36 Inches (Size Matters 3)

“But when you started paying for fake reviews,” I tell her and her face darkens. “When you started hiring out professional promoters who shoot your book up with unsavory and unfair tactics. When you started reporting other author books on groundless accusations, you went from an author with a lot of potential to a person who didn’t want to put in the hard work and resorted to black hat tactics to get ahead.”

Sienna withdraws her hand and stands up.

“I can see we’re done here,” she says to me. “I know you planned Derek breaking in. Stay away from me,” she says with an icy edge to her voice.

“Keep your nose clean and I will,” I shoot back.

She purses her lips and turns to walk away from me.

I’m thinking we dodged a fucking bullet. No way she knows about Cara’s involvement. And she’s going to be gone soon.

And that’s when Cara and fucking Parker come walking down the sidewalk hand in fucking hand.

I’m starting to realize that Sienna can’t read my thoughts. But the Universe can. And the Universe is out to fuck me.

Of course Sienna sees this. And an evil smile graces her lips.

“Well, well, well,” she says, and purrs again. “Look at what we have here.”

Cara and Parker freeze in their tracks and I can see Cara’s face make the connection that the operation was a failure.

“My old PA, and a Naughty Angel bitch,” she says, taking a step toward the pair.

“I get now why my office just got broken into,” she says and smiles as she hears Cara gasp. “it was a Naughty Angel operation.”

All of us are silent. It’s like we’ve been caught with our dick in our hands.

Sienna turns to me. Triumph graces her face.

“My PA is too stupid to realize that she did exactly what I wanted,” she says to me. “Cara is stupid beyond belief. And now I have all the evidence I need to go to the Romance Guild Association of America and get Naughty Angel banned from every trade conference and romance platform. They’ll be lucky if they can sell books on the street corner.”

I look at Parker and see he’s struggling to keep his cool. I don’t fucking blame him.

Sienna looks at Cara.

“Congratulations, you stupid slut,” she says. “You just helped bring down your favorite publisher.”

And without another word, she turns and walks away.

Chapter 15

Parker

“Fuck.”

“You can say that again,” I say, sinking onto the seat in front of Mason. I follow Sienna with my eyes as she leaves the café, strutting so confidently you’d believe she was just crowned Queen of the fucking Universe. As far as she’s concerned, that might actually be true.

How the hell did we screw things up this badly? This

was supposed to a clear-cut operation, not this fucking disaster. Abby’s going to lose it once she finds out about this. Whatever Sienna was planning, we just made the whole situation ten times worse. Naughty Angel Publishing is at risk, and there’s nowhere else to lay the blame but at our feet.

“What do we do now?” Cara asks us, but a sulking silence is the only answer we have for her.

“We shouldn’t have brought Derek into this,” Mason suddenly says, the hand he had on top of the table now clenched into a fist. “We shouldn’t have trusted him.”

“You think he might have planned this with Sienna?” I ask him. Even though I don’t want to believe it, you have to admit, it makes sense. He got caught red-handed, so who’s to say he didn’t set us up?

“No, that doesn’t make any sense!” Cara protests, looking from Mason to me, an anxious look on her face. She’s been friends with Derek for some time now, and accepting that he might be a traitor will definitely be hard for her. “I trust Derek,” she continues, pleading us to side with her.