. “Obviously they were never my friend if they’d done that.”

“Fair point.”

“So, they’d be relegated to their proper place in my life. Back behind the velvet rope, boo.” He blinked his pale blue eyes at her. “Why? Who was it? One of the models?”

He and Kenna always referred to Zara’s rotating entourage as “the models” even though only a handful of them were actual models. But in this case, yes. Mandy was one of “the models” and also an actual model.

“Mandy,” she said.

Gregor twisted his mouth to the side and squinted. She recognized it as his way of holding back his true opinion on the matter. Which she could about guess.

But he couldn’t hold it very long.

“Biiiiitch,” he let out in a low hiss.

Zara snickered unexpectedly.

Gregor huffed and pulled out his tablet. “I assume she’s out, yes?”

And by “out,” she knew he meant more than out of her inner circle. Though, now that she thought about it, Mandy had never been in Zara’s real inner circle. None of the models were. Her inner circle was really just her dad and sibs. And Nash Ellis but only because he was sort of her mentor in the industry. And Nikki.

Huh.

But Mandy was currently living in Zara’s London house. Had been for the past six months.

God, was she really such a doormat? Mandy in the London house, Logan in Calabasas. All of her friends knew they could stay at any of her places for as long as they wanted. Mandy had her own room in the penthouse where Zara currently stood.

“I think I need to make some changes to my open-door policy,” she said followed by a tired sigh, flopping down onto her couch.

Part of her wanted to run away.

To just pack a bag and go stay with her dad for a while to get away from all of it. But someone would find out where she was and she’d have to dip out again. Knowing that, she wouldn’t even be able to relax while there. She’d just be waiting for the other shoe to drop.

If she wasn’t careful, she could easily start to freak out.

And that wouldn’t help her at all.

“I’ll text Mandy tomorrow and tell her to move out. Wait three days and send her lawyer something official.”

“How long do you want to give her?” Gregor asked, making notes on his tablet.

Zara squinted one eye his direction. “I don’t know, like a month?”

She didn’t miss his tiny eyebrow lift and the jaw tick.

“Is that too much or not enough?”

He raised his eyes to her. “You want my opinion?”

“Always,” she answered easily.

He let out a vocal sigh. “I think a month is way too long. If it were me, I’d send Devan” (one of Zara’s security detail), “to see her freeloading ass to the curb tonight. But since this is you, maybe a week.” He shrugged, a small glint in his eye. “Or I can fly out tonight and do it myself.”

And he would.

Gregor had only been with her a year after her former assistant burned out. Not that Zara could blame her; her life was hectic. Cas had brought up Gregor as an option and Zara trusted Cas’s judgment. He knew Gregor through work, they’d both served as security for an ambassador many years ago. Gregor was a former army medic with combat experience. Transitioning to civilian life had been hard because he didn’t exactly qualify for the jobs he was most proficient in. Private security was one of the only jobs he could get.

Zara had worried that being a popstar’s assistant wouldn’t be an interesting enough job to make him want to stick around. Gregor had not only excelled but thrived in the position.

Logan had pitched a fit. He didn’t like the idea of a smart, attractive, muscly army vet being at her beck and call. It didn’t matter that Gregor was gay or that Zara never cheated or even considered cheating.

It hadn’t taken very long for Zara to decide Gregor was the world’s greatest assistant and she didn’t give a shit what Logan thought.

“All right. A week then,” Zara said.

Gregor nodded, adding to his notes. “Anything else before I go?

“No, thanks, G. I’m good.” She planned on a chill night in with some white wine, a bath in her hammock bathtub, and lots of quiet contemplation.

Gregor nodded and left.

See? She had good people on her team.

The best.

Zara got up and moved to the wine fridge in her kitchen, continuing her plans for the evening. She opened a new bottle of Riesling and poured the appropriate amount into a glass she’d gotten in a set as a gift from Paige and Nash.

She capped the bottle and put it back.

Taking her glass, she went down the hall to the wet room. She didn’t use the bath often, because some things still seemed like an indulgence. And a hammock shaped carbon fiber tub that looked like it was floating in the middle of the room was definitely an indulgence.

She added bubbles to the water as it filled the tub and gazed out at the bright city lighting up the night.

The wall that faced the city was made up entirely of mirrored glass so no one could see inside.

She loved New York. Ever since she was little and her dad had taken her into the city to see a Broadway show for her birthday, she’d wanted to live here.

She smiled to herself. The world had seemed so big and exciting back then.

It still was. She was just too damn busy to enjoy it.

Maybe she should shelve the album.

Yeah, it would make her sad and break her heart a little. But she’d rather that, than give Logan anything else that was hers.

But that would mean pissing off her label and probably fans too. They expected a new album soon. She’d have to make something entirely new and that took time.

It was a lot to think about.