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Yet somehow, she still doesn’t think she’s important.
Somehow, she thinks I can magically switch off when this arrangement expires and cast her to the wind.
Goddamn.
I look down at her, holding a breath.
Her eyes weave dreams under her eyelids and her face is slack. I can see the morning light dancing on her eyelashes.
Those freckles she tries to hide whenever we go out.
The little imperfections that are slowly driving me insane.
A tiny line scar just above her eyebrow. The smattering of acne scars across her chin, invisible unless I really look for them in this kind of light.
The way her belly moves when she’s bent at this angle, soft and authentic, signs of a real working woman who doesn’t have the time to log her macros or sweat off calories at the gym every day.
I love it a thousand times more than any plastic model because it’shonest.
She doesn’t hide who she is, and that makes her easy to trust and easier to respect.
It’s the most precious thing to look at her like this, to see all the autumn fire of her hair, to drink in what she looks like when she doesn’t have a hostile world pressing down on her.
Right now, she looks young. Vulnerable. Open in a way I don’t often see.
Anytime something reminds her to hide behind her walls—like the fact that we’re pretending, or there’s a deal at stake—she shuts down.
I shouldn’t care whether she’s vulnerable with me when the acting and sanity-shredding sex should be enough.
The fact that she’s here, matching my every move in this sham, should be plenty.
The fact that I get to share a bed with her should be everything.
Fuck, I’m getting too greedy for my own good.
“It’s not you. It’s never you, sweetheart,” I whisper, knowing she can’t hear me. I’m not even sure if I wish she could.
She doesn’t stir. I look back up at the ceiling.
It’s textured cream, though the far wall has three shades of subtle red accent, just like my office. Three brothers and a cardinal.
Forrest Haute is up to something.
The more time I spend with him—the closerJuniegets to him—the more certain I am. I shouldn’t have ignored my gut the first time.
I was so fucking desperate to get this deal, I’d have signed my soul over, but that means I had my eyes pinned shut to everything that could go wrong.
We still don’t have a final contract and he’s already getting Junie involved.
There’s something odd there, and I wish like hell I could figure it out.
Haute barely seems to give a damn about the property and what we do with it beyond making his residual cut. That’s increasingly obvious.
Every time I open a dialogue about our plans, he finds a way to steer the conversation back to baked goods. Or he sends me the world’s briefest email and defers to his team.
I resist the urge to bury my face in my hands and groan.
What the hell is he playing at?
