Page 9 of All Jacked Up

“No, I texted Arden, my editor,” she added with a small glint of excitement in her eyes, “and told him you’d stopped by for a surprise visit. He wants to meet you too.”

As much as I didn’t want to go to dinner with some diva bitch and strangers in general, I did want to meet this man. The more I got out of him, the more I’d be able to research him. I needed to have a thorough background check on the man once I had his last name. If he was using my sister in any form, he’d be taken care of. But she knew that, and she was taking me to meet him anyway. So, she might have done her own checking up on him. She was a Carver after all. Just because she didn’t have a dick didn’t mean she wasn’t one of us. In fact, she might be the most lethal of us all. She had the beauty to distract a man before she struck.

“Have you read the bitch’s books?” I asked her, standing and heading over to the bar.

“Yes,” she sighed. “And there is a reason she’s a massive success. She’s kept me up all night more than once. The only issue I had was getting past the hero in her first three books. It was weird, reading the spicy stuff, because, oddly, the description of him was … you. I mean, he even had a cleft in his chin. And the way he talked, down to his mannerisms and expressions … well, I could see you. I had to mentally form another man in my head and stop reading the descriptions ofhim. The one thing that helped was, he had eyes the color of a golden sunbeam and the richness of autumn leaves. Yours are hazel.”

I frowned, trying to imagine eyes the color of a sunbeam or leaves. Did they glow? That sounded alien-like. Women were fucking weird in the shit they read.

“Anyway, she’s a big deal now, and it’s all gone to her head. Arden is stuck having to make her happy. It’s unfair, if you ask me.”

I poured my drink, then looked back at her. “What do you know about this Arden?” I asked, wanting a last name so I could shoot Levi a text.

She did a girlie wag of her eyebrows and pursed her lips. “Enough. He’s hot, and he has this sexy swagger about him. Brilliant editor and sought after. He’s not even thirty yet either. He graduated from Yale. His parents live on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania. He grew up there, and his older brother is taking over the farm when his dad retires. Arden never wanted that life though. He has always loved reading, books, creating.”

Fuck. She liked him. Her eyes lit up as she spoke about him. I hoped he wasn’t fucking with her. I’d hate to see her heart broken when he went missing. Wouldn’t keep me from killing the son of a bitch if he was though.

“Does he have a last name?” I asked casually.

She narrowed her eyes. “Why? So you can run a background check on him?”

I smirked. “You’ve given me enough that I could find out his last name easy enough. I was just saving a step.”

She blew out an irritated breath. “Can I not have a relationship with trust? Must you invade his privacy?”

I said nothing but stared at her as I took another drink. She knew the answer to this. She wasn’t a normal female. She never had been. She’d been born into the family, like we all had.

“Neilson,” she bit out. “His last name is Neilson.”

Two

Noa

My naked ring finger wasn’t anything new. Arden often asked me not to wear my engagement ring. He wanted to keep it out of the media for now. First, it was because the focus had needed to be on my new release. Now it was because he had landed some new author who would be a big asset to his career and she was a female. He believed if she knew that he was engaged to me, it would intimidate her. I was supposedly the reason she had signed with the publishing house. She was a fan of mine, and he didn’t want to make it weird with her new editor also being my fiancé.

Honestly, I didn’t understand how that was an issue, but he’d been so adamant about it that I didn’t question him. Although my book tour was over, the new release was still sitting at the top of the bestsellers lists, and he was still wanting to keep our engagement a secret. It was starting to make me feel insecure.I’d dealt with that emotion most of my life, and I hated it. But there it was, starting to taunt me with things. Like what if he had changed his mind? What if I’d said yes because I thought that I was supposed to? What if we broke it off? Would we still be able to work together?

I’d ask Ransom’s advice, but he’d tell me that Arden only thought with his dick. He was probably bored with my cunt and ready to move on. Yeah, that didn’t help matters. I shouldn’t have gone there in my head.

Arden’s hand on my lower back fell away the moment we stepped into the exclusive club that my name had gotten us reservations to in Washington, DC. He hadn’t told me that, but when we’d arrived at the door, the large, muscular man in a tuxedo who stood outside asked for a name. Arden gave them Juliette Romeo. The man had checked his smart tablet, then allowed us inside.

The music wasn’t overly loud so you could hear yourself talk, and the speakeasy feel of the place was nice. I liked it. We slipped off our coats and handed them to the girl at the coat check before following the hostess toward our table. She stopped at a corner table that had a step up into its own little private, enclosed space. The seating was two navy-blue velvet sofas that were connected and came out like a V-shape with a round, mirrored table in the center. There were even curtains pulled back and tied that I assumed was for complete privacy, if required.

Arden slid inside first, sitting all the way toward the center, where the two sofas connected. I followed him, but didn’t sit too close, like we normally did. I could read his body language, and he wasn’t inviting me to.

“I’ll bring the rest of your party as soon as they arrive,” the hostess informed us. “Jaquel will be your server tonight and should be with you shortly.”

Arden nodded his head, and the hostess smiled, then left us.

“Nice,” he said as he surveyed the area around us. “Impressive, don’t you think?”

“Yes. It’s lovely,” I agreed.

“It’s important that she’s impressed. She works in the White House. Her family is a wealthy one from Mississippi. She has connections.”

Mississippi? Why hadn’t I known that already? Because I hadn’t asked much about her. I wanted to ask what part of Mississippi, but I didn’t. Arden didn’t know I had grown up in Mississippi. I’d not ever told anyone that, other than Jellie. There was zero chance that I’d know this woman or she’d know me. He’d said wealthy family, and I hadn’t known anyone from one of those. Well, except for Ransom.

Anyway, what kind of connections did Arden hope to get from her? He was an editor. Did it truly matter that she had wealthy, powerful connections? I had none of that, yet readers didn’t care. My books had sold regardless. Wasn’t that all that mattered? I didn’t ask him all this, but nodded.

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