The Arrangement

Two…

Kayleen chuckled evilly. Her hands curling into claws, she dug every one of her fingernails into the flesh of my pumping, churning ass.

Three…

I don’t even think I made it to ten.

Forty-One

KAYLEEN

Dinner was grilled flank steak with caramelized onions, and a pomegranate spring salad. A fitting menu for our first meal back, especially since the guys had requested it. Besides, it was also a good distraction for what I was about to do.

Or at least I hoped so, anyway.

“Alright,” I said, trying to sound as casual as possible. “Chow down, and somebody save me a plate. I’ll be back a little later.”

I winced internally and braced for impact. All three of them immediately turned their heads.

“Wait… what?” cried Nathan. “You’re not eating with us?”

“Can’t,” I said. “I have that thing.”

I spun my back on them as I swept up my keys. Mostly to try and hide my face.

“What thing?” I heard Burke say.

“Party consult. I told you about it earlier this week.”

“You did?”

“Figures you’d forget,” I laughed, hoping a smirk would cover my lie. I let out a false sigh of exasperation. “Doesn’t surprise me at all the three of you would get memory-wiped by the weekend.”

Memory-wiped wasn’t even the word. We were all tired. All of us exhausted, mentally and physically.

But damn, it had been one hell of a weekend away.

Before they could say anything else I blew them a kiss over my shoulder. Then I was out the door, in my car, and driving off… into the darkness.

Well, that was shitty.

It definitely was. Lying wasn’t something I did very well, or very often. I was really bad it it. Downright terrible, in fact. But it never bothered me, because lying to the guys wasn’t something I ever wanted to get used to.

Except tonight.

In all honesty it hadn’t been my idea. The meeting was, sure, just not having it at night. Definitely not having it in Jay Summer’s office, rather than the coffee shop I suggested. The same place we’d met the first time.

But I was the one who requested the meeting, and he was the one accommodating me.

“Sure Kayleen,” he’d said cheerily, when I asked to see him. “Come by the office anytime after seven. Mondays are crazy, but I always work late.”

The guys were still scheduled to meet with him tomorrow, to deliver even more chapters. All the more reason I needed to do this today. Seeing Jay first, it was possible I could talk some sense into him. At the very least, preparing him for what he’d read the next day might soften the blow.

His office turned out to be smaller than I imagined it would be — an older commercial building on the outskirts of town. It had all the retro charm of having been built in the sixties. Newer furniture clashed with the older architecture in violent, magnificent ways.

“You made it!”

He greeted me straight out of the elevator, leading me past row after row of empty cubicles. The whole place was dim and spooky. LED lights glowed silently from dormant computers.