A/N - I'm glad you all enjoyed their date! It was definitely a fun one to write... Now, we've heard about the Gilmores, hope you're ready to start hearing about the Huntzbergers...

I gave Leslie the rundown of the weekend's events over coffee Monday morning. She was still skeptical, but I couldn't really expect anything different, seeing as how she had only ever seen the aftermath of what we had once been.

"You're dating?"

"Yes." Why did this seem like such a foreign concept to everyone?

"And you're sure about this? Last week you were bordering on a meltdown over just running into him."

"I know... I just think it could be different this time. We were so young before, you know? Neither one of us really had our lives figured out, but now… When he proposed I didn't want to make my life fit into his, but I think this could really work if we figure out how to fit into each other's… And now I sound like a Lifetime movie…" If it were me listening to somebody else saying this, I would have been disgusted.

"Just don't let him hurt you again, okay?"

I nodded, but I wasn't really worried about it. Everything he had said to me since we ran into each other, about what happened back then had been so sincere…

"Well alright then. Besides… Can I be honest with you?"

"Aren't you always?"

"I would have slept with him by now."

"Les!"

"What? If I didn't know you, and I had just met him in a bar… Hot, rich, business man? No question."

"You need to get a grip."

"I wish I could…" Her statement was ripe with double entendre. I glared at her out of the side of my eye. Sometimes she reminded me too much of my mother. "Okay, okay… relax. I get it, kind of. I know this is a big deal. And back to what I said about not letting him hurt you… It doesn't matter how good looking he is, there is going to be hell to pay if doesn't make good on all of these promises he's making you. "

"I know." I was lucky to have people in my life that cared so much about my well being, even if it did pose complications in my relationship.

I took a long lunch so that I could head to Midtown and meet with Dominic about my freelance contract. During our conversation I worked in mention of the sliding pay scale that Grandpa had suggested; Dominic was impressed by my 'gumption', but insisted that it was a discussion for a later time. It wasn't unheard of, but I was going to have to prove I was worth that risk before the agency would consider it. It was worth a shot. I went over the revisions I had done to the article since he had last seen it, and he was pleased. I wasn't totally confident that it was ready to print, but he assured me that it was good to go. I took a deep breath and signed the contract. Here goes nothing.

Back at The Post we had our pitch meeting that afternoon. Leslie was working on a follow up to the fast food protests that were happening in the wake of a big organic food conference that reported on a couple weeks ago. I would be starting coverage of the final launch of Space Shuttle Discovery. I figured that at least I could get a few pieces out of it… before, as it happens, and a follow up. That way I would be able to plan ahead, and make time to do some other writing if this freelance thing panned out.

Leslie was begging for more details about the date last night, so she came over work. We were flipping through TV channels when my cell phone rang; it was Logan.

"So I got an interesting call at the office today…"

"Really?"

"Yea. I don't usually have a lot of time to take unexpected calls in the middle of the day, but my secretary said it was a number from The Post, so I thought it would be you… imagine my surprise to hear another woman's voice on the phone threatening me with pain of death if I turned into a jackass again..."

I turned around to see that Leslie was avoiding looking at me at all cost, with an exceptionally guilty look on her face.

"…I believe the words 'drawn and quartered' were thrown around."

I couldn't help but laugh a little bit. "In her defense, we did watch Braveheart last week… sounds like she was inspired."

I'm sure he could hear her laughing in the background now. "Fair enough, but are we ready to call off the attack dogs?"

"That is an issue you're going to have to take up with her."

"Ace…"

I handed Leslie the phone, "It's for you…" This was potentially risking his pride and well-being, but he was going to have to face her eventually.

I laughed as she put on her best phone voice, "Logan, so nice to hear from you again…"

I watched her as she listened to him for a minute, before she held her hand over the phone and turned to me, "Could you excuse us for a moment?"

Slightly stunned, but definitely amused, I got up from the couch and busied myself reheating last night's left overs. I could feel her eyes on me as their conversation continued, making sure I wasn't trying to eavesdrop.

After almost ten minutes, their conversation seemed to finally be coming to a close. I had no idea what they had been talking about for so long, but she finished with, "I'm glad we've come to an understanding, Mr. Huntzberger." She proceeded to hang up the phone and join me at the table.

I was totally lost. "What the hell was that all about?"

She nonchalantly started picking at the food in front of us, "Just taking care of some business."

As far as I had been able to hear, there had been no raised voices and no further threats, both of which I took as good signs.

