Page 31 of Beauty and the Beard

I know I’ll be dragging my ass once 5 A.M. rolls around, but something happened here tonight and I’m not ready to leave it.

“I will.”

Chapter 9

Sasha

Leaf and I laid awake most of the night talking.

Actual conversation.

Sure hands and lips wandered some too, but there was an inherent shift in our new friendship.

For one thing, we went beyond friends. And I didn’t hate it.

Quite the opposite. I liked it so much I already know it’s going to hurt like nothing I’ve ever felt before when I have to leave.

If Leaf hadn’t shown up last night, my plan was to finish my book and go into town early for more exploring. Instead, I slept in and barely managed to get a ride with Pete in the afternoon. I brought my camera and phone with the sole purpose of finding a bench in the tiny park I saw to call Roman in a mostly private setting.

The gods are on my side today. The park is quiet and a bench under a giant maple tree is free. Ducks swim by in small groups and I swear it’s the same ones making a loop somehow. They’re turning around down stream and sneaking back without me noticing. They have to be.

But this park grounds me, even with the endless duck loop, and I hope like hell Roman isn’t in the middle of a photo shoot so we can talk.

“Sasha! Hi!”

His smiling voice is just what I needed to hear.

“Hey, Ro. Do you have a few minutes to talk? I, uh, I need you.”

Roman’s voice is muffled before he comes through again, this time softer and not the larger-than-life guy most people know.

“Hey, Sash. I’m alone now. Are you okay?”

Running my hand through my hair, I sigh a shaky breath.

“Ro, fuck, so much has happened the last few days.”

I feel the tickle in my nose as the tears threaten and blink them away.

“Leaf. I…he came over and…” A hard swallow, then another. “He spent the night.”

Roman doesn’t need details. He knows how huge this is for me without spelling it out.

“Oh, sweetie. What happened? Did you tell him about you?”

“I told him it’s hard for me to trust. We talked for hours and he knows Moe was my guardian and took advantage of me.”

Rowan sucks in a breath. “How did he respond?”

“Not well. I imagine if Moe had been close, he’d be in a million tiny pieces right now.”

“Okay, that’s good, though. He’s on your side. But… did you, ah, actually sleep together?”

Roman knows since I spent so many years naïve about the modelling business, believing Moe when he manipulated me into sex with people for contracts, that I had a hard time processing it all. Including intimacy.

Sex was great, but after that time in my life, casual encounters were no longer my thing. I was paranoid and detached from reality. I didn’t want to give myself to anyone in exchange foranything that had a monetary value. There’s nothing wrong with sex work when you do it of your own volition, but I was unwittingly forced into it. My inexperience with life was my downfall, or I’d have noticed sooner. But when you place your trust in someone and they use that against you, it does a number on your thought processes.

It took me years of therapy to accept I was more than a bargaining chip. But sometimes those insecurities burst to the surface again and shake up my thoughts.

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