Page 11 of Never Say Yes To A Stranger

“Did you hurt people?” For some reason, that matters to me. When I say hurt, I mean truly hurt. The kind of hurt that people don’t recover from, either emotionally or physically.

“No. I just lived the kind of way my parents wouldn’t be proud of. I straightened it out once I realized it was the grief eating me whole. I nutted up and talked to a few therapists. I’m not ashamed to say they helped me a lot. The guilt, though? That’s something that can’t just be washed away. Grief turns into scars, but guilt stays with you like a sickness.”

He starts unbuttoning his shirt. What the hell? If he thinks we’re going to get naked now after confession time, he’s reading the room wrong. I mean, good lord, I’d be down for it, but I don’t think now’s the time. Plus, it’s not in the contract. I think nudity would have to be in there if it was going to happen. My heart nearly bursts out of my chest. I’m not going to be able to live through this. One second of those muscles and all that perfect skin and extra manliness, because, of course, he’s extra manly, is going to make me explode. Double plus, who unburdens themself like that and then just…strips naked? That would make sex a weapon, too. Or like a drug, taken to forget and feel better.

I know these are highly contentious, but when it comes to me, I happen to dislike weapons very much, as a rule, and drugs are a straight-up no for me.

He slips his arm out of the shirt, leaving it half on, and I let out a sigh when I understand. Right. It’s not about sex. This isn’t about nakedness at all. Duh. I’m the one who’s reading the room wrong. He points to the pump at the back of his arm. “I’m rich enough that I can afford things like this, so I barely even realize I have a disease at all, but it’s there.” With a grunt, he forces his arm back into the sleeve and neatly buttons the shirt back up. “That’s what the guilt is like. Manageable, but it will be with me forever.”

“Your parents knew.” I have to point that out. I’m sure he’s thought about this before. “They knew who your birth parents were. They would have looked them up. They would have known your birth parents had money. They could have done something horrible like contact them or blackmail them. They probably would have gotten the money then. But they chose not to.”

He blinks.

He looks like a trainwreck, like a storm and a gut punch hit him at the same time.

Okay, maybe he hasn’t thought about that.

He gets up, agitated, and walks around the barn, stirring up dust and straw.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper-yell, hating myself for using that word.Sorry.Ugh. Gross. “It’s not my business. I shouldn’t have said that. It was rude. Of course, they wouldn’t have done that. They seemed like the best people.”

“They were.”

His back looks so strong. I watch him, unable to draw my eyes away. He’s definitely a magnet. A beautiful, damaged, tragic, hot-as-fuck magnet.

He’s also my client, so I need to get a grip.

He’s notthatkind of client.

I can’t say enough times that the hot bedding arrangement isn’t sexual. It’s platonic. The contract we signed was just about the bed rental. It said nothing about us. Maybe what we’re doing right now isn’t even real. How would I know? My life is currently being dictated by what was written on ten pages of a document and signed by both of us at the end. It didn’t say anywhere that we agreed to exchange words of such emotional depth.

“Yeah, they were,” he continues. “I got so lucky, and none of it had anything to do with the money.” He lets out another raw-sounding exhale that is half sorrow and half anger. When he whips around, his eyes are so intense that I nearly fall off my hay bale. “I changed my mind.”

“About this?”Oh god, no. No, you can’t.He’d have to pay me out anyway. We have a signed contract, though I would never hold him to it. I’d never make him give me money for something he doesn’t want, but the thought of our time being so suddenly up makes me feel…agitated. I know it shouldn’t. This man just walked into my life unexpectedly. I’ve known him for all of a hot minute and a half here, so I’m being irrational and extra pathetic.

Okay, so maybe the hot bedding isn’t just about the money for me, either.

Maybe I’m lonely too.

Maybe hiding and not knowing how long you’re going to have to stay hidden and asking my parents and my sister—the only people who know where I am—not to contact me unless I reach out to them first in order to keep me safe, is really,reallyhard.

I notice the slightest softness in Beau’s hard face. Even that much is a surprise. I wouldn’t have said he was capable of it. Just that little inflection looks so good on him that my throat gets extra tight on top of the tightness already there because of his story and how his life has hurt him. I know what it’s like for life to kick the shit out of you. He might have come out on top, but I’m not sure how banged up his insides still are. I think he’s really good at hiding that in plain sight.

From one expert hider to another, that’s my not-so-professional opinion.

“About the cookies,” he corrects.

“Oh.” Right, I offered. And he refused. “Are you suddenly back on carbs and sugar?”

He doesn’t smile, but he does huff, and I think that’s about as close to a smile as anyone might ever get from this man. He better not smile at me full-on. Ever. I know for a fact that it would be so radiant and lovely that I’d have a cardiac arrest on the spot. Or my ovaries would. And finding out they have hearts, too, would just be a lot to take in.

“I want to watch you make cookies.”

Oh. That sounds…sexual. Exciting. Weird. Kinky. Strange. Hot. Amazing. He takes my hesitation and the way I turn my face down to hide how scarlet it is the wrong way.

“I’ll offer you an extra two thousand dollars to watch you make two different kinds of cookies. I’ll add it to an appendix in the contract.”

Our lives are now ordered by the stupid document. I have to remember that none of this is real. None of it. Not when he is so clearly ready to make everything about payment and paper.

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