"Oh, and don't make plans for Wednesday night."

From her matter of fact tone, I knew she wasn't going to give anything else up. What did he say to her? How did she go from medieval torture to arranging plans for me?

With nothing else good on TV, we settled on watching the Grammy Awards on mute for the rest of the evening. We provided our own Fashion Police commentary, and substituted our own dialogue for the presenters. It actually made for a pretty entertaining show. Mom would be disappointed she missed out.

The next morning I was working on gathering some back information on the space shuttle, when a delivery man approached my desk with a rather conspicuous bouquet of flowers. I shook my head, signed for the delivery, and placed the vase on my desk. They were beautiful. There was a card attached, stationary that was becoming very familiar,

"Dinner tomorrow night. Pick you up at 8:00. – L"

Sarah, Sherry and a couple of the other ladies around the office were eyeing the flowers with obviously curious expressions when Leslie popped up behind me, "I think you should wear the black dress."

Now she was officially conspiring against me? Well maybe not against me, it wasn't like I didn't want to go, but working in cahoots with Logan? I almost regretted having handed her the phone last night.

Mom called me after work that night. I tried to explain the 'dating' agreement I had talked Logan into.

"You sure you can handle that?"

"Am I sure? It was my idea."

"I know, but the two of you, trying to circle back to the beginning of a relationship? You do remember that you were one word away from being engaged to the man, right? How long do you think this going-slow stuff is going to last?"

I honestly couldn't answer that question. I had come up with my starting small plan on the fly the other night, but I was confident that it was the right thing to do. "I don't know… We just need to lay some ground work before we let things get serious again… we will figure the rest out as it comes."

"Whatever you say, daughter of mine… What do you want me to tell Luke?"

"I guess you can tell him that we're dating? It's the truth…"

"Oh yea, that will be an easy one… 'Hey Luke, your stepdaughter called. She wanted me to let you know that she started dating the guy that you swore to kill if you ever saw him again.' I'm sure he'll take it well."

"Just tell him that we're taking our time to make sure that this is right. Besides, you can let him know that Leslie has the whole 'kill him if he hurts me' thing down."

"Oh she does?"

"Yea. She called him at work and threatened to have him drawn and quartered."

"I knew I liked that girl."

"But then, I go and let her talk to him, thinking I was going to be smoothing things over, but now she's working as a double agent. She helped him set up another date for us tomorrow night."

"Well maybe that's a good thing. She can keep him in check."

"Yea… Maybe I should have her find out what his fortune cookie said."

"Oh good! I wonder what all the mystery is about…"

I endured five minutes of her devising hypothetical fortunes, all of which were entirely preposterous, before we called it a night.

After work the next day I picked up my black dress from the dry cleaners; the same dress I had been wearing that fateful night we ran into each other at McConnell's. I still hadn't been able to get any details out of Leslie about what she and Logan had talked about, or why she was suddenly so on board with us.

At exactly eight o'clock there was a knock at my door, and I was halfway through swiping mascara on to my eyelashes. I looked through the peep hole to see Logan standing outside, wearing a nice suit, holding another bouquet of flowers. I smiled involuntarily.

"Just a minute!" I finished applying mascara to my other eye, and quickly decided between the two pairs of heels I had been considering, stepping into them as I opened the door. Why couldn't I be on time for once?

"Hey, Ace."

God, he's handsome.

Rather than tell him what he already knew, I looked at the flowers. "You know, I said nothing fancy." I reminded him of the terms of our date agreement.

"Hey… It was your idea to date me… that means you're going to have to deal with living like the other half once in a while." He winked as he threw my own line back at me.

For a second I considered being stubborn about it, but I conceded, "Thank you, they're beautiful."

"So are you." I struggled to hold back a smile as I put the flowers in water.

I found my resolve again; I would not be so easily wooed, after all this was only our second date. I exaggeratedly rolled my eyes, "Let's go, Casanova."

Despite my efforts, he knew he had gotten to me; his smile revealed his self-satisfaction.

As I should have expected, there was a car waiting downstairs. I looked at him, to tell him that this was too much for 'dating', but he put his hand on the small of my back and lead me to the car, "Oh, just trust me!" If he wasn't being so sweet I would have called him out on turning all of this around on me.

He slid into the car next to me. "So, where are we going?"

The driver was already pulling away, with no instructions from Logan. "You'll see."

He was killing me with all this secrecy, but I was feeling the familiar thrill he had always sparked inside me. Being with him was always an adventure.

