Page 35 of Masks and Mishaps

“Okay,” I agree, forcing myself to exhale slowly. “I’ll lock my door from now on.”

“Good girl,” he murmurs before he takes a step forward—and I take one back, moving into the room.

His gaze pins mine, and he keeps advancing, and I keep moving backwards until the backs of my legs touch my wooden bed frame. Now, Dalton grins, closing the space between us.

“What are you doing here?” I finally ask. “It’s almost midnight.”

“I got off work early,” he deadpans.

“Did you figure anything out with Villatoro’s estate? Did—”

“I’m not here to talk about work,” he interjects, leaning forward—and there’s so much man in my tiny room.

“What are you here to talk about?”

His hand rises and tucks my hair behind my ear, precise and sure—the confident motions of a man who has touched me before, whoenjoystouching me. “I’m here to talk about our deal.”

“Right now? It’s late and you’ve been working for, like, fifteen hours straight.”

He clicks his tongue. “You know a deal is like a cum-filled pussy. You’ve got to close it or all the good stuff slips out.”

My jaw lowers. “That’shorrendous. Are you serious right now?”

He keeps his wolfish stare focused on me. “No, baby. I’m not serious. Rule number one: Don’t let anyone rattle you in the middle of a deal.”

“Are we making a deal?”

His eyebrows tick before he cocks his head to the side. “Open my briefcase.”

He doesn’t make room for me to slip past him, so our bodies are nearly touching when I unclip the gold latch in the front and lift the black leather flap. There’s a forest green folder inside, and I recognize the color immediately. Green is the Hannington-Hale signifier for an ultra-high-net-worth client.

My name is on the tab.

I pass it to Dalton, and he slides a stapled document over to me: a thick packet printed on heavy paper and covered in carefully formatted text.

“It’s a contract,” I say aloud after a few seconds of reading.

“Of course it is,” he replies, straightening and sliding his hands into his pockets. Power stance. “You proposed a partnership. In order to protect our unique interests, we need a contract.”

“Where did you even get this?” I question, riffling through it. “It’s, like, a hundred pages long.”

“Twenty-seven,” he clarifies. “And where do you think I got it?”

Before I can tell him I have no idea where he got a full twenty-seven-page legal document about a camming partnership, the realization slams into me. “You told Lander and Everett?”

“I assume you told Valeria and Cora,” is his response. “And I tell them everything. It’s a happy coincidence they’re both graduates of the esteemed Harvard Law School.”

“They need jobs,” I murmur.

“Direly,” Dalton replies. He takes a silver pen out from his briefcase. “Initial on pages four, five, eight, and eleven. Sign and date on page twenty-seven.”

I start reading. The contract is boilerplate: four weeks of pre-recorded content where we both wear masks. We’ll film a minimum of once per week, and I’ll be the sole owner of all content and can use it for whatever purpose I see fit.

“You don’t want any compensation?” I ask, looking up at him.

Dalton is studying his fingernails while he waits. “No.”

“What do you get out of this then?”

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