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)
“The FTC has been investigating you for two years now,” I tell her.
“I’m sorry, what the…what? The FTC? Oh my god. Oh my god. How do you—you know that because your team…the people who fixed all this. They found out. Right? Beau? Right?”
I barely trust myself to hold it together, but hold it together, I must. “Nearly since the start and since you went cold. It was the strangest case. They had enough complaints to spark real interest and start an investigation.”
“Oh my god,” she whispers again. Her face isn’t just pale now. It’s bloodless. Lifeless. “If the FTC was involved, then the FBI—”
“No. They hadn’t elevated it to that yet. They knew where you were the whole time.”
“They know who I am now?”
“Yes. You had a career on the rise. You were an up-and-coming designer, and you were scamming people out of what amounted to quite a large sum at the same time, all while getting huge breaks and making good money. It didn’t make much sense. But it was your disappearance out of nowhere that truly sparked interest.”
Her lips wobble, and I want so badly to take her face in my hands. But I can’t. It isn’t right. Not until I confess what I’ve done. I was picked for this job—approached by a friend who works for the Federal Trade Commission. I might be a bodyguard, but they thought I’d be perfect for an insider job. I had the training and the skills. I also had the kind of life that could give me an in. They needed a particular person, and they couldn’t just ask any rich guy out there. Not when I had to practically be a cop myself to make it work.
They also picked me because they knew I wouldn’t fuck it up. I wouldn’t let my judgment be clouded by emotions I didn’t have. Everyone knows I barely have a heart, and my soul is questionable at best. I may or may not be cursed, and emotions? Yeah, not happening.
Except they did.
They are.
They’re going to keep happening long after this is done, and I’m nothing but a bad memory for this woman. She’s had enough trauma in her life, and I have zero right to ask her to forgive me.
“Beau?” Her lip trembles again, and her eyes fill up with moisture. Goddamn it, I can’t just stand here. I’m not as tough as I thought I was. If I was heartless before, then I’ve grown something now. A conscience, maybe.
I have to bracket her face with my hands. Those honest, lovely, huge blue eyes search mine. “You know all this because the guy on your team…”
One deep breath. One second before I confess and ruin what she thinks of me forever. One last breath in and out before I ruin this so irrevocably that she never wants to see me again, and I become a curse for real. Her curse.
I know.
I know I acted like I didn’t know.
But all this time, I did.
That question I asked myself about her having a fake ID? I would have spotted it anyway, but I already knew it was fake. I knew she had bugged out. I knew what her old name was. When I asked myself why, it really meant, are you guilty? I didn’t assume she was. Sometimes, there is another explanation. And often, it’s the innocent that runs. That’s why we have a thing called witness protection, to take care of people who have done nothing wrong half the time except be in the worst place at the worst time.
It probably all makes sense now. I didn’t put in my age wrong. I made that profile, knowing full well who would be on the other end. I have to admit I didn’t know what hot bedding was, and when I looked it up, it did send a shooting pang of loneliness through me, but it wasn’t the first time. People like me don’t deserve a mate. We deserve to be alone. The part about my family and me believing I’m cursed? That’s all real. I never lied about that, but I also didn’t mean to just tell her everything. It spilled out.
My urgency and absolute insistence the night of her bath? Yeah, it wasn’t a proud moment for me. It hurt monstrously to ask her if she was certain she was innocent when I already believed she was, but I had to be sure beyond the shadow of a doubt. I would have known if she was lying.
“Beau?”
“No.” There, it’s out. It’s happening.
This is the start of the end. I lean down until we’re so close that our lips can touch. I thought my heart would never race like this. Never hammer itself out of my chest. Never hurt this way.
“W—what? What do you mean no?”