Chapter 31
NOVA
Wes and I exchanged a confused look before turning our attention to the source of the voice.
Archer, hand in hand with Jayne. And several others behind them, crowding the cramped space.
“Apologies for the interruption,” Jayne said.
She rubbed her heart, as if astonished. “What a strange serendipity that our paths have intertwined this evening. The Universe’s algorithm strikes again…
Were we not just talking about this? When we’re on the right path, the world is animated by such profound magic and synchronicities. ”
A few of the others responded with awestruck faces, as if Jayne were the messiah herself.
“Please join us,” Archer said. “We have a private room upstairs.”
Jayne placed a hand on Archer’s shoulder. “Babe, they’re—”
Before Jayne could save us, Archer was giving orders to the waitress, who’d been assessing why the hell this group of people was blocking restaurant flow.
Wes’s Dom energy hadn’t relaxed an inch; now, it was muddled with ripe irritation as he unabashedly glared at Archer.
Jayne appeared slightly startled, which was perhaps the first time I’d seen such an emotion written on her beautiful features. She watched Archer bulldoze the situation with her brows drawn in a silent question.
But as soon as she met my eyes, she wiped the expression from her face and became her easy, spiritually-attuned self again. After all, she wouldn’t want us to catch her in her masculine energy.
“The more the merrier,” she said. “It’s going to be a lovely night, and we’ve been wanting to catch up with the two of you.”
Archer stared at us, unflinching. My conscientiousness was being pushed to its absolute limit, watching in horror as servers and patrons waited on either side of The Circle’s inconvenient blockage.
I broke.
The moment I stood, Wes stood, and we reluctantly joined the party heading to a private dining room.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to Wes as we slowly trailed the group like captured prisoners of war. “There was so much pressure, and Archer was basically going to hold our food hostage. And I’m starving.”
Wes slid his hand to my waist as we took the staircase up to the private level. “No more apologizing for anything that isn’t your fault. We’re going to work on that.”
His presence and touch put me at ease.
“That was not kismet, right?” I asked him. “How the fuck did they find us? Again?”
Wes shook his head. He opened his mouth to speak, but we both went silent as we entered the private party room upstairs and Jayne began seating everyone at the long table.
When everyone had sat according to Jayne’s divine plan except for me, Jayne, Archer, and Wes, I could see Archer’s wheels turning.
Clearly Wes saw it too, as he gracefully pulled a seat back for me and sat between me and the head of the table before Archer and Jayne had time to scheme something different.
Archer took the head of the table, and Jayne sat across from me and Wes. I’d been effectively separated from the cult power couple. Wes’s hand was quick to find my thigh under the table, heavy and grounding.
“I’m glad you broke free from your writer hermit dwelling tonight,” Maisy said cheerfully from down the table. She was sitting with a couple of girls I knew from the group chat and yoga.
Between us were a group of younger men wearing cocky smiles and stunning women in revealing silk dresses—a mix of faces I did and didn’t recognize.
“Me too,” I forced out, trying to sound less annoyed than I currently was. Annoyed and severely, painfully pent-up from Wes’s incessant teasing and denial. Something sexy had been on the tip of his tongue, and Archer had ruined it.
A server placed cocktails in front of us, and I eyed Archer. If they knew everything about us, including our fucking location, there was no way they hadn’t noticed Wes and I didn’t drink.
My hand found Wes’s, which was so high on my thigh now that I could feel his touch as a steady pulse in my core.
I must’ve failed to hide my derision, because I swore Archer’s gaze darkened a shade. He clearly didn’t enjoy the opposition—from me, from Wes, or from his wife.
But in the next blink, he’d covered it all up. “Tell us about the new book,” Archer said. Not a question. A demand. Wes’s hand tensed on my thigh, gripping me as if in a silent reminder I didn’t owe Archer shit.
But with so many eyes on me, I folded again.
“It’s a dark contemporary romance set in the city,” I said.
“I’m still writing, so it’s not, um, completely fleshed out yet.
” I launched into a brief synopsis, leaving out any details I didn’t want them to know.
Or, more specifically, that I didn’t want Wes to know.
I fumbled over the description, not great at explaining a developing draft on the spot.
“It’s different than your previous work,” Jayne said, leaning forward as she considered me.
