Page 27 of Sweet Surrender

I look from Nathaniel to Jase. To a man who’s truly the opposite of everything I’ve ever liked or desired. And I do something that I think surprises the both of us.

I reach across the table, pull the contract that Nathaniel had set out earlier, and sign on the dotted line.

“Wow. Okay. What prompted that?” Jase asks.

I meet his gaze and hate the tears that well in mine. “I’m sick of being boring. Predictable. Normal. Maybe it’s time I do something unexpected to tip the scales.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Gizmo

Nathaniel looks at me and nods.

“You have to promise me,” he says.

“I’m not going to sleep with her. Have no intention to. She’s good, real, wholesome.”

“Like that’s ever stopped you.” He puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “But I’m serious. Keep your hands off her.”

I roll my eyes. “Thanks for being the pussy patrol, brother, but I can handle my own life.”

“You sleep with her, you won’t last the four months needed to prove this whole scenario out. Me being the pussy patrol”—he winces at the crass term—“is because you don’t date a woman longer than a month once you sleep with her. That’s a problem in this scenario. A huge fucking problem. You can’t lock your fake wife up in your house when she’s miserable because you’ve slept with and then discarded her.”

“I don’t do that.”

“You do.”

“It’s mutual though. You make it sound like—”

“No one said you were a bad guy—or even original in doing this. All I’m saying is that this isn’t going to work if you sabotage it in the only way you know how.”

“People don’t stay, Nathaniel. Look at what you did. So why does it matter if I sleep with people and then move on?” My words are a low blow. Ones that aren’t warranted. His face pulls tight and his jaw clenches, but he doesn’t react to them.

“Promise me, Jase. We’re not doing all this hard work for nothing.”

“I promise.” I roll my eyes, stand, and move about the room.

I don’t know how I feel. About this. About the conflict on Hendrix’s face or the words she said—and didn’t say—that are stuck in my head.

The woman is good under pressure. She doesn’t back down or get intimidated when almost all other women would have asked where to sign on the dotted line without a second thought.

But she had many of them. She voiced them.

The terms are negotiated. The contract is signed. The deal is done.

And for a fucker like me who rarely thinks of anyone other than himself, I can’t stop thinking about her or her expression when she signed the contract.

And then the concern and regret that glanced through it shortly thereafter.

“I’ll be right back,” I say to Nathaniel.

It only takes me a few seconds to get to the elevator and out to the parking garage where no doubt she parked. I spot her immediately on the far side of the vacant, dim structure.

“Cookie,” I call out as I jog over to her.

“Everything okay?” Hendrix turns, and I’m greeted full force with the reason I suggested her for this in the first place. Her kindness. I know she must be a little overwhelmed and yet her smile is sincere and her hazel eyes are wide with concern as she asks me if I’m okay after everything we just unloaded on her.

“Yeah. Why?” I ask and study her.