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“Yeah. What are your plans?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mentioned you could stay with me. Will you take me up on it, or am I going to have to come bunk with you in your apartment?”
I gave a coy shrug. “I was actually thinking we should do this the official way. We go back to our places and you court me. You know. Romantic dates. Swooning. Acts to show me how hopelessly smitten you are by me.”
“You want me to court you?”
I straightened. “Yes. Is that a problem?”
He just chuckled. “No. I shouldn’t be surprised. Then where do you want to go?”
“I want you to have my parents over for dinner. I promised my dad I’d never get serious about a guy he hadn’t met.”
“How long ago did you make that promise?”
I blushed. “I was twelve?”
“Alright. Fine. We’ll have them over. But I need to go get Mr. Meatball back from your brother, first. And—”
Sebastian’s phone rang. “Hold on, it’s Nilla. I should take this.”
He got up and put the phone to his ear. His expression darkened after a few moments. “You’re sure?” he asked.
He managed to look even more gloomy as he listened. I couldn’t tell what he was hearing, but it was clearly not good news.
He hung up the phone.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Bad news.”
34
Sebastian
“Is it a really big deal?” Kenzie asked.
“It’s an annoyance,” I said. We were in the back of my driver’s car on the way to my house. “Nilla said it’s already all over the news outlets. Somebody leaked that you were pregnant and it’s mine. My publisher found out.”
“And?”
“My agent is in the middle of trying to help you launch a career. None of their threats have meant shit to me, but now they know I care about you. And they have more leverage over my agent than I do. The short version is they’re threatening to lean on him to bury your story. They can lean on anyone who tries to do anything with it.”
“You really think they’d do that?”
“If it would motivate me to finish my book and make them a few hundred million more dollars, yeah, I do.”
“What are our options?”
“I’m trying to figure that out.”
“You know, you’re not going to love this suggestion, but I know someone who can help us with this sort of thing.”
“Who?”
* * *
Two hours later, I was inside Travis’ penthouse apartment. A giant monitor lizard was sunbathing on his coffee table while making eye contact with me. Every few seconds, it flicked out its forked tongue.
Travis sat across from Kenzie and I with Mr. Meatball on his lap. I’d never seen the cat look so relaxed. His eyes were squinted shut and he was purring loudly. It looked like Travis had brushed him daily, making his already puffy coat more like a cloud of pure cotton.
“Is this really necessary?” I asked.
“Trust me,” Travis said. “My team is the best of the best. I’d tell you the things we’ve pulled off, but then I’d have to kill you.”
I looked at Kenzie, who gave me a frustratingly effective pair of puppy dog eyes, urging me to be patient.
I sat back, crossing my arms. “Tell me again why I shouldn’t just go straight to Ink House and punch Dennis in his mouth?”
Travis spread his palms. “Because finesse greases the wheels of success. Mouth punches just create legal trouble. We want success, not legal trouble, right?”
Someone knocked at the door. Travis clapped his hands and rubbed them. “The team is here,” he said, raising his eyebrows meaningfully.
He led two men into the room who took seats on either side of him. They made an admittedly impressive picture. They looked like a trio of guys that had ruled their school in their heyday, but instead of washing out as adults, they’d gone on to rule their corners of the world, too.
“This is Adrian Terranova,” Travis said, gesturing to the dark-haired man in a black suit on his side. He gave me a slight dip of his chin, which I returned. “We let Adrian think he’s the ‘leader’ of our little team, even though the truth is that’s my job. And this,” he said, gesturing to the man on his other side. “Is Noah Freize.”
Noah was also dark haired but with clean cut features, glasses, and a look on his face like he was currently analyzing and picking me apart.
“I’d tell you Noah is the brains of our operation, but that’s also actually my role. These two are really just more like mascots.”
“Enough,” Adrian said. “You told me your little sister’s life was in danger. What’s going on?”
Travis cleared his throat. “Did I say those exact words?” he cleared his throat and sat up a little. “Anyway. This is Sebastian St. James. Famous author, blah blah. Maybe you’ve heard of him. But his publisher is pissed he’s taking forever to write the next book. They found out my adorable little sister is trying to publish a book of her own. And they found out she’s pregnant with this asshole’s baby. Naturally, they are planning to blackball her unless my brother gives them the story they want.”
