Page 80 of The Plus One Contract

Carol slides two plates onto the table with a tired smile.

“Two burgers, extra cheese, bacon, no tomato for the lady. You, tomato man, enjoy.”

I pick up the burger and take a bite so big I’m sure it’s in no way attractive, but I’m too hungry to care.

Nathan takes one look at me and bursts out laughing. “Are you… okay?”

“I’ve ascended,” I mumble around a mouthful of cheese and beef. “This is my final form.”

“I’ve seen people cry at weddings,” he says, taking a bite of his own. “But never over a burger.”

We eat in silence for a bit, but the good kind. The kind that’s warm and full and heavy with something I don’t have a name for.

When we’ve devoured our food, we sit back, full and sleepy and entirely too content.

Nathan sighs. “We should get back.”

“Yeah,” I agree, a delirious smile spreading across my face.

I keep that stupid smile all the way to the car, and as we drive back in silence.

When we get back to the house, he walks me to the door. The porch light casts soft shadows across his face. We stop. Face to face. Too close again.

I don’t kiss him.

He doesn’t kiss me.

But our eyes linger.

“Thanks for the burger,” I say.

“Anytime.”

I step inside, still smiling as I close the door behind me, only to hear him call out, “Next time, I’m choosing the pajamas. I feel like I just brought an escaped cult member for burgers.”

I choke on a laugh, flipping him off through the glass as he backs down the steps, grinning like he just won something.

Twenty-Nine

Nathan

Less than twenty-four hours after being in a diner with Sienna, we’re standing in a ballroom.

My hand settles naturally on the small of her back as we step inside, soft music drifting around us, expensive champagne glinting in crystal glasses. The usual pretentious bullshit. Only this time, there’s an undercurrent of tension in me that has nothing to do with the investor we need to impress. It’s her. It’s the memory of how she stood in my mother’s filthy kitchen, helping me, seeing too much. Or how she laughed last night like she didn’t have a care in the world.

I glance down, taking in the way her emerald dress hugs her body, the way her hair falls in loose waves over her shoulders, and the way her lips part slightly when she breathes. I remember the first time I saw her in this dress, how it made me think of all the ways I’d ruin her. Even now, the memory simmers below the surface.

She’s breathtaking, but I already knew that.

I lean down, keeping my voice low so no one else hears. “Nervous?”

She tilts her head up, her expression unreadable, though I sense the tension in her spine. “I don’t do a lot of fundraisers.”

“You’ll be fine,” I say. If I learned anything from my mother’s meltdown, it’s that Sienna can handle more than I ever gave her credit for.

“Easy for you to say, finance guy. You belong here.”

I flex my fingers against her waist. “You’re standing next to me. That means you do, too.”

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