Page 53 of Never Say Yes To A Stranger

I know I acted like I didn’t know.

But all this time, I did.

That question I asked myself about her having a fake ID? I would have spotted it anyway, but I already knew it was fake. I knew she had bugged out. I knew what her old name was. When I asked myself why, it really meant,are you guilty?I didn’t assume she was. Sometimes, there is another explanation. And often, it’s the innocent that runs. That’s why we have a thing called witness protection, to take care of people who have done nothing wrong half the time except be in the worst place at the worst time.

It probably all makes sense now. I didn’t put in my age wrong. I made that profile, knowing full well who would be on the other end. I have to admit I didn’t know what hot bedding was, and when I looked it up, it did send a shooting pang of loneliness through me, but it wasn’t the first time. People like me don’t deserve a mate. We deserve to be alone. The part about myfamily and me believing I’m cursed? That’s all real. I never lied about that, but I also didn’t mean to just tell her everything. It spilled out.

My urgency and absolute insistence the night of her bath? Yeah, it wasn’t a proud moment for me. It hurt monstrously to ask her if she was certain she was innocent when I already believed she was, but I had to be sure beyond the shadow of a doubt. I would have known if she was lying.

“Beau?”

“No.” There, it’s out. It’s happening.

This is the start of the end. I lean down until we’re so close that our lips can touch. I thought my heart would never race like this. Never hammer itself out of my chest. Neverhurtthis way.

“W—what? What do you mean no?”

It’s simple. I tell her everything. I hold her face and turn into the man who doesn’t have feelings or emotions. I give it to her straight and toneless and expressionless. I force my heart to slow way the hell down by breathing normally, but it hardly works. It’s still charging way too fast. Something inside me hurts far too much. I felt like this when my parents died. But not since. I haven’t allowed myself to get close to another person, not when it inevitably always ends up this way in some form or other.

Disappointment. Betrayal. Heartache. Hurt. Grief. Anger. Resentment.

So I start by telling her how my friend approached me and why, and I tell her what I do for a living, which she already knows because I never lied to her about that. I gave her as much truth as I could because that’s the way you build a believable persona. That’s the way you earn someone’s trust. And trust gives you an in. Trust and respect give you the ability to find out a person’s secrets, and it’s the secrets that are key to breaking someone.

Except this isn’t just someone. This woman trusted you with more than just her secrets. She gave you her body. You’re a selfish, manipulative asshole prick. Horrendous. You’re worse than a soggy, moldy, rotten, black, oozing potato that’s been forgotten in the cellar. For, like, three fucking years to the power of a tool bag and a douchebag having a baby.

I give it all to her. How I lied about reversing my age, how I showed up here, and how I was trying to get her to confess all along. The FTC was sure she wasn’t working alone. She might even have been working against her will. I didn’t know it was Aiden all along. He was an unexpected wildcard who handed me what I needed on a silver platter.

But the protection part? That was real. I went from being undercover to being undercover and being me, doubly so. I might still have been playing a part in order to get to the truth, but I was trying to save this woman, even if it meant damning myself in the process.

Oh, and what happened between us in bed?

Yeah, I obviously didn’t plan that.

But I did allow it to happen.

More than allowed even.

Fuck.

My chest is doing strange things. It hurts. It hurts so fucking much, and I can’t make it stop. It’s not just the guilt that makes it feel like I’ve been impaled on something. It’s so much worse than that. It’s the unbearable fact that I’m never going to see Sam after today because she’ll neverwantto see me again. Sam or Ignacia, her old life or this one, her full freedom back or not, there is no world or lifetime or place in which she’ll ever forgive me for the ultimate sin I committed.

I fell for her.

It might not be love. I really don’t even know what love is or what it looks like, but love isn’t lying to someone. Love isn’thurting them. But I do care about her. I didn’t want to hurt her, and I didn’t want to lie, even when I had to. I never wanted to comfort her, and I never wanted it to turn into something I had zero control over.

Turns out the person I was lying to most was myself.

And that just makes me a triple rotten potato.

God, I make Aiden the Anus look like a saint.

I’m close enough that when I’m done—when I’ve confessed absolutely everything, including how she’s going to get her life back and Aiden is going to be convicted as she works closely with the FTC in the coming months—we’re still standing so close. I’m still cupping her face like I can protect her from all this. Like I can save her from me with my own body and will. She has an easy shot straight to my nuts, but this woman is a better human than I’ll ever be, and she doesn’t take it.

She just slowly twists away. She doesn’t look hurt or betrayed. Yet. But she does look disappointed, and that’s worse than anything.

She’s lost what little faith she had left in me.

And she might have been the only person in the world to truly have any.

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