When we pulled up to the restaurant, I recognized it immediately. He had taken me here when he was living in the city before. It was a beautiful Italian restaurant, completely on the opposite end of the spectrum of where I had taken him the other night.

"Well, this place looks familiar…"

"I hope so." The last time he took me here had been a wonderful night. He had just gotten back from a business trip; I hadn't seen him in over a week. He came all the way to New Haven to pick me up at Yale, just to drive back to the city for dinner. It was one of the more romantic weekends we'd had together.

We checked our coats, and were led to our table.

"Leslie didn't tell you where we were going?"

She knew? "No… and I'm not sure I like whatever the two of you have started here." The two of them working together was already turning into a dangerous combination.

He laughed, "Yea, well I'm sure I don't want to be on her bad side, so you might just have to deal with it."

He certainly had a point there… "So, I take it you've put drawn and quartering behind you?"

He cellphone rang… He dropped his head, clearly not happy about it, "Maybe not... Are you going to hate it if I have to take this?"

I shook my head, "Go." I certainly wasn't excited about it, but I knew how life with Logan worked. I was actually surprised we had made it to this point with as few work related interruptions as we have; other than that call at lunch that day, and having to leave Saturday morning, it had been relatively quiet.

It only took him a few minutes to return to the table, looking a little worse for the wear considering how happy he had been before the phone rang.

"Everything okay?"

"It will be."

The waiter brought a bottle of wine to our table and we ordered, but I was concerned about him. He had still been avoiding talking about work, but everything I had seen about the company was very positive.

I took a sip of wine from the glass that he had poured for me, before I convinced myself to ask him about it. That's what people did on dates, right?

"Logan, why don't you want to talk about work?"

He must have known this was going to come up eventually, but he hesitated to answer.

"I mean, I know the gist of it. You told me a little about California… I don't want to start anything if it's going to be a big deal, but I'm curious. I thought you'd be more excited about all the success and expanding the company."

"I am. It's great; it's what we've been working towards for a long time. It's just… complicated."

"Seems to be a pattern in your life these days."

He snickered, "You could say that…"

I wasn't sure if I should press the subject; I wanted to know, but things had been going so well the last few days, and I didn't want to ruin tonight… but then he continued voluntarily.

"When I went out there the whole point was to be able to make it on my own, you know?"

I knew. He was determined to get away from everything his father had put him through, grooming him for the family empire, "And you have."

"Exactly." He said it very flatly, like he didn't really mean it.

I didn't understand why this was a problem. "That's a good thing, right? It's really amazing what you've done, Logan. You've done more than anyone could have imagined."

"A lot more than Mitchum imagined." Of course… Mitchum.

"Are we going to need something stronger than wine for this?"

I was relieved to see a smile on his face, "No… Anyway, you know how pissed he was when I quit, and I think he really wanted to write me off, but… when we started doing well... he turned around and tried to buy us out."

"What?" I hadn't heard anything about this.

"Yea… twice actually. Once early on, and again when we took over media for a big paper in Seattle. He made pretty convincing offers both times… big compensation, promising huge expansion, all the classic Mitchum takeover moves. I actually had a hard time convincing the partners to turn it down. In retrospect, I guess it was some ass-backwards, Huntzberger form of validation… acknowledging that I had built something of value, but I couldn't just hand it over after everything he put me through, which of course just pissed him off again."

He actually laughed at that point.

"Wow…" I was impressed; by both his success, and the fact that he had stood up to Mitchum. "…so I guess being back on the East Coast really is complicated."

"Complicated… is an understatement. When we decided we were ready to make the move, we had bids in on two publications at the same time, which admittedly was a little risky. We were counting on landing one of them, but figured we could manage both if it worked out..."

I already knew they were handling both clients, "And it did…"

"Right. We've been managing them mostly from San Francisco, doing a lot of back and forth while we get the New York office up and running. The original plan was actually for me to come out and oversee it for a few months, and then head back…"

There was a long pause there… "So when you said you were still living out of a suitcase…"

He nodded. Was he leaving? I knew he saw the thought flash in my eyes. "That was the plan, but about a week before I came out here, Mitchum called again. First he wanted to make another offer, a straight buy out, banking on us having a hard time managing both accounts from the West Coast, but I turned him down. Then he countered with a new deal."

I was on the edge of my seat, practically holding my breath.

"He offered a merger. We would rebrand as Huntzberger Media Corporation, but we remain a separate entity from Huntzberger Publishing Group. Under the terms of the merger, Mitchum joins the board and takes shares in the Media Corporation, and in return I become an active partner at HPG."