“This is the kind of story publishers are hungry for right now. I was talking to an agent about you at the party. I wanted to introduce you, but you disappeared on us.” She smiled slowly.
“I think she’ll be very interested in hearing about the new book. ”
“We’ll connect you with her tomorrow,” Archer said with a slight flourish of his hand, as if waving a magic wand.
It didn’t matter that I knew they were manipulating me.
My heart still sped up at the idea of an agent being interested in me and my new book.
Especially because if I did manage to get over myself enough to publish it, I would be starting over with a brand-new audience—given my current audience would never tolerate dark themes or open-door sex scenes.
Maybe if a publisher chose me, finally, it would be easier for me to be brave.
I glanced at Wes, and he gently brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. He’d told me I shouldn’t accept any help from The Circle, and I’d told him I wouldn’t.
But Wes had a three-story townhouse, and I had… nothing. No savings. No assets. No stable, guaranteed income.
All I had were my dreams that seemed perpetually moving further and further out of reach, no matter how long or hard I worked toward them.
“Thank you,” I said. “It is different. Very different. I still love my previous books, but… I think a change was inevitable.”
“Have your dreams shifted as well?” Jayne asked, sipping her pink cocktail.
She had to have seen the truth written into the perplexed planes of my face. Yes, my dreams had shifted. But that was because I was now mixed up in a dangerous, freaky cult and indulging in my kinks for the first time in my life.
“Maybe a bit,” I admitted, drawing a curious look from Wes.
“That’s the magic of The Circle,” Jayne said.
“I’m so excited for you, Nova. You’re making all your wildest dreams come true with your authenticity and vulnerability.
You are exactly what the world needs, and soon, the world will know it too.
You’ll be a household name within two years. I can feel it.”
“I literally have chills,” Maisy said.
The other girls nodded, clutching their hearts, features twisted, as if moved by the Holy Spirit.
The men between us had already gone back to talking about cryptocurrency, uninterested in Jayne’s heavy-handed spectacle, but Archer was still watching me. Hungrily. Like I had something he wanted, needed, and he would get it by any means necessary.
“I feel it too,” Wes said softly, taking me by surprise.
I looked up at him, and the rest of the room faded away.
When Wes said it, it meant something. He smiled at me, the storm in his eyes no longer a mystery to solve.
He was the catalyst of my profound change, not The Circle.
He was the destroyer of my old ways and harbinger of the new.
But I wasn’t ready for him to know this, for him to see himself reflected back to himself page after page.
I wasn’t ready for him to know he was my muse.
What jolted me out our moment was a sudden grip on my arm from the right, followed by breathy gasps and pleading. My head swiveled, and the woman next to me quickly dropped her arm, mouthing a silent apology. Her eyes rolled back.
The men across from her snickered. One placed a small, sleek black remote beside his whiskey, and the woman writhed in her seat next to me, as if possessed by demons.
“You better stop being so fucking disruptive, or I will shut it off, and you won’t come for a month,” one of the men said. “Come silently like a good girl or not at all. Your choice.”
The woman orgasmed, panting like she was lifting some insurmountable weight, but she didn’t make another sound.
And when a server re-entered the room, the man pressed a button on his remote and went back to talking about tax evasion with his friend as if nothing had happened.
Meanwhile, the woman next to me came back down to earth, skin flushed and forehead beaded with sweat.
She smoothed her strawberry blonde hair and took a sip of her drink.
I slowly panned to Wes. Mouth close to his ear, I whispered, “Is it too late to sneak back downstairs?”
The server placed one of our starters between us, and I had my answer. I looked down at our artfully arranged scallops with a deep sadness.
Wes’s lips brushed my ear next. “If I had it my way, we’d be in a different restaurant by now. Say the word, and we’re gone.”
He wanted me to tell him to get us out of here. But I didn’t want to be wasteful, and like an old woman at a slot machine in Vegas, maybe I also hoped Lorelei would drunkenly stumble into the room any minute now.
Could any of these men be her mystery man? The unnamed Him Lorelei served as a stay-at-home girlfriend?
I tried my first bite, barely aware of Jayne and Archer speaking quietly, perhaps tensely, across from us.
When I made an appreciative food moan, Wes watched my lips. Something in him shifted, and his hand crept higher on my thigh.
“So good,” I said appreciatively. “Thank you for saving me from my menu paralysis. It’s a serious affliction.”