5.

Alex

I don't remember getting back to the house, but I make it back somehow. I had seen pictures of Ryan Shadowvale before, but nothing could have compared me for how fucking hot he is. Tall. Lean. Fit. Handsome. He's got this chiseled jaw that I want between my legs. It took all of my self-control not to throw myself at him. When he grabbed me by the chin, I thought I was going to start gushing right there in the chair.

Now, as I make my way up the stairs to the front porch, I'm suddenly very aware of the fact that I'm still wet. Horny. I don't have any friends with benefits that I can call. I do, however, have a collection of romance novels that hit just right , and I've got a couple of great vibrators. Hopefully the batteries are working because I'm going to put them to good use tonight.

When I unlock the door and step inside our rental home, Beatrice is sprawled out on the couch reading a book. She looks up when I enter. Her eyebrows wiggle in excitement. I can't figure out if she does this on purpose or not.

"Well? How'd it go?" Beatrice grins. I know she's rooting for me. She always is. Even if I don't get the job with Ryan, I have to admit that she's a damn good roommate.

Sometimes I'm convinced she hates me. There's literally no good reason for me to feel this way, but I know that I can be a lot to deal with. I'm mopey, I miss my brother, and I decided to go to grad school to become a teacher instead of becoming something useful, like a private investigator.

For some reason, I just always thought Aaron would show up one day.

I thought going to school meant I'd be smart enough to figure out where he was.

That never happened.

"Fine," I say. More than fine. I've effectively fallen head over heels for her damn cousin: a guy who definitely has a collection of friends-with-benefits. At the very least, he's probably got a couple of girlfriends. Maybe he's having sex with them right now.

A jab of jealousy hits me unexpectedly.

What the hell?

He's not mine. I know that. So why am I already feeling possessive of my potentially-future-boss?

"Oh shit." Beatrice sits up and her book falls to the floor. She doesn't even notice. "What happened?"

"Your book fell."

"Fuck the book."

Now it's my turn to gasp. Beatrice has never met a book she didn't like. Ever. She seriously has never dropped a book in her damn life. Beatrice loves her books more than anything else.

"He was mean to you." Her eyes narrow. She reaches for her phone, presumably to call and yell at him.

"No."

"You said it went fine. What does that mean?"

"How much do you actually know about your cousin?" I ask. Mostly, I want to know why he's such a hot fucking bastard. He made me feel uncomfortable. On edge. Most of the time, when I'm dealing with powerful men, they don't bother me very much. They tend to leave me alone. I don't know if they're scared of me or if they expect me to be scared of them, but our interactions tend to be much stranger. Today didn't feel threatening. It felt hot. It felt less like a job interview and more like a first date.

I'm in over my head.

"I know enough."

"And you're close?"

"Not even a little bit."

"But you're also rich."

"Pretty much."

I bristle. I shouldn't. I hate that Beatrice is loaded and doesn't care about what happens to me. Honestly, if she wanted to pay the entire house's rent, she could. She doesn't want to, though. That's her prerogative.

I know that I can't ask for handouts.

I understand this logically.

And I know that she's doing more than enough by offering to help me get this job with her cousin, but I wish Beatrice was the kind of person who would be willing to be like, "You know what? You're having a hard time. Obviously. I'll help you."

She doesn't have to, obviously, but I wish that she would.

She can tell that I'm bothered because she crosses her arms under her chest in a protective manner. Her body language says she's angry, but her voice sounds hurt.

"Are you serious right now? You want to fight about money?"

"I don't."

"It's not my fault my parents have money, Alex."

"I know."

"And it's not my fault that you don't."

That's what it always comes down to. She's rich. I'm not. She can do whatever the hell she wants. I can't.

But I don't want to fight with Beatrice. She's my roommate. We have a cordial relationship. We aren't friends even though we're friendly . We're polite. We get along most of the time.

That's it, though.

I have this thing about living with friends. I think that it's weird and a bad idea. I think that if you're going to live with someone, you should really choose to live with people you don't know that well. That way, if your living arrangements don't work out, you don't lose anything. If you room with friends and things don't work out, you lose your friend. That's a much higher price.

"Hey," Beatrice softens her voice. "What's really going on?"

"I'm just feeling stressed." Because I suddenly care far less about getting the job and far more about whether I'm going to suck off her cousin the first day of work.

"I'll cover the rent until your first paycheck with Ryan," she says. I stare at her, shocked that she's saying this. "You can pay me back with your first check."

So, it's not really a gift, but I'll take it. She's already covered me once. I'm embarrassed that she's doing it again.

