Chapter 12 #2
“Thanks. I’m just trying to wrap my head around it all,” Beau said, and for the first time, I saw a version of him I hadn’t seen before. There was a vulnerability in his face. A trace of depth—something I maybe wasn’t meant to see, kept carefully behind the facade I’d known until now.
I should’ve let it go. But I couldn’t.
“Which part is tripping you up?” I asked, trying to keep my tone light.
“It’s weird,” he said. “You build this thing from nothing, and then one day it’s time to sell it off. People congratulate you, but no one tells you how lonely it feels to outgrow your own dream.”
The confession twisted in the center of me. I knew loneliness. But I had never imagined feeling it after a career-making high.
“Having second thoughts about selling?” I asked.
“No.” He looked down at the grass brushing the tops of our feet and cleared his throat. “It’s time. The tool is made to integrate with a bigger platform. It was always meant to be part of a larger whole. And I don’t really want to be grinding forever.”
I laughed softly. “I actually have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah? You’re going to work for Simon forever?”
“Not forever.” I tilted my head, picturing my next big leap. “I’d like to be Simon someday. CEO of something I believe in.”
“Then what?”
“What do you mean? Then, I’ll be in charge.”
A smile tugged on his lips, and so help me, I liked being the one to make him smile.
He dropped his gaze to his drink. A beat passed before he changed the subject. “Hey, who’s your guy?”
“What guy?”
“I thought I saw you talking to…” Beau pointed toward the bar where Dylan had defied the odds and was collecting fresh drinks for both of us.
“That?” I gave Dylan one final look, hoping it would be the last time I ever saw him. “That’s Dylan. Dylan likes to watch The Big Short after sex. That’s not my guy. If I could unknow him, believe me, I would.”
“Doesn’t seem like that’s how he sees it. He’s coming back this way.”
Dylan appeared at my side, pressing a plastic cup into my hand. “Vodka soda,” he said. Then he tossed an arm around my shoulder and turned to Beau. “I’m Dylan.”
The next two things happened at once. Beau looked at Dylan’s arm, then at me.
His posture didn’t change, but his eyes darkened as he shook Dylan’s hand.
Meanwhile, I was trying to free myself from under Dylan’s arm.
There was a tug on the shoulder of my shirt, though, every time I tried to shrug him off.
The back of my lace shirt was snagged on a cuff link or a button on Dylan’s sleeve.
“Nice to meet you, man,” Dylan said, his grip tightening slightly, like he was confirming some kind of claim over me. “We were about to go meet some friends.”
“No,” I corrected, my irritation spiking. “You were about to go meet some friends.” I ducked down, determined to liberate myself by force if I had to.
As I stepped away from him, there was a rrrip. A sharp tear cut through the noise of the party, and suddenly, cool night air hit my back.
I turned. The lace back of my shirt was still caught on Dylan’s sleeve, tangled in the cuff link of his French-cut shirt.
On instinct, I crossed my arms over my chest as I realized the only thing keeping my shirt from falling straight off was the neckline, clinging precariously across my collarbone.
Dylan was dumbstruck. “Uh—” he stammered, then abruptly raised his hand and waved at no one in particular in the crowd.
Ohmygod. I’m going to kill him.
“I’ll take it from here.” Beau stepped in, already sliding off his sports coat and draping it over my shoulders in one impossibly smooth motion. Like he did this all the time. Like he walked around waiting for women in need of emergency coverage.
“Come on,” he instructed, and there was a smooth certainty to his energy that steadied me. Dylan must have felt it, too, because he took a step back.
Then he gave a loose “Uh, yeah, sure,” as if he had a say in it.
Beau was already leading me away, his hand light at my back, guiding me toward the house.
And God help me, it was hot—the way he handled the moment.
I clung to the lapels of the jacket, painfully aware that it was the one thing keeping me from flashing my bra in the middle of a Harlan Nichols party.
The crowd was so rowdy, they might not have noticed. But I would have. And it would be humiliating enough that I’d have no choice but to vanish, assume a new identity, and start fresh in a quiet town where no one knew my shame. Maybe open a bakery.
I hate baking.
Beau leaned in to make sure I heard him. “Head for that staircase. See it?”
I nodded. We were both facing forward, but when he bent down to point at the staircase, his cheek brushed mine. The faint graze of his skin sent shivers down my back.
