NERTHUS
I gasp, turning towards Arawn as Goldman takes up on my invitation and walks towards us. “Can we ask him if Danny can keep the dog?”
“No,” he chuckles, taking a sip of his drink. “And we are not keeping the dog.”
I pout as I want to keep the dog as well. “But we would be saving him. Goldman wouldn’t have the funds to keep him anyway.”
Arawn cracks up as Goldman reaches us and holds out his hand to greet him politely. “Hey, Goldman, so nice to see you again.”
I smile, keeping my hands around my glass of champagne as I watch the men greeting each other.
“Likewise,” he mumbles in response and pulls at his jacket but doesn’t proceed in introducing his company to us, so I guess she is bought company.
He is probably regretting paying for her as he could use the money.
Poor girl.
“Well,” I say with a smile, putting my hand on Arawn’s arm. “We just had the most fantastic time in Sicily. Have you ever been in Italy, Laurent? It’s magical.”
He distorts his face into a mask of pure disgust, “Yeah, more than once, it is nice indeed.”
“Yeah,” I sigh while Arawn smirks down at me.
“And don’t forget to tell him about France, babe,” he says provokingly, and I nod happily. “Paris was a feast!”
“So, romantic,” I scrunch up my nose as I agree with him.
Goldman is fuming by now, but as the well-educated gentleman he is, he doesn’t act upon it and diverts his negative energy by clearing his throat and pulling at his jacket once again. “I’m glad that you had a nice time on your vacation. And I’m amazed by your time management. As a CEO of a large group, and seeing your modest background, I thought that you needed to work harder to keep the company running. When did you say you came back?”
“Just a few weeks ago,” Arawn responds, swinging the champagne in his glass. “And you know, when you have competent workers executing your orders correctly without fucking up it is possible to go on a longer vacation once in a while.”
He flashes him a sarcastic smile, wanting to make him pay for insulting him. “We even got time to get us a new dog. You should see the little one. Such a cutie patootie.”
I suppress a laugh to not make my fake mask fall, “Now we are really just like a little Family.”
As my eyes are set on Goldman, I can spot the exact moment when he realizes what is going on, causing a shiver of malicious joy to ripple up my legs. “I’m glad to hear that.”
We spend an uncomfortable moment of silence as he seems to be collecting his thoughts and finally decides to just retreat.
“Well, my lady, Rodberg. It was nice seeing you but I unfortunately have a few other guests to talk to,” he bows slightly before he storms off, causing his company having to take fast and small steps to keep up with him.
“Poor thing,” I murmur as Arawn sighs.
He lays his arm around my hip, pulling me to his side as he kisses my temple. “Yeah. I’m so glad you don’t have to do that anymore.”
“Me too,” I smile, looking up at him. “Would you like to take our seats already? I think they said they would start serving the entree soon.”
Chuckling, he takes a sip of his glass, distorting his face right away. “You and your fancy words.”
I loop my arm into his and close my hand around his tie to pull him to me slightly, getting him to kiss me. “Well, I can’t possibly make a bad impression next to you.”
“As if you would ever manage to do that, even on purpose,” he answers with a grin as we start walking to the dining hall.
I wave with my clutch as Emily and Harvey are already sitting at our table and are already smiling brightly as they see us walking towards them.
After greeting them with hugs and kisses, or in the case of Arawn a manly handshake, we sit down and it doesn’t take long for the dinner to be served.
I can see that Goldman found a few people who were actually interested in talking to him, which surprised me. And as for his table, the people there are trapped with him anyway.
The evening flows comfortably lazy thanks to the wine and the table talk, and still can’t wait to fall into my bed because I’m feeling tired and I guess that the jetlag might still be tugging at me as in those weeks I didn’t have a moment to just relax.
We were so focused on these plans of getting our territory back that I was constantly on edge and I guess my body couldn’t process the tiredness clinging to my bones.
As Harvey is speaking about a funny episode that happened in his office recently, captivating the entire table, I lean against Arawn’s arm to continue listening attentively.
He moves to lay his arm around me, playing with my hair on my shoulder, grazing my skin with his fingertips from time to time as he keeps his gaze directed at his friend.
“Do you want to go home?” he asks quietly, making my heart flip in my chest as it is really our home.
Scrunching my nose, I shake my head without moving away from him. “Not before dessert.”
“Right,” he chuckles lowly, caressing my arm.
“How about we take a weekend to ourselves?” I ask in a whisper, moving my head against his chest to look up at him. “Like a spa weekend or something? I really need a break from everything.”
First I think that he hasn’t heard me as he doesn’t react, but then a faint smile grows on his lips and he looks down at me with his eyes filled with joy. “Sure, let’s do that.”
Squeezing my shoulder, he sighs as he redirects his gaze onto Harvey.
Suddenly, a strange murmuring goes through the people as something seems to be happening. Harvey takes out his phone as it starts to vibrate incessantly.
“Oh,” he just says as he checks the text and passes it to Arawn. “You might want to start recording.”
As Arawn takes the phone, I get up automatically and spy on the screen as well. Even if I can read everything, I don’t quite get what is being communicated through the texts.
My gaze gets caught by two men, who are dressed in black suits and look like federal agents, entering the hall escorted by police agents in uniforms.
I shift in my seat to follow them with my eyes and see that they are walking straight towards the table Goldman is sitting at.
“How tacky to execute an arrest in front of all of those people,” Emily comments, demonstrating once again the pureness of her heart. “They could have really waited outside.”
Arawn laughs as he hands the phone back to Harvey. “With all the information they got I’m surprised they didn’t act sooner.”
We watch Goldman getting up only to be arrested and escorted out of the hall.
“What did you do?” I ask Arawn in a whisper as the people around us are still focused on the scandalous occurrence. “I thought the feds released a statement only a few days ago how there wasn’t enough evidence to arrest him on any of the accounts.”
He leans down, pressing a short kiss on my lips before he whispers back, “I’ll tell you at home when we will finally have something good to drink.”
He is absolutely impossible.