I’m about to tell her as much when my cell phone dings on the arm of the couch. A grumpy look pinches her features, and I smirk as I lift my shirt over my head and gently clean her up. She watches my abs ripple as I do, and the grumpy expression slowly turns into lust, but this time, I don’t give in to those fuck-me eyes.
I lean in, kiss her twice, and pull my sweatpants up as I grab my phone.
She looks for her shirt while I open my phone and read the text. I stare at it, and stare some more, until finally, she asks, “What is it?”
My heart is hammering in my chest as my mind reels. Brows pinched together, I glance over at her. She’s fully dressed and expressing interest in what holds mine.
I scrub the back of my neck and answer, “There’s a party.”
“Okay,” she huffs out. She scoots back farther on the couch so that her back rests against the other armrest. “Like what kind? A kegger? A cocktail? When is it?”
I drop the phone to the couch cushion and try like hell to think about how we can get out of this because the invitation wasn’t just for me.
“We’re invited to . . .” I circle to face her. “It’s a masked cocktail party. They throw these every now and then after an auction.”
“Okay,” she says again, placing her hands on her hips as she tries to piece together what I’m saying without getting angry at the word auction. “When?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“And we have to go?”
“It came straight from him. My boss. We can’t ignore it.” And if the invitation for both of us came to me, he knows she’s here, but by the look in her eyes, she’s put that together already.
She nods as she searches the floor for an answer to a question she hasn’t voiced. “Will he be there?”
“I wouldn’t know it if he was.” Truth be told, he could have been to many auction parties. I don’t know what he looks like, and only Andre knows his voice. Hell, I could have talked to him before at one of them and never known it.
She looks back at me again. “Okay, so we go. This could be a good thing. We could find out a whole lot of information if we play our cards right.”
I flex my jaw. “I don’t like this.”
“Why?” she grumbles.
“Because every outing we’ve had hasn’t gone well. You don’t behave. You push the boundaries, and one of these times, it’ll be the last boundary you push.”
She rolls her eyes. “It’s a masked party. I’ll be fine.”
I give my head a little shake. “Mama –”
Crossing her arms over her chest and cocking a hip, she firmly says, “I’m going. We’re going. And we are going to find out as much as we can. Besides, now that he knows I’m with you, and frankly, he seems a bit obsessed with me, it might just draw him out.”
“Charlie –” I try again, but she narrows her eyes at me.
“You can’t protect me from everything. I have a job to do, Nix. You have to let me do it.”
And with that final word that leaves no room for argument, she turns from me, picks up the pizza box from the coffee table, and heads toward the kitchen, leaving me reeling in my spot.
“I’ll call Miles,” she shouts from the kitchen, and I growl out in frustration.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Charlotte Mitchell
The elevator door dings, and my heart hammers because I know exactly how this is going to go.
The sun shines off every reflective surface in Nix’s apartment, having just come up over the city, and the aroma of eggs and bacon still lingers throughout Nix’s home.
I take a quick glance behind me, finding Nix leaning against the wall next to the hallway as he stares hard at the elevator door. He still doesn’t like this plan, having Miles come over to discuss how we’re going to legally proceed, but there’s nothing I can do to convince him.
