“Find someone who doesn’t know me, and then we’ll talk.” He’s aware that’s impossible. Then he asks, “Is my list still in your back pocket?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll want to take it out and write this down.”
His list was thorough, but he definitely left out significant details concerningsex.I didn’t even see any mention of NDA’s on the paper, but he has to have those if he wants to fuck strangers and not have his underwear stolen.
I say, “I can memorize whatever you have to tell me.” I’ve already memorized his 132 rules in the car, and I briefly skimmed the eight pages. Steady hands, sharp mind—I graduated top of my class at medical school, which enraged half the faculty. I didn’t “look” the part. I heard “take out your piercings” and “cover your tattoos” daily.
And they nearly shit themselves when I got neck and hand tattoos my second year. Still, I graduated in the top one-percent.
Maximoff doesn’t prod me to grab a piece of paper. He barrels ahead. “At some point,” he says, “not tonight because I’m still digesting this new arrangement?—”
“Relationship,” I correct, and his shoulders instantly lock. It definitely annoys the fuck out of him that we’re attached somehow.
He steps over my comment. “Soon I’ll go out to a nightclub, and I’ll find someone to fuck. It’s just about sex, NSA”—no strings attached—“a one-night stand, and I need you to remember this next part.”
“What?”
“You can’t tell meno.”
My nose flares, and my eyes roll in the slowest wave. “You can’t be serious?” His glare says he is. “Moffy?—”
“Maximoff,” he corrects, which makes me shake my head and almost roll my eyes for the thousandth time. Everyone in his family and security uses his nickname. No one but the media and public stick solely to calling himMaximoff.I assume he’s lumping me in withtabloidsto try and piss me off.
He motions to me. “For a guy who has such a great memory, you forget to call me by my full name a hell of a lot.”
“Maximoff,” I say with extra flair, and he flips me off with both hands. I barrel ahead with the real issue. “All security would tell younoif they sensed someone with ill-intent wanting to sleep with you. And I’d tell yoube smarter than that.”
He’s a billionaire celebrity. Half the population either wants his money, fame, or dick. Most of the time, all three, and someare willing to cross lines for it. Someone could drug him. I could overhear shit-talk that he doesn’t hear.
The list is endless.
He considers my words for barely half a second. “You have to trust my instincts like Declan did.”
My gum is stale in my mouth. “I’ll trust your instincts until they fail you. How about that?”
“Fine. Because they won’t fail me.” He heads to the door and leaves my room.
5
MAXIMOFF HALE
One hand on the wheel,I drive towards a grocery store. I raise my phone to my lips with the other and speak into a notesapp. “Laundry detergent, eggs, dish soap?—”
“Lawndo egg soup,” the automated voice reads back.
Are you fucking kidding me? I glare at my phone.
Farrow’s amusement is palpable in the passenger seat. “Brake.”
“Dammit.” I slam on my brakes before I bulldoze into a white sedan. Two days of Farrow as my bodyguard and I’m already feeling the effects.
Scatterbrained.
Rattled.
Sexually tensed up.
