“I think we’ve pretty much got it all settled, Ember. We just need Daniel and his crew to come and hang the rest of your pieces. I can take care of placing the plaques tomorrow. You just need to spend the day focusing on getting ready for our big night. I’m so excited for you, honey.”

“Are you sure you don’t want more help?”

She laughs and places her hand on my arm. “You’ve done more than I ever would have asked. It’s time you go on and enjoy some relaxing before tomorrow night.”

“If you’re sure.” I look around one more time, seeing everything start to come together, and smile. “If you change your mind, just call.”

She nods and walks away, dismissing me as her mind starts to wander with tasks, something she has a bad habit of doing.

When I first met her, I wondered how such a beautiful woman had never settled down with a family of her own, but I realized really fast that Annabelle Kingston is married to her work, and at fifty-two, she is perfectly content with her clients being the children she never had.

I grab my bag, pulling out my phone as I walk to the door and checking my messages as I climb into my car and start the engine. When I left Nate’s house earlier this afternoon, he had said he was going to stop by Dirty but would be home for dinner. Seeing that it’s now five, he’s either finishing up there or already back at the house. Either way, the state of his fridge is scary, so my first stop will have to be the grocery store.

After the night of my house fire last week, Nate had been spending less time at Dirty, something that seemed to just happen naturally, even though it had been a big stressor in his life. He still goes in every day, but it is rare that he’s there past midnight.

“Hello?” I answer, not looking at the display when my phone starts ringing through the speakers.

“Hey,” Nikki says, her voice low and a little wobbly.

“Hey, you. What’s wrong?”

She sniffs and I frown. Nikki isn’t a crier. I often joke with her that her tear ducts are broken, but she just says it’s a side effect of her black soul.

“I broke up with Seth.” She sniffs again before blowing her nose loudly into the receiver. “Found that jerk in bed with some chick from his gym.”

“Oh, Nik. I’m on the way to Nate’s. Meet me there in ten, okay?”

She sniffs again, it coming out more like a snorted wheeze, but agrees before hanging up.

Pulling up to a light, I grab my phone and press Nate’s name before placing it back down on the seat next to me. While I wait for the light to change, the phone rings a few times.

“Is it time for phone sex already,” he drawls in a sexy rumble over the line, and I hear some deep masculine laughter break out around him.

“One of these days you’re going to answer the phone like that and I’m going to make sure I had been playing with myself for long enough to just come in your ear as a response,” I smart with a smirk when he grumbles a complaint.

“Get the fuck out of my office,” he barks, and I hear his heavy breathing as footsteps echo and the sound of his door closing. “You’ve been told not to take my sweetness, Ember. Do you need me to remind you who that pussy belongs to?”

“Yeah, yeah, promises and all that. Listen, big man, Nikki’s upset so she’s coming over. Is that okay?”

“I told you that you don’t have to ask permission to do shit. I want you to feel at home.”

I roll my eyes. The same argument we’ve had since I all but moved in. “I’m still asking. It’s your house, Nate.”

He mumbles something, but his words are too low for me to make them out.




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