Page 94 of His Rules

“Maybe, but I don’t want to believe that. You have no clue what we’ve talked about. He was open with me. Sebastian Winfield, a man I thought had a permanent stick up his butt.”

We both laughed.

She squeezed my hand. “You’re a very kind soul and I just don’t want you to get hurt. I’d love to see you fall in love with the perfect man. As long as I get to be your maid of honor. But keepyour eyes wide open here. You could ruin your reputation with every decent company in town. You don’t want that either.”

“No, then I’d need to wait tables and I suck at it,” I told her in jest, although it was the truth.

She shook her head. “So melodramatic as always. If you’re serious about Drake then there’s only one way to play this, you know. You can always decide on whether Sebastian is using you later and we’ll kick him in the balls together.”

“I know that sly look on your face. What are you suggesting?”

“Did you ever hear of dirty pool?”

“Meaning?” I narrowed my eyes, watching as her smirk turned into a sneer.

“We find out exactly who Drake is working for. We take our own photographs. If I need to, we break into his office and I can hack his emails.”

“You’d do that?”

She rolled her eyes. “You really don’t remember the antics we used to get into.”

“You mean when we were sleuths in high school, catching that wicked cheerleader when she placed a stink bomb in that poor guy’s locker?” We slunk around in dark clothes, almost getting caught twice by the principal, but we prevailed. The girl was suspended for two weeks.

“Exactly like that.”

I liked what she was saying. “Are you going to help?”

“Well, duh. That’s what best girlfriends are for.”

“Then let’s get going. Drake leaves the office every day for lunch. I think he’s meeting with his co-conspirators.”

“That’s a good place to start. But first, we need costumes.”

“Costumes?”

“Honey, we don’t need the press on Nancy Drew’s ass.”

At least my bestie could make me laugh.

Meanwhile, I had a terrible feeling my filthy affair was over. It had to be. There was too much at stake.

Sadly, the thought of never seeing Sebastian outside of the office was already close to crushing me. But I had more integrity than to allow myself to continue being used. “By the way, I’m not as kindhearted as you think I am.”

“Then what are you?”

“A royal, conniving bitch.”

CHAPTER 25

Sebastian

“Are you hanging in?” Steven asked. He’d been the only call I’d accepted all morning long.

“Yeah, I’ll live.”

“The press already attempted to call Dad. When he couldn’t get you on the phone, of course he called me.”

“I hope like hell he didn’t say a damn thing.”

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