Page 36 of Mark my Words

Neither of them had cracked open their menus, and I wished I could hide behind mine. The thinly veiled hostility that Kristine was trying to suppress put her behavior into clarity for me. She had vipers within her own family to contend with; no wonder she refused to put up with anyone’s shit. I didn’t know whether I wanted to hug her or grab her hand and make a run for it. Or... No, Sam, don’t even think about doing other things with her right now.

“Are you a scotch drinker, Sam?” Greg asked as he lifted his glass to his lips, holding the amber liquid in his mouth for a moment before he swallowed.

“I’ve been known to imbibe from time to time.” That seemed like a safe enough answer.

“Kristine here doesn’t have the palate for it.”

“No.” She shook her head and tipped her drink back, taking two healthy pulls from the glass, never flinching as she swallowed. “I like scotch just fine. I hate that you have adopted our father’s pretentious taste. It’s as if you can’t keep your lips off his ass long enough to have an original thought.”

“Which one is it, Krissy? Mother’s teat or father’s ass? Don’t pretend you hate that fancy apartment of yours. I know family money paid for that,” Greg chuckled with a pointed look in my direction. I was aware that her family had money–probably much more than I could imagine–but that wasn’t why I was so drawn to her. I’d be compelled by her scathing wit and eyerolls much more than her bank account.

“Nana paid for my apartment, not Mason. I don’t need to sell out for our parents’ approval.”

“Still from the Willard coffers, sweetheart. They’ve got their hooks in you too, and once you get offered that promotion, I won’t even say a word when you move back in with Mommy Dearest.”

“That–” she growled, narrowing her eyes. “Will never fucking happen. I’m not coming back to New York, and I am not marrying fucking Trevor like it’s some arranged marriage. No matter what our father wants.”

My fingers clenched the glass before me, the amber liquid swaying as I tried not to read into their conversation. Who the fuck was Trevor?

“Sam.” My head snapped up as Gregory gave me an appraising look across the table. “You’re up for one of the copy editor positions, right?”

I glanced over at where Kristine was scowling in my direction now. “Yes. I am.”

“Are you a fantasy man or a non-fiction man?”

Kristine scoffed as she rolled her eyes, throwing back the rest of the contents of her glass.

“Why can’t I be a romance man?”

“Oh.” Greg’s eyebrows raised. “Is that why Kristine kept insisting you two aren’t together? I didn’t realize you weren’t into women.”

The sound of choking turned our heads toward Kristine, whose face had turned red as she tried to hold in her laughter at her brother’s comment. He seemed to be the poster child for toxic masculinity.

“Of course, Greg, you caught us. A straight man couldn’t possibly edit a romance novel. Sam is my super, super gay office friend. He pulls in all kinds of tail. Gay, gay tail.”

“That’s nice,” he replied, not picking up on her obvious sarcasm. “My assistant is gay.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that, but if Kristine was using falsifying my sexuality as a ploy to keep her brother from prying into her love life, I could live with a bit of a harmless lie. It’d also seemed to diffuse the sibling-pissing match they had going on. That was more awkward than failing to correct him with the news that I’d been inside of his sister. And that I was imagining spanking that tight little ass of hers right this moment.

“Then maybe you would be a better fit for the job in New York. I could always introduce you to Preston if you need to make a new friend.”

My eyes widened as Kristine’s hand grasped my knee, her chest shaking with silent laughter as she tried not to look over at her brother.

“Kristine working with romance books never made sense to me anyway. Wouldn’t you need to believe in love to be able to edit it?”

The smirk that had been on her lips moments before fell into a flat line, her eyes taking on that dead quality that I hated, which meant that she was pushing her armor into place.

“Kristine is a professional. Her editing skills aren’t reliant on her personal life. A good editor can handle any genre, regardless of their own experiences.”

“Don’t they always tell writers to stick to what they know? Shouldn’t that apply to their editors as well?” His narrowed eyes scanned her face, looking for a reaction she refused to give him.

“There are plenty of writers whose imaginations are vivid enough to fill in the blanks.” I’d never met a serial killer or an FBI agent, yet I could edit manuscripts that painted detailed portraits of both those types of characters. If the emotion was conveyed clearly enough, the reader could imagine it. You could fake anything with enough research. I highly doubted that Evan had sexual encounters like the ones described in his last book, but with Chase’s help, he’d knocked it out of the park.

“Well, now that I know you’re not screwing my baby sister—“ Greg started, smiling at Kristine’s exaggerated eye roll. “You need to fill me in on the office dirt. Who is she spending her time with?”

“Why is my sex life so important to you, Greggy? Still having issues getting it up? You know they have prescriptions for that sort of thing.”

He narrowed his eyes at her before he refilled both of their glasses, mine still largely untouched as I tried to keep a clear head in this tête-à-tête they had going on. I was simply an observer watching it all unfold, occasionally getting dragged into the conversation by way of a device they used to poke digs at one another.

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