Blast From The Past 3 by Faith Winslow

~ Chapter 1 ~
     
    That fucker! I thought to myself as I rushed out of my apartment building and ran toward my car. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I knew it couldn’t be good—and I knew that, one way or another, Tommy Ferguson had screwed me over… big time.
    When I’d asked him about his involvement with Gretchen Gordon—or “Gigi” as some called her—he’d passed it off as something incidental. He’d failed to mention that he’d dated her, and didn’t say a damn word about making a scene and getting kicked out of the rEcore event just one year ago.
    Bottom line? Tommy Ferguson had lied to me, and there had to be a reason why. Given my current circumstances, I figured it had to be a pretty good reason, too.
    I mean, look at the facts here… I’d been fired from rEcore only a few days earlier, after I was blamed for messing with an app, killing its code, and leaking its development to the press. Needless to say, I didn’t do any of those things, but someone was setting it up to look like I did, and all of my investigative efforts were leading to one likely suspect… Gretchen Gordon.
    I’d discovered that Tommy used to run a MUDD with Gretchen, and, when I asked him about it, he confirmed that it was true—but he said nothing else on the matter, and those omissions added up to a lie. Why didn’t Tommy tell me he dated her? Why didn’t he tell me about the big blow out at rEcore’s employee event? Why? Why? Why?
    I was furious. Livid. Pissed off. I was headed to Tommy’s place for answers, and I wasn’t going to leave until I got them. After all, Tommy owed me that much, didn’t he? He owed me some amount of decency and honesty, some modicum of respect. We’d dated for nearly three years in college, and were each other’s “firsts” in many respects. He was my first serious, real boyfriend; I was his first serious, real girlfriend. And we were both each other’s “first” when it came to sex. Considering those things, and those things alone, he at least owed me something, anything, more than whatever it was he was doing to me.
    I felt like I was in a daze as I fumbled with my keys and got into my car. I’d just had an amazingly sensual sexual experience with an incredible man and was still feeling the afterglow, but I also had a tremendous anger burning inside of me—and those two flames came together in a very uncomfortable, overwhelming way.
    As far as that amazingly sensual sexual experience went, I really wished I was still back at my apartment enjoying round two—but, as soon as J.R. had recognized Tommy’s face on my computer screen, that was no longer an option. I simply couldn’t believe it when he identified Tommy as the bad boy who caused a ruckus at his event, and I simply couldn’t tell him, at that moment, that’s Gretchen’s ex was also my ex. This was something that I needed to handle on my own before dragging anyone else into it.
    By the time I got to Tommy’s, you’d think I would have figured out what I was going to say, but, alas, my mind was still blank. I didn’t even know where to begin, but I knew that I had to confront him, and I hoped the words would come to me when I did.
    Tommy’s apartment was one of the few on his street that had a parking lot behind it. I was sure that I wasn’t supposed to park there without a visitor’s pass, but I risked it anyway and pulled my car into the first available spot I saw. I didn’t even notice that another car had pulled in right behind me, until I saw it park a few spots away.
    I paid the other driver no mind, hopped out of my car, and started sprinting towards the door to the building. Then, all of a sudden, I heard footsteps behind me, traveling at the same rapid pace. Before I knew it, I felt a hand grab my arm and pull me to a halt, which added “terror” and “panic” to the list of mixed-bag emotions I already felt.
    I turned around to eye my captor and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw a