Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 521

Chapter 521

ARIA

Nina, from her chair, was not containing anything. Her shoulders were moving in the specific way of someone who'd decided that this was the entertainment that Monday deserved and was fully committed to receiving it.

Jordan had his notebook.

Of course Jordan had his notebook.

"How long," Ivory said again, and she was advancing on Kael's side of the desk with the specific energy of a woman who'd had her book club idea rejected and had subsequently discovered that the people who'd rejected it had been conducting the exact activities that the book club would have organized.

"Move," Ivory said.

"These are—" Kael started.

"Move," Ivory said again.

"They're mine," Kael said.

"You don't get to have—" Ivory started.

"I'm the Alpha," Kael said.

"You said no to the book club," Ivory said. "You said no to the book club, you said it was time-wasting, you said—" she stopped because she'd spotted something else, "—is that book eleven? You have book eleven? I've been on the waiting list for book eleven for six weeks!"

"The waiting list," Kael said, "is very long."

"I KNOW the waiting list is very long," Ivory said. "I know because I'm ON the waiting list and I have been for six WEEKS—"

"The supplier," Kael said, in the tone of someone constructing a defense he was aware was inadequate, "had limited stock and—"

"You jumped the waiting list," Ivory said.

"I may have made a specific arrangement with the supplier—"

"With WHAT MONEY," Ivory said.

The silence that followed had a specific quality.

Kael's expression did the thing it did when he'd made a decision he'd known was going to be difficult to justify and was now at the justification stage.

"Kael," Nina said, from somewhere behind him. She was in one of the chairs, her notebook on her knee, her expression the one she deployed when she was watching something develop that she found genuinely interesting. "What money."

"The operational budget has a discretionary line," Kael said.

"The discretionary line," Jordan said, from the other chair, "is for pack operations."

"Cultural resources," Kael said, "are pack operations."

"BL novels," Ivory said, "are not—"

"They are extremely relevant to understanding human psychology and relationship dynamics," Kael said, with the complete seriousness of someone who'd prepared this argument, "which is directly applicable to Alpha leadership and interpersonal pack management—"

Ivory went for the books.

Kael moved sideways. Ivory moved the same direction. They went around the desk in the specific coordinated way of people who'd been in each other's proximity for twelve years and had developed a mutual understanding of how the other person moved that was now being deployed against itself.

I watched this.

Silver watched this with me.

*This is what Monday looks like,* Silver said.

*Apparently,* I said.

"Jordan," Kael said, backing toward Jordan's chair with Ivory advancing, "help me."

"I'm going to need more context," Jordan said.

"Tell her the books are—"

"You bought books from the discretionary budget," Jordan said. "I'm not helping you with that."

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