Page 51 of Beau and the Beast

He stepped out and into his study, stopping the minute he entered the room.

Beau was there.

Wolfram smelled him before he saw him. It was less intense than the day before, and he felt a pang of regret as he remembered the harsh way that he'd lied to the young man about his smell.

Wolfram swept his eyes around the room. There he was, lounging on his side atop one of the larger cushions in the reading nook Wolfram had set up.

He was dressed in new clothes—things that Violet must have picked out for him—and they suited him: a shirt with a dapper pattern tucked into pressed trousers, a blue sweater, and a solid bowtie that made him seem somehow more childish and mischievous than had he not worn one.

He was holding an apple—bit into it while Wolfram watched—and in his other hand was one of the books from Wolfram's shelf.

"Good morning," he said, not looking up from the book.

Wolfram knew he should be mad that Beau had let himself into his study without permission or shocked that Beau had shown up unannounced or... something else. Instead he realized he waspleasedto see the other man, even after forcing him to leave the day before.

It was odd to be confronted with the reality of him on the heels of what Wolfram had allowed to happen in the shower. He'd let himself acknowledge the attraction but hadn't cashed in on it. Why had he protected Beau, even in the privacy and darkness of his own mind?

He felt sick and guilty about the sleazy fantasy and stuffed it into the back of his mind. This was a human being who deserved more.

"I've written up a schedule for us," Beau said, still not looking up. "You'll find it on your desk."

Wolfram looked to his left and sure enough, there was a handwritten schedule on the desk next to Wolfram’s gold watch. Beau's script was neat and loopy.

It dictated that they would spend three hours together each morning and two hours in the evening followed by “Dinner Together.”

"It's been a long time since anyone has tried to dictate my day," Wolfram said, the words coming out steelier than he'd intended.

Beau looked at him, finally, his blue eyes unwavering. He moved to sit with his back straight, laying the book and apple in his lap.

"I have a job to do here, Wolfram. I'm going to be sticking to that schedule. You can try to get in my way and try to avoid my questions and try to tell me to give up, but it's not going to stop me," Beau said. His voice was strong and clear and Wolfram could tell he'd rehearsed the speech. "I was hired to write a book about you—not to repurpose old magazine articles or try to piece together scraps. I intend to write the best biography I can while I'm here. And you can either help me do that or you can get in the way—but my goal isn't changing just because you threw a tantrum."

"Threw a tantrum?" Wolfram echoed back.The nerve of him.

Beau's expression didn't change. He didn't waver or attempt to backtrack.

And Wolfram knew in that moment that every word Beau spoke was the truth—that maybe perhaps he never lied, as unlikely a human trait as that seemed. Beau may look tender and soft-hearted, but he was bold and he was determined.

Wolfram may have every advantage over the young man—wealth, stature, physical size, power, and experience—but he knew that Beau wasn’t about to budge.

He was going to be forced to talk about things that he had never wanted to think about again, to divulge secrets to this person and trust him to lay out Wolfram’s life in a way that would allow him to live with whatever dignity he had left.

Totrust, his mind repeated. He had nottrustedanyone in such a long time. Maybe not since his mother Cicely died. Maybe it was time to try again.

"I'm going to get my story, Wolfram. That's why your staff hired me."

Wolfram folded the schedule, tucked it into a pocket in his vest, and crossed the study. He settled on a cushion in front of Beau, his plans for the day forgotten.

"Where would you like to begin?" Wolfram asked.

Chapter Ten

When there wasa knock at the door to the apartment Noah shared with Beau, Noah immediately assumed that his brother was home. No one else ever had occasion to stop by, and though he’d expected Beau to be gone longer than five days, maybe his mysterious contract had fallen through.

Noah scrambled to put hands on his cane and hoist himself out of the chair where he'd been seated in front of his computer monitors, his joints straining. Without Beau home, there had been no one to remind him to get up and move every few hours, to make sure that he was taking care of himself. The only reason why he went to bed and ate at all was because he knew that his brother would be home eventually and he'd be angry at Noah if he'd managed to get himself sick or work himself to death.

The person at the door knocked again and Noah wondered why Beau didn't just use his own key to get in.

He peered through the peephole when he finally made it to the door. The person outside absolutely wasn't Beau.

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