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She wasn’t proud of herself, though she had refrained this long. That had to count for something. Besides, she was merely doing her due diligence. There was something to be said for truth in reporting, and if she was supposed to be in a relationship with him, then she needed to know more about who Dr. Logan Love really was. The man behind the stethoscope and paper mask.
If there were skeletons in his closet, she’d find out.
After a longer-than-necessary chunk of time in which she discovered he liked Grey’s Anatomy—shocker there—Imagine Dragons, and Mexican food, she came across the good stuff. The kind of stuff she was looking for. A woman.
Three years down his feed, there were some rather interesting photos of him and a pretty blonde. They were cozy. Close. You could tell just by the way he looked at her that whatever he felt for her was beyond friendship. The adoration in his eyes was unmistakable.
Marti’s stomach clenched uncomfortably.
The photos of them dated back years. There were pictures of them on vacation together, dates, family picnics, and outings. But the most recent made her breath catch. It was from New Years. Logan’s arm wrapped around her, smiling for the camera. A modest-sized diamond winked on her left hand, while the other arm curled protectively around her protruding stomach. Below, the caption read, “Cheers to our future together with our little girl.”
They were engaged. And either the woman in the photo had eaten one too many burritos, and she was referring to a Chipotle baby, or she was sporting a nice sized baby bump.
Marti flopped back into her chair as the air deflated from her lungs.
He never wore a ring, and though Marti may not know him very well, she knew enough to believe he wasn’t the cheating type, which meant he wasn’t married or engaged.
But while relationships dissolved into thin air overnight, babies didn’t. So, unless there was some other explanation, from where she sat, it looked a whole lot like Logan Love had a baby. And that meant there was some baby-mama out there somewhere, potentially reading her column, seeing their pictures in the paper, and waiting to pounce.
“WHAT THE HECK IS THIS?” Blue snapped. She waved a handful of papers in front of Marti’s face before slapping it down on her desk. The glass shook.
Marti’s gaze darted to the top paper. “Uh, it’s my article for tomorrow’s digital column.”
Marti hesitantly glanced up to Blue, praying she didn’t look as angry as she sounded.
Her prayers fell on deaf ears.
Blue hovered over her cubicle, looking like a platinum viper in her black shift dress, sky-high, heels and dark red lipstick as she sneered down at Marti with her perfectly painted lips.
“Uh-huh, I got that,” Blue said. “What I want to know is why I’m getting some subpar article on Demystifying the Male Ego when I should be getting an article about your time spent with Logan at the art show the other night.”
Marti bit her lip. The art show was three days ago, and though she knew what was expected of her today, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to write about Logan again. Not when she felt like she had no idea who he really was. Not when there could be a child involved she knew nothing about, not to mention the possibility of a crazy ex-wife.
Something about the whole thing just didn’t feel right.
At Marti’s silence, Blue yanked her article back up and tore it into pieces in front of her face, then tossed them in the air around her. The pieces fluttered around Marti like snow. Little squares fell into her coffee cup, stuck in her hair, and fell to her feet.
Okay, so she was more than a little upset . . .
“I thought maybe the public might want something different, an advice piece. Surely, they don’t just want to hear about my love life every second.” Marti’s excuse was brittle, even to her own ears.
“Are you stupid?”
“Uh . . .” Marti blinked. Her cheeks flushed, and she opened her mouth but was too stunned to respond.
“I took you for a lot of things, but stupid was never one of them.”
Marti frowned, shrinking under Blue’s laser eyes. When she didn’t respond, Blue waved her hands around manically, shouting, “That is exactly what people want. We live in the age of social media, the age of information where everything is everyone’s business. It’s right there, at their fingertips. It’s your job to make them care, to share your life with them. Isn’t that what you’ve been doing these past few years?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Your ratings have climbed since the gala photos surfaced. And after you cozied up to each other at the art exhibit, people were clamoring to get more information. They want to know if you’re really an item. Or if it’s a whirlwind romance. A fling. You need to give them what they want, Marti. And if you won’t, someone else will be standing by to take your place because they’ll lose interest, move on.”
“But . . .” she spluttered, trying to find an excuse.
She had nothing. She failed miserably and she knew it. Why couldn’t she just write the stinkin’ article? Lie. Embellish. Stretch the truth. It’s what she was good at.
“But what?” Blue’s brown eyes blazed.
