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Chapter Seven


After we'd eaten, Nick walked me down to the curb where Stanley was waiting by his sleek black car, the door to the back seat already opened wide. Nick stopped me just outside the door of the restaurant and turned me to face him. "I'll give you a call in the morning so we can work some stuff out," he suggested. "I have this idea - I wanna throw a party, get everyone all together, and then you can check Hugh out for yourself. It'll be the perfect occassion to introduce you to him. I'll just need some help organizing it and everything."

"Sounds good," I said, nodding.

Nick smiled, "Have a good night, Samantha," he said.

"Thank you, you too." I walked down the steps to the car and Stanley offered a hand to help me into the car. I ducked down and slid across the leather seats.

"Take care of her, Stan-the-Man," Nick called, pointing, "Precious cargo on board, sir." He winked and saluted, then turned and started walking down the street, his hands shoved into his suitcoat pockets.

I watched Nick as Stanley climbed back into the car and we started driving away and we passed Nick as he stopped at the valet booth and held up his tag. He waved as we went by, his fingers forming the peace sign. I turned to face the front as Stanley unrolled the window that divided us. "Still lonely back there, miss?" he asked.

"Terribly," I replied.

"How was your evening?" he asked conversationally.

"The salmon was great," I replied.

Stanley nodded. "Things looked like they went well with Mr. Carter," he commented. "Although I must say usually when I am asked to drop a young lady off at a restaurant I'm sent home without her at the end of the night," he confessed.

"It wasn't like that," I explained.

"No?"

"Just business," I replied. "In fact, I'm going to be working for Mr. Carter for awhile now."

"Are you?"

I nodded, "I'm his new personal assistant."

Stanley nodded. "That sounds like a full time job," he chuckled.

Looking back, I had no idea how much of a full time job it was. But I was pleased at that point. I had the promise of a contract worth fifty thousand dollars, which, a quick Google search told me, given the fact that I was contracted for a half of a year or less, was more than the average personal assistants' salary. Of course that wasn't really the actual job I was being paid to do, though, was it? And Lord only knows what private investigators make for a salary... that one I wasn't going to try looking up.

I sat back in my seat and hugged my purse to my chest.

"You said earlier that you technically work for Hugh Walters," I said to Stanley.

"That I do," Stanley replied. "On call for him or his artists. And of course the lovely Miss. Cora as well."

"Hugh a good boss?" I questioned.

Stanley smiled, "He certainly isn't the worst, ma'am."

We got home in what seemed like less time than it'd taken to get to the restaurant earlier. Stanley pulled up to the curb and opened the door for me and helped me out. "Thanks," I said. "You have a good night."

"You, too, miss," he replied, and he walked around the car and climbed back in. I watched from the curb until his headlights had disappeared at the end of the street, then turned back to the house just as the front door burst open and Addison came running across the driveway toward me, arms outstretched.

"TELL ME EVERYTHING!" she shrieked.

I grinned, "You aren't going to believe what happened." My voice went all shrill and squealy and I hugged her and we started jumping up and down like wild teenagers.

"Did you have sex?" she squealed.

"No! Better! I got a job!!"

"A job?" Addison looked at me like I had fifteen heads and stopped jumping up and down immediately. "What kind of job?"

I took a deep breath, "Well, he's going to pay me fifty thousand dollars to pretend to be his personal assistant and --"

"And actually be his sex slave?" Addison guessed, a tentatively excited look on her face, like if I said yes she'd start jumping up and down again. "Oh my God, is he Christian-fucking-Grey? Is he kinky? Does he like it rough? Is that what this meeting was about?"

"Noooo," I laughed, "No. Stop thinking dirty."

"I can't help it, my brain only has one channel," she joked. "So what is he actually paying you to do if you're only pretending to be his personal assistant?"

"He wants me to find out who Hugh Walters is sleeping with on the side so Cora will divorce him and be with him instead," I said proudly. "I'm basically his private investigator."

Addison's excited face drooped. "He's paying you fifty-K to fuck an old guy?"

"What? No! Addie --"

"You can't fuck that old guy, I mean back in the day he was probably a stud muffin but today --- I mean yeah he was in the NFL once upon a time, but now --" she shook her head.

"I'm not sleeping with Hugh Walters, relax!" I said. "He wants me to find out who Hugh is sleeping with already. He figures if Cora's cheating that Hugh must be playing around on the side, too. It shouldn't take much. And I get to keep the fifty grand whether I find anything or not, and the longest I can work on it is 'til December, when he says we'll work out a new contract if need be."

"Oh... I was gonna say there's no way you can be this close to Nick Carter and end up fucking some geezer like Hugh Walters," Addison laughed.

"Because that's the part of the situation that would've been morally wrong," I said.

"Seriously though, in celebanese, personal assistant is sooooo code for sex..." she grabbed my hand enthusiastically, "C'mon, I need you to tell me everything about what happened so I can help you decode this because I'm telling you, there is no way all he wants is your detective skills. He could've just hired an actual detective for that..." Addison pulled me into the house, babbling a mile a minute about her theories of what Nick Carter could possibly be up to.

Addison and I sat up on the couch for hours and hours talking about everything, sprawled across the cushions, desperately trying to carry on the conversation in mumbled tones until neither of us could fight away sleep any longer.

The more she had talked the more I began to wonder: was Nick Carter up to more than he was saying or was he legitimately just desperate for some help with his love life? I wasn't sure...