Page 112

His eyes moved to the page.

“Seems fair.”

Outside, a horse called, sharp and impatient. Another answered from farther down the yard.

I checked my watch.

Ten eleven.

We had been at the table longer than I would normally permit a breakfast and almost longer than I would permit a meeting without a clear agenda.

I had a list waiting.

Cash followed my glance but didn’t reach for the paper. “Need to stop?”

I considered saying yes.

It would have been easy. I could have stood up, tucked the agreement under the calculations, and spent the day treating this conversation as a promising draft.

Instead, I looked at the crooked sentence again.

She gets to play.

“Not yet.”

He settled back.

“There’s another part,” I said. “The sexual part.”

His hand stopped beside his glass. There. A complete sentence. Nobody died. The roof continued doing its job.

“I understood that wasn’t what you meant by play,” I added. “I’m not confused about that.”

“All right.”

“But I would be interested.”

I looked directly at him when I said it.

It took effort. I made the effort.

Cash didn’t grin.

I had prepared for the grin. I knew how to deal with it. I could raise an eyebrow, say something dry, make the entire exchange light enough to carry away.

His seriousness left me holding exactly what I had said.

“With you,” I clarified, because apparently I had decided to finish the job.

He drew a slow breath. “Good to know.”

“That sounded painfully restrained.”

“It was.”

Warmth spread up my neck.

He rubbed his thumb along the side of his glass, then stopped doing that too.