"Thank you," I say. I'm embarrassed. Maybe that was the real reason she didn't offer to help me out before. Maybe she didn't want to totally humiliate me. She knows I'm proud. It's a huge problem for me. After a couple of years in foster care, though, I learned that I don't have much to be proud of. Now, anytime I can do something for myself, I try to. I have this idea that if I can just be strong enough, it'll somehow make my dad's memory happy.

It's really, really stupid.

"No problem. Glad everything went okay with Ryan."

"Me too."

"When do you start?"

"Monday."

"So, what did you think?" Beatrice leans forward. She's obviously happy to not be talking about money anymore. She also looks like she's more than ready to do a little bit of gossiping. The problem is that I'm not sure how honest I really want to be with Beatrice.

This is her cousin, after all.

Is it fair to tell her that I thought he was stupidly hot?

Is it okay to divulge the fact that if he wasn't her cousin, if he wasn't super rich, and if he wasn't my future boss, I'd want to jump his bones?

No.

I shouldn't tell her any of that.

Because I have a feeling that if I'm not careful, I'm going to lose out on the job. I can't sleep with him. This has to be a business-only arrangement. Otherwise, I'm never going to be able to start saving up money to find Aaron.

But would sleeping with Ryan really be so terrible?

It might be nice to have some "me" time. I've been working hard, after all. Maybe I deserve a little bit of time to myself.

Maybe...

"He was very polite," I say. I shrug. Hopefully, I'm coming across as totally chill and nonchalant. That's my ultimate goal. I don't want her to know that I got wet just from hearing his voice. I don't want to say that I have daddy issues because that's not really fair. I never had any issues with my dad. Only my mom's boyfriends. Still, I like the idea of working for Ryan and pleasing him. I want to hear more of his voice. When he speaks, it all comes out in kind of a purr.

I like that.

A lot.

What might it feel like to hear him call me a good girl?

What if he tells me I've done a good job?

Is that so bad?

Shit. I'm going nuts.

"You okay? You're looking a little flushed. I turned the air on." Beatrice looks worried.

Nope, I'm not hot. Just horny. How am I supposed to tell her this? It's not the kind of thing I want to openly admit, so I just choke that bit of information right on down.

"I'm fine. He was fine."

"Do you know what you'll be doing?"

"Assistant stuff, I guess."

I don't tell her it's a temporary thing for now. Beatrice will just pressure me to keep applying for jobs at other places, and I don't really want to do that. What I want is to keep my head down, do a decent job, and survive.

Is that too much to ask?

We talk for a few more minutes before I excuse myself awkwardly. I head back to my bedroom and close the door. It's only after I lock myself in that I realize I'm starving, and I don't want to go back out to the kitchen to cook. I don't want to have to make any more awkward small talk. Instead, I rifle around until I find a granola bar and I eat it while I turn on my laptop.

Correction: I open my laptop and wait for it to slowly come to life.

It's been a long time since I actually restarted my computer. I'm sure that the IT guys at Ryan's office will have a field day with that habit. Will I be assigned a laptop? Maybe I'll just use Damien's. I don't really know how any of this works. Honestly, I should have asked more questions, but I didn't think about it.

I didn't even ask about the pay.

And that's the situation I'm in.

I check my email and social media. I do all of that boring, monotonous stuff. I peek at my bank account, too. It seems a little sad, but I try not to worry about it.

"You won't be sad for long," I whisper. At least, not if I finally manage to pull my life together the way I'm hoping to.

And then I start my nightly search for my brother.

Aaron and I have been apart for fifteen years. It's been a long damn time. I should have found him long ago. I should have been reconnected with him, but I wasn't. When he told his teacher that we were being hurt, she called CPS immediately. She called the police, too. She called everyone. Seriously. It wasn't long before we were hauled away.

The deal with siblings in foster care is that you're supposed to get placed together. You're supposed to be able to stay with your brothers and sisters. That's the plan. It's the rule. Unfortunately, when you end up with a social worker who doesn't care and a mother who blows off supervised visits, you're kind of out of luck.

And since Aaron is my brother and not my child, it's illegal for me to see any of his records.

At least, that's what I've been told.

I've tried.

For years, I've tried to find him. Every night, I look. I check digital phone books, and I browse random social media pages. I look up his legal name, his nicknames, and anything else I think could potentially bring me a hit, but nothing ever does.

I have a feeling that I'm never going to find him.

One of these days, I need to just give up.

Only, I can't bring myself to do it.

