Page 24 of Never Say Yes To A Stranger

Beau backs off and raises his hands in the air, palms forward. Aiden doesn’t read it as a peace gesture because it’s not one. Instead, he reads it asstay the fuck in that chair and cooperate, or I’ll make you stay the fuck in that chair and cooperate.

“Who is this person?” Beau’s voice is perfectly normal, but I hear the rage underlying it. It’s white-hot for him, even if he’s not showing it.

I swallow past the bile that burns up my throat. “My ex-boyfriend.”

“Do you have a protective order against him?”

“You mean a restraining order?” I clarify.

“Yes.”

“No,” I answer.

Why didn’t I get one? It was complicated. I wanted to involve the police as little as possible. But I can’t stand here and explain it all to Beau at the moment. I can’t take a chance that he wouldn’t think I’m the bad guy in this situation and turnmein. I barely know him, and I can’t trust him either. Although, somehow, it doesn’t feel like that. It feels more like he’s ready to rip Aiden the Anus a new…well, anus.

All I have to do is ask.

Jesus, it’s so tempting. Then again, can anyone actually turn him into a bigger anus than he already is? Because he’s a monstrous butthole.

“But you don’t want him here?”

“No. I—I don’t know how he even found me,” I mutter.

Beau nods. He doesn’t seem surprised that I’m hiding from this mega-jerk. Instead, he cracks his knuckles, which makesAiden squirm in the chair. Aiden doesn’t just bite down on his lower lip. He practically gnaws it off. And I watch as he starts to shake. Physically, he’s no match for Beau since he’s about four inches shorter, and I can’t even guess how many pounds lighter.

His weapon was never his size. It was his brain. His devious, evil, horrible, devoid of morals and scruples brain.

Beau turns back around, and his look is so feral that I swear Aiden just about pees himself. Jesus, even I want to pee myself a little. And I’m also slightly…turned on. I know I shouldn’t be, but there’s something about a hot, muscly man going all feral and protective for you, especially when you’ve heretofore had to look out for yourself and try and figure out all your own problems, that gets a girl hot in the ovaries. I know it’s not okay, and I’m okay with it not being okay. I think.

You know what? I need a moment over here. This is all too much. I’m still in shock over Aiden finding me and Beau coming out all alpha male like hecares.

I know he doesn’t.

He’s just doing me a solid.

Maybe he has extra aggression he’s been dying to take out on society’s super sleezebags. Or maybe he fights crime by night in his regular life, on nights when he’s not hot bedding by contract with me.

He’s definitely the only guy in the world, contract or not, who has ever stood up for me. In the years Aiden and I were together, he never once had my back. He never made me feel special. I hate that I didn’t even realize it when I was with him. When the sky fell in, it shocked me so badly because I never saw it coming. I didn’t even realize the extent to which Aiden had been using me and really abusing me as well.

“Alright, Turdbag.” Jesus. I think I might have just fallen head over heels in love with this man. But it’s just a saying. It makes my heart pound to hear Beau use the very same moniker I applyto Aiden. “You’re going to tell me why you’re here. If I don’t like your answer…well, let’s just hope I do.”

There’s no way he’s going to like any answer Aiden gives him.

Especially not when his eyes literally fill up with frightened tears, and he stammers out a whole story about how he’s been trying to find me and get me back for the past ten months. Christ, he spins it like I disappeared into thin air, and he’s been broken-hearted.

Then, he turns to me and drops the biggest kicker of all. “I—I love you, Sam.”

Ugh, barf. I’m not immature enough to make fake gagging sounds, but they almost happen for real.

“I have a feeling the sentiment isn’t mutual.” Beau’s intuition happens to be correct. “She would like you to leave right now and never come back.”

Aiden turns his tear-filled eyes my way. There was a time in my life when I would have done anything for this man. Freaking anything. But he repaid that love and trust by stealing my identity and using it to hurt other people. Let’s just say sometimes it sucks having a unisex name, and I’ve never in my life gone by Samandra because who on the good and wide earth names their daughter such a wild thing? I’m sorry to my parents because I love them, but I don’t know what on earth they were thinking. Samandra is such a weird and long name to say. So, yeah. I’ve always been Sam. I thought I’d always be Sam. But then I had to go into hiding to escape probable criminal charges as well as this man, and I was forced to reinvent myself as Ignacia. I didn’t choose the name. It was given to me by a friend of a friend of a friend who made the fake IDs.

“That’s right.” I wish my voice were more than just a thin whisper. I wish I could sound certain and confident. Iamcertain and confident, but I also still feel like I might throw up on the spot. And I don’t want to do that. Not in front of Aiden. He’d takeit the wrong way, and it would be any way except that he disgusts me. “I expressed the same sentiment to you almost a year ago. I meant it then, and I mean it now. Leave me alone, Aiden.”

I took extreme measures to ensure he would. I gave up everything to get away from him. I was scared if I didn’t just disappear, he’d do something that would get me arrested. Even now, I’m not entirely sure he hasn’t done something that could get me arrested. I think charges last for life, and I’d have to prove it wasn’t me doing all those things and stealing all that money. How the hell could I do that when Aiden’s a fucking genius criminal mastermind who stole my entire online identity? He had access to everything, and I gave it to him like an idiot. He said people who loved each other didn’t have secrets. People who loved each other and lived together and were going to share a life didn’t keep passwords to their social media or anything else a secret.

I was so, so,SOnaïve.

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