Page 78 of The Plus One Contract

He shrugs. “Honestly, my story’s not that unique, Sienna. Plenty of kids grew up with shitty parents. I just figured out early how to put on a good suit and pretend like none of it touched me.”

“And now?”

“Now I still put on the suit. But sometimes…” He trails off. “Sometimes it still feels like I’m ten years old, standing in that house, wondering if I’ll ever get out.”

I meet his eyes. It’s clearly a painful subject for him, but his honesty is refreshing. Still, I don’t want to make him relive it if he doesn’t want to.

Before I can ask something else, he says, “You going to tell me why you really felt like you needed to bring a date to your brother’s wedding?”

I glance up, startled.

He holds my gaze. “I get we don’t know each other that well, but you don’t seem like someone still hung up on her ex. What’s the real reason?”

I toy with the paper napkin in front of me, the corner fraying under my fingertips. “I mean, yeah, sure, finding out he moved on so fast knocked the wind out of me, but that wasn’t it. Not really.”

Nathan says nothing, just watches me with that quiet intensity of his, and somehow, that makes it easier to keep going.

“It’s stupid, but I didn’t want to disappoint my family,” I admit, my voice quieter now. “I got a lot of that growing up. Not angry—just disappointed.”

“You’re twenty-five and seem like you’ve got your shit together. What the hell is disappointing about that?”

I smile, but it’s weak. “You’d think, but it’s not about achievements. It’s about expectations.” I take a breath. “I was the quiet one. Jeremy was always louder, more confident, better at charming people. I kind of faded into the background. I never really had a group growing up. I’d float. One friend here, another there. Never really found my people.”

I glance at him. “Believe it or not, I used to be painfully shy.” I smile, trying to lighten the air between us. “Now I talk too much because I’m making up for all the years I didn’t.”

Something about saying that makes my throat catch. I glance down at my hands, suddenly aware of how tightly I’ve curled them into fists.

“I remember being a teenager, lying in bed, wondering why I didn’t look like the other girls. Why I didn’t have a boyfriend. Why my body felt like something I had to apologize for.”

His jaw tenses, but he says nothing. He just listens.

“And when Daniel cheated, after six years together, I didn’t just wonder how I missed it. I wondered if deep down… I knew. Knew I wasn’t enough. That maybe I didn’t expect I could find better, so I looked the other way. I think I was so used to not being chosen, I mistook being tolerated for love.”

The words hang there, heavier than I expected. I don’t look at him right away. I can’t.

“Remind me to find Daniel later and run his car off a cliff.”

A choked laugh bubbles out of me. “That’s… not entirely legal.”

He lifts a brow. “Neither is what I’dpreferto do, so be grateful I started with the car.”

That makes me laugh again, watery and a little shaky, but real.

I chew my bottom lip, needing to switch things up before I smother on the lump in my throat. “Okay, new question.”

His brows lift. “Hit me.”

“What age was your first kiss?”

“That’s your follow-up?”

“You gave me an opening. I’m taking it.”

He huffs a laugh. “Fourteen. Her name was—God, what was her name—Rachel? Rebecca? She wore grape lip gloss and told me I tasted like I could ruin her life.”

“Wow.” I snort. “Solid review.”

“Your turn.”

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