"Holy crap."

He laughed, "Yea… I was… well, to be honest I didn't know what to do at first. I fought to get out of that company for so long, and I've given everything to build this one… I don't think I slept at all for like a week trying to make a decision. But…"

He looked at me and took a deep breath. "What?"

"That day after lunch, in the rain… when I finally said everything out loud, about having been stubborn and stupid for only being able to see my idea of what we should have been… "

Do not say you made this decision because of me.

"…I realized that I was only struggling to make a decision about this merger because I was only seeing my idea of what it had been like in the past..." Thank God."…it finally occurred to me that I need to look at the bigger picture. If it was any other publishing group offering the deal, I would jump at the chance, I mean it's a huge opportunity. The fact that it's my dad obviously complicates things, but I'm not going to deny myself success, just to keep him from getting what he wants."

He was right about the fact that it was going to be complicated being back with HPG, but screw Mitchum. Logan earned this.

"So you made the deal?"

"I made the deal. That's why I had to get back here over the weekend."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know, Ace. I'm sorry I didn't… It's just a lot happening all at once."

"No kidding… so how is this all going to work?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out now… We've got one or two more things in the works that have to get taken care of before the merger can actually happen, plus Mitchum wants the New York office officially up and running before anything is announced."

"Wow… working with Mitchum again."

He exhaled, "Yep, working with Mitchum again." This was obviously huge, and I could tell he was still coming to terms with the fact that he was essentially where his father had always wanted him to be. The important part is that he took his own path getting there.

I reached across the table to hold his hand. "I'm proud of you…" He looked at me self-consciously, "…I mean it, Logan. Earning you place, making Mitchum eat his own words after all that crap he put you through. You deserve this."

"It's not going to be easy..."

The waiter returned and placed our plates in front of us. I turned to here before she started to walk away, "We're going to need a couple glasses of champagne, please."

Logan raised an eyebrow, "Champagne?"

"I thought it might be more appropriate than tequila shots… We are living like the other half tonight, after all."

She returned with our glasses, and I raised mine to him, "To dining with a captain of industry."

A very big smile spread across his face. He raised his glass to meet mine and we drank to honor his success.

The way he was looking at me had me nervous that he might say three words that did not qualify as taking it slow, but he bit his lip and smiled. He knew what our agreement was.

I was glad he had finally filled me in on everything, and even more glad that he was staying in New York.

We enjoyed another meal laced with comfortable banter, and more than a few intimate looks.

After they had cleared our dinner plates, the waiter brought a dish of chocolate mousse to the table. He showed his mischievous face. He had ordered it last time we were here. For all of his bolstering when we met about not being a commitment guy, he certainly was romantic.

The car was waiting for us when we walked outside. I laced my fingers between his, and rested my head on his chest as we rode back to my apartment. I couldn't begin to explain the comfort I felt when he kissed the top of my head.

He walked me to my door, and once again we found ourselves standing across the threshold.

"So, I had to steal a kiss the other night. What does a second date get me?"

"Do I get to know what your fortune said?"

He shook his head and smirked as his hands cradled my head and he leaned in for a kiss… which turned into several kisses. I almost let him come with me as I backed into my apartment, but one step through the door I pulled away.

He sighed and let his head hang back, "You're killing me, Ace."

"What kind of girl would I be if I let you in on a second date?"

He pushed my hair back, and kissed me softly behind the ear and whispered, "My girl."

Chills ran up my back. He knew exactly what he was doing when he placed that kiss, and I was closer than ever to pulling him inside, but I mustered up some resolve and shook my head as I put my hands on his chest to put some distance between us.

"What do you have going on Friday?"

He exhaled, reluctantly accepting that he wasn't making it any further inside. "Honestly, I will probably be stuck at work late. We're working on getting a layout ready for release."

"Perfect."

He was surprised that I was happy about it.

"There's this theater that has midnight showings of old movies…"

"Perfect."

He kissed me again, one last attempt to change my mind.

"Goodnight, Logan."

He hung his head as he made his way downstairs.

I closed the door and saw the flowers he had brought sitting on the table. I changed out of my dress, took the vase from the table and placed it on the window sill next to my bed before falling asleep thinking about what he had stopped himself from saying at dinner; He loves me.

** I do not own any characters or content related to Gilmore Girls, Braveheart, or any other entities mentioned.**

A/N - We're really on our way now. What do you think? As always... follow, favorite, comment, and read on! xx