Pulse racing, I allowed myself to indulge in the weight of Beau’s jacket on my shoulders, the lingering heat in the fabric, the scent of him—clean, masculine, somehow familiar.
Focusing on the jacket helped keep me calm as we skirted the crowd and climbed the staircase, ducking into a bedroom off the second-floor landing.
But when Beau closed the door to the bedroom, he turned, his gaze sweeping over me—not intrusive, not leering.
Just taking stock. A quiet, measured once-over, like he was making sure I was in one piece.
I wasn’t. To my horror, I was completely turned on.
Now? My body is picking now to swoon?
And then—because apparently, things weren’t bad enough—he started unbuttoning his shirt. And a full-blown riot erupted in my brain.
The words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them. “I can’t have sex with you!”
Beau stilled, his brows knitted together slightly. “What?”
Silence. Existential-threat-level silence.
I wanted to rewind time. Take those words, stuff them back in my mouth, and pretend none of this had ever happened.
But he was already shaking his head, the confusion softening into something maddeningly close to amusement. “Este.” He unhooked the last button, sliding the shirt off his shoulders. “I’m giving you my shirt.” He pointed to his white undershirt and then held out the button-down. “I have two.”
He’s saving the day. The full charm offensive. Fuck.
I took it with shaky hands, my entire body weak with embarrassment. “Right. Of course.”
While my thoughts were in the gutter, he was on some kind of gentlemanly rescue mission.
Cool. Great. No problem. I’ll just fling myself out the nearest window now.
“There’s a bathroom,” he said, nodding toward the en suite.
“Okay,” I said in a too-small voice, then all but fled, shutting the door of the bathroom behind me and leaning against it like some wild-eyed serial killer was on the other side. I groaned into my hands.
“I can’t have sex with you!?” I want to die. That’s clearly the only way out of this.
Harlan’s guest bathroom was everything I would have expected it to be.
Stunning, bright green and white tiles arranged in an intricate mosaic and a claw-foot tub that put my Zillow trolling to shame.
But I could barely enjoy the kind of snooping that usually comes from being in a stranger’s guest bathroom, because I had to heave the torn shirt off my body and throw it into a shockingly ornate, possibly hand-gilded trash can.
When I emerged from the bathroom, I’d buttoned Beau’s shirt halfway down my chest and knotted the ends at my waist in a last-ditch effort to make the look seem intentional and not what it actually was—the by-product of Dylan-not-Damon’s bullshit accessories.
Beau had opened the French doors that led to one of the home’s Juliet balconies and was leaning on the railing, taking in the view of the canyon.
The soft glow of the house lights cast shadows against his profile, his posture relaxed, one hand curled loosely around the balcony’s iron rail.
He must have heard the shuffle of my footsteps, because he glanced back at me.
His gaze swept over the knotted shirt, lingering for a second before he smirked. “Nice.”
Shit. He looks good.
My cheeks flushed again from the embarrassment of rejecting an advance Beau hadn’t made.
I already knew it was the kind of embarrassment that would wake me up at one in the morning years from now, urging me to relitigate what I should have said, what I would have said if I was thinking clearly. If he didn’t look so, so good.
This day is a light rail to hell.
Beau tilted his head toward the canyon. “You ever been up here before?”
I frowned. “To Harlan’s house?”
He shook his head. “No, up here. The canyons.”
I glanced past him to where the ridge stretched beyond the property, wild and untouched. In the distance, the city lights glittered like scattered jewels.
“No,” I admitted. “Not a lot of time for hikes in Simon’s employ.”
I glanced down at the scene unfolding below, more convinced than ever that some people’s success defied both logic and the rules of natural selection.
Someone was definitely snorting lines off the patio furniture.
Near the outdoor bar, a bartender wielded a chain saw—because, apparently, knives were too pedestrian for craft ice—while Harlan presided over the spectacle like a king in his debauched court.
Proof that chaos and success weren’t mutually exclusive.
Beau followed my gaze, his expression amused.
“I give it twenty minutes before someone loses a finger,” I murmured.
“Twenty whole minutes?” His mouth twitched. “That’s generous.”
“You can’t sell to him,” I said, watching as someone—probably high on ketamine—climbed onto a table. “You’re actually great. Don’t give your software to this pack of assholes.”
Beau huffed a laugh. “Pack of assholes?”
“Somebody has to be the one to say it.” I shrugged, unapologetic for the overstep.
“But you think I’m great,” he said with a softness in his voice that melted me.