21. Sunny

What just happened? Seriously! What just happened?

One minute, I was two seconds away from shoving the dresser in front of my door before I went to sleep, pretty damn sure I'd unintentionally gotten tangled up with a stone-cold psycho. And the next, I was offering Cole Benton the terms he'd been demanding since he brought me to a chessboard-themed cage...twenty-four hours ago.

I turned to the page of the contract comprised of the word Terms and a colon mark in bold, followed by a long double-digit list in Cole"s weirdly neat, block-type handwriting that hadn"t been there the first time I'd looked through the contract.

I skimmed his terms.

You will reside in the upstairs guest bedroom....

You must stay in hourly contact when you leave the primary residence....

You cannot be seen out in public in the company of non-related men....

You are not allowed to work a job without my approval....

You are to have zero contact with past lovers.

Blah, blah, blah. He might as well have just written down I Control You several times and numbered the list one through ten.

I drew a dividing line underneath the last item and used the small space left beneath his "I Control You" soundtrack to write my own short list.

As I scrawled in much messier handwriting, I couldn"t say for sure who was the crazier person in this scenario: Cole or me.

It had been the look on his face after I yelled he"d been a mistake. He'd just looked so…hurt. Truly hurt. Like I had kicked him somewhere down deep.

Like he was human.

That hypothetical softened expression I"d been wondering about....I"d finally gotten to see it.

But only after I hurt him.

So, I wrote down my terms.

Not that it mattered. I slid the paper over to him, already knowing there was no way he"d agree to my terms.

Proving that maybe—maybe—there was a gentleman buried somewhere underneath all that lean, mean billionaire energy, Cole had leaned against the counter next to me with his back to it, giving me a modicum of privacy while I wrote.

But he turned around as soon as I thrust the paper toward him, snatching up the heavy monogrammed pen, so obviously prepared to sign right away.

He read my terms, his eyes hungry and eager. Then he stilled, his shoulder and arm muscles visibly tightening underneath his Henley. Even in the kitchen"s low light. "Are you serious?"

"Hah, thank you so much for the opportunity to take a page from your book!" I lowered my voice to an icy timbre to intone, "You fail to take me seriously. That"s your number-one problem."

His jaw clenched. "That"s not what I said."

"It is, like, one in the morning. You"re not going to get the exact quote you deserve. But there!" I tapped my index finger against the list I'd made for him. "You wanted my terms? I"m giving them to you—seriously. Now, were you serious about being prepared to meet whatever terms and conditions I named?"

Cole"s mouth worked like he was chewing on glass.

And I pointed out, "My terms aren't negotiable. But they are reasonable."

He squinted in that Clint Eastwood way of his. "Define reasonable."

"If I agree to honor these ‘reasonable' terms of yours, on top of all the stuff listed out in the typed-up part of the contract, then you can agree to my five requirements."

He read over my list again. "Most of these terms aren"t clear. I"m not even sure how to honor them. I mean, number one is just Be Nice. What does that even mean?"

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 Nora Grandma has 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 who he thought 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.