Of course, he'd need it spelled out for him.
"Mainly, you can’t threaten my friends—or my landlords—or my exes. It’s not nice, and I don’t want to worry about anyone else whenever I do or say something you don’t like. This side deal is between you and me, and everybody else gets left out of it. So no punishing them to get to me."
He made a gruff, noncommittal sound and glanced back at my list. "How about this second item?"
Cole read it out loud as slowly as a first grader still learning his sight words. "Treat me like a human."
I shrugged. "It means you can't be horrible to me anymore. You have to be nice to me, too. Take my feelings into consideration. Stop commanding me like I'm one of your corporate soldiers."
"My corporate soldiers are technically human." Cole frowned in a way that made me suspect he considered that particular employee quality a bug rather than a feature. "I don't have to take their feelings into consideration.”
I locked my gaze on him to keep my eyes from rolling. "Okay, well, I've explained what I consider to be humane treatment."
Cole kept shaking his head. "And this third one?Communicate."
"We're going to be intimate. I know you're all, like, whatever. Meet me at seven p.m. every other Friday about sex. But I'm sensitive, and for me, communication is key for no-strings-attached sex. I was confused a lot with my last relationship before Tony. And with Tony, I was completely clear. Even when he was ditching me at an industrial warehouse with the kind of crowd who comes through at midnight to watch men beat on each other, I knew exactly where we stood. If you and me are going to do this, then we have to communicate. We can't just shut each other out."
Cole's mouth was chewing glass again. "I was expecting you to list monetary terms. Days of the week or times of the month that are off-limits, hotel services—that kind of thing.”
He shook his head at my five-term list. "This isn’t how I usually do business."
“Me, either, because, once again, I’m not a sex worker, and I don’t consider relationships to be business transactions," I answered. "But obviously, you do, so I’m putting this in ‘terms’ you can understand. But if it were up to me, I’d call it ‘setting boundaries for our relationship going forward.’”
Cole frowned back down at my list. "I guess that explains the fourth item:Ask."
"The House likes telling me what to do, but I, Sunny Johnson, like respect and consideration."
Cole let out a growl of frustration. "And the fifth item? Me calling NoraGrandmahas nothing to do with our side deal.”
"True, but it will make Nora happy." I shrugged. "For me, that's a good enough reason to add it to the list."
"Your terms make no sense." He turned his head to regard me with a look that made it obvious whohethought was the crazy one in this scenario. "They're all psychological—and highly subjective. Other than the completely unnecessary item five, how do I even know if I'm in violation of these terms of yours?"
I smothered a laugh at his obvious discomfort at being forced to deal with my actual feelings, as opposed to just being given a laundry list of stuff I wanted him to buy me.
"Oh, I'll let you know when you're in violation."I raised my hand in the air to vow, "I promise."
He threw the heavy monogrammed pen down in disgust. "I would never require any of this from you or any other woman I hoped to engage in a reasonable sexual relationship."
"I'm aware, and I don't believe that's the flex you think it is," I answered, standing firm in my resolve.
Silence. Cole visibly brooded, and I waited for the inevitable. For him to rip up the contract and decide that I'm not worth the trouble—or worse, badger me into agreeing to sex with him for money.
"Fine," he muttered. "You win."
"I understand," I assured him with a sage nod. "We're just too different for a sexual relationship to work. I'm glad you?—"
I broke off when Cole picked up the pen and wrote(outside of bed)behind my first BE NICE item, then flipped to the last page to sign the contract with a hawkish swipe of his left hand.
"Your turn," he bit out, sliding the papers back over to me.
CHAPTER22
Sunny
If I thought negotiating a no-strings-attachedspring fling with Cole Benton had been weird, it was nowhere near as awkward as what came next.
Stalling for time, I reread the typewritten parts of the contract with new eyes.