There's a part of me that wonders if he's looking for me the same way I'm looking for him. If I'm being honest, that's the real reason I don't want to leave town. It would make more sense for me to just go somewhere else. Anywhere else. I can't do it, though.

What if Aaron wants to find me, too?

What if he needs me?

I finish my searching, watch a show I don't know the name of, and curl up in my bed.

I WAKE UP TO SOMEONE knocking on my door.

"Hey, you have someone here." Beatrice is pounding on the door, and I don't know why. Ugh. I shove a pillow over my head, but she just knocks harder.

"Tell them to come back later."

"It's a delivery," she says. "You have to sign."

"Wrong house. I didn't order anything."

"For fuck's sake, Alex, get up."

I start moving and hurry to the door. Sort of. I kind of trip over a box and bump into my desk. The laptop shakes but seems to be fine. Good.

"What delivery?" I ask as I open the door.

"I don't know, but hurry. He's been there a few minutes."

Sure enough, when I reach the door, there's a delivery person standing on the porch with a clipboard and what appears to be a dress bag. He looks bored, but he pastes on a professional-looking smile when he sees me. It's dark out. How late does this dude do deliveries?

"Can I help you?"

"Alexandra Sparrow?"

"Yes."

"Please sign here."

"I didn't order anything." Mostly, I can't afford whatever it is that he's bringing. Nobody sends me packages, either. I haven't talked to my mom in years. I don't have any friends who want to send me gifts. There's no one.

There's no reason I should be receiving this package.

He doesn't seem surprised at this. His boredom only intensifies as he taps the tablet he's holding out to me.

"Just sign."

With a bit of a growl, I reach for the device and sign my name.

"Here."

He shoves the garment bag at me and turns to leave.

"Wait! You aren't going to charge me?"

"Already been paid for."

Then he's gone, and I'm left there standing on the porch like an idiot holding the bag. What just happened here? I've never ordered a dress to be delivered, and this bag seems heavy enough to be multiple dresses.

"What did you get?"

"I don't know."

Beatrice does, though. She reaches for the bag and carries it to the kitchen table, which is clean. Beatrice likes a clean house. Even though I like to complain about her having her friends over, she's very tidy. She doesn't leave messes. She definitely doesn't leave crumbs or anything like that on the table. So I feel comfortable with her opening the garment bag.

She pulls out a note.

"Miss Sparrow," Beatrice reads. "I expect you to dress professionally." She looks up at me.

"Who is that from?"

"Obviously, Ryan."

"Did he sign his name?"

She flips the card around and sure enough, he's signed his name.

"Mr. Shadowvale."

"I think he wants you to call him that."

"What do you call him?"

"Ryan, obviously."

"Then I should probably just call him Ryan, too," I point out. "I don't know how formal this boss-employee relationship is going to be, but I don't think we need to be that serious about it."

"Word to the wise, my friend. If Ryan Shadowvale wants you to call him Mr. Shadowvale, just do it. Look at this."

She starts pulling outfits from the bag. There are ten.

"Two weeks' worth of work clothes," she tells me. "You won't have to do repeats."

"Why the hell would he send me clothes?" I feel embarrassed. Again. Is what I wore not good enough? I should be thankful, but all I can do is wonder whether the cost of these clothes is coming out of my paycheck because I really, really can't afford that.

"He wants you to look nice."

"I feel like I'm fine."

"Dude." Beatrice looks up at me and glares. "Are you this dumb, Alex?"

"Excuse me?"

"If the richest dude in town wants you to work for him, you do it. And if he wants you to wear these clothes, you do it."

"And if he wants me to suck his dick?" I ask, pushing her.

"Do it," she says without missing a beat. She smiles. Then she turns back to the outfits and starts leafing through them. "These are great."

The price tags are all gone, but something tells me that Beatrice knows exactly how much they cost.

"I can't afford these, Bea."

"He's got it covered."

"You sure?"

"He might be a dick, but he's not mean." She looks up at me. "And I've never seen him buy anything for people he wasn't sleeping with, so..." She smiles. "I think he's into you."

I swallow, looking back at the clothes.

Well, shit.

It was all fun and games when this was just a fantasy, but it's something more now...something darker. Harder.

If Ryan Shadowvale wants me to wear these outfits for him, I'll do it, but something twists deep inside me. It's not that I feel embarrassed or uncomfortable being showered with some male attention.

Rather, I want to know what it is that made Ryan decide to care.

I can't remember the last time a man cared enough to do something like this, and the realization kind of hurts.