Page 151 of Beau and the Beast

“Sir, I’m asking you to calm down. You’ve made a mistake.”

There was a long pause in the recording, like perhaps Geoffrey had convinced the man that he had the wrong place.

“This is bullshit,” the ex said after a beat. “This is insane.”

“Whoever told you that we have someone living or working here by that name was mistaken.”

And then the call shut down.

“Jesus Christ,” Violet said, massaging the bridge of her nose.

“Right so. That’s Lincoln. The ex.”

“How the hell did he find us?” she asked.

“When I did some digging to make sure Beau’s brother was ok, I also learned that he’s been hanging out withthisguy, Lincoln. So the brother must have told the boyfriend about his little blackmail adventure.”

“Why did youlieto him?”

Geoffrey clenched his jaw. “I don’t know. I panicked.”

“Jesus. This is a disaster. If you had just told the truth, we could’ve grabbed Beau and he could’ve… I don’t know, gone out there and talked that guy off the ledge.”

“Do you seriously trust him not to fuck that up?” Geoffrey asked.

“Well your solution wasn’t any better,” Violet pointed out. “Now he’s going to go back and compare notes with the brother and they’re going to freak out.”

“How long until Beau’s done with the manuscript?”

The question took Violet off guard. “I don’t know. Why?”

“He’s been working on it for almost a month now,” Geoffrey said. “Don’t you think it’ll be done soon? Because if he just… you know, finishes it up, maybe this won’t even be an issue.”

It was tempting to agree with him. Beauhadto be close to finishing, right? The two of them had done nothing but work on it for weeks.

Well,she thought suddenly.That’s not completely true. They’ve obviously been up to other things, too.

In fact, she realized that she hadn’t actually seen Beau working on the manuscript in several days. He’d moved his typewriter out of the living room. Ever since Wolfram had taken Beau to bed—a fact that she was the only one to know about in the house—she’d barely seen Beau outside of dinner.

If those two were fooling around and not coming up for air, it would be bad for them all—and not just because Beau’s ex was putting his nose where it didn’t belong.

They didn’t have unlimited time left to break the curse for Wolfram.

“Ok,” Violet said, thinking fast and fighting the tension migraine that was threatening her. “Just sit on this for a few days. I don’t see any reason to bring it to Wolfram’s attention yet—“

“ThankGod—“

“But I’m going to talk to him and see where Beau is on the manuscript.”

* * *

They’d gotten sidetracked.

Wolfram hadn’t meant to let it happen, but Beau had taken a break from his revisions and made his way over to the place where Wolfram was sitting, propped in one corner next to his bookshelves.

It was just too easy to fall together like that with Beau climbing into his lap, blushing and pliant and insisting that he only wanted a quick kiss. Of course, each quick kiss took on a life of its own, and that afternoon it had morphed into a hungry kiss and then Beau pressing against him, Beau with his hands snaking into Wolfram’s breeches.

They’d gotten careless about things in the week that they’d spent exploring each other—and Wolfram’s study felt like a natural extension, in some ways, of the bedroom that they now shared every night. That was why Wolfram didn’t stop him or slow their progress or suggest, even, that they move to a space that was more private.

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