Sunny
What just happened?Seriously! What just happened?
One minute, I was two seconds away from shoving the dresser in front of my door before I went to sleep, pretty damn sure I’d unintentionally gotten tangled up with a stone-cold psycho. And the next, I was offering Cole Benton the terms he’d been demanding since he brought me to a chessboard-themed cage...twenty-four hours ago.
I turned to the page of the contract comprised of the word Terms and a colon mark in bold, followed by a long double-digit list in Cole's weirdly neat, block-type handwriting that hadn't been there the first time I’d looked through the contract.
I skimmed his terms.
You will reside in the upstairs guest bedroom....
You must stay in hourly contact when you leave the primary residence....
You cannot be seen out in public in the company of non-related men....
You are not allowed to work a job without my approval....
You are to have zero contact with past lovers.
Blah, blah, blah. He might as well have just written downI Control Youseveral times and numbered the list one through ten.
I drew a dividing line underneath the last item and used the small space left beneath his "I Control You" soundtrack to write my own short list.
As I scrawled in much messier handwriting, I couldn't say for sure who was the crazier person in this scenario: Cole or me.
It had been the look on his face after I yelled he'd been a mistake. He’d just looked so…hurt. Truly hurt. Like I had kicked him somewhere down deep.
Like he was human.
That hypothetical softened expression I'd been wondering about....I'd finally gotten to see it.
But only after I hurt him.
So, I wrote down my terms.
Not that it mattered. I slid the paper over to him, already knowing there was no way he'd agree to my terms.
Proving that maybe—maybe—there was a gentleman buried somewhere underneath all that lean, mean billionaire energy, Cole had leaned against the counter next to me with his back to it, giving me a modicum of privacy while I wrote.
But he turned around as soon as I thrust the paper toward him, snatching up the heavy monogrammed pen, so obviously prepared to sign right away.
He read my terms, his eyes hungry and eager. Then he stilled, his shoulder and arm muscles visibly tightening underneath his Henley. Even in the kitchen's low light. "Are you serious?"
"Hah, thank you so much for the opportunity to take a page from your book!" I lowered my voice to an icy timbre to intone, "You fail to take me seriously. That's your number-one problem."
His jaw clenched. "That's not what I said."
"It is, like, one in the morning. You're not going to get the exact quote you deserve. But there!" I tapped my index finger against the list I’d made for him. "You wanted my terms? I'm giving them to you—seriously. Now, wereyouserious about being prepared to meet whatever terms and conditions I named?”
Cole's mouth worked like he was chewing on glass.
And I pointed out, “My terms aren’t negotiable. But they are reasonable.”
He squinted in that Clint Eastwood way of his. “Definereasonable.”
"If I agree to honor these ‘reasonable’ terms of yours, on top of all the stuff listed out in the typed-up part of the contract, then you can agree to my five requirements."
He read over my list again. "Most of these terms aren't clear. I'm not even sure how to honor them. I mean, number one is justBe Nice. What does that even mean?"
