Chapter 18
NOVA
“Hi Maisy,” I answered with the world’s tightest smile.
“Ohmygod hiii,” she responded, oblivious to my tone. “Are you on your way? You’re with Wes, aren’t you?”
Oh, boy. Was Jayne going to be annoyed I ditched girl time for Wes? Surely not, considering these women’s lives seemed to revolve around men.
“Yep,” I answered. No use lying.
“Oooh. He is quite rude, but very dreamy,” she said. “Are you sure nothing’s going on there?”
Wes chuckled softly.
My cheeks burned. “He can hear you, Maisy. We’re sitting next to each other.”
Wes suddenly looked like he was having the time of his damn life.
Maisy giggled. “Oops. Well, how far out are you?”
“Just under an hour,” Wes answered for me.
“Okay, great. We’ll just beat you there,” Maisy said. She was nearly buzzing. I heard other voices from her end, a few women and men. Someone was singing poorly along with a pop song I didn’t know.
“Anything else?” I asked slowly.
“Nope! You get back to doing nothing with Wes! We’ll see you soon. Can’t wait to see you in Ro—”
I hung up before she could say Roman’s name. “Oops, finger slipped.”
Wes laughed, and I delighted in the sound’s warmth. “And I’m the rude one?”
“That phone call was unnecessary. A text would’ve sufficed.”
Wes opened his mouth.
“Don’t you dare call me a Zoomer. This was specific to Maisy.”
His teasing smile grew. “Whereas if I were to call you?”
My heart fluttered. “I’d pick up.”
“You’ll be hearing from me soon,” he drawled.
“Is that a threat?”
Wes leaned closer. “You’d know if something I said was a threat.”
Just when I thought the shattered moment had reconstructed itself, Wes slowly pulled back.
“You want to DJ? I don’t have Bluetooth,” he said.
“I always want to DJ.” A lingering feeling of disappointment swirled in my stomach, but it melted when Wes’s fingers brushed mine on the seat between us.
As I connected to the car’s sound system and played the Belle and Sebastian song he’d recommended, If You’re Feeling Sinister, I waited for him to move his hand.
But he never did. His hand stayed with mine. When the lines came that spoke directly to me, just like he knew they would, I met his eyes.
He smiled. His thumb moved in a circle over my hand—maybe absent-mindedly. Maybe with intention.
I remembered all those times he’d stared too deeply inside me, much too deep for comfort.
Despite my best efforts to hide, Wes had seen something. Wes had seen me. Even if just a glimpse.
“I finished the rest of your books,” he said. “They only got better and better.”
My chest warmed, and I resisted the urge to deflect or joke away his praise. “Thank you.”
“When can I read the next one?”
I shook my head, my heart speeding up. “You can’t,” I said quickly.
“Oh?” His brows lifted.
I averted my eyes. “It’s not finished, and it’s… different. It’s not like the others.”
“How so?”
Oh, God. I couldn’t explain it to him. I’d hardly admitted to myself what this book had turned into. What it was revealing about me… and worse, what it was revealing about…
I couldn’t face it. Not yet. “It’s darker. More explicit. If I publish it as it is currently written, it will ruin the brand I’ve built.”
Wes considered this. “But are you in love?”
I faltered.
“With this book?” he finished.
My next breath was shaky. “That’s one way to describe it,” I said.
“I can’t stop. I can’t stop even though I know I should.
If I go through with publishing it, it will ruin what I’ve built, and yet—I’m compelled.
I’ve been burned out for so long, I forgot what it felt like to love writing.
” I laughed softly. “So, yeah. Kicking and screaming the whole way down, right?” I referenced Wes’s description of falling in love with the city.
He stopped his absent-minded stroke of my hand.
“Some compulsions shouldn’t be obeyed,” he said softly, nearly somber.
“But art isn’t one of them. You’re being led down this path for a reason.
I believe if you follow it, the right door will open for you, maybe where you least expect it.
You don’t have to stay where you are forever.
You’re allowed to change. Even if it’s uncomfortable, and even if other people don’t like it. You’re an artist, not a machine.”
I hadn’t realized how much I needed to hear someone tell me that. Wes’s confident authority soothed the panicked doubt, allowing a glimmer of possibility, or even permission, for the first time. To do what I wanted to do despite potential consequences.
“You’re quite mystical, you know that?” I said. I searched his hazel eyes, trying to place him into a male archetype like I’d tried countless times before. Still, he remained uncategorizable.
Wes smiled and shrugged noncommittally.
I sighed. “It’s hard not to start to see your work—and yourself—as a machine when that’s what the system rewards.”
“Yet we can’t. We can’t lose our humanity.”
The rest of the drive, Wes and I alternated between deep talks and banter and comfortable silence as we traded songs back and forth.
He peppered me with questions about my books and my process, and I realized he was the first friend who had ever read all my books before.
I certainly didn’t have family to read them.
By the time we reached a long, winding driveway, it was like we’d entered a different country. It was easy to forget there was nature, land, and space within a ninety-minute radius of the city.
“Woah,” I breathed. My eyes widened. We were in a line of black cars approaching the biggest house I’d ever seen—if house was even the right word.
This was an estate, a property fit for hosting galas and charity events and—well, an exclusive kink party for hundreds of guests.
Wes’s energy changed as it always did when we were in proximity of The Circle. The sun had just set, bathing our world in a darkness quickly multiplying.
“Looks like somewhere a senator would live,” I noted.
“I’m sure you’re not too far off,” Wes said dryly.
Beyond the grand front entrance, framed by white pillars that held a second story balcony, I saw guests greeted by a security detail that certainly rivaled a government building.
“Are they checking people for weapons?” I squeaked.
“And devices, I’m sure,” Wes drawled. “Any recorded evidence taken at this party would be incredibly valuable, if one was stupid enough to try it.”
I gulped. Yeah, I hadn’t heard positive things about what happened to desperate people who crossed the wealthy.
I paled. That was why they found us on the subway to deliver our invitations. Their flex of power was a threat. Who needed collateral when the cult had fool-proof intimidation tactics?
Unless the parties were where they collected collateral.
My heart pounded, mind spinning in many different directions. I mentally reminded myself of my mission. Find Lorelei. Escape together. We weren’t going to go any deeper. We would leave the powerful to their power games and get the fuck away from them.
But what about Wes?
“Do you think you’ll find your answers here?” I asked him. We were almost to the front of the line.
“I hope we both do,” he said. “I’ll help you look for your friend too. Lorelei, right?”
I nodded gratefully. Okay, perfect. We were on the same page. Get in, get out, happily ever after for all.
“I’m going to get dressed with the girls, and then…” I trailed off, not quite understanding where we’d left things.
Wes chuckled, despite the clear tension in his every muscle fiber. “The one bright spot in all of this will be you dressed as a fairy princess.”
I blushed, glaring at him. “More like an angel fairy, but whatever.”
He got out of the car, quickly coming to my side to open the door for me. He offered me his hand, and after he helped me out, he didn’t immediately let go.
“Angel is fitting,” he said softly. He leaned in close. “Please stay safe. If you don’t want to—” He cursed, as if redirecting his words. “I’ll always keep an eye out for you, okay? Maybe it’s a compulsion I just can’t stop. But if you want your space, I understand.”
My heart thumped now for a completely different reason. “I—I don’t want you to stop.” My cheeks were even warmer now. “I’ll be careful. Thank you.”
Wes’s eyes were the same kind of tortured as when I told him my Babygirl speech was real. The tension broke when he pulled away. The driver handed me my boxes of clothes. We walked together up the steps to meet our fates.
An attendant wordlessly took the boxes from me, as if she already knew exactly who I was.
Security took our phones and scanned us with a detector wand. At the sound of girlish giggles, I glanced over my shoulder. Three women approached in silk gowns, arm in arm. None of them were blonde.
Wes gently guided me forward with a warm hand on my back. My favorite auburn underling greeted us at the door. When she narrowed her eyes at me, I smiled warmly. I might not have belonged here, but Ms. Ice was not going to be the judge of that.
“Just Wes and Just Nova,” she said with a smirk. “So pleased you could join us this evening.”
She rattled off a script of rules and codes of conduct in a flat monotone. Wes and I nodded. He still hadn’t dropped his hand.
I turned to him to make a joke when we were finally let inside, but as soon as I saw what awaited us, I lost every train of thought I’d ever had.
“Pardon my French,” I said, swallowing hard. “But oh my fucking God.”
We’d entered a fairy tale. That was all I could describe it as.
Every inch of the interior had been meticulously decorated to look like the inside of an enchanted castle, complete with vines crawling up the grand staircases, dangling plants and florals hanging from the ceiling, tiny twinkling lights, pillar candles surrounding a large, vintage mirror—and in the center of the room, a large glass case.
Hidden speakers were playing low, moody ambient music intermixed with forest sounds.
A few people were mingling near the stairs, but I heard far more voices coming from deeper in the mansion.