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I sighed. I wanted to believe Ezra, but I knew, more than most, that sometimes plans went off the tracks more than anyone could plan.
“Why don’t you take the contract, read it over with your lawyer, and then, bring it back to me in a few days when you’ve had a chance to think about it.”
I shook my head and grabbed the pen that he had on the table. “I have a few more questions.”
Ezra nodded. “Ask me anything. I’m certain that I’ve covered everything in the contract, but I’m happy to discuss any worries you might have.”
I bit my lip as I thought about how to ask the question that had kept me up all night. “What do you expect from this relationship?” I asked. I immediately felt my cheeks starting to blush.
“What do you mean?” Ezra asked. “I thought we covered that.” There was genuine confusion in his voice, and I couldn’t help but release a sigh. I’d hoped that Ezra would figure out what I was asking on his own, but it seemed that I was going to have to spell it out for him.
“I’m not sleeping with you,” I spit out. I could feel the heat in my cheeks and knew that I was probably as red as a tomato.
Ezra’s mouth dropped open as he tried to process the words. “I get that if we get married, that will probably be a thing that happens, and I’m not totally against it from a sort of…I don’t know…kid standpoint. Do you even want kids? Am I expected to give them to you?” At this point, I was rambling, but all of the things that had kept me up last night were starting to spew out.
“Calm down,” Ezra said. He reached out and grabbed one of my hands, which had started strangling the pen I’d picked up. “Take a deep breath.”
I did just that, trying to calm my nerves.
“The answer to your question is that we should take things as they come,” Ezra said, calmly.
“What the hell does that mean?” I needed answers from him. Real ones.
Ezra sighed. “We are going to have to make people believe that we are in a relationship,” he reminded me. “That is going to require physical affection between us, especially in public.”
“You also aren’t going to be able to sleep with other women. The tabloids would have a field day if you were caught.” I was thinking aloud, but I knew I was speaking the truth when Ezra nodded.
“You aren’t wrong.”
I swallowed. “Are you going to be able to deal with that?” I asked.
“With what?”
“With the fact that you won’t be having sex.” I was firm on this one. I wasn’t interested in sleeping with Ezra.
Apparently, that was throwing Ezra for a loop, and I could see his mind racing through different scenarios. A part of me wondered what was going to happen now that I’d made my stance clear on the sex issue. Would he decide I wasn’t the perfect person to do all of this with? Would he want the money back he’d given me? My chest tightened at the thought. As nervous as I was to go through with this, I was just as nervous for this not to work out.
“We can cross that bridge when we come to it.”
I shook my head. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the best one that I have right now,” Ezra said. “I’m not going to do anything that you don’t want. Like I’ve already said, I am going to make sure that you are protected.”
I wanted to believe Ezra, but men had made me promises before, and they had never led me anywhere good.
Ezra pushed the contract towards me. “It’s all here,” he told me. “Take it with you and read through it before you sign anything. I want you to be completely comfortable because once we do this, I need you to be in it. My entire candidacy will be riding on how much we can make people believe that we are together.”
I looked at Ezra trying to see if there was any of Nikolai in him. It was hard to tell. After all, my ex hadn’t always been a monster. Circumstances had turned him into someone angry and twisted.
Without thinking, I pressed my hand against the wound in my shoulder.
Ezra’s face was guarded. Probably from years of being a lawyer.
“Give me that pen,” I said, gesturing towards the pen that had rolled down the table when I’d released my stranglehold on it.
“I really do think that you should read it. Have a lawyer go over it. You want to make sure that you are getting what you want from this.”
“And what is it that you think that I want from this?” I asked.
