Page 8 of Inked Nights

He flipped his phone around, and while the guys grinned, Callie and Maya gave each other cats in cream looks. And then Austin cursed under his breath.

“What?” Derek asked. “You know her?” There was no way that could be true, no way fate could be that kind to him after all the kicks and wounds it had given him over the years.

“Yeah, I know her. That’s Olivia. My neighbor.” Austin shook his head. “Has to mean something, man.”

Derek just sat there, pulling his phone back so he could look at her again. Did it? Did it mean something? Because if she were truly Austin’s neighbor, then maybe he had a second chance.

Or maybe everything had been doomed from the start, and he needed to give her the space she wanted. But what he did know was that it wasn’t over, not by a long shot.

Fate seemed to be on his side for once, and he wasn’t going to let that go. Not this time.

Not again.

Chapter Three

Olivia had a headache from hell, and she only wished it had been from drinking the night before. As she tended not to drink while she was home since she wasn’t a huge fan of drinking alone, that meant her pain came from work stress and lack of sleep.

It had been two days since she’d last seen Derek, her D, and she couldn’t get him off her mind. Hell, she hadn’t been able to get him off her mind for over twenty years when he was her Derek, and then again for four more years as her D. How was she supposed to not think of him at all when he was both?

“Ugh.” She ran her hand down her face, willing her mind to stay on the correct subject rather than one she should have pushed into the secret vault of her mind long ago. If only Derek hadn’t said his name, if only she hadn’t noticed his eyes in just the right light when he said it, she might not have put everything together. Honestly, she didn’t know how she hadn’t realized who he was for so long, but it must have been for a reason. Her mind and memories had given her a reprieve only to come back full force and slap her in the face with vicious taunts and accusations.

It didn’t matter that those jabs were from her and not Derek. They were still there no matter what, and she couldn’t forget about them.

Damn it. She had work to do, a person to forget, and a life to try and get through. Dwelling on a man she couldn’t see again, a man she wouldn’t see again, wouldn’t help anything.

But it didn’t mean that her mind was actually going to let that happen. She was Olivia, after all, the person who fixated on one thing and worried herself to the point of exhaustion and confusion over it.

“I need to work,” she whispered to herself, aware that if anyone were home with her, they’d think she was talking to herself. The fact that she was actually talking to herself was of no consequence. She was a freelance editor. She always talked to herself. And if that wasn’t a ringing endorsement for her sanity and her services, she didn’t know what was.

With a sigh, she opened her document and tried to get into the moment of the book. Her current project was content editing the first book in a new romance trilogy, and she was already in love with the story. This was her third time working with this particular author, and they were starting to really create a routine.

Of course, even as she said that, she did her best not to cringe at the note she had to write. The author had decided to kill a momma cat in order to bring the vet heroine and the grumpy hero together. It totally made sense and was well done, but Olivia knew that one of the rules in romance was that you didn’t kill the pets. Her rules started with an HEA, so no killing heroes or heroines and no cheating. And then the pet rule.

Olivia hoped the author would be up for changing that aspect because she didn’t want this author’s readers to get upset and put her on a list, and now she kind of hated herself for even putting the note in at all. The scene was done perfectly and worked with the book, but…there were rules.

Rules.

Of course, there were rules. There were for everything. And Olivia had broken all of them where Derek and D were concerned.

Yes, she was thinking of them as two different people since she had different guidelines for each of them, but now they were all mixed up in her mind, and she thought she might be sick. No wonder her brain hurt.

Olivia sipped her coffee, wincing since it was cold, but she was too lazy to get up and make another cup. That and she was a firm believer that if she made it, she had to drink it, cool or not. Hence why she drank caramel coffee because it tasted better cold than regular coffee and she tended to get lost in work or her thoughts enough that cold coffee was part of her daily routine.

She had a few more hours on this content edit and then she could send it back to the author before starting her next project, which was a copyedit since she was certified in that, too. She liked switching between the two so her brain could stay fresh for the next round, and she was grateful that her job let her work from home while she did it. She’d fallen into the gig, and she loved it.

Not only did she get to read some amazing work from talented authors but she also got to work in cute leggings and tanks with balconette bras rather than ones with wires. She didn’t need to wear makeup or shoes, and more often than not, she ended up with her hair piled on top of her head with her blue-tinted reading glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose.

Yep, she loved her job.

It was the other aspects of her life that left a bit to be desired lately, apparently.

Annoyed with herself for getting off track once more thanks to a mistake she wouldn’t be making again, she pushed the object of her distraction out of her mind and went back to work. She was so involved in the heroine’s journey that she let out a tiny scream when her phone rang.

She’d forgotten that she’d turned up the volume for her alarm and hadn’t reset it, and quickly put the phone back to vibrate before answering.

“Hey, Alice.” Alice was her best friend though she lived in another state and usually didn’t call during the day since they were both working. So if she was calling, it was either important, or she was stuck on a scene. Her friend was an author and one of her clients and usually wrote all day and plotted at night. Olivia had always admired the other woman for her creativity because while Olivia loved editing, she knew she would never be an author and she was just fine with that.

“I hate this book.”