Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
But she’s clearly tired.
So I don’t insist.
I’ve never been anything less than professional.
But I did just ask her to confirm her innocence again. It matters. It matters more than I can say. I had to be sure, not just beyond reasonable doubt, but beyond any doubt.
I’ll let it slide just this once because we already talked the contract out. I’m not in the market to scam people, and I’m not Ignacia’s ex. It’s not because I’m tired as well or because I know just how much she needs to sleep and how I want to be the one lying beside her, even in a very platonic matter, watching over her while she sleeps. People are so exposed and vulnerable in those moments. I want to be the man she trusts, even if it’s just because I’m muscly and I threw my professional weight around.
I watch the crown of her head—her blonde hair is so much darker when it’s wet—hover over my phone. I can’t see her face, but my chest still aches.
Just with that question, I’ve undone any trust we might have shared. I’ve proved to her beyond reasonable doubt that I’m a dumbass.
Also? One day, I’m going to leave.
I need to do everything possible to minimize the damage. The goal is now to make her as free as I can. It doesn’t mean tying her to me in any way.
Still, one way or the other, I know I’ll hurt her.
Chapter nine
Ignacia
(Or Kind of Sam)
The contract is official.
I’ve invited the most overbearing Neanderthal into my home and made him a fixture.
He’s been in my home for a week. A freaking week. He’s been here for so long, shadowing my every move, that I’m probably about two minutes away from losing my mind. I mean, it’s not like Aiden will jump out of the damn fridge, but there Beau is, hovering right behind me whenever I want a snack. He’s there when I pour myself a glass of water, as though Aiden will ooze from the tap. I get that he wants to hover when I’m going to the barn or walking around in the yard, but good lord.
Trying to sew with the man in the room has been excruciatingly painful. I thought I’d get used to his big, black-clad, hulking self. But nope, I haven’t.
Also? He had clothes delivered overnight that first night when he decided to stay. I could hear him in the guest room, punching away at his phone. He didn’t make a single call. He probably didn’t want to chance that I’d overhear anything I wasn’t supposed to. The next morning, a duffel bag appeared by the front door. The doorbell rang, but when Beau pulled it open, there was no one there. I did go back and check the cameras, and it was a very agent-looking blonde dude who dropped the bag off. Beau insisted he open the door from now on, so he was the one to get the bag first. I assumed it was just clothes, but when he came up with a laptop and a freaking gun that he has since worn inside his jacket, I realized how wrong I was.
A gun.
I don’t know why, but I never thought that would come into play. I tried to demand he not wear it, but he reminded me that I’d signed the contract, and this was the standard way of protecting me and himself from danger. The gun was loaded, but he assured me he had plenty of experience using it, and the safety on the thing was foolproof.
That’s probably another reason why I could barely focus on my work all week.
Aggravatingly hot, delicious-smelling, and big and burly hulking beast of a guard is one thing. Knowing he’s packing freaking heat in my own house is another.
He’s banned me from going anywhere. He says that anything I need, he can have delivered to the house.
I’m not sure what progress is being made on the Aiden front or the clear-my-name front. I want to call home and tell my parents about it, but I’m out of burner phones—there’s probably no point either, now that Aiden knows where I am—and also, I’m sure that would be a violation of one of Beau’s many rules.
I should have read the darned farging contract instead of just signing it because I was miffed he asked me to declare my innocence yet again.
All week, I’ve barely slept. And it’s not because I’m scared Aiden will creep into this house and somehow get me. He was never the kind to fight with his fists or abuse physically. He was so much slimier and slipperier and snakier. I was more terrified of what he could do to my fake persona. Not that I have any credit cards. I don’t. I purposely have zero online presence with this fake ID. That probably wouldn’t stop Aiden from creating something with my fake name on it, though. I’ve been so preoccupied with the amount of evil he could do and how capable Beau is of mitigating it until it’s properly stopped, which is the reason I’ve tossed and turned when I should be sleeping.