I stared at her for a second as that sank in. “You’re fucking threatening me,” I said slowly.
“I’m not threatening,” she said. “This isn’t coming from me.”
“I know what a threat sounds like.”
She shook her head. “Listen to me, Nash. Threat or no threat, you have to get your shit together. Otherwise, Chuck is going to cut you out of any future deals regarding your book.”
“He can’t do that,” I said. “I’m the damn face of this whole fucking thing.”
“He can and he will.” She paused, looking at her phone again. “They’re optioning the book into a movie, you know. Lots of money you won’t get if you don’t get yourself together.”
I stared at her silently, raging on the inside. I wanted to smash something, scream in her face, but I knew that throwing a tantrum wasn’t going to fix shit.
Fact of the matter was, I was tied to these fucking corporate suits whether I liked it or not. I didn’t much care about their money, but I needed it anyway. I couldn’t let them cut me out, otherwise I’d be fucked on too many levels to count.
“Looks like I’m screwed,” I said.
“Just behave and you’ll be fine.” She looked back at her phone. “Now, let’s go over the itinerary.”
I half paid attention as she ran through what we were doing for the rest of the day. The book tour was still on-going, but I was ready to call it quits then and there. Suddenly, I had some assholes in a boardroom telling me how to act, telling me what I could and couldn’t do. I could break their spines with my bare hands, kill them all without blinking an eye, and yet I was supposed to be their proper little fucking American hero.
I hated that shit.
I was my own person, my own man. Maybe I’d gotten tangled up in this book business shit, but I’d never really asked for it.
Fucking bastards had me by the balls and they knew it.
I shook my head, staring out the window, plotting my next move.
I wasn’t going to be cowed, made to bow down.
I’d play their game. But I’d play it my way, and to fucking win.
3
Selena
I climbed out of the Uber, feeling incredibly out of place.
It wasn’t often that I put on one of my most expensive dresses and went to meet a stranger at a nice bar. Actually, as far as I could remember, I hadn’t worn this dress since a wedding a few years earlier. It was short, black, and tight, showing off way too much cleavage, but it was the best I had on such short notice.
I frowned as I walked into the restaurant. Butcher And Singer was an upscale steak house, the sort of place where I couldn’t afford a drink, let alone an actual meal. The place was quiet inside, dimly lit and expensive looking. The woman standing at the hostess station looked like she could have been a model, all angular thin lines and tall legs.
“Can I help you?” she asked pleasantly.
“Yes, hi. I’m supposed to meet someone here.”
“Name?”
“Nash.”
She glanced up at me, and I couldn’t help but notice the brief moment of surprise that crossed her face. She quickly looked back down at her book and nodded. “Right this way.”
I followed her into the main space. She led me through the main dining room, around a corner, and into a small private booth.
Sitting against the wall was Nash Bell. I stared at him, a little surprised that he was there. I had fully expected him to flake out and not show up as some stupid prank, but there he was, grinning at me and motioning for me to sit.
He was wearing an expensive-looking suit tailored perfectly to his body. He looked almost out of place wearing it, since he was normally in jeans and a tight T-shirt.
“Selena,” he said. “Didn’t think you’d show.”
“I was curious, I guess,” I said.
The waitress showed up a minute later. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Just a glass of wine, please.”
The waitress looked at me. “We have a large selection of wines, miss, if you’d like to look at the menu?”
I blushed. “House white is fine.”
“Very good.” She disappeared.
“Snob,” Nash snorted.
I smiled at him. “She’s not a snob. Just doing her job.”
He shrugged, sipping his drink. I guessed it was whisky, but I couldn’t tell.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“I could eat.”
He nodded at the menu. “Get whatever you want. It’s on the publishing house.”
I laughed. “Seriously?”
“Sure. They expense my meals. One perk of writing a fucking bestseller, I guess.”
“You don’t sound too convinced.”
He made a face. “Has its downsides, too.”
I nodded, taking my small notebook from my purse. “What kind of downsides?”
He stared at me and laughed. “You fucking kidding?”
I cocked my head to one side. “I thought this was an interview.”
“Put the notebook away,” he said, laughing and shaking his head.
“Okay.” I slipped it back into my purse. “If I’m not here to interview you, what am I here for?”
“We’ll get there.”
I bit my lip, staring at his handsome face. My stomach was a mess of nerves. I couldn’t figure out what he wanted from me if he didn’t want me to interview him. Was this some sort of weird sexual thing? As far as I knew, Nash Bell was a relatively harmless person, aside from his deadly training and his partying. He wasn’t a criminal or anything like that.
But he was intense, that was true. The second I sat down at the table was the second I felt like a spotlight was shining directly on me. He had that amazing way of making me feel like his entire attention was on me, even if he was gruff and short.
The waitress returned a minute later with my wine, placing it down in front of me. She disappeared before I could ask for some water.
“Drink,” Nash said. “You look nervous.”
I sipped my wine. “I am nervous. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“You’re having a drink with me.” He stared at me for a second. “I like the dress. You clean up good.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“What were you expecting, wearing that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Selena, that you look fucking sexy. And I think you look that way on purpose.”
I blushed. “This is the only nice dress I own.”
“I find that hard to believe,” he said. “Aren’t all you Penn kids rich?”
“Hardly,” I said. “I’m here on scholarship. I’m from the Northeast, normal parents and all.”
He grunted. “Good. Wasn’t sure if you were a rich girl or not.”
“Would that matter?”
“Probably,” he said, smirking. He sipped his drink again.
“Got a problem with rich people?”
“Sometimes, yeah.”
“Interesting. Aren’t you rich now?”
He shrugged again. “I’m not interested in my money.”
“You sure do like to spend it though.”
He laughed. “I said no interview.”
“You can’t blame me for trying.”
He looked at me for a long moment, almost as if he were sizing me up. “Guess not.” He leaned back in his seat, finishing off his drink. “We’ll order food, and then I’ll tell you what you’re doing here.”
“Okay.”
“Tell me more about yourself while we wait.”
So I told him about my early life growing up on the outskirts of Philadelphia. My dad was a mail carrier and my mom worked as a paralegal. They weren’t rich people, but they did well enough to provide a comfortable life for us.
Soon, the waitress came back. Nash ordered a steak and potatoes, and I ordered a Caesar salad, too nervous to get anything else. He gave me a look when I said it, a knowing smirk, but said nothing.
The waitress walked away and I looked at him. “Okay, I need to know what this is all about now,” I said.
“I have a business proposition for you.”
“Business?” I asked, laughing nervously. “You know I’m just a college undergrad, right?”
“What are you studying?” he asked.
“Marketing and journalism. I’m interested in publicity and things like that.”
He laughed loudly, shaking his head. “Too fucking perfect,” he said.
I stared at him quizzically. “What is?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Do you want to hear this proposition?”
“Okay,” I said, totally unsure. Part of me wanted to get up and run away, get far, far away from him.
But there was something keeping me in that seat.
Nash had a magnetism about him, something that drew me toward him. I wanted to get up and leave, walk away. He was a dangerous man, not in the sense of hurting me or something like that, but he had a bad reputation and was well-known as being a deadly force. I had no clue what kind of proposition he had for me, but I knew it wasn’t going to be good.
And yet I couldn’t leave. There was just something about his smile, the way he asked about me, the way he seemed like he didn’t belong in an expensive steak house wearing an expensive suit.
“Lately,” he said slowly, “I’ve been under pressure from my